The Peach Report

Using “hot dogs” to talk about climate change Dec 20, 2011 | No Comments

Let’s say you take your dog to the veterinarian, where you learn that you need to give “Spot” a pill once a day for two weeks. At home, the trusty canine refuses to swallow the pill — it probably tastes bad, after all.

Like many dog owners, you’re likely to stick the pill into something more appealing, such as a wedge from that snack-time hotdog. With the pill safely inside the frank, Spot likely will scarf it down, no questions asked.

Might climate communicators adopt a similar technique? Can they present climate news in a more palatable package that will help people absorb, rather than repel, it?

Learn the answer in my new story for The Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media.

Flame retardant levels rising in Chicago, Cleveland Dec 8, 2011 | No Comments

New research shows that flame retardants are rapidly becoming more common in the air around the Great Lakes. Read all about it in my new story for Chemical & Engineering News.

Since the 1970s, manufacturers have used retardants to reduce fire risk in consumer products such as upholstered furniture, electronics, and clothing. Commonly used flame retardants called polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs) volatilize from those products and escape into the environment, where they may pose health and environmental hazards.

In 2004, the flame-retardant industry began replacing PBDEs with new formulations including Firemaster 550 and Firemaster BZ-54, which contain 2-ethylhexyl-2,3,4,5-tetrabromobenzoate (TBB) and bis(2-ethylhexyl)-tetrabromophthalate (TBPH). But these chemicals could also have environmental risks: Research has suggested that the compounds can build up in fish and damage their DNA.

So Ronald A. Hites of Indiana University, Bloomington, and his colleagues wanted to know if TBB and TBPH had started to accumulate in the environment. The researchers analyzed 507 air samples collected by the Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network, a U.S.-Canada program that monitors air quality in the Great Lakes region. Hites and his team used gas chromatography/mass spectrometry to measure levels of the two chemicals in samples collected between 2008 and 2010. They detected TBB and TBPH in the vast majority of samples from Chicago and Cleveland, where levels of the compounds doubled approximately every 13 months. They also found the compounds in about half of air samples from four rural sites. At those sites, levels doubled every 19 months.

Hacked email scandal: some background Nov 22, 2011 | No Comments

Last month, self-proclaimed climate skeptic Richard Muller reversed himself and released research confirming that the Earth is warming. That hasn’t deterred online skeptics from their excitement over what they’re calling “Climategate 2,” a new round of scientists’ emails released online. From The Guardian:

A fresh tranche of private emails exchanged between leading climate scientists throughout the last decade was released online on Tuesday.
The unauthorised publication is an apparent attempt to repeat the impact of a similar release of emails on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit in late 2009. The initial email dump was apparently timed to disrupt the Copenhagen climate talks. It prompted three official inquiries in the UK and two in the US into the working practices of climate scientists. Although these were critical of the scientists’ handling of Freedom of Information Act requests and lack of openness they did not find fault with the climate change science they had produced.

I haven’t read through the new emails yet, so I don’t know anything about the content, damning or otherwise. But if you’re reporting on this issue or just curious, Skeptical Science has essential background information on the 2009 email release and the resulting investigations. It’s well worth checking out.

Romney breathes carbon dioxide Nov 22, 2011 | No Comments

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has ratcheted up his rhetoric against climate action, according to Politico.

“I’m all in favor of eliminating pollution,” Romney said in Manchester, N.H. “Now I know there is also a movement to say that carbon dioxide should be guided or should be managed by the Environmental Protection Agency. I disagree with that.”

Then he added this: “I exhale carbon dioxide,” he said. “I don’t want those guys following me around with a meter to see if I’m breathing too hard.”

His new comments depart substantially from the position he took as governor of Massachusetts, as I reported earlier this month at The Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media:

When Romney was governor, his administration capped emissions from coal-fired power plants. The limits, Romney said in a December 2005 press release, would provide “real and immediate progress in the battle to improve our environment.”

The Romney administration also helped negotiate a regional cap-and-trade initiative, although the governor ultimately backed out of the deal.

As recently as June 3, 2011, Romney offered support for the scientific consensus on climate change.

“I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that,” he said in Manchester, New Hampshire. “I think it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and global warming that you’re seeing.”

Then conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh seized on Romney’s comments. “Bye bye, nomination. Another one down,” Limbaugh said.

By August, Romney seemed to soften his stance.

“Do I think the world’s getting hotter? Yeah, I don’t know that, but I think that it is,” Romney said in Lebanon, New Hampshire. “I don’t know if it’s mostly caused by humans.” He added: “What I’m not willing to do is spend trillions of dollars on something I don’t know the answer to.”

In early September, Romney released his jobs plan, in which he pledged to move to amend the Clean Air Act so that carbon dioxide could not be regulated as a pollutant.