American dependence on fossil fuels isn’t going to end any time soon: solar panels and wind turbines provided only about a half per cent of total U.S. energy consumption in 2007, and they don’t work when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing.

and poo-poos the entire green jobs initiative with an argument that makes little to no sense:

Creating “green jobs,” a key component of the agenda, is different from creating new jobs, since green jobs, if they’re truly green, displace non-green jobs—wind-turbine mechanics instead of oil-rig roughnecks—probably a zero-sum game, as far as employment is concerned.

Luckily, over at Grist, Joseph Romm, the editor of Climate Progress and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, has taken up the gauntlet, delivering a righteous smackdown that addresses many of the problems with the piece.

But the trend of major publications tossing out oversimplified, under-proven information and faulty analysis is troubling, to say the least. As just about any climate change scientist will tell you (possibly in a hysterical shriek) the time for action—not endless debate, not rehashing talking points—is now. Making sure the public has access to the most accurate and up-to-date information should be a priority for the media—not spewing apocalyptic prophecies about how we’ll all be sucked into an abyss. Inaction will bring that result whether we like it or not—so we may as well try action.

• Scientists give a big thumbs up to Obama’s environmental plan.

• A handy list of all the biggest “global cooling” hacks, now in bar graph form.

• Poor Tesla. The bad news just keeps on comin’.

• A universal flu vaccine nears completion—but will we have the cash to distribute it?

• Finally, some sliding profits news to be happy about. Oh no wait, never mind.

• Senate decides (thank goodness) that children and health insurance are two things that should really continue to go together.

• Happy Friday! Half the world’s population could face a global-warming-induced food crisis by 2100, according to a new study.

• And then there’s the floods…

• Need proof that evolution’s more than just a “theory”? Look no further.

• The fruit flies are back! And this time, it’s not just Palin dissing them.

• “Dear Obama: Please bring me cap and trade legislation this year.” A wish list from environmentalists.

• The U.S. isn’t the only tech sector getting slammed by the downturn.

• And now for a lesson in brutal honesty: How much does racism really bother you?

January 20 can’t come soon enough, but first let the crimes of the Bush administration be released and judged. Today’s chopping block head is Julie MacDonald, a former high-ranking official in the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service. According to a newly-released report from Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney, MacDonald successfully “tainted nearly every decision made on the protection of endangered species over five years” and even exceeded expectations by “exert[ing] improper political interference on many more rulings than previously thought.”

MacDonald’s priority, according to the report, was not so much the well-being of hurting species, but rather a particular political agenda (hmm, perhaps we see a pattern?) that led her to push through a host of rulings axing greater protection for endangered species. Seven of them were (thankfully) reversed by the department, but Devaney’s report found an additional 13 decisions that MacDonald skewed to fit her agenda, and two more that she “indirectly affected.”

MacDonald, a civil engineer with a master’s degree in management, resigned from her post in May of 2007 amid accusations that she’d “violated the Endangered Species Act, censored science and mistreated staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”

Things had gotten so bad that a House congressional oversight committee was about to hold a hearing—and they only knew the half of it, according to Devaney, who stated in his report that:

“MacDonald’s zeal to advance her agenda has caused considerable harm to the integrity of the ESA program and to the morale and reputation” of the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as potential harm to animals under the Endangered Species Act [and] “[h]er heavy-handedness has cast doubt on nearly every ESA decision issued during her tenure.”

Then again, in her defense, have any ESA decisions in the past eight years been any less dubious?

Related:
RB: The Rape of the EPA: Bush Appointee Steven Johnson Called to Task
RB: Fights Over Space! NASA Head Disses Obama’s Transition Team
RB: It’s Not Over Yet: Bush Sneaks In Harmful Pollution Laws

• Don’t have ADD, or any conceivable medical need for prescription drugs like Ritalin? Take ‘em anyway, says a group of experts. Granted, whether the people who do need them really need them is still up for discussion.

• Next in this week’s “just what the health care system needs” news: Special guns for the elderly may be classified as medical tools.

• Ask Obama! The transition team launches a new site to take your questions for the president-elect.

• Muslim countries are charging into the evolution/creationism debate. May they approach and handle the topic with the same sanity, respect, and rationality as their Western counterparts.

• Christmas, green-style: solar gingerbread houses!

• And finally, the best global warming protest we’ve seen yet.

