Report: Christie, Ryan, Axelrod to headline Romney retreat

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), and Obama strategist David Axelrod will headline a retreat being planned by former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the Boston Globe reports.

The June forum will also feature former senators Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who chaired their eponymous debt-reduction commission, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the chairman of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, according to an e-mail obtained by the newspaper.

“As I indicated in your invitation, I have drawn speakers from government and business to identify key opportunities ahead,” Romney writes. “And I have made sure to invite presenters from both sides of the aisle.”

The event, dubbed "Experts and Enthusiasts," will be held in Park City, Utah and is sponsored by Solamere Group, the private equity firm where Romney now serves as chairman. The firm was founded by Romney's son, Tagg, and Spence Zwick, the finance chair of his campaign.

Last year, Romney held a similar retreat in the Utah resort town for hundreds of his campaign's top donors. Campaign staff and major Republican political figures including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice briefed donors.

According to the Globe, attendance to the event is expected to run $5,000, although is not considered a political donation.

The event will be Romney's first foray back into public life since his electoral defeat, with the exception of an appearance earlier this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference. At that time, Romney pledged to remain active in public life.

“I am sorry that I will not be your president,” he said. “But I will be your co-worker, and I will work shoulder-to-shoulder alongside you."

View Comments

View the original article here

The Inevitable 2014 Headline: ‘Global CO2 Level Reaches 400 PPM For First Time In Human Existence.’

By Peter Gleick, via Science Blogs

Sometime, about one year from now, the front pages of whatever decent newspapers are left will carry a headline like the one above, announcing that for the first time in human existence (or in nearly a million years, or 3 million years, or 15 million years), the global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide — the principal gas causing climate change — will have passed 400 parts per million (ppm).

That’s a significant and shocking figure. Unfortunately, it’s only a temporary marker on the way to even higher and higher levels. Here are the most recent (March 2013) data from the Mauna Loa observatory showing the inexorable increase in atmospheric CO2 and the rapid approach to 400 ppm.

There is a range of estimates around the detailed time record of atmospheric composition, and the study of changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the billions of years of the Earth’s existence is an exciting area for research. A commonly cited figure with strong evidence comes from measurements of air trapped in ancient ice cores obtained from Antarctic ice. We now have a detailed 800,000 year record, which shows clearly that atmospheric CO2 levels never approached 400 ppm during this period.

In December 2009, a research team from UCLA published a paper in Science that suggested we would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels approaching today’s levels. This research used isotopic analysis of shells in deep sea sediments, and reported that CO2 concentrations may not have exceeded 400 parts per million since the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO) — between 16 and 14 million years ago. The MMCO was associated with reduced planetary ice volumes, global sea levels 25 to 40 meters higher than today, and warmer ocean temperatures. Decreasing CO2 concentrations after that were associated with substantial global cooling, glaciations, and dropping sea levels.

Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s GISS has pointed me to research in a December 2011 article in the journal Paleoceanography by Gretta Bartoli, Bärbel Hönisch, and Richard E. Zeebe, reporting on paleoclimatic records that suggest CO2 concentrations (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) may have been around 400 ppm between 2 and 4.6 million years ago. This evidence comes from isotopes measured in planktic foraminifer shells spanning 2.0 to 4.6 million years ago and indicates that atmospheric CO2 estimates during the Pliocene gradually declined from just above 400 ppm to around 300 ppm in the early Pleistocene 2 million years ago.

800,000 years ago? Three million years ago? 15 million years ago? More research will continue to clarify the variability of Earth’s atmospheric composition over time, as well as the impacts for the planet as a whole of screwing with it. (That’s a technical term…)

But the more important point to remember is that never in the history of the planet have humans altered the atmosphere as radically as we are doing so now. And the climatic consequences for us are likely to be radical as well, on a time-scale far faster than humans have ever experienced.

– Dr. Peter Gleick is a climatologist. This post originally appeared on Science Blogs and is reprinted here with permission.

View the original article here

Chelsea Clinton to headline Inaugural service event

Chelsea Clinton will headline the first event of President Obama’s Inaugural weekend, the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) announced Tuesday.

Clinton will be the honorary chairwoman of the 2013 National Day of Service on Saturday, in a weekend full of events leading up to Obama’s second swearing-in ceremony on Monday.

“We are thrilled that Chelsea Clinton will play such a critical role in mobilizing Americans across the country to take part in the National Day of Service,” PIC President and CEO Steve Kerrigan said in a statement. “Through her work with the Clinton Foundation and her recent efforts to help communities impacted by Hurricane Sandy, Chelsea sets a remarkable example for serving and strengthening our country. As honorary chair, she will be instrumental in helping lead the president’s call to service and growing this important tradition.”

The summit will take place on the National Mall. The president and first family and Vice President Biden and his family will also be on hand.

“There is no more fitting way to mark a presidential inauguration than a day of service,” Clinton said in a statement. “Coming together as a country to strengthen our communities has always been part of the American spirit. I am deeply grateful that President Obama and his administration have put service at the center of the inauguration weekend and I am proud to be part of a nationwide service effort, honoring the service and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and building a brighter future for all of us.”

View Comments

View the original article here