I get asked what I read all the time. I haven’t yet compiled a list of climate/environmental news or blog sites (too lazy, tbh!), though I have a FAQs, made a bookstore, and wrote some book recommendations,

I am subscribed to countless climate listservs, and I skim around 25 climate/environment news websites as part of my daily routine (this doesn’t include work or research, which easily bumps that up to hundreds).

One daily newsletter that I enjoy/viciously-hate is called “Clean Start.” It’s written by the folks at ThinkProgress. Here is a sample of today’s newsletter. Instructions for you to subscribe are at the bottom.

Clean Start From ThinkProgress: Busy Day on the Hill

Welcome to Clean Start from Climate Progress, the exclusive energy newsletter from a progressive perspective. Send feedback and suggestions to cleanstart@thinkprogress.org.

CLEAN START FROM CLIMATE PROGRESS By Ryan Koronowski

* Gina McCarthy Re-Do, Ernest Moniz Vote in the Senate, Keystone in the House *

Democrats of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will attempt yet again to advance the nomination of Gina McCarthy to run the EPA. Last week, not a single Republican bothered to show up for the vote despite the fact that she has answered more than 1,100 of the committee’s questions. Sen. Warren spoke on the Senate floor yesterday demanding a vote on McCarthy, reprimanding Republicans for blocking the business of government and the business of protecting people. Sen. Vitter confirmed late Wednesday that some Republicans will attend today’s vote. At 2 p.m. today, the Senate will likely vote to approve Ernest Moniz, who has been nominated to lead the Department of Energy. Also on the Hill, Republicans in the House will make the case during a subcommittee hearing that building Keystone would bring positive economic spillovers for small businesses and rural communities while the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will vote on H.R.3, a bill to approve Keystone. [The Hill]

* Survey Of Peer-Reviewed Papers Finds 97% Consensus On Human-Caused Global Warming *

A survey of thousands of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals has found 97.1% agreed that climate change is caused by human activity. Authors of the survey said the finding of near unanimity provided a powerful rebuttal to climate deniers who insist the science of climate change remains unsettled. The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in almost 12,000 academic papers. [Guardian, Reuters, ThinkProgress]

* Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers Says He Supports NC’s Clean Energy Standard *

Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy, defended North Carolina’s renewable energy standard at the company’s annual shareholder meeting yesterday. A conservative activist (who has previously asked a question at Disney’s shareholder meeting about liberal bias) asked Rogers about higher energy costs. In response, Rogers said the law prevent utilities from spending too much, and RESs are widespread across the country. He said later he supports the law, which is facing continued threats from ALEC members in the state legislature to repeal it. Earlier this month, a state senate committee chair approved a bill to repeal the RES out of his committee without counting votes and despite loud opposition. [Charlotte Business Journal, ThinkProgress]

* QUICK LINKS *

— For more than 30 years, ocean fish and mammals have migrated away from warming equatorial waters and toward the poles, providing more evidence climate change has already had broad global consequences. [Washington Post]

— George Bush’s EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman said that GOP members of the EPW Committee “looked like sore losers” when they boycotted McCarthy’s vote hearing last week. [National Journal]

— The U.S. military’s programmatic efforts to rely less on fossil fuels are threatened by the sequester. [Medill]

— BP wants British Prime Minister David Cameron to intervene regarding the compensation of businesses affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. [BBC]

— The GAO finds that the federal government should help local communities adapt to the impacts of climate change. [The Hill]

— The 5th Circuit ruled against a lawsuit filed by Mississippi coastal residents arguing that fossil fuel emissions contributed to the strength of Hurricane Katrina. [Clarion Ledger]

— Organizing for Action called on supporters to press the Republican EPW members for boycotting McCarthy’s nomination hearing. [The Hill]

— Weather prediction is slated to improve significantly following upgrades to the two supercomputers the National Weather Service uses to forecast local, national, and global weather patterns. [Washington Post]

— Spoiled food could be used to power grocery stores’ using clean electricity. [LA Times]

* CALENDAR *

9:00 am: The Woodrow Wilson Center’s (WWC) Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) holds a discussion on a new ECSP report, “Backdraft: The Conflict Potential of Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation.”

9:30 am: The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee votes on the Northern Route Approval Act (H.R. 3), a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline project.

10:00 am: The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs holds an oversight hearing entitled, “The 2008 Lacey Act Amendments.” Witnesses and more information will be listed here when available.

