I can tell you many reasons why environmental stories don't get adequate attention in conventional media. Basically, environmental risks don't fit the norms of journalism. They're incremental. We hate incremental.

When I wrote a long story about the retreat of sea ice, I made clear it could go the other way for a while, and that doesn't mean we don't know that a warmer world will have less sea ice. It just means there's a lot of variability and people can pay too much attention to the big swings in one direction or the other.

I'm trying mostly to ask questions. And not just trying to stake out a position on something, but also trying to define the stuff we agree on. I'm having battles with comment posters trying to insert a little sense of order so it's not just a long pissing match between the edges, which is what I think a lot of the blogosphere is tending to do.

I can tell you many reasons why environmental stories don't get adequate attention in conventional media. Basically, environmental risks don't fit the norms of journalism. They're incremental. We hate incremental.

Every time someone reads a story about the politics poisoning the global warming stuff it makes it feel like a political story, meaning it's Us and Them, instead of what it is: this profound challenge we face given our energy norms right now, the fuels of convenience toward something new. No matter what the politics are, it's still an enormous transformation that has to take place.

Scientists are also unnerved by the summer's implications for the future...proof that human activities are propelling a slide toward climate calamity...humans may have tipped the balance...a particularly harsh jolt to polar bears.

We're an amazingly adaptive and resilient species. Once we put our mind to global warming, I have no doubt we'll figure a way through here that won't lead to utter calamity.