Science and (culture, politics, policy, media)
Kevin Vranes has a phud in Physical Ocean- ography and Cli- matology. He now studies sci- ence policy and politics at the CSTPR. (More in the about.)
email: kevin {/at/} nosenada.org
Comments policy
(listed in semi-random order)
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January 31, 2006
Category: Climate change • Science+White House
If you'll excuse my quiet few days (traveling and without a real computer), I'll get back to the Hansen bidness. The reason I got into this blogging business in the first place is to throw ideas out there, hear other...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 6:20 PM • 5 Comments
January 27, 2006
Category: Climate change
Apparently Jim Hansen has had a change of heart. I wrote yesterday about his mixing up the science and policy advocacy by inserting - in a press release that is otherwise entirely about reporting a scientific result - policy language:...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 4:50 PM • 6 Comments
January 26, 2006
Category: Science money
Get ready, academia. John McCain (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) have taken off the gloves and announced that they "plan to challenge every single earmark that appears in appropriations bills this year." You may not be one of those researchers...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 5:22 PM • 1 Comments
Category: Climate change
So 2005 has turned out to be the warmest year on record according to the NASA GISS numbers. (Note that there are a few ways to do the calculation so this should not be considered a definitive answer, but it...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 12:10 PM • 1 Comments
Category: Totally random
Over Thanksgiving I had the misfortune of witnessing down to every last detail just exactly why Northwest Airlines is in bankruptcy. I had a 3-leg flight both going and coming and for not one of those six flights was the...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 11:37 AM • 0 Comments
January 24, 2006
Category: Totally random
Straight outta today's CQ Midday update, Senator Stevens plans a markup on yet another broadcast bill. But wait! Congress still hasn't taken up H.R. 3687 from the 108th session. You should contact your Rep. today and ask them to bring...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 2:40 PM • 0 Comments
January 23, 2006
Category: Energy
Look, it's obvious, right? By junior high you've figured out that society is built around specialization and that the knowledge of the whole is really more than the sum of its parts. So you don't try to learn everything; instead,...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 11:23 PM • 3 Comments
Category: Science money
This started as a comment to this Aetiology post, but then grew so long that I figured it would be better as a standalone post. I think it's a good discussion and continues something started in some posts last week....
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 3:55 PM • 0 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
Category: Natural hazards/disasters
My favorite South American locale got more press today and not because Hugo was running his mouth again (although it is Sunday, and he always runs his mouth for hours on Sunday -- see this story.) As we detailed in...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 12:27 AM • 1 Comments
January 21, 2006
Category: ESA
Forget about climate change. The most interesting intersection between science and politics in the U.S. right now is endangered salmon issues in the Pacific Northwest. There you have what I call the "interest triangle" of power consumers, farmers and fish...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 12:41 AM • 0 Comments
January 20, 2006
Category: Bare politics • Energy
In my last nosenada.org post before ScienceBlogs went live, I wrote about Syriana and Peak Oil. In response to that post, Andy Bookter, a graduate student in the Geology Department of the University of Montana (and a student in my...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 12:55 PM • 2 Comments
January 19, 2006
Category: Climate change • Science at work
Tuesday on Prometheus, Roger highlighted this brilliant Myanna Lahsen paper on the use and interpretation of climate models. Her paper should be required reading both for those in the ocean and atmospheric sciences, as well as those who consume climate...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 2:12 PM • 5 Comments
January 17, 2006
Category: Energy
Wow, did Chevron really just print a two-page centerfold ad in the NY Times today admitting that Peak Oil is a reality? (Here's the ad.) Big headline: The world consumes two barrels of oil for every barrel discoverd. Yea, that's...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 10:58 PM • 3 Comments
Category: Natural hazards/disasters
I have a new post up on Prometheus about earthquake mitigation funding in the last appropriations bill. My general blogging practice is to keep the Prometheus stuff professional while the less formal and wiseass stuff goes into nosenada. For instance,...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 7:00 PM • 0 Comments
Category: Science at work
Also out of the Sunday NYT, this time the Magazine, an article on peer review and journals. As I have commented before, peer review is no guarantee of the accuracy or worthiness of a scientific paper. (For that matter, neither...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 1:17 AM • 7 Comments
January 16, 2006
Category: Climate change • NASA/space
Bob Park (who, if he isn't the original blogger, at least deserves credit for his physics news updates that started in 1987 -- when I was in junior high, for F's sake), had a good op/ed in the Sunday NY...
Posted by Kevin Vranes at 10:29 PM • 4 Comments
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