Mashing scientific evidence into a pulpy soup of agenda-laden misinformation seems to be a common theme for the modern GOP. The latest (and arguably most egregious) example is outgoing EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, whose reign has been dominated by a poverty of factual information, with hard science routinely twisted to suit political designs.

In a scathing profile in the Philadelphia Enquirer (via ThinkProgress), writers John Shiffman and John Sullivan delve into the cult of mediocrity that dominated Johnson’s time at the agency. The piece is filled with forehead-slappers like the following:

Perhaps one of the best insights into Johnson’s vision for EPA can be found in written testimony he submitted to a Senate committee this year. In the document, Johnson laid out his top 11 goals.

No. 1 was clean energy, particularly approving drilling for “thousands of new oil and gas wells” on tribal and federal lands. No. 2 was homeland security.

Environmental enforcement and sound science ranked ninth and 10th.

And that’s not even the worst of it:

Johnson approved pesticide testing on human subjects, lowered the monetary value of a human life by $1 million, reduced air pollution reporting requirements for corporate farms, and altered a chemical risk-assessment program that has slowed analysis to a crawl.

To top it all off, Johnson is described as using the following reasoning against his critics:

He believes in the Bush agenda and, like his boss, said his resolve is fueled by his deep Christian beliefs.

It is a faith he developed early in life. Johnson’s strongest association outside the EPA is his relationship with his alma mater, Taylor University, one of the nation’s oldest evangelical colleges…

Johnson majored in biology. At Taylor, that includes discussion of creationism.

When asked to articulate his view on the creationism/science debate, Johnson responded with the following:

It’s not a clean-cut division. If you have studied at all creationism vs. evolution, there’s theistic or God-controlled evolution and there’s variations on all those themes.

Sure, there are variations. Unfortunately, none of them are grounded in actual fact. But then, neither are Johnson’s policies.

Related:
RB: Is Bobby Kennedy Really the “Anti-Science” Choice for EPA Head?
RB: Global Warming Denial in the Senate: The Latest Chapter
RB: Rant of the Day: Hitchens Slams Palin on Science

• It’s no surprise that Americans are losing sleep (though the label “sleep epidemic” is a bit extreme). So cue the comprehensive guide to insomnia treatments.

• The implosion of media spares no one: CNN cuts science and tech unit, bloggers mourn.

• Greening Mexico City? If it happens, color us impressed.

• Michigan legalizes medical marijuana, but patient’s can’t use it ’til April. Ah government bureaucracy.

• The Facebook virus is coming! The Facebook virus is coming!

• Is the Bureau of Land Management holding a “fire sale” for Utah’s oil-and-gas drilling leases?

• Um, duh. Seriously, is this even a question?

Mother Jones has jumped on Obama for what may be the first “reneged promise” of his campaign: assigning a windfall tax to the profits raked in by Big Oil. According to MJ blogger Nick Baumann, a transition team staffer:

The President-elect’s transition team hasn’t explicitly announced it will drop the windfall tax plan, but a transition aide, commenting on the condition he not be identified, backed off the promise in an email. “President-elect Obama announced the [windfall profits tax] policy during the campaign because oil prices were above $80 per barrel,” he said. “They are currently below that now and expected to stay below that.”

Advocacy groups like the American Small Business League—which noticed almost immediately when the discussion of windfall taxes was removed from Obama’s Web site—are bemoaning the fallen tax as a disappointment, while economists (and common sense) note that it now seems far less necessary given that it would bring in substantially less money today than four months ago.

Still, the fact that this debate has arisen at all, before Obama has even taken office, is a testament to the dangers (or maybe just necessary consequences) of using technology for increased government transparency.

Watchdog groups can now police the Internet for early indications of a policy change, and leap on something as (seemingly) small as a single proposal to publicize a decision from the administration. Of course, the fact that Obama’s people are promptly removing now-dead proposals from the site in the first place is a pretty reassuring testament to the operation’s integrity as a whole.

• The New York Times advises us to approach the Thanksgiving meal “the way a CEO might.” Uhh, not even sure where to start on that one.

• Some good news this holiday: Cancer diagnoses are on the decline.

• The newest in medical technology: A barcode chip that tests your blood for disease.

• The latest in climate change research: A shrimp on a treadmill. Seriously.

• You know it’s bad out there when gaming companies are seeing their stock take a hit.

• And to top it off, the financial crisis hits Google. It’s official: No one is immune.

