Environment
“Lead Wars” – The politics of prevention and responsibility
Posted by The Pump Handle on May 22, 2013 A new book from Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner tells the disheartening story of our country’s ongoing failure to fully protect children from lead poisoning
Are there more tornadoes because of global warming?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 21, 2013 
There are good reasons to believe that global warming leads to more storminess, but the exact nature of that transition is unclear and hard to measure. Part of the reason for this difficulty is that a given type of storm may become more likely under certain conditions caused by climate change, while a different kind…
Why Global Warming’s Effects Will Be Worse Than You Were Thinking
Posted by Greg Laden on May 20, 2013 
The story of climate change has always been more of worst-case, or at least, worser-case scenarios developing and less about good news showing up out of nowhere and making us unexpectedly happy. A few decades ago, it became clear that the release of fossil Carbon into the atmosphere primarily as CO2 was going to cause…
Teenagers’ calorie consumption at McDonalds versus Subway
Posted by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH of George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services on May 20, 2013 Researchers compare the calories purchased by teenagers at McDonald’s versus Subway.
The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania
Posted by Greg Laden on May 20, 2013 
There is a book called “The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania” produced by the Heartland Institute. The Heartland Institute is famous for doing all that work to prove that smoking is not bad for you, and more recently, that climate change is not real or is not important or…
The Canadian War on Science: A long, unexaggerated, devastating chronological indictment
Posted by John Dupuis on May 20, 2013 This is a brief chronology of the current Conservative Canadian government’s long campaign to undermine evidence-based scientific, environmental and technical decision-making. It is a government that is beholden to big business, particularly big oil, and that makes every attempt to shape public policy to that end. It is a government that fundamentally doesn’t believe in…
Solving three [Rubik's] cubes while juggling them
Posted by William M. Connolley on May 20, 2013 After this, it seems to me that the human race has realised its ultimate potential; no further progress is possible. We might as well all go back to bed. Some things I see, I think: yes, you’re doing that very well. But I understand what you’re doing, and I could, if not do it myself…
Bad Science
Posted by William M. Connolley on May 19, 2013 VV has a thoughtful post about the value of peer review, looked at mostly through the lens of a couple of recent poor papers. Peer review (or whatever system you choose for choosing which papers will see the light) has to balance weeding out dross with not suppressing the unusual but good. It is primarily…
Did the Keystone XL Environmental Contractor and the State Department Act Inappropriately or Illegally?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 18, 2013 
Several environmental advocacy groups are asking the US State Department to launch an investigation over the State Department’s handling of the Keystone XL review. This is a bit nuanced but important, and I want to make clear what is going on here. Normally, environmental impact assessments are done by private contractors ultimately hired by the…
Investing in fossil fuel free portfolios
Posted by Greg Laden on May 17, 2013 Apparently that is a thing: NEW YORK and COLORADO SPRINGS, May 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Over half of sustainable, responsible, impact (SRI) investment industry professionals say that retail investors (65 percent) and institutional investors (53 percent) are currently expressing interest in fossil fuel-free portfolios in the face of growing signs of climate change, according to…
