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Tuesday, January 1, 2013

UPDATED: Stunning Think Progress Climate Silence


by A. Seigel, "Get Energy Smart! NOW!" blog, December 31, 2012

The Center for American Progress’ Think Progress website is home for one of the strongest and most widely read climate science / clean energy blogs.  Led by Joe Romm, Climate Progress forcefully enters into climate science discussions and provides excellent material about clean energy progress.  For anyone (especially Americans) concerned about fostering the conditions for a prosperous and secure climate-friendly future, Think Progress Climate is on a must read list.
UPDATE: With a welcome to WUWT acolytes, a reminder about another must read location for basic truth about climate science, Skeptical Science. The image below about distorting evidence seems particularly relevant. Or, perhaps to spend some time on 10 indicators of global warming. Or perhaps spend some time with hot graphics. Or, perhaps take a moment to acknowledge that the real consensus on climate change issues. Etc …
With that it mind, an end of year Think Progress post provided rather stunning reading — not due to its contents but due to what it didn’t contain. As the calendar year winds to a close and we look to a ‘fresh start’ into another year, ‘lists’ are on many minds and appear in many publications.
This morning, 31 December 2012, Think Progress provided 12 Progressive Resolutions for 2013.  From better drug policy to immigration reform to enacting gun safety laws, many interesting (if not outright good) items in this list.  Again, however, the telling thing is the absence of a critical set of issues.
Amid these 12, no (zero, nada, nilch) reference to climate change, the climate cliff, environment, clean energy, green jobs, energy efficiency, fossil fuel impacts on the political system, … Clearly, whoever put together this post doesn’t pay attention to Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Considering the year the United States had re climate change (heat waves, droughts, Derecho, wild fires, Hurricane Sandy, warmest year on record, …), the massive gap between the political parties on climate science and clean energy, the risks of the climate cliff (or, as Toles has it, the climate fissure), and the fact that unchecked climate disruption puts at risk every single element of a “progressive” agenda, the absence of climate and clean energy issues from (and total Climate Silence) a ‘top 12 Progressive Resolutions” seems beyond stunning.
NOTE:  Considering that he truly does seem to ‘get it’ on climate change and clean energy, it seems reasonable to wonder what the Chair of the Center for American Progress John Podesta, might have as a list of “12 Progressive Resolutions.”
The “12 Resolutions” failure to have anything re climate / energy / environment is surprising because it is far from just Romm and Podesta at the Center for American Progress who have written on and discusses these issues. It is one of the main arenas of work, CAP typically one of the better US institutions at linking climate change / clean energy to other issues, and the Think Progress blog (and not just ThinkProgress Climate Progress) often has posts on climate / clean energy / environmental issues.  The climate silence in the “12 Resolutions” merited comment because it is so at odds with the overall nature of CAP work and Think Progress publishing.

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