10:00 am: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a meeting to consider pending calendar business.

10:00 am: The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation holds an oversight hearing titled, “Invasive Species Management on Federal Lands.”

10:00 am: The Subcommittees on Energy and Power and Environment and the Economy hold a hearing tited “The Fiscal Year 2014 Environmental Protection Agency Budget.” Members will review the president’s FY2014 EPA Budget Request and discuss the agency’s agenda. EPA Acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe will be the only witness.

10:00 am: The Small Business Subcommittee on Agriculture, Energy and Trade holds a hearing titled, “If You Build It: Keystone XL Pipeline and Small Business Job Growth.” A live webcast will be here: http://1.usa.gov/Nkrzjh.

10:30 am: The Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Health Care and Entitlements holds a hearing, “Opportunities Lost: Constraints on Oil and Gas Production on Federal Lands and Waters.” http://1.usa.gov/11qKMbp

12:00 pm: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a vote on the nomination of Gina McCarthy to head the EPA.

12:30 pm: The U.S. Army, along with Lockheed Martin and the Department of Defense, will unveil the DOD’s first grid-tied intelligent microgrid integrating renewable resources and energy storage at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Fort Bliss.

1:00 pm: Former Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift, former Republican Congressman and Chair of the House Science Committee Sherwood Boehlert, and NRDC Clean Air Program Director John Walke will offer reactions to today’s Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works vote on the nomination of Gina McCarthy

2:00 pm: The Senate holds a vote on the nomination of Ernest Moniz to head the Energy Department.

5:00 pm: Sen. Lisa Murkowski holds on-the-record pen & pad session to discuss her trip to the Arctic Coucil in Sweden.

** Follow @ClimateProgress **

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This time, I worked with up and coming AccuWeather journalist Samantha-Rae Tuthill. She asked tough questions and dug deep for this piece. She was really great and I had a lot of fun. She also picked out some good zingers (I bet long-time readers will recognize my pessimism). Check it out if you can!

Whether they call it global warming, climate change or even global cooling, more and more Americans are taking a stand on one side or the other of this hotly debated issue.

According to a survey published last year by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, 66 percent of Americans believe that global warming is happening, with 42 percent concerned that it will harm people in the United States between now and the next 10 years. Forty-five percent of Americans believe the country will be harmed by global warming in the next 50 years, with only 16 percent saying that global warming will never harm the U.S.

The arguments on either side of the issue can be broken into three main categories. Those who do not believe in climate change, or at least in man-made climate change, are considered “climate skeptics.” Groups concerned about climate change are primarily split between two camps; those who want to prevent further change and those who want to adapt to changes that do occur.

It led to the creation of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which publishes major climate reports every five-ish years. These reports are the primary source for many policy maker’s (and media’s) climate science and knowledge. I play a minor role in the IPCC’s reports. Here’s how.

Organized by the World Meteorological Organization, it was held in Geneva, Switzerland. Researchers and a few policy makers gathered to present new scientific observations about global warming and its impacts. It also explored new techniques on monitoring systems.

One of the main drivers of holding a Climate Conference was increased awareness that food, drought, and other climate related systems were much more sensitive to fluctuations. Several disasters in the 1960s and 70s created a fundamental need for more climate science to better understand these systems. It was showcased increased scientific knowledge that GHGs caused warming, and that governments around the world needed to take some sort of pre-emptive action before system collapse.

The First World Climate Conference recognized climate change as a serious problem in 1979. This scientific gathering explored how climate change might affect human activities. It issued a declaration calling on the world’s governments “to foresee and prevent potential man-made changes in climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity”. It also endorsed plans to establish a World Climate Programme (WCP) under the joint responsibility of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). Via UNFCCC

Several programs were created as a result of the World Climate Conference, including the World Climate Programme and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (e.g., the IPCC).

The IPCC was established in 1988, and released its first report in 1990. The IPCC issues highly peer-reviewed, non-political climate reports about every 5 years. Their 5th report will be published in 2014. Here’s a link to the 4th report summary, published in 2007.

These reports are written by the top scientists and researchers in the world. I play a minor role in the IPCC.

The reports are divided into three chapters: The Physical Science; Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability; and Mitigation. Each chapter is written by a committee, called a Working Group, comprised of several hundred to over a thousand scientists. These Working Groups peer review the available climate science. They then write a meta-analysis and conclusions based on their reviews.

