"A Global Warning?" on the History Channel

We watched "A Global Warning?" on the History Channel earlier this week. What I liked about it was the way they considered the popular arguments supporting the "global warming is not real" camp. (Sure, there is a cycle of climate change that is driven by the "wobble" in the earth's axis, but according to that cycle, we should be getting colder.)

Of course, it's just TV science, not a substitute for actually reading a book or two on the subject. This year Liz left me The Hype About Hydrogen, by Joseph Romm, an energy a serious look at hydrogen technology and its potential to be the solution to climate change. Although Romm thinks that we must eventually have a hydrogen economy based on the hydrogen fuel cell, it is not going to happen without major technological breakthroughs, and some components, like the hydrogen car, may never happen at all. It matters whether we bet on things like the hydrogen car, because global warming is progressing, perhaps even faster than predicted, and we really don't have time to make silly bets. The part of the book that made the biggest impression on me was chapter 8, in which Romm compares the projected rate of climate change with the projected rate of Hydrogen Technology development. It seems that hybrids really are the car of the future, at least for my generation.