Environment
gregladen | September 15, 2013Fukushima Update #70: If you can't measure it, you can't analyze it.
by Analiese Miller and Greg Laden
It has been suggested, by various commenters on the internet, that the problem with Fukushima is not that there is a dangerous radioactive mess there, but rather, that the authorities in charge have decided that exposure to radiation is dangerous, when it really isn’t. The argument has been made that the evacuation of the region around Fukushima at the time of the meltdowns and explosions was unnecessary. This presumably also means that the exclusion zones, where people are not allowed to…
illconsidered | September 10, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Chronicling a new Age of Consequences
September 8, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, Guyana, G20, PIF, A Plan, Hiatus, Maldives, Potash
Bottom Line, A Change?, Big Banks, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Related Papers
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, IP Issues, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Weather Machine, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather
Carbon Cycle, Temperatures…
illconsidered | September 2, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
September 1, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, G20, ICW, PIF, DMS, Hiatus, Potash, Salted, Overshoot
Bottom Line, Big Banks, Cook, Meteorologists
Fukushima: Note, News, Related Papers
Melting Arctic, Mega-Canyon, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Microbial Revolution, GMOs, Production
Hurricanes, Weather Machine, Notable Weather
GHGs, Carbon Cycle,…
esiegel | August 28, 2013"There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it." -David Attenborough
It's been a long time since I've written anything on this blog about global warming, climate change, or most Earth-based environmental topics in general. After all, I'm a physicist -- an astrophysicist in particular -- and although I'm well-versed in the physics of the Earth and in science in general, it's not my particular area of expertise.
Image credit: NASA, Johnson Space Center, Apollo 17 crew.
Recently, I've had a number of requests to take a…
illconsidered | August 26, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundupskip to bottom Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not WisdomAugust 25, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, Overshoot, AR5, Potash Bottom Line, Thermodynamics, CookFukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers Melting Arctic, Harp Seals, Methane, Geopolitics, AntarcticaFood: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, Weather Machine, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather Temperatures…
gregladen | August 24, 2013News from Fukushima Update # 69
by Ana Miller and Greg Laden
Over the last several weeks we’ve heard repeated, alarming, and generally worsening, news from Fukushima Diachi, the Japanese nuclear power plant that suffered a series of disasters that make The China Syndrome look like a Disney family movie. One question is this: Has a new set of problems (new leaks, apparently the fifth such “unexpected” leak) occurred that is really significant, or is this level of spewing of radioactive waste from the plant pretty much run of the mill but somehow the press only now noticed something TEPCO has…
lborkowski | August 21, 2013In a recent article in Environmental Health Perspectives, Charles W. Schmidt takes on the topic of artisanal brick kilns, a major source of pollution in developing countries. The article focuses largely on Latin America, where the Swiss-funded group EELA (that's Eficiencia Energética en Ladrilleras Artesanales, which translates to Energy Efficiency in Artisanal Bricks) is working to "modernize artisanal brick making in Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Mexico."
It takes a lot of heat to turn mud, clay, and other substances into bricks, so kilns are…
illconsidered | August 19, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Another Week of Climate Instability News
Information Overloadis Pattern Recognition
August 18, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, Texas Water, Yasuni, Soot & Methane
Bottom Line, GFIs, Thermodynamics, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Food & Revolution, GMOs, Production
Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New…
illconsidered | August 12, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Another Week of Climate Instability News
Sipping from the Internet Firehose...
August 11, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, AGU, NOAA, Potash, Bottom Line, Coal Financing, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Harp Seals, Methane, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Food vs. Biofuel, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Monsoon, Weather Machine, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New…
illconsidered | August 6, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
August 4, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, Violence, Hallowich, Rebuilding, Potash, Bottom Line, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, GMOs, Production, N-Fix
Hurricanes, Extremes, New Weather GHGs, Temperatures, Feedbacks, Aerosols
Paleoclimate, Oceans, Biosphere, Extinctions, Bees & CCD, Volcanoes,…
kbonham | August 5, 2013
Can you be skeptical about GM but believe in climate change? So asks Alice Bell in The Guardian. The answer is of course, "Yes," but you can also be a fundamentalist Christian while believing in evolution and being a great scientist, so being able to hold two things in your brain at the same time is not a useful measure of logical incompatibility. One can be right about one thing and wrong about the other.
