By Phoebe Sweet (contact)

Wed, Aug 6, 2008 (5:38 p.m.)

For the second time this year, renowned climate scientist James Hansen has asked Gov. Jim Gibbons to do something meaningful to stop climate change.

This time Hansen wrote to urge Gibbons over recommendations to combat climate change made by a committee the governor appointed. Hansen urged Gibbons to reject a proposal to reduce the "intensity" of Nevada's greenhouse gas emissions, a policy that would allow utilities to build more coal-fired power plants as long as they also built renewables or closed older, polluting power plants.

Hansen also wrote to Gibbons in April, when he was in Nevada accepting an award from the Desert Research Institute to urge the governor to oppose three new coal-fired plants proposed here. Here's Hansen's latest letter.