Next, each of the three chapters are reviewed and edited by what’s called Expert Reviewers, of which I am one. I’m currently reviewing/editing Working Group II’s 5th Report: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Fun stuff…

You can see some of the work the WGII has done, here.

I’ll be in town from April 2 - 6 for this climate adaptation meeting and have a pretty loose schedule. I’m interested in anything local - museums, parks, views, bars, anything neat or unusual (but not dangerous). Click here to send any ideas, suggestions, or solutions my lovely minions?

I’m sorry. I have neglected you. Over the past 2.whatever years on tumblr, I have ignored two of your most asked questions: Where can I find resources on climate change adaptation?  and Where can I find resources to improve my writing?

I am blown away at how often I am asked these. And am equally blown away at how successful I have been at ignoring answering them both.

Since I believe in preservation of traditions, I will continue to ignore the first most asked question (because wow procrastination is fantastic). Instead, I’ll tackle the second most asked question:

Dear Michael, What are good resources to improve my writing?

The best way to learn how to write better is to write more. There is no substitute for practice. In fact, you’ll find that nugget of wisdom contained in every (good) book on writing. “Write more” is at the heart of every writing educator’s repertoire. If you want to learn to write, just start writing. Learn from failure. Ask all your friends for feedback ad nauseum. Thank them with sincerity. Avoid the trap of getting defensive upon receiving feedback (after all, you did ask for their edits).

But guidance is still valuable. So here is a selection of books and resources I use most often.

I have on my book shelf about three dozen books on how to write mo beddah. I won’t list them all, but here is a sampling of popular books by famous authors on how to write: E.M. Forster’s must have Aspects of the Novel; Geoff Nunberg’s unreadable Going Nucular; John Jerome’s amusing The Writing Trade; Patricia O’Conner’s visually painful (comic sans!?) but useful Woe Is I; Norman Mailer’s indisputable The Spooky Art; Anne Lamott’s student friendly Bird by Bird; the decent The Elements of Journalism; and of course Stephen King’s epic On Writing.

The above are books will, in the end, help you understand structure and context creation. They are good books to own, but take much dedication to actually read. It takes even more effort to incorporate their advice into your writings, so take ‘em with a heavy dose of salt and, I suppose, a libationational shot of bourbon.

There are more important books, in my opinion, that will tangibly help your writing. I have about 20 or so books on style, research, and reference guidance that I reach for often. Here’s a sampling of the most used: The Associate Press Stylebook (incidentally, my 2006 copy was donated to me by a journalist at the AP); the painful, hellish, and evil The Blue Book, A Uniform System of Citation; Black’s Law Dictionary; Chicago Manual of Style is my preferred guide for major report writing; MLA Handbook is often quite useful for citation style in a pinch; Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style has no equal.

I’m surprised by how often I flip through Eugene Volokh’s Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review; and Legal Writing in Plain English: A Text with Examples is a must if you read a lot of cases and need to learn to summarize quickly.

I also pick up more often than not, Legal Method and Writing; Writing Empirical Research Reports; and Persuasive Writing for Lawyers and the Legal Profession, 

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s Making Your Case was an enjoyable surprise, and I am convinced Scalia did not write a single sentence in that book.

I found The Chicago Guide for Communicating Science and A Field Guide for Science Writers rather late in my career, and I regret it because these are excellent guides with solid examples by actual science writers in the field.

To round this list out, there are a ton of sources for writing online. Poynter is, hands down, one of the best resources on the planet; PBS’s Media Shift is fun; Jay Rosen’s PressThink is for serious writers; the WordCount blog is a good place to hang out (there are dozens of blogs like WordCount, so google around for your niche); and you may want to join the National Association of Science Writers. A google search for “Science Communication” returns nearly 1.5 million hits, so there’s that. Also, all the J-Schools have their own writerly blogs.

My all time favorite book on writing is not really a book at all. It’s a rare and odd monograph called “Lawyer as Artist: Using Significant Moments and Obtuse Objects to Enhance Advocacy.” It was written by James Parry Eyster for the Legal Writing Institute’s Legal Writing Journal and hard copies are about as rare as a rattlesnake in Canada (they exist, but good luck finding one). It’s available free at SSRN. It is not easy to read! But I refer to it often when I need to push the limits of my writing, or need inspiration and justification to take a risk.

Again, all of these things are utterly valueless unless and until you sit down and write.