Brian Kahn

Brian Kahn
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Posts by This Writer

8 years 9 months ago

The Fijian government and Fiji Water recently played an interesting game of chicken. The two parties were in a standoff over a proposed tax increase for water extraction. The dispute has been resolved, but it raised some interesting questions about just what exactly the price of water should be.

The disagreement arose last week when the Fijian government decided to increase the water extraction tax from F$0.003 (that’s a third of a Fiji cent) to F$0.15. That’s a hefty increase worth over F$22 million annually. Not a bad windfall for a cash-strapped government, especially given the limits of Fiji’s economy.

Fiji Water in turn said it had no choice but to shut...
8 years 10 months ago

Climate change is more than warming air temperatures. New research using satellites has shown that large lakes are also warming quite rapidly, sometimes faster than the air around them. This is the first time satellites have been used to put together such an in-depth analysis.

Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion laboratory, Tahoe Environmental Research Center, and University of Leicester joined forces...
8 years 10 months ago

Is it possible to have a carbon-free Thanksgiving? Not likely unless you’re planning on buying offsets. A University of Manchester study found that an average Thanksgiving dinner for eight is going to cost about 44 pounds of carbon (and that doesn’t even include drinks!). That’s the equivalent of burning over two gallons of gasoline. Not good for climate change.

Should you forget Thanksgiving and just eat some dry toast instead? You could...
8 years 10 months ago

Editor's Note: The Climate Change section has two takes on 350.org's eARTh exhibit. Nick Engelfried has the other take on the climate change art exhibition.

Reason inspires understanding. Emotional connections inspire action. Explaining climate change through science can...
8 years 10 months ago

Bill Nye has appeared on television to challenge climate change skeptics. He’s also been busy on other climate-related fronts. One of them is the creation of a new permanent exhibit at the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland that opened this weekend.

He’s traded in his “Science Guy” moniker for a new “Climate Guy” tag. (Don’t worry he still has the bowtie.)...
8 years 10 months ago

A new alliance to fight climate change was formed this week. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger concluded the Governors’ Global Climate Summit 3 (GGCS 3) yesterday by announcing a new public-private alliance that spans the globe will promote clean energy, climate resiliency, and a green economy.

Over 1500 public officials and...
8 years 10 months ago

Climate change communication is becoming a hot topic again. The LA Times recently published an article about climate scientists’ effort to “push back” against skeptics. The piece included plans by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) to launch a Climate Q&A Service for journalists. AGU has in turn pushed back against the LA Times, saying they are not part of any concerted lobbying efforts.

...
8 years 10 months ago

Who’s the biggest climate change and environmental offender? Repower America recently asked its members this question. Though BP has certainly had a bad year when it comes down to it the worst of the worst in 2010 is Koch Industries.

This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the company. A study this past spring by University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute found Koch Industries to be the tenth most polluting company in the US. This places it above companies like BP and Royal Dutch Shell. Residents in 28...
8 years 10 months ago

It’s morning in America and hopefully you’re off to the polls. What’s at stake for climate change? Quite a bit actually. When polls close tonight, the climate change landscape will likely be drastically altered and not in a good way.

Republicans have certainly succeeded in running on a platform of out with old and in with the new. Sadly, their “new” ideas come from the Stone Age. Candidates have denied its existence and threatened to...
8 years 11 months ago

Get ready to get more use out of your galoshes and sun shades if you live in the Southeastern US. Current research from Duke University shows that the abnormally wet or abnormally dry summers over the past few decades are due in part to climate change. More importantly, they're likely to increase in the future. Why? Because of an interesting interaction between human induced-warming and natural atmospheric phenomena.

You may have heard of El Niño or La Niña and their effects on seasonal climate. In the Southeast, for example, La Niña generally leads to dryer...

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