More Tom Toles fandom

I didn't post about this at the time but back on August 27th, 2006, over two months before the midterm elections that saw the Democrats take back Congress, Toles published this cartoon:



Wow. I was stunned. Can you imagine the uproar if a columnist wrote that? But its in a cartoon so, in the eyes of the Village Elders, its not really a threat. There wasn't even a Heartland Institute "How dare you!" comment in the archives.

And Tom couldn't help but gloat a little after the election:



Hmmm. This is dated Nov 21, 2006. How come I can't find it in the Post's archive?

Recent polls on global warming

I last looked at polls of public opinion on global warming back in April here, here and here.

Those polls were taken during or soon after the media blitz which accompanied the release of the IPCC Working Group I Summary for Policy Makers, Al Gore's testimony to Congress and "An Inconvenient Truth" winning the Oscar.

Global warming couldn't keep up that kind of media saturation all summer. Nevertheless, a poll taken by Yale and Gallup in July showed a high level of awareness of the problem and what level of action might be needed. From Science Daily:

A growing number of Americans consider global warming an important threat that calls for drastic action, and 40% say that a presidential candidate's position on the issue will strongly influence how they vote....Sixty-two percent of respondents believe that life on earth will continue without major disruptions only if society takes immediate and drastic action to reduce global warming....A surprising 40 percent of respondents say a presidential candidate's position on global warming will be either extremely important (16 percent) or very important (24 percent) when casting their ballots.

Annoyingly, this is not the same group from Yale that did the poll back in March. They didn't ask exactly the same questions.

The same group that did the July survey also adid one in September about local responses to global warming. The NYTimes covered it...it their blog.

The deniers screamed and nobody listened

For the last couple of weeks, the climate blogosphere has been a-buzz with the story of how a small error was spotted, and corrected, in the NASA GISS global temperature record. The correction was very minor and did not alter the global trend (up) at all. See coverage at realclimate, ClimateProgress (reprinting much of an email from James Hansen), and the August 19th edition of GW news.

Here's what's really interesting about this event: despite the coordinated effort from the deniers and their supporters in Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and the Washington Times, this "story" was completely ignored by the traditional media. About all I could find was a mention in the Washington Post, where it was portrayed as a "look at what those bloggers are in a tizzy over now" story. The LA Times also had a brief mention where the change in the data is appropriately described as "negligible" and the blog reaction is a big part of the story.

This non-reaction underscores a point I've been making a lot on this blog: the traditional media have shut the door on the climate deniers. When they're mentioned at all, they are always qualified with their conservative and other agendas. They aren't portrayed as scientists engaged in a legitimate debate.

So what should climate bloggers do? Take a cue from the traditional media reporters: when climate deniers say they have "proof" that GW isn't happening or is a hoax, ignore them. No matter how much they post in your comment section, ignore them. They will only sap your strength and time for the real fight that will begin when Congress returns in the fall: the debate about what to do about global warming.

Update: The paper of record, the New York Times, has weighed in with a story by their main climate reporter, Andrew Revkin. Again the emphasis is on the over-reaction in the blogosphere. There's some interesting words on what James Hansen and Stephen McIntyre agree on (a surprisingly large amount). This passage was interesting in what it didn't say:

Everyone appears also to agree that too much attention is paid to records, particularly given that the difference between 1934, 1998, and several other sets of years in the top 10 warmest list for the United States are so small as to be statistically meaningless.

And who is it that pays all this misleading attention to records? The media, Mr. Revkin.

Newsweek's history of "The Denial Machine"

The August 13th edition of Newsweek has an eye-catching cover with a picture of the sun and the headline "Global Warming is a Hoax*". The asterisk goes on to say "Or so claim well-funded naysayers who still reject the overwhelming evidence of climate change. Inside the denial machine". This excellent article by Sharon Begley (with help from 4 others) gives a history of the denial efforts which started as a response to Jim Hanson's 1988 testimony to Congress and continue through today.

If you are new to this topic and think there's any doubt about global warming, please read this article and see how you've been manipulated. Even if this is all old news, its a good summary.

The article is mostly history but here's a quote about where things stand today:

To some extent, greenhouse denial is now running on automatic pilot. "Some members of Congress have completely internalized this," says Pew [Center for Climate Change]'s [Manik] Roy, and therefore need no coaching from the think tanks and contrarian scientists who for 20 years kept them stoked with arguments

.
Fortunately, they can still be voted out of office.

