This series consists of links and excerpts from my last 12 months of posts touching on the science and politics of climate change.

States of the Nation: Red States/Blue States and Environmental Policy, Part IV January 16, 2018

What stands out in this map is that Red States are less densely populated than Blue States. They're more rural with plenty of room for people to spread out.  Since rural homes are bigger and traveling distances farther, it should come as no surprise that Red States consume more energy per capita than Blue States. This is a function of landscape and livelihood, not politics. If you're a farmer, you don't tootle around in a Prius - you've got a pick-up.

States of the Nation: Red States/Blue States and Environmental Policy, Part III January 12, 2018

According to the Conference of State Legislatures, net metering policies "have facilitated the expansion of renewable energy through on-site, also known as distributed, generation." Common distributed generation sources include solar panels, natural gas, micro-turbines, methane digesters, and small wind power generators.

States of the Nation: Red States/Blue States and Environmental Policy, Part II January 12, 2018

The hypothesis: many Republicans would like to see a reduction in Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, whether or not they believe in anthropogenic climate change. Please see Part I of this series for how I arrived at this hypothesis. ... Now, let's test the hypothesis. 

States of the Nation: Red States, Blue States and Environmental Policy - Part I January 10, 2018

According to  a recent Pew Research Center report, most Republicans and Republican-leaning Americans (heretofore "Republicans") do not believe in anthropogenic climate change. Does that mean they won't support policies or regulations that reduce green house gas (GHG) emissions? 

Concerned Scientists, Climate Change and Why Some People Still Resist  December 29, 2017

Unfortunately, the AWS authors mix well-documented facts (say, the spreading of ocean dead zones) with less widely supported claims (say, the unmitigated threat of "alien species"), blurring the line between the known and the hypothetical.