The spotlight was on the U.S. in this week's climate news, with the surprise election of Republican Senator Scott Brown in Massachusetts on Tuesday. Brown's win stripped the Democrats of the 60-seat "super majority" in the Senate, and sparked widespread speculation about how the power shift could affect the success or failure of climate legislation in the U.S. — and, ultimately, here in Canada.
Business leaders in the U.S. responded to those concerns with a call to action. On Thursday, the CEOs of more than 80 prominent American companies — including Exelon, Virgin America, eBay and PG&E — released an open letter calling on President Obama and members of Congress to "move quickly to enact comprehensive climate and energy legislation that will create jobs and enhance U.S. competitiveness."
In science news, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) came under scrutiny this week after a mistaken claim about the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting came to light. While the incident is awkward for the IPCC, Bryan Walsh explains in Time magazine why the slower-than-predicted melting of Himalayan glaciers is still a serious issue. (It's also worth noting that, while the IPCC acknowledges the mistake — which was never included in the more widely-read "summary for policymakers" or synthesis report — resulted from "the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures in this instance," many IPCC projections are conservative underestimates. Likely sea-level rise, for example, was recently projected to be triple the IPCC's 2007 estimates.)
Finally, brandishing a homemade recycled trophy and a sharp tongue, George Monbiot takes on climate change skeptics in a satirical column in the Guardian, awarding the first international award for spreading misinformation about climate change. Wondering what qualifies columnist John Tomlinson to win this illustrious prize? In another blog post, Monbiot unpacks 38 "magnificent errors" published in just one of Tomlinson's columns.
A final note to anyone thinking of running for next year's prize: there won't be one. Monbiot says it's because he just "can't face the thought of wading through all that rubbish again."
(Frankly, neither could we.)
