Children's climate book is 'alarmist', says US senator 24 July 06

Back from holiday now, to the usual deluge of emails. One worth noting comes from Andy Revkin, environment correspondent of the New York Times, and a man lauded by Grist as the “finest news reporter on climate issues in the English-speaking world”. I remember Andy from years ago, where he’d sit in press conferences at UN climate summits hammering away on a laptop – he seemed to be able to carry on typing whilst simultaneously asking a long and well-thought-out question. He also says he’s “long admired” my work, which is flattering. More importantly, he has written the first climate change book for kids – ‘The North Pole Was Here’, with a free first chapter on NYT’s website. This book has raised the ire of climate change dinosaur Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma (him of “global warming is a hoax” fame), whose communications bod accuses Revkin of “alarmism”.

Andy Revkin’s latest scoop for the New York Times is the rather shocking news that NASA has deleted the “understand and protect our home planet” bit from its mission. Apparently NASA is redefining itself in response to the Bush Administration’s increasing interest in Mars and declining interest in Earth. (Let’s hope they all leave soon.) The deletion of the “understand and protect” phrase may, Revkin suggests, have something to do with the hoo-hah generated by NASA employee James Hansen’s statements on global warming. Hansen, readers will recall, was rather unsucessfully muzzled by the White House.

Another blog that I’d like to draw attention to is my friend and colleague George Marshall’s ‘climate denial’ site. He’s very interested in getting feedback for the newly-launched effort, so please do visit.