Update: Joe over at Climate Progress thinks Newsweek wasn't hard enough. He also think the cover is a little to clever and I agree with that. A lot of people will just read the cover headline and not see the asterisk.

Update II: more on this article from me here and here.

Will anyone come to Bush's climate party?

I blogged about the run up to the G8 summit, where a big story was the pressure being put on Bush to do something about global warming. Blair tried his best to prod his ally. Bush made a big phony speech the week before and announced he would call his own summit of the world's CO2 emitters. Nothing came out of the G8 meeting itself.

Well he's now made the formal invitations to this conference as reported in a Washington Post story by Michael Fletcher:

President Bush yesterday formally invited top officials from the world's leading economic powers to take part in a climate change summit aimed at establishing voluntary goals for lowering greenhouse gas emissions while sustaining growth.
....
Long wary of the effectiveness of global environmental agreements, Bush tried to seize the initiative on global warming with his pledge to initiate a series of meetings to set flexible, long-term goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He said his approach would allow countries to find their own best paths to reducing pollution.

In other words, Bush wants to spread internationally the "voluntary" program he advocates for U.S. businesses. This will accomplish nothing. Actually it might give the illusion something is being done and hold off real solutions which is worse then just continuing to be quiet.

Mr. Fletcher was sure fooled:

The proposal marked a clear shift for Bush, who had come under international criticism for his opposition to participating in the Kyoto Protocol, a United Nations-led environmental agreement that expires in 2012.

.
Uh....no. This is not a Kyoto-level of commitment to change so his opposition to that approach is intact.

China and India are invited and Secretary of State Rice will host.

Reuters has a longer article by Matt Spetalnik where Greenpeace also worries about the effect of the smoke and mirrors being set up:

John Coequyt, a policy analyst with Greenpeace, expressed concern the Washington conference would be used to "erode support for the process that's strengthening at the U.N."

.
Note the timing...

The talks, where the Bush administration will control the agenda, will take place three days after a U.N. summit on climate change in New York in which U.S. policy on global warming may come under sharp criticism.

And this just starts a process which is scheduled to finish after Bush leaves office.

The White House said the U.S. meeting was meant to supplement, not upstage, ongoing international initiatives.

.
Yes I'm sure thats the only intent.

Its simple: any effort which doesn't start with binding, mandatory cuts in emissions is not a serious attempt to address this problem.

Joe Romm at Climate Progress also thinks there's not much here.

George W. Bush: "I'm the denier"

As the IPCC reports were released, I expected there to be a lot of the typical "false balance" reporting from the mainstream media. But that didn't happen. The stories about the IPCC reports were straightforward, maybe even a little gloomy, and contained no equivalent amounts of text from the climate change denier crowd. It seems the main media outlets of the U.S. instantly decided Singer and Lindzen et al. were no longer worth quoting. With a few notable exceptions.

But there's one climate change personality the press still treats with unwarranted credibility: George W. Bush.

Now Bush isn't really a denier. He's careful not to say climate change isn't happening or that mankind isn't responsible. He just says we there can't be any forced emission reductions. To me, that makes him a "denier in spirit" because the result is the same as if the denier crowd was controlling the debate: nothing should be done to stop global warming.

In advance of the G8 summit, it looked like some serious pressure was getting put on Bush to do something. First there were all kinds of unflattering leaks about how the U.S. was resisting the text in a statement on climate change. Then direct political pressure was applied from people such as Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who, while in Berlin, said Bush should make a major deal, as quoted in this Reuters story by Erik Kirschbaum:

"The science is clear, the challenge is undeniable," Pelosi said. "We have to work together, though, to reach a solution."

Pelosi met with German Prime Minster Merkel, a meeting which signaled Germany was willing to put up a fight, according to this International Herald Tribune story.

In typical Bush administration fashion, a big speech was rolled out that sounded good but had no substance at all. And, as illustrated by the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin, the mainstream media bought it and sold it back to the public.

