Putting the 400 ppm CO2 thing in perspective
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2013 Before the release of vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere mainly through the burning of fossil fuels, the atmospheric concentration of this gas was about 300 ppm or a bit more. Soon, that number will be 400 ppm. How soon? Let’s see … it is now Tuesday at about 7pm. Maybe mid morning tomorrow?…
The National Center for Science Education and Climate Change
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2013 
Published on Apr 30, 2013 Science education is under assault again. Not just evolution education, but climate change education. NCSE policy director Dr. Minda Berbeco traces the history of science denial, the links between evolution- and climate change deniers, recent legislation targeting both, the role of the Next Generation Science Standards, and more. Where: East…
Discussion of Boston Marathon Bombing on Vonvo
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2013 Vonvo.com is a new thing. We had a conversation about the Boston Marathon Bombing. I wish there had been a sound check, I could have had my mic up higher. Also, that notification beep you will repeatedly hear is not your computer (or mine) so just ignore it! Anyway, it is in two parts:
People of the Book
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2013 
I rarely review fiction, but I’ve got a nice book I’d like to recommend. My friend Amy suggested it to me on facebook a while back when I was casting around for a novel to read. The novel is People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. INTERNET WARNING: THIS BOOK IS LIKE FIVE YEARS OLD…
EU will ban neonicotinoid pesticides to save the honey bees
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2013 
Being a bee is hard. I’m speaking specifically of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, the one that produces the honey you buy in the store. Many insects, and other critters, eat by finding food and then eating it, and then they do that for a while and now and then reproduce by finding a mate,…
UFO’s, Climate Change, Child Abuse
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2013 
What do UFO’s, the belief that magnetism causes climate change but atmospheric gasses are not related, child molestation, and academic sock puppeting have in common with sea level rise? To find out, set aside some time to carefully read this: UFOs, Sea Level Rise And The Magnetism Of Climate Science Denial and then click on…
Bangladesh and Sea Level Rise
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2013 
You’ve all heard about the horrible tragedy in Bangladesh, still unfolding. Not to distract from that event, or diminish its importance, I thought it would be interesting to have a look at that low lying country in relation to long term sea level rise caused by climate change. I am making no claim here about…
James Hansen’s Legacy
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2013 
James Hansen, author of “Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About The Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity“, recently announced his retirement from his position as director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. My friend John Abraham write’s about Hansen’s retirement in his inaugural* post in the new blog “Climate…
Global Warming vs. Climate Change
Posted by Greg Laden on April 28, 2013 This video by Media Matters on the Zany Denialists on Fox News ……… ….. is nicely augmented by this blog post by Phil Plait: Climate Change or Global Warming? Both.
Scott Lohman Interviews Edwina Rogers
Posted by Greg Laden on April 27, 2013 Almost a year ago, Edwina Rogers took over as the executive director of the Secular Coalition for America. It’s been an ambitious, busy year for the Secular Coalition. This Sunday, Rogers joins us to talk with Scott Lohman about what they’ve accomplished and where they’re going in the next year. They’ll also discuss the formation…
Boston Marathon Discussion on VONVO.com
Posted by Greg Laden on April 27, 2013 I was chatting live on Vonvo.com, speaking about the Boston Marathon Bombing with a few others. Vonvo is a new social media talkie thingie, a little like if Blogging Heads and Google Hangouts had a baby which then married Twitter. A bit later I’ll have links to the discussion.
Does Your Genealogy Reveal Amazing Anthropological Stories?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 26, 2013 
I gave a talk at the Brookdale Public Library last night as part of the celebration of DNA day. DNA Day, or DNAD for short, was created about the time of the “completion” (more or less) of the Human Genome in 2003, and is set to be on the date of the publication of the…
Genealogy, Kinship and DNA …
Posted by Greg Laden on April 24, 2013 … Or, Why Did Your Great-great-grandfather Marry His Cousin? A talk I’m giving …. Genealogy reveals the structure of family relationships among distant relatives. Why do certain families intermarry while others shun each other? For the young singles, how do you calculate your suaboyä, in order to find the ideal spouse? Brookdale Library Thursday, April…
The Truth About Global Warming’s Famous Slowdown
Posted by Greg Laden on April 24, 2013 
Dana Nuccitelli writes: The rate of heat building up on Earth over the past decade is equivalent to detonating about 4 Hiroshima atomic bombs per second. Take a moment to visualize 4 atomic bomb detonations happening every single second. That’s the global warming that we’re frequently told isn’t happening. That’s Dana’s opening paragraph in the…
