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Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at the National Center for Science Education. He is also a graduate student at the University of Kansas, completing a doctorate in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. When not modeling species distributions or battling creationists, he writes about developments in progressive politics and the sciences.
The opinions expressed here are his own, do not reflect the official position of the NCSE. Indeed, older posts may no longer reflect his own official position.
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Category: Planet Earth
Nicholas Beaudrot defends the (second) bag fee against Atrios's opposition to any fees, and against Matt Yglesias's defense of all fees for checked luggage. Atrios rightly notes that the fees are part and parcel of the generally crappy air travel experience, Matt argues that the fees discourage excessive packing, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of travel. Nick replies that Matt's economic analysis fails to consider shifts from checked luggage to carry-on: bag fees on the first bag encourage two behaviors:Travelers pack the largest bag they think they can carry on to the plane. This results in higher boarding and de-planing...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 11:13 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
In 1925, John Scopes was tried and convicted of violating Tennessee's Butler Act. His trial was ginned up as a constitutional test case by the ACLU and as an economic stimulus plan for the town of Dayton, TN. The trial was promoted as "the trial of the century," celebrity lawyers were recruited for both sides, and the town did all it could to attract journalists and onlookers. The trial wound up famously embarrassing William Jennings Bryan, who died shortly after the trial, and before an appellate court overturned the conviction he won on a technicality. While laws like the Butler...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 7:31 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Planet Earth
Roger Pielke, Jr. is a respected scholar of science policy, but he's got a contrarian streak a mile wide that gets him into trouble occasionally, as for instance his feud with Joe Romm of Climate Progress. It is also apparent in his survey of a fight over oyster farming off the coast of Point Reyes. His title, "The War on Science Continues" is, he insists, "a bit of irony, of course, as there never has been a 'war on science,' just politics as usual, sometimes played more hardball than others, especially by the previous Administration." His example of an ongoing...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 1:13 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Planet Earth
Kansas Jackass reports that newly installed Governor Parkinson will allow a coal plant in Holcomb: At a just concluded press conference, Governor Mark Parkinson announced he has reached an agreement with Sunflower Electric Power Corporation that will allow for the construction of a brand new massive coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, Kansas. Parkinson will allow air quality permit that had been blocked by Kansas Department of Heath and Human Services Secretary Rob Bremby to be issued and pave the way for the construction of one one 895 megawatt plant provided the Kansas Legislature passes a bill that provides for a...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 3:58 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
I highlighted a story the other day in which Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu revealed that his security detail does not allow him to bike or ride public transit to work. I pointed out that New York's Mayor Bloomberg rides the subway to work, and he's not the only transit-riding mayor. Berkeley's Tom Bates is, as the SF Chronicle puts it, "trading in his 2001 Volvo for an AC Transit pass and a sturdy pair of walking shoes." He explains: "I'm trying to reduce my carbon footprint to the absolute minimum. I figure, if I really want to go someplace...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 1:55 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
DaveScot, the semiliterate sycophant who used to administer Bill Dembski's ID blog, is in a tizzy. In addition to being an evolution denier, DS is a climate change denier and a promoter of medical woo, you see, and he thinks there's evidence that "[James] Hansen’s former boss at NASA declares himself an AGW skeptic." He is sure that: The video below is U.S. Senator James Inhofe describing the letter he received from former NASA supervisor and senior atmospheric scientist Dr. John S. TheonBut no! As Tim Lambert points out, and as any fully literate person could tell from the email...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:34 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Planet Earth
PZ Myers and a Canadian denialist blog are locked in a tight race for this year's best science blog. Go vote for the tentacled one....
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:05 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
I haven't blogged about the fight for the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee because I thought it was a done deal. Rep. Dingell has been running that committee for an eternity, and he has a lot of power and support. He is also, unfortunately, in the pocket of Big Oil and Big Auto. His intransigence is partly responsible for our nation's lagging fuel economy standards, and for our slow progress on other policies that could have forced Detroit to take the initiative on hybrid cars and other alternative technologies. The Big Three clearly thought that those actions...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 2:14 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Planet Earth
Yesterday, Sarah Palin demanded that Charlie Gibson: Show me where I have ever said that there's absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any effect or no effect on climate change. I have not said that.Except, well: Last year, she told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, "I'm not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity." And in an interview Newsmax magazine just released, which was conducted before she was selected as John McCain's running mate, the Alaska governor said, "A changing environment will affect Alaska more than...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:37 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Planet Earth
In a move that should've been taken eons ago, California's legislature is moving to bring civic planning under a unified framework that will reduce carbon emissions and reduce traffic: The bill yokes three regulatory and permit processes. One focuses on regional planning: how land use should be split among industry, agriculture, homes, open space and commercial centers. Another governs where roads and bridges are built. A third sets out housing needs and responsibilities — for instance, how much affordable housing a community must allow. Under the pending measure, the three regulatory and permit processes must be synchronized to meet new...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 8:02 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