The White House yesterday showed that it still knows how to play the American press like a harp.
President Bush yesterday put forth a new proposal on climate change that is most newsworthy for its attempt to muddy the debate about the issue and derail European and U.N. plans for strict caps on emissions.....But a change in rhetoric was enough to generate some headlines about the administration's attention to the issue: Bush Proposes Goals on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, reads the New York Times headline. Bush Proposes Talks on Warming, says The Washington Post's front page. Bush offers to take climate lead, proclaims the Los Angeles Times.

Please read the whole piece by Froomkin to see just how cynical this Bush speech was.

David Roberts over at grist.org comes to a similar conclusion.

As you can see -- and as you would expect -- this announcement from Bush is not a genuine change of heart on climate change. The U.S. still will not agree to any emission reduction targets. It will not agree that the developed countries bear primary responsibility for climate change. It will not sign on to the growing consensus among developed nations about how to tackle the problem

Joe Brewer of the Rockridge Institute dissects the framing of Bush's speech.

Underreported story on CO2 emissions?

My good friend Michael Tobis is wondering why the main stream media didn't make a big deal out of a joint statement by multiple national scientific academies that we should move to a more sustainable energy system. This statement was targeted at the upcoming G8 summit which otherwise has gotten a lot of press in relation to the climate change topic.

I have an underreported story too: this article by Peter Spotts in the Christian Science Monitor covers a report by the Global Carbon Project, which was coincidentally published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that CO2 emissions rose dramatically in the first part of the 21st century:

CO2 emissions from cars, factories, and power plants grew at an annual rate of 1.1 percent during the 1990s, according to the Global Carbon Project, which is a data clearinghouse set up in 2001 as a cooperative effort among UN-related groups and other scientific organizations. But from 2000 to 2004, CO2 emissions rates almost tripled to 3 percent a year – higher than any rate used in emissions scenarios for the reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

There's some discussion that maybe its a temporary effect created by leaving the 2000 recession and a spike in natural gas prices leading to more coal burning. On the other hand, maybe this is China showing up. I'm surprised this didn't get more press just for supporting the "blame China" people.

Another quote from this excellent article:

The Global Carbon Project study held two surprises for everyone involved, [Christopher] Field says. "The first was how big the change in emissions rates is between the 1990s and after 2000." The other: "The number on carbon intensity of the world economy is going up."

In other words, the warnings from the IPCC AR4, which were so powerful that cut off access to the main stream media by the denier camp, may now be both out of date and underestimating the problem.

I haven't seen original reporting anywhere else besides CSM.

20 more months of no U.S. action?

Despite the promising talk from the presidential candidates (see below) and the current Congress, there's still the matter of the current President when considering what might get done about global warming in the 20 months his administration has left.

If this article in the Washington Post (by Juliet Eilperin) is any indication: not much. The Bush administration is trying to weaken some mild language in a climate statement that is supposed to come out of a June G8 summit:

Negotiators from the United States are trying to weaken the language of a climate change declaration set to be unveiled at next month's G-8 summit of the world's leading industrial powers, according to documents obtained yesterday by The Washington Post.

A draft proposal dated April 2007 that is being debated in Bonn, Germany, this weekend by senior officials of the Group of Eight includes a pledge to limit the global temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, as well as an agreement to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

The United States is seeking to strike that section, the documents show.

First, reducing emissions to 50% below 1990 by 2050 (still emitting in 2050, mind you, but only at half of 1990 levels) isn't enough to limit the rise to 3.6 degrees. But hey, you gotta crawl before you can walk so I'm willing to start there. But the Bush administration isn't.

The Eilperin piece had no counter-quotes from the administration, probably because they called on Saturday (good one!).

Compare that with this article two days later from the Washington Post by Steven Mufson and Michael Fletcher about fuel efficiency. The title sounds great: "Bush Calls For Cuts In Vehicle Emissions: Agencies Ordered To Draft New Rules". But the agency is the EPA which takes a long time to do anything. You have to read the article to find this fact:

"In effect, the president asked his agency heads to share ideas and come up with a plan that is due three weeks before he leaves office," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the new House select committee on climate change. Markey said that "will leave motor vehicle fuel economy stuck in neutral until Bush's successor takes office.

The article is appropriately negative to the administration. So why the sweetheart headline? Reporters who write the articles don't pick the headlines. Someone else usually does.

More on the G8 statement stonewalling from the Financial Times.