Does last Saturday’s record low at MSP signal the end of global warming?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 23, 2013 No, it does not We’ve had a winter-like spring here in Minnesota, and it was darn chilly on Saturday. In fact, we had a record low of 21F. Paul Douglas, of Weather Nation did some digging: He tells us that while that was the first record low since 2004, there have been 42 record highs…
Congressional Republican #Fail
Posted by Greg Laden on April 23, 2013 Every disaster in the US has at least three Congressional representatives associated with it (2 Senators, one House rep). Those representatives have at least two roles: 1) Causing/avoiding the disaster or making it less/more bad, to begin with, by way of their efforts in congress; and 2) Helping or not helping once the disaster happens.…
Arctic Sea Ice Loss Due to Global Warming
Posted by Greg Laden on April 23, 2013 Andy Lee Robinson’s latest visualo-info-graphico-depiction of the loss of Arctic Sea Ice:
The Boston Bombers: Something for everybody
Posted by Greg Laden on April 21, 2013 
Well, not everybody. First lets talk about some losers. Someday a brave journalist will ask the FBI why they had one of the suspects in sight a couple of years ago but this still happened. Chances are there is a very good answer and we should not be mad at the FBI for this, but…
Meat Eating in Human Prehistory
Posted by Greg Laden on April 20, 2013 
All human hunter-gatherer groups that have been studied incorporate meat in their diets. Studies have shown that the total dietary contribution of meat varies a great deal, and seems to increase with latitude so that foragers in subarctic and arctic regions eat a lot of meat while those living near the equator eat less. It…
Geology vs. Cars
Posted by Greg Laden on April 18, 2013 One of these days I’ll tell you the story of when I was almost killed permanently by sink hole. I’ll probably have to package that story with the time I was buried alive in a trench (for symmetry). These things happen to archaeologists. Not as often as getting pinned down by gunfire, or running out…
#lets_kill_some_abortion_doctors
Posted by Greg Laden on April 18, 2013 
So … … If you aren’t familiar with Jill Stanek, she’s just an awful anti-choicer. She thinks if you murder a doctor who performs abortions, it’s wrong, but not so wrong that you deserve to be sent to PRISON! That’s for like, bad people, and stuff! … 1. The man who murdered Dr. Tiller “[did]…
WANTED: Suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombing
Posted by Greg Laden on April 18, 2013 
The FBI has released an electronic wanted poster for you to look at. Somebody knows these people. Do you? You know what to do: (click on the picture of the FBI web site to go through to the FBI web site) Here’s an enhanced video of the scene: One of the guys might be wearing…
Is Michele Bachmann About To Go Down In Legal Flames?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 18, 2013 
Michele Bachmann may be in some serious trouble. For starters, it seems she may have used presidential campaign staff to support her book tour during her unsuccessful bid for the presidency last year. The Star Tribune reported on April 17th that Congressional ethics investigators are examining whether top staffers in Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign…
Remarks on the Senate’s Failure to Legislate (gun background checks)
Posted by Greg Laden on April 18, 2013 
The following video shows remarks by various individuals including President Obama on the shameful behavior of the US Senate in relation to a bill increasing the scope of background checks on individuals who plan to purchase firearms in the United States. Go HERE to pick up a nice Facebook Meme and engage in other social…
It is only fair to the earth that we build the Keystone XL Pipeline…
Posted by Greg Laden on April 17, 2013 …and release as much carbon into the atmosphere as we can. HERE’S WHY.
Racism at Hopkins High
Posted by Greg Laden on April 17, 2013 
Hopkins High School is one of the top public schools in Minnesota, which prides itself, though not always with justification, as having excellent public schools. Hopkins is in an “outer ring” suburb of the Twin Cities. This is a set of bedroom communities developed over the last several decades as well-to-do city folk moved out…
The horror of this event …
Posted by Greg Laden on April 16, 2013 
We watch these events unfold through a veil of tears. And over time, it only gets worse as we learn the identities of some of the victims, and learn of the horrors of this particular kind of bomb attack. We wonder if the bomber knew that few would die but many would lose their legs,…
“Denialism on a Large Scale”
Posted by Greg Laden on April 16, 2013 “Denialism on a Large Scale” Greg Laden on Atheists Talk #214, April 14, 2013 I was interviewed on Minnesota Atheists Talk Radio about climate change and climate change denialism last Sunday AM. Since you were in church, I’m sure you missed it! But you can catch the podcast HERE.
Feed me or I’ll die, and possibly take you with me!
Posted by Greg Laden on April 16, 2013 Years ago it was pointed out by somebody, probably Tinbergen or Lack or Wynn-Edwards or one of the other great bird-savvy ethologists of the day, that young Pelicans would blackmail their parents by biting their own wings, a very self defeating activity for a bird with a huge and powerful beak. “If you don’t feed…
Atheist Voices of Minnesota Mention
Posted by Greg Laden on April 15, 2013 The book Atheist Voices of Minnesota: an Anthology of Personal Stories has a mention in Publisher’s Weekly: While Prometheus Books is the grandfather of publishing atheism books, there are two upstarts, another indication of the category’s strength. The newest is Freethought House, founded in 2011 and debuting last August with Atheist Voices of Minnesota edited…
, which is now available for the 
