Category Archives: Climate Change

Update on "Contagion" Post and Fears of a Bird Flu Pandemic: Researchers Have Cooked Up Super Bird-Flu in a Lab!

So after mentioning that I had watched Contagion recently and posting some musings about pandemic/bird flu fears, which is in the background of my new novel, The Bird Saviors, I was slightly taken aback by the recent news that two … Continue reading →

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A New and Suspiciously Warm Year

So after three weeks of offline holiday fun in the snowclad confines of southern Colorado, I’m back in Pennsylvania and noticing what a strange (don’t know about brave) new world it is—one without much of a winter. The excellent website … Continue reading →

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For Weather Freaks & Geeks: the NOAA El Nino Page

So if there’s one positive spinoff outcome of our collective Climate Change fears, it’s a greater understanding and respect for the science behind understanding climate and weather. {All Republican presidential candidates can now leave the room (like they’d be here … Continue reading →

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On the Climate Change Front, a Good News/Bad News Day

So the latest hubbub on the Climate Change front is that global emissions spiked last year to a record high increase, while obviously we should be making those numbers go down (and they did, briefly, from the effects of the … Continue reading →

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On Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0": A Disturbing Vision of the Future

So I must first confess that I am NOT a Thomas Friedman fan, which I think makes my enthusiasm more authentic for his nonfiction book Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution—And How It Can Renew … Continue reading →

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On Paul Gilding's "The Great Disruption," With a Nod to Eugene Linden's "The Future in Plain Sight"

So I’m a sucker for ‘big vision’ books about the future and the myriad problems we face with climate change and resource depletion, and right now I’m reading Paul Gilding’s The Great Disruption. It manages to be at once peppy … Continue reading →

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A Great Divide: Attitudes About Climate Change Remarkably Different Around the U.S., With Sharp Divide Along East/West

So one thing I’ve noticed the last few years in my peripatetic life of inhabiting both the Eastern and the Western U.S. is a noticeable division in attitudes about Climate Change. In a nutshell, it seems as though the West … Continue reading →

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On Prophecies in "The Bird Saviors": Dust Storms in Texas

So my forthcoming novel, The Bird Saviors—due out in (what’s left of) bookstores in May/June—opens with a dust storm in southern Colorado, and when I began writing it some five years ago, I imagined it set in a fuzzy ‘near … Continue reading →

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Seven Billion Humans & Jared Diamond's "Collapse"

So various news organizations are reporting that our planet is now home to this mythical number of seven billion humans, mythical in that we don’t know that for sure, but it’s a good guess, and all its implications. I still … Continue reading →

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Reading Daniel Yergin's "The Quest" & a Witty Post About Truthiness

So I’m reading the much-talked-about new tome on energy and the future, Daniel Yergin’s The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, just published. So far I’m not particularly impressed, especially after Dwight Garner’s rave review in … Continue reading →

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