Public and Republican presidential candidates think global warming is a problem

Remember those polls on public attitudes toward global warming? Christian Science Monitor staff writer Brad Knickerbocker wrote about them for Earth Day:

"The last six months have been the most rapid period of change in public awareness and attitudes on climate change that I've ever seen," says William Moomaw, a Tufts University climate expert and coauthor of the recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN-sponsored group of scientists.

Demand for climate-change briefings he's delivered for the past five years have jumped in the past year, says Dr. Moomaw. Audiences who were once polite are now actively engaged.

Cool.

More evidence of a shift in acceptance of reality is that responding to climate change, and not denying it, is something even Republican presidential candidates are doing as mentioned in this Reuters story by Deborah Zabarenko:

[John] McCain is hardly alone in his party. Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney have also staked out positions on this topic, generally pushing for alternative energy and more efficient technologies to stall the globe's warming trend.

One reason for this sea change is former Vice President Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" laying out the science behind global warming, said Eileen Claussen of the non-profit Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

This new Republican openness to discussing ways to tackle climate change may also be an indirect result of recent changes in how the White House has talked about the problem, said political scientist Cal Jillson of Southern Methodist University in Dallas said.

"Once President George W. Bush acknowledged that global warming was a problem, other Republicans were freer not to have to support the administration stance - that the science was incomplete - but now they could say on the campaign trail, 'Here's what I propose to do.'"

This shift has occurred in the last year or so, Jillson said.

More analysis along these lines appeared in MarketWatch, a business news outfit owned by Dow Jones (the same guys that own the Wall Street Journal:

Al Gore isn't running for president, but in some sense he's already won.
All the major Democratic candidates for president -- and a fair number of the Republicans, as well -- have embraced Gore's signature issue: global warming. In sharp contrast to the current occupant of the Oval Office, most of the candidates say climate change is a major challenge that the next president will have to address.

Most of the major candidates say the scientific debate is over. They agree that human activity is a major cause of the increased temperatures already seen around the globe and that immediate steps are needed to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
But the policy debate is just beginning. It's one thing to diagnose the illness; it's another to prescribe the right economic and political incentives to wean the global economy away from carbon.

The article has a summary of where the candidates are on things like fuel efficiency and future emission targets.

WGIII SPM out Friday; Full WGI report online.

All of you climate-media followers have probably already seen pre-coverage of the IPCC Working Group III Summary for Policymakers (SPM) which is due out this Friday. Recall that WGIII addresses mitigation: how to actually do something about greenhouse gas emissions.

The SPM's are just summaries. The full reports are starting to come on line. Thanks to RealClimate who pointed out that the full WGI report, about the science, is now online.

A closer look at recent polls

The recent polls I've been talking about paint a pretty consistent picture that the public believes global warming is real and a problem. I've looked at the poll results themselves and have a few comments.

The original questions and answers:
Washington Post/ABC News
Yale Center
NYTimes/CBS News

With its 83% saying global warming is a serious problem, one might think the Yale Center poll is an outlier. But the poll also asked some general belief questions and found that 58% of those surveyed also thought the world was literally created in 6 days like the Bible says. So they probably weren't just polling the Yale student body. I don't find that 58% discouraging. It shows that people with conservative religious beliefs aren't necessarily in the global warming denier camp. That's a good thing.

One of the more dispiriting results from the Post/ABC poll was the finding that 41% think global warming is caused by people while 42% think its equally between people and natural causes.
First look at the question itself:
Do you think a rise in the world's temperatures is being caused mostly by things people do, mostly by natural causes, or about equally by things people do and by natural causes?

It uses "a rise in the world's temperatures" instead of "global warming". Why is that? The Post said this was an attribution of "global warming". I think this question is confusingly worded. "A rise" over what time period?

The NYTimes came closest to asking an attribution question in question 49 of its poll:
49. Greenhouse gases are released when coal, oil and gasoline are burned by cars, utilities and factories. Which comes closest to your opinion: 1. The release of greenhouse gases is the most important factor causing global warming, or 2. The release of greenhouse gases is one factor among many causes of global warming, OR 3. The release of greenhouse gases is NOT a factor causing global warming at all.

The result was 21% most important and 63% one among many. They didn't throw in "natural causes" so we have no idea what is the "many" people might be thinking of.

