hrynyshyn
Posts by this author
September 25, 2008
It's not just Alaskan governors who have a problem with treating polar bears as a threatened species. For some reason, a lot of people who just can't bring themselves to accept the idea that we're heating up the planet seem to have it in for poor old Ursus maritimus. A year ago, the journal…
September 24, 2008
Ed Brayton deserves a big tip of the hat for bringing to our attention Sarah Palin's latest demonstration of her expertise. On what I'm not sure, but get a load of this response when asked in a town hall meeting how she would help keep any new domestic oil produced in the United States:
"Oil and…
September 22, 2008
Just about every serious proposal to cap fossil-fuel emissions involves an 80 percent cut below 1990 levels by 2050. This might, if we're lucky, keep atmospheric CO2eq (a unit of measurement that expresses the total contribution of all greenhouse forcing gases as just carbon dioxide, for the sake…
September 19, 2008
If not genuinely good news, then at least it's not bad news. I'm referring to a paper out today in Science (Vol. 321. no. 5896, p. 1648) that describes 700,000-year-old permafrost in the Arctic. It's an optimistic report because, if the permafrost has survived the last few ice ages, which come and…
September 16, 2008
Barack Obama was the first to answer the questions put to the candidates by the Science Debate 2008 team, and now McCain has responded. As I did with Obama's, I will here deconstruct McCain's answers on climate and energy policy. My comments are italicized.
2. Climate Change. The Earth's climate is…
September 12, 2008
By now, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's hypocritical position on budget "earmarks" is a part of the American political landscape. The former earmark champion is now the ostensible earmark slayer. Whatever. Unfortunately, a lot of science is funded through earmarks, so we should be careful what we wish…
September 11, 2008
If you have never posted a comment on ScienceBlogs before, now would be the time. Every commenter who supplies an email these days gets entered to win one of the those all-expenses-paid things to New York City. The trip includes airfare, four nights in a four-star hotel, behind-the-scenes tours of…
September 9, 2008
Polls show that most Americans want to drill here and drill now. Why? Because the television media haven't told them just how stupid an idea that really is. That's the conclusion of a study by a group called the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a relatively independent economic think tank.…
September 8, 2008
The Chronicle of Higher Education's Thomas Benton is worried about today's kids and declining levels of respect for academic excellence. In his review of a series of recent books about related subjects, he quotes author Naomi Baron favorably, lamenting the rise of multi-tasking:
Worst of all, the…
September 5, 2008
Two new studies on sea level rise appearing this week deserve our attention, one in Nature Geoscience, the other in Science. Both conclude the IPCC's estimates of no more than 59 cm of rising waters by 2100 should be tossed out the window. We've been hearing this since early 2007, when the latest…
September 4, 2008
As of 1700 UT on Sept. 4, 2008, Sam "The End of Faith" Harris had attracted 986 comments to a piece on Sarah Palin he wrote for the LA Times. I guess I need to write a bestseller attacking religion if I want to draw that kind of traffic. And imagine how long ago ScienceBlogs would have celebrated…
September 2, 2008
We still aren't going to get a presidential debate devoted to science. So far, though,we have the Democratic nominee's elaborated responses to 14 questions put to him and his Republican counterpart by the Science Debate 2008 group. Here's two of Barack Obama's responses, with italicized annotation…
September 2, 2008
If you've ever wanted to know what ScienceBloggers are like in the real world, and you're going to be in the general vicinity of Asheboro, North Carolina (that's halfway between the mountains and the ocean), drop by the NC Zoo on Saturday, Sept. 20, where most of the state's ScienceBlog contigent…
August 29, 2008
Sarah Palin. Huh. Who would have thunk it? On the upside, I had but a few waking hours of moping over Barack Obama's failure to do more than give climate change a single passing reference and again champion the delusional notion of "clean coal" in his otherwise impressive acceptance speech last…
August 28, 2008
As far as I can tell, North Carolina's no different from the rest of America when it comes to religion. About a tenth of the population is free of religious conviction. That's not a big slice, but it could, in theory, be big enough to cost Sen. Elizabeth Dole her re-election this November, if…
August 28, 2008
The We Can Solve It campaign has a new ad. Subtle it is not.
