Day dreaming, heads in the sand | Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

[Minister of Tourism Damien O’Connor] … tourists worried about carbon miles when flying across the globe to reach our isolated little island don’t need to worry because their carbon emissions will be adequately offset by their experience here in NZ where they will learn about the environment in our pristine clean green pure NZ.

That’s not a direct quote but near enough. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Painting Rooftops White Would Slow Global Warming : Sustainablog

The news broke yesterday at California’s Climate Change Research Conference. Hashem Akbari, attending the conference from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, announced that replacing dark shingles on an average-sized household rooftop with a lighter color would offset 10 metric tons of carbon dioxide—comparable to taking two mid-sized cars off the road for a year.

Speaking of roadways, they’re part of the problem too. Because of its cheap nature, most roads are paved with black asphalt instead of light grey concrete, which causes roads to absorb an inordinate amount of heat. Repaving roads with lighter-colored materials would have a similar impact to painting rooftops.

Email from a reader:

I am no fan of Sarah Palin (generally speaking), but I thought you would find it interesting to hear how CNN anchors Jeffrey Toobin and Campbell Brown characterized Palin's expressed skepticism about AGW.

Toobin announced that all scientists agree that man is causing global warming and that you cannot find a credible scientist to say otherwise. Republican talking head Bay Buchanan then interjected to say that Toobin needs to get away from the "east coast" because there are plenty of scientists who share Palin's skepticism. At that point, Campbell Brown interjected to end the discussion over AGW, asserting something to the effect that they should not waste CNN's air time debating settled science. Campbell Brown's decree that the issue was settled was said with as much confidence and contempt that an anchor would use to announce the spherical shape of the Earth. Her primary source for reaching the conclusion was the fact that both George W. Bush and McCain accept the basic truth of Al Gore's assertion. If Bush and Gore agree, it must be true. End of discussion.

The entire exchange reminded me that the skeptics message remains very much on the fringe.

Personally, I'm confident that the skeptics' message is resonating with a large number of American voters. I would expect the vast number of idiots in the mainstream media to be among the last people to figure out the global warming hoax.