The Post also reported that only 4 in 10 are "extremely" or "very" sure global warming is happening. They must be referring to question 8:
How sure are you that the world's temperature (has/hasn't) been going up - extremely sure, very sure, somewhat sure, or not sure at all?
But the result was actually 49% extremely or very sure which I would round up to 5 in 10. Is this bad news for those of us concerned with communicating the science? Simply asking the question may cause a non-scientist to waiver. This question was only asked of the 84% who already agreed that the temperature has been going up over the last 100 years (question 7). Should we be concerned that half the 84% aren't extremely or very sure?

Finally, there is the perception of scientific disagreement question:
Do you think most scientists agree with one another about whether or not global warming is happening, or do you think there is a lot of disagreement among scientists on this issue?
40% said most agree while 56% thought there was a lot of disagreement. I first thought that that was a bad result until I considered the rest of the poll and the other polls and came to this conclusion: Who cares what the public thinks of the scientific debate? They already think there's a problem and that something needs to be done. Isn't that what scientists who hope this problem gets solved want to see?

The last bit of depressing info from the Post/ABC poll is in question 3:
How much do you trust the things that scientists say about the environment - completely, a lot, a moderate amount, a little, or not at all?
The results are 5% completely, 27% a lot, 43% moderate amount, 19% little and 5% not at all. The Post reported this as "Americans' skeptical attitudes toward scientists". Well American's are skeptical on just about everything they see in the news so a lot depends on where/how they're hearing scientists "say" things. I wouldn't want scientists to be trusted completely. I agree that there is some work to be done to move people from the "moderate" to "a lot" column.

The blog Pro-Science also examines the Post poll in more detail.

Two spins on one poll

One poll on climate change views was taken jointly by The Washington Post, ABC News and Stanford. The Post and ABC News then each did a story on it and comparing the two provides a good lesson on climate spin.

First look at the headline and sub-headline:
WPost: Growing Number of Americans see Warming as Leading Threat: Most Want U.S. to Act, But There Is No Consensus on How
ABCNews: Concern Soars About Global Warming as World's Top Environmental Threat: Increasing Numbers Believe Global Warming Is Caused by Humans and That Scientists Agree on It

In the Post it's a "growing number" while in ABCNews its "concern soars". The trends are up but did they grow or soar? I guess you need to look at a lot of these polls to tell. The rank of global warming in important environmental problems doubled in a year and is the clear number one. That sounds like "soaring" to me.

Consider the attribution question on what's causing the warming. 41% say the rise in temperatures is man made while 42% say its a mix of human and natural causes. The Post reported this as "Americans are also split on what causes global warming in the first place" while ABCNews "finds a 10-point increase in the belief that global warming is caused mostly by human activity (to 41 percent, up from 31 percent last year)". So is the trend more important or the current numbers? I'd say the trend considering the barrage of mis-information put out by the Right Wing Noise Machine.

The poll asked "Do you think most scientists agree with one another about whether or not global warming is happening, or do you think there is a lot of disagreement among scientists on this issue?". In the Post, this result was a downer: "56 percent continue to think there is "a lot" of disagreement among scientists about climate change." While ABCNews accentuates the positive: "This...poll...finds....a significant decline — the first in a decade — in the belief that many scientists disagree on whether global warming is happening." The decline was from 64% to 56% in a year. Again, considering how much disinformation is out there, I see the glass as half full.

What's the takeaway lesson here? The Post is a conservative paper but we already knew that. Coupled with the Yale poll, I think we can be optimistic that the public is hearing through the noise.

Public overwhelmingly thinks global warming is a problem.

Three recent opinion polls suggest a large shift in public perceptions of climate change. We can probably credit the IPCC reports and AIT for that. First a roundup of the polls in the order they were taken. (Has anyone seen the first two covered in the press? Pointers are appreciated.)

The first poll was conducted by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and released in March of 2007. The poll surveyed 1000 adults the week after the IPCC Working Group 1 report was released (Feb 5-11). Among the findings:

• 83% believe global warming is a serious problem (up from 70% in 2004) including 56% who think its "very serious"
• More than two out of three (68%) Americans agree that global warming is something people can control. And fully 81% agree with the statement, “It is my responsibility to help reduce the impacts of global warming.”
• Two of three Americans (67%) say that, if they had to, they could explain global warming or climate change “to someone I meet in passing.”
• The most trusted source of information on environmental issues is scientists at major universities (76%) followed by the EPA (62%). George Bush and Republicans in Congress are the least trustworthy.