One could argue that clean electricity in 10 years is far too ambitious a schedule, but you know what they say about a journey of 10,000 miles.
August 27, 2008
I know I'm probably beginning to sound a like a broken record (does anyone remember what that sounds like?), but I'd like to draw your attention once again to the plight of the planet's coral reefs. Today we have the Honolulu Declaration, in which a dozen leading reef researchers make a plea for…
August 26, 2008
We all make mistakes. And even the most humble among us can be a little self-righteous when it comes to our pet projects. But when was the last time you came across a self-righteous pseudo-skeptic who had the decency to admit to getting it completely wrong? Meet Steven Goddard of The Register, a…
August 22, 2008
If you need to kill some time while you wait for word on who Obama has chosen as running mate, check out this transcript of a radio debate on climate change. Canadian PR agent Richard Littlemore takes on British journalist Christopher Monckton on the Roy Green Show on Hamilton, Ont.'s CHML. The sad…
August 20, 2008
The news department of the journal Nature has just published an impressive round-up of all the major clean energy technologies ;;;; installed and theoretically capacity, prices, challenges, everything you need to know. Plus an inspiring editorial. A must read for anyone interested in the subject.…
August 19, 2008
Word is Al Gore is getting a prime speaking slot on the final night of the Democratic Convention. Those of us concerned about climate change, or even the role of science in presidential politics and governance in general, should welcome this news, right? Maybe not, if you pay attention to the polls…
August 15, 2008
Jim Hansen wants to see all coal-fired plants shut down by 2030. Except for any plants that employ carbon-capture and sequestration. Al Gore wants to see the United States generate all its electricity from renewable sources by 2018, which means shutting down all the coal-fired plants. Except for…
August 13, 2008
I spent five years of my life in Canada's Arctic and not a day goes by that I'm not reminded just how powerful an impression those years left made on me. When I read the latest news on arctic sea-ice extent, I wish more people would recognize just how important what happens up there is to the rest…
August 12, 2008
Looks like we won't be needing a team of aging, time-traveling Starfleet officers to save the humpbacks after all. The IUCN has downlisted (I hate that word!) (Megaptera novaeangliae) from Vulnerable to Least Concern. Only took 25 years of keeping the whalers at bay to do it. But I'll take the good…
August 10, 2008
By now we've all seen the John McCain ad that juxtaposes Paris Hilton and Britney Spears with Barack Obama. Most of us probably recognize it as disingenuous use of imagery to make a flawed argument. Sadly, the same technique is being used by one of our own here on ScienceBlogs. The culprit is Matt…
August 8, 2008
So the other day I found myself on a conference call with James Hansen, who is just back from a European trip during which he tried to convince environment ministers that we should stop burning coal. I was given the opportunity to put one question to the guy. So, referring to his many public…
August 6, 2008
Every corner of my regular morning stroll through the internet is littered with references to coal. One could say that coal is in the air. And it doesn't smell good. First, there's this depressing news from British Columbia:
Teck-Cominco's eye-popping, $14-billion purchase of Fording Canadian Coal…
August 5, 2008
It's finally time to comment on Gore's Law: "As an online climate change debate grows longer, the probability that denier arguments will descend into attacks on Al Gore approaches one."
I don't know why this is. I remember the first bumber sticker I saw after crossing the NC-Tennessee border during…
August 4, 2008
It is easy to be disappointed with Barack Obama's recent reversal on the acceptability of new offshore drilling. But unless this is your first presidential election, then you shouldn't be too surprised. Fans of any candidate have to be prepared for a long list of compromises as the November vote…