• Sketchy study finds that more people believe in aliens and ghosts than God. Or perhaps they just think God is an alien?

• And here’s a fun idea in the obesity era: health waivers for Thanksgiving dinner guests. More casserole, anyone?

Ever since global warming awareness rose to the international level, there’s been quiet but persistent tittering among experts over whether climate change might actually be good for some regions. Given that the biggest of these regions has always been Russia, it’s not a huge shock that Russia Today jumped on the recent U.S. intelligence report “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World.” In particular, the Russian press loved the report’s claim that within the next 17 years, Russia’s profit from climate change will be the biggest in the world.

From the article:

One of the reasons is the expected lengthening of the sowing term, but the key factor would be an easier access to oil and gas fields in Siberia and in the North, including the Arctic shelf. This will be a great success for the Russian economy, according to the NSC report, and the Arctic waterway would also open huge prospects for Russia.

However, the authors of the study warn of the possible threats: the infrastructure of Russia’s Arctic territories may be destroyed, and also new technologies may be needed to exploit fuel fields in the area.

Yeah, there’s always that downside…

Related:
RB: 20 Years Later, Andy Revkin Responds to Groundbreaking Global Warming Story
RB: Global Warming Denial in the Senate: The Latest Chapter

Now that the worldwide euphoria over Obama’s victory is abating, it’s time to look at some dismal facts: The air is still thick with pollution, the globe is still warming, and the science community is in a frenzy over who the president-elect will choose to head up the battered, broken EPA.

The short and distinguished list of candidates includes include former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection head Kathleen McGinty; California Air Resources Board chairwoman Mary Nichols; Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection head Ian Bowles; Kansas governor Kathleen Sibelius; New Jersey environmental commissioner Lisa Jackson; and, finally, environmental lawyer, activist, and prolific blogger Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

While all are talented and have the potential to breathe life into the foundering agency, the one receiving the biggest pounding is Kennedy. Across the Internet, science writers have lambasted the longtime environmentalist for his alleged “anti-science” views—in particular, his public criticism of vaccines.

There’s no question that Kennedy has been vocal in his campaign against the CDC, particularly regarding its stance on Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative. In 2005, he published a controversial piece in Salon charging that the government had concealed data showing that Thimerosal-containing vaccines were harmful. Critics excoriated the article, and Kennedy has since been labeled a traitor to science and affixed with the anti-vaxer label.

Still, the reality isn’t quite so simple. While Kennedy has indeed pointed accusatory fingers at certain vaccine practices—and has fallen victim to the “hand-picked studies” effect on at least one occasion—the charges that he’s a full-on anti-vaxer are incorrect and arguably irrelevant.

The distinction is this: Kennedy’s focus has been on making vaccines “safe” (i.e. Thimerosal-free), not eliminating them. This position is in contrast to that of many anti-vaxers, who dangerously assert that the MMR vaccine causes autism and other health problems, despite the lack of valid scientific evidence for their theory. While he charges the CDC with making poor choices, he has repeatedly stated that he remains pro-vaccine.

On the environmental side (the one that’s most germane to his ability to run the EPA), Kennedy has a 25-year career that includes some impressive achievements, including founding the Waterkeeper Alliance, winning nearly $200 million in damages against DuPont for waste-dumping, and cleaning up the Hudson River. His resume also includes advances in cleantech, alternative energy, and emissions reductions.

Is he the right man for the job? Perhaps not. The jury is still out—and may never reach a consensus—on whether he’s been right about a single Thimerosal claim, and the fact remains that Kennedy and his campaign against Thimerosal have been used as ammunition in the larger, pointless fight against vaccines—a fact he’s no doubt aware of. Still, when we’re debating an issue as crucial as this one, it’s worth scrutinizing the details before jumping on any bandwagons.

None too soon, the experts have begun weighing in on what President-Elect Obama should do regarding climate and energy policy. Even better, Obama’s transition team has put together a list of around 200 Bush policies to be kicked to the curb ASAP. They include gems like reversing the limit on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, and ditching a rule that stops U.S. aid-receiving family planning groups from informing women about the availability of abortion.

The biggest slashes, so far anyway, have been saved for Bush’s environmental policies. As the Washington Post reports, Obama has announced his intention to “quickly reverse the Bush administration’s decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles.” There’s also the undoing of the executive order that opens public lands to oil drilling, as well as social/economic moves like closing Guantanamo and tossing a life preserver to GM (though whether that’s a good idea remains to be seen).