But let's get to the real issue raised in Bell's piece, the use of the term "anti-science" to describe opponents of genetically modified organisms (GMOs):
When people use the term "anti-…
stoat | August 1, 2013 Ah, enough science (or at least computation) what about the advocacy then? Talking about advocacy is great, you don't have to have a clue about anything factual, its all so meta.
JA, as usual has a nice thoughtful post which you should read. I'll just throw in some... some what? Well, some words. Oh, all right then, some flames.
Yes, we could change. So why don’t we?
From P3 (but the original is here). Aiee, we hates it forever Baggins, yes we does. Why?
Because its a piece that displays the very flaws it decries in others. It asks for many things to be fixed, but (paraphrasing) its asking…
pharyngula | July 31, 2013My upcoming visit to Houston to join Aron and others in protesting Texas creationism is smoking all kinds of interesting characters out of the woodwork. Meet Dr. David Shormann (the "Dr." must be his first name, he sure flings the title about), who has apparently been a person of some influence in shaping the Texas Board of Education policy. He's also a flaming young earth creationist who has drunk deeply of the Answers in Genesis kool-aid, and is very, very angry at the vicious, intolerant atheists who are coming to his city to argue against his nonsense.
The freethoughts activists are…
illconsidered | July 29, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom
July 28, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, MEF, Whiteman, Warnings
Bottom Line, Subsidies, EIB, Pricing Nature, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Related Papers
Melting Arctic, Harp Seals, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production
Hurricanes, New Weather, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, CO2 Fertilization
Temperatures, Aerosols, Paleoclimate,…
illconsidered | July 22, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Information Overloadis Pattern Recognition
July 21, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, International Tax, Antarctic Reserve, Pollution Mortality
Bottom Line, Finance, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production
Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather
Temperatures, Feedbacks, Aerosols, Paleoclimate
Oceans, Extinctions…
illconsidered | July 16, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundupskip to bottom Sipping from the Internet Firehose...July 14, 2013 Chuckles, China-USA, Pollution Deaths, Injection Earthquakes Sumatran Smog, Warnings, Rentiers, Bottom Line, Banks, CookFukushima: Note, News, Policies Melting Arctic, Methane, AntarcticaFood: Crisis, Fisheries, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather Carbon Cycle, Temperatures, Feedbacks, Aerosols…
illconsidered | July 8, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
July 7, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, WMO, Steinacher, CO2 Fertilization, Desertec, Rabobank, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Food vs. Biofuel, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, New Weather, GHGs, Temperatures, Aerosols
Paleoclimate, ENSO, Biosphere, Extinctions,…
illconsidered | July 4, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom
June 30, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, Montreal Protocol, Indian Monsoon, Obama's Plan, Sumatran Smog
Bottom Line, World Bank, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers
Melting Arctic, Geopolitics
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather
GHGs,…
gregladen | June 27, 2013Here is a small selection of responses and reactions to President Obama's climate change speech.
Michael Mann: 'The most aggressive and promising climate plan' from 'executive branch in years'
Michael Mann is director of Penn State University's Earth System Science Center, and a genuine hero, who has been attacked by the climate denial nexus, which has tried to destroy his career. And he is fighting back. His brief statement on President Obama's climate speech needs to be read in its entirety, but here are some key points...
President Obama acts on climate change by enforcing the law
The…
illconsidered | June 24, 2013Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Mid-Summer's Day Edition
June 23, 2013
Chuckles, Solstice, COP19+, Post-G8, UK Meeting, Indian Monsoon
Sumatran Smog, European Flood, World Bank, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Arctic Birds, Methane, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, GMOs, Production
Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather, Temperatures
GHGs, Aerosols, Clouds,…