This last point is the most encouraging. The Inhofe's of the world may talk a lot from a place of prominence but people can mostly see through their bullshit.

I found out about this poll in a column by George Will (more on that later). I've seen no other coverage.

The second poll was conducted by USA Today and Gallup. This poll was published in USAToday's April 19th edition on page 7A. The byline with the poll is Marcy Mullins. In that issue, their were three stories on "going green" but no other reference to the poll. USA Today is part of the Rupert Murdoch empire so that isn't to surprising. Can anyone find this poll on the web?

The poll surveyed 1007 people from March 23-25 (after Al Gore's testimony to Congress).

• 60% believe the effects of global warming have already begun
• 38% say major and 28% say extreme changes will happen in the next 50 years if nothing is done about global warming
• 58% think it takes more drastic measures then recycling, etc. to reduce global warming.
• 46% think the government should require a surcharge on utility bills when energy-use limits are exceeded
• 44% think vehicles that do not get at least 30 miles per gallon should be banned.

Wow. No one, and I mean no one, in any political office is talking about banning vehicles with less then 30 mpg and yet it already has 44% support.

The final poll actually does have some coverage from the Washington Post because it was their poll. Actually they conducted it with ABC News and Stanford. The poll surveyed 1002 adults from April 5-10 which includes the release of WGII's report. The article is by Juliet Eilperin and Jon Cohen. Their poll finds:

• A third of Americans say global warming ranks as the world's single largest environmental problem, double the number who gave it top ranking last year.
• 70% of Americans want more federal action on global warming, and about half of those surveyed think the government should do "much more" than it is doing now.
• 42% think the government should require greater fuel efficiency for vehicles.
• Americans are split on what causes global warming in the first place: 41 percent say the temperature rise stems mainly from human activities -- a 10-percentage-point increase from last year -- and 42 percent attribute it about equally to human and natural causes.
• 84% think that average global temperatures have been rising over the past century, and more than half say weather has become more unstable where they live. Still, only four in 10 are "extremely" or "very" sure global warming is happening, and 56% continue to think there is "a lot" of disagreement among scientists about climate change.

Those last two points seem to contradict the other polls. I'll look more closely at the polls in another post. See also ABC News coverage of the same poll.

Overall, there is strong public belief that global warming is real and the government needs to do something. That's good news. The last two points of the Washington Post poll suggest sites like this one and RealClimate still have some work to do.

U.S. Supreme Court -- protector of the environment?

This can't be what movement conservatives expected from a court filled with Reagan, Bush I and Bush II appointees.

In two separate rulings, the Supreme Court cleared legal roadblocks to addressing climate change and other environmental problems.

In the first case, covered in this AP story by Pete Yost, the Supreme Court, on a 9-0 vote, overturned a lower court ruling that allowed some old power plants to get out of regulations controlling emissions of sulfur and nitrates. What, you ask? This isn't about CO2? No. These are regulations for controlling acid rain. Yes thats right: some power companies are still fighting otherwise successful acid rain regulations. Duke Power is the culprit here. Keep this in mind when viewing calls from power companies to please regulate CO2 emissions. Those need to be examined very closely.

In the second case, a 5-4 vote said that the E.P.A. can indeed regulate CO2 emissions from car tailpipes. The NYTimes article by, and we're not kidding, Linda Greenhouse, spends a lot of time on the legal issue the minority was arguing: that the case didn't have standing.

This is being hailed as a major victory however don't expect an EPA staffed with Bush appointees to move quickly on their new authority. One immediate effect of this ruling, according to an AP story by Samantha Young, is that the EPA will go ahead and consider California's request to set its own tail pipe emission standards.

Actually the 4 in the 5-4 vote were Cheif Justice Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas. Conservatives are close to getting the court they want.

Update: Sure enough, the EPA is dragging its heals in doing anything about CO2.

Nisbit on framing coverage of global warming

Matthew Nisbet's take on the framing of the debate on global warming.