Related:
RB: Obama & McCain Answer DISCOVER’s Questions on the Environment
RB: What Must the Next President Do to Save Science? DISCOVER’s Science Policy Project 2008

• And of course, the debate has already started: Who will Obama pick to head up the EPA?

• Meanwhile, we’re zooming straight into a “health care perfect storm.”

• Which makes it all the more admirable (or crazy, or excessively symbolic) that Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Steve Kagan has elected to go without health insurance as a gesture of solidarity towards his uninsured constituents. Stay healthy, Steve!

• China demands international action on climate change—let’s just hope they practice what they preach.

• And not to judge or anything, but videos like this one certainly don’t inspire confidence.

• The “net energy” debate gets serious. Is the whole thing a load of bull? We’ll leave it to the experts to decide.

Yesterday we noted that dear old (and still around) President Bush was working overtime to pass environmental regulations—many of which would harm, not help, said environment—before he’s shown the proverbial boot. But to be fair, not every rule he’s looking to enact is bad: The Washington Post reports that one in particular may even be crucial in conserving some our most vital underwater ecosystems. The plan is to restrict or ban fishing and mineral exploitation in two huge areas of the Pacific.

No surprise, his attempts to do some good are being met with resistance, to the point where the scope of the original plan, which included the preservation of four potential “marine monuments” has already been whittled down. And leading the anti-conservation charge is none other than friend-to-corporations-everywhere Dick Cheney, who argues that the restrictions will hurt the economies of nearby regions like the Northern Mariana Islands.

The ocean areas in question, called “treasure troves” of biodiversity, are described by the Post as follows:

Kingman Reef and other islands in the central Pacific area teem with sharks and other top predators; the Mariana Trench and its nearby islands are home to several species of rare beaked whales and the Micronesian megapode — an endangered bird that uses the heat from volcanic vents to incubate its eggs — as well as to mud volcanoes, pools of boiling sulfur and the greatest microbial diversity on Earth.

Still, sayeth Cheney, if there’s mining and fishing to be done, to heck with the megapodes—though apparently he’s less worried about what will happen to fishing long-term if we don’t create preserves where fish can replenish their dwindling populations.

In a rousing (and unfortunately somewhat uncommon) display of spine-growing, the current First Lady is taking up the ocean’s cause, arguing that “preserving the region’s natural attributes would attract tourism and burnish the president’s record for history.” This may be the first/last time we’ll say this, but here it is: We couldn’t agree with Laura more.

Related:
RB: It’s Not Over Yet: Bush Sneaks In Harmful Pollution Laws
RB: Whales Battle U.S. Military…and (Probably) Lose

Michael Crichton, one of the world’s most popular authors and a pioneer of modern science fiction, died yesterday at age 66 following a long battle with cancer. His ubiquitous books, including Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, helped elevate science to a new status in pop culture, and ushered new technologies such as cloning into the mainstream. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, he also brought medicine to the forefront of entertainment by creating the TV show “ER,” which won him an Emmy, a Peabody Award, and a Writer’s Guild of America Award.

But while his career was unparalleled and his brilliance unquestionable, Crichton inspired a good deal of controversy concerning a crucial issue: global warming. His skepticism over the threat of climate change was so great that it culminated in a novel, State of Fear, published in 2004. The book, a typical Crichton-style thriller, revolves around an evil environmentalist mastermind who commits terrorist acts to center attention on climate change. It features footnotes, graphs, and other references culled from the three years the author spent researching the topic—all reflecting Crichton’s view that the current rising global temperatures aren’t necessarily a result of human action.

The book, and Crichton’s views, have garnered plenty of criticism and dismay from climate experts and researchers, many of whom pointed out that the studies referenced in the novel had in fact been included and analyzed within the peer-reviewed scientific assessment of global warming—the same process that concluded climate change was both a threat to humanity, and caused by man. While the book did incite healthy debate and draw attention to the issue, it also provided fuel for global warming deniers looking to squelch the existing scientific evidence.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of the work, and Crichton’s efforts to discuss counterpoints to the scientific consensus, was that it helped thrust the issue firmly to the forefront of public discussion, where it undeniably remains today.

Image: iStockPhoto

Related:
RB: Sarah Palin Still Butchering Science, Redux
RB: Obama & McCain Answer DISCOVER’s Questions on the Environment