Environment
A Step toward Fixing the Colorado River
Posted by Peter Gleick on May 10, 2013 The Colorado River, recently named America’s most endangered river, supports millions of people in the American Southwest and northwest Mexico and helps irrigate millions of acres of land. It is shared by seven states in the U.S. and Mexico, through a complex series of legal agreements and treaties. Yet every drop of water on the river…
Where does an earthquake’s energy come from?
Posted by Ethan on May 10, 2013 
“As seismologists gained more experience from earthquake records, it became obvious that the problem could not be reduced to a single peak acceleration. In fact, a full frequency of vibrations occurs.” -Charles Francis Richter You’ve all been around long enough to be familiar with the severe damage that earthquakes can cause, rattling and cracking the…
Bottled Water Tax
Posted by Peter Gleick on May 9, 2013 Municipalities are trying to find ways of dealing with the scourge of plastic bottles in their garbage, and with falling revenues from many sources. Plastic bottles have become a significant fraction of total garbage volume, and raise collection, handling, and landfill costs when they are not recycled. In 2011, according to NAPCOR (the National Association…
Bunker Bats
Posted by Dr. Dolittle on May 9, 2013 Scientists in Maine have converted two Cold War bunkers at Loring Air Force Base into winter havens for bats in an effort to protect the animals from the fungus that causes white nose syndrome. What is nice about using a man-made space is that they can actually clean up the area as opposed to trying to kill…
University of Qld/Skeptical Science survey of climate research
Posted by William M. Connolley on May 9, 2013 Well, I got this (some days ago; I got backlogged): As one of the more highly trafficked climate blogs on the web, I’m seeking your assistance in conducting a crowd-sourced online survey of peer-reviewed climate research. I have compiled a database of around 12,000 papers listed in the ‘Web Of Science’ between 1991 to 2011…
I’ve not found much of interest to write about tonight, and story submissions have been a dry hole lately
Posted by William M. Connolley on May 9, 2013 Not me you silly – that’s a quote from WUWT. And as if in answer to his desperation, along comes The effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas becomes ever more marginal with greater concentration, a deeply stupid post. It starts with a nod towards pretending to have a clue: According to well understood physical…
The Bottleneck Years by H. E. Taylor – Chapter 39
Posted by coby on May 8, 2013 The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 38 Table of Contents Chapter 40 Chapter 39 A Walk in the Park, April 26, 2056 I got a bit of a surprise when I got home. Edie caught me just as I was entering and asked, “Do you think we are descending into a New Dark Age?”…
Death on the Job report: US workers deserve better protections
Posted by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH of George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services on May 8, 2013 The AFL-CIO’s “Death on the Job” report shows why U.S. workers deserve much better protections than they are getting.
From the dentist’s chair, remembering how they cried wolf
Posted by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH of George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services on May 7, 2013 In the early 1990′s, the American Dental Association put up quite a fight to oppose an OSHA regulation requiring dentists to provide gloves, masks and goggles to employees who could be exposed to blood-contaminated saliva.
The Carbon Bubble: All we have to do is decide to not commit civilizational suicide – and the markets crash?
Posted by William M. Connolley on May 6, 2013 That’s over at P3. But I’ve seen it elsewhere. The idea is that because we’ll need to keep unburnt oil in the ground to hit (or rather, to not hit) a 2 oC commitment, a pile of oil companies are wildly overvalued, leading to… well, who cares what it leads to, because it doesn’t matter.…
