Super Congress stacked with climate zombies | Grist

A ThinkProgress analysis finds that a majority of the members on the congressional special fiscal committee oppose regulation of global warming pollution. Even with the three House Democrats left to be named, seven of the 12-member committee are known to be climate zombies.

A $50 million dollar tipping point? | Grist

At a press conference on July 21, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that he was contributing $50 million to the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. Michael Brune, head of the Sierra Club, called it a "game changer."
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As the United States closes its coal-fired power plants, it sends a message to the world. With Michael Bloomberg’s grant bolstering the Sierra Club’s well-organized program to phase out coal, we can now imagine a coal-free United States on the horizon. The United States could again become a world leader, this time in stabilizing climate.

Groups Call for Scientists to Engage the Body Politic - NYTimes.com

They want to encourage scientists and engineers to speak out in public debates and even run for public office. When it comes to global warming and a host of other technical issues, “there is a disconnect between what science says and how people perceive what science says,” said Barbara A. Schaal, a biologist and vice president of the National Academy of Sciences. “We need to interact with the public for our good and the public good.”

Dr. Schaal heads the academy’s new Science Ambassador Program in which researchers will be recruited and trained to speak out on their areas of expertise.

LAT writer learns of her layoff by email in the Arctic - LA Observed

It was a strange place to get an email with the news of my lay-off: An Alaska field station 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle where the sun doesn’t set in July. I was about to get on a helicopter (thanks to a two-week science journalism grant) with biologists who study how arctic fire is changing earth’s climate. Been sleeping in a cold tent