posted by Carl

In this brief post, I’d like to give a brief, annotated list of my favorite sites/blogs related to the environment, and particularly to Global Warming. I hope readers will share their own in the comments. Each of these provides its own perspective on Global Warming, and you can learn a lot by reading them all.

Daily Kos Environmentalists- Daily Kos is the world’s largest political blog, and is primarily oriented towards electing Democrats. As such, it is left of center, but not so far left as its reputation suggests. All registered users can post “diaries”, and several hundred get posted per day. A small subset (typically 5 to 20) are on environmental matters. Nearly all diaries get a few dozen comments, and the most popular can spark a discussion of several hundred comments. By subscribing to the Google Group Daily Kos Environmentalists, you can be alerted whenever an environmental diary is posted. The range of topics is extremely broad, and the quality of the best is very high. Unfortunately, the signal-to-noise isn’t so great. (As one specific example of an excellent series, people interested in learning more about CSAs might enjoy the ongoing Vegetables of Mass Destruction series.) There are quite a few high-quality, ongoing series of diaries, and other very interesting ones are posted on a daily basis.

Real Climate is a group blog written by several currently practicing climate scientists. They are also (mostly) very good writers. They typically write an in-depth essay on an aspect of climate currently in the news. Some of their posts focus on how the media report on climate, while others can be fairly technical commentaries on recent journal articles. The discussions in the comments are also quite interesting– sometimes other climate scientists show up to debate. At one time or another, they’ve covered nearly all the major issues that come up in discussions of the climate, making this the go-to site for all matters climate. For example, if you ever need to rebut pretty much any argument made by a denier, you can start by searching Real Climate; odds are, they’ve already covered it in depth. And if you want to learn more about climate science, just browse through their archives.

The Cost of Energy (Lou Grinzo). Lou Grinzo is a former software writer who was subsequently trained as an economist and acquired a strong interest in energy and the environment. He writes a few posts a day, in which he discusses current energy & environmental news from the perspective of an economist. His writing is sharp, insightful and generally optimistic.

The Oil Drum is another group blog, primarily devoted to discussions about oil supply (as the name suggests). It is a good place to start to learn about just how serious these issues are. However, the site also focusses on global warming and other environmental issues. There are several contributors/editors, each with their own distinct perspective. My favorite is Stuart Staniford, who has written some brilliant, highly quantitative analyses. Also, a daily “drumbeat” posts links and a brief excerpt to thirty to fifty energy/environmental articles. Because of the site architecture, commenters play a more prominent role than other sites (except perhaps Daily Kos). Most commentators are distinguished either by their extraordinarily detailed of the oil buiness, or by their extreme pessimism about the future prospects of the US– particularly suburbia. I don’t mean to endorse this perspective, but it is important to hear all sides.

The Energy Blog focuses on scientific/engineering aspects related to energy and the environment. There are usually a few posts every few days. Typically, the author describes a recent development and gives his own perspective.

So that’s my list. I would strong recommend that anyone who wants to learn more about climate or energy issues should read these as time permits (I doubt anyone has time to read all of these every day). But be sure to read more than one, since multiple perspectives are essential.

I hope people will share their own favorite sites or sources of information in the comments.