Lunch, With a Side of Climate Denial | Mother Jones

The event itself was a case study in how these guys manage to keep this non-issue alive. Discover's Sheril Kirshenbaum has an excellent post up about their strategy and why it works (hint: the Chick-Fil-A is part of it). In any case, don't expect the skeptics to give up on Climategate any time soon. Heritage and CEI are planning another event on the matter for June 17.

Is Our Scientists Learning? | Sheril Kirshenbaum | Discover Magazine

Special interest groups were frequently very well organized. They spoke with a common theme and brought articulate speakers. Rather than stop in our office, they usually hosted large and well attended briefings, supplying easy to digest hardcover books with titles like ‘climate change conspiracy.’ Typically they were funny and made references to Michael Crichton’s science fiction. Perhaps most importantly, they provided a free boxed lunches and held long Q&As to engage the audience.

Ezra Klein - A '50-50' chance that the Senate passes a climate change bill this year?

Color me skeptical. I think the right wing is just too committed to the idea that taxes are always and everywhere bad (even if they're rebated) and that global warming is a hoax Al Gore dreamed up to annoy SUV drivers. But we'll see. The bill will be unveiled in the next few weeks.

[Mountaintop mining is evil, yet mountaintop windmills are wonderful?] - Bluster over allegedly Yale-backed windmills in Maine

About 37 percent of Yale’s endowment is invested in alternative assets such as timber, oil and gas.
...
Not only will they generate noise and unwanted lights, said Greg Perkins, a soil scientist who plans to retire with his wife to a cabin on the side of Stewart Mountain, but the turbines will destroy the natural scenery — the main reason, Perkins said, for living in a town that is miles away from offices and that has just one tiny store and one road.

“It’s a great boon financially, and I’m for renewable energy and wind energy,” Perkins said, “but the top of these mountains isn’t a responsible place to site wind turbines because of the ecological destruction it does.”