Environment
illconsidered | May 3, 2010 Logging 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
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Instability News Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsMay 2, 2010 Chuckles, COP15, COP16, Cochabamba, SAARC, BASIC, Mediterranean 5+5, Melting Icebergs, Economists Bottom Line, Medupi, Subsidies, Aus ETS, Per-person Quotas, Post CRU, Anthropocene, Volcano, Earth Day Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs,…
tlambert | May 1, 2010The Hook reports:
In papers sent to UVA April 23, [Virginia Attorney General] Cuccinelli's office commands the university to produce a sweeping swath of documents relating to Mann's receipt of nearly half a million dollars in state grant-funded climate research conducted while Mann-- now director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State-- was at UVA between 1999 and 2005.
Cuccinelli isn't just asking for documents relating to his research grants but all correspondence Mann had with Caspar Ammann, Raymond Bradley, Keith Briffa, John Christy, Edward Cook, Thomas Crowley, Roseanne D'…
gregladen | April 28, 2010Julia is going overseas for most of the summer, and she is putting together her reading list. I'm sure she'll put together a fine list. But we live in a culture in which we are compelled to suggest to high school students what they might want to read, especially in preparation for college. I've looked at a couple of those lists, and they are dismal. Some seem to be lists of works that are especially long, challenging of language, in many cases unpublishable in the modern market, out of date, and boring. I mean, really, Moby Dick? Watch the movie, dude, the book is a bear.
However, the…
sastyk | April 26, 2010I'm just now finishing wading through the Earth Day e-waste/propaganda/inspiring educational bullshit in my in-box. After a certain point, I stopped reading. Which means I almost missed my new favorite use of Earth Day, which was sent to me by FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the largest of our anti-immigrant groups here in the US. It turns out that FAIR is deeply, deeply concerned with the ecological impact of Brown folk, and they really want us, on Earth Day, to think hard about the impact of people who are not white (and thus, of course, are not like us real…
illconsidered | April 26, 2010 Logging 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
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Instability News Information overload is pattern recognitionApril 25, 2010 Chuckles, Cochabamba, COP15, COP16, MEF, BASIC, Emerging Tech, Goldman Prize, Geology, Volcano, Earth Day Bottom Line, Carbon Tariffs, Subsidies, Medapi, McKibben, Spot the Error, Weaver , Post CRU, QUB, Lockwood Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food…
thusspakezuska | April 23, 2010Sharon Astyk hates Earth Day. Really hates it. There she was, publicly hating it on its 40th anniversary, no less.
And most Earth Day programs send the same message. They say "you too can make a difference...and it will be convenient, mostly involve shopping and won't change your life. Here, take some baby steps, change your lightbulbs, plant one tomato" and come listen to some folkie music!"
Well, that can't be right, can it? Sadly, yes. As I commented on another of Sharon's posts,
Just saw a tv commercial for a compostable potato chip bag. According to the commercial, I can totally…
elerner | April 22, 2010Today we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, an environmental "teach-in" first promoted by Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970. The environment of Nelson's day was a little different than the one we now possess, not only in terms of an extra four decades of pollution, but in the attitudes and information the general public had about conservation. Whereas that public was first starting to consider conservation in their everyday lives, spurred by the first images of Earth from space, our current understanding of the seriousness of the problems we face threatens information overload. For…
pronald | April 22, 2010For Earth Day, let's celebrate Stewart Brand, the distinguished writer, lecturer and author of the classic Whole Earth Catalog, which won the national book award in 1972.
He also has a new book called "Whole Earth Discipline" where he argues that the established Green agenda is outdated, too negative, too tradition bound, too specialized, too politically one-sided to address the scale of environmental problems that we face today.
You might want to check out John Tierney's column.
"[Stewart Brand] was the one, after all, who helped inspire Earth Day by putting the first picture of the planet…
nisbetmc | April 22, 2010
A Federal inter-agency report released today reviews eleven key categories of diseases and other health consequences that are occurring or will occur due to climate change. The report, A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change, provides a starting point for coordination of federal research to better understand climate's impact on human health. The recommendations of the working group include research to identify who will be most vulnerable, and what efforts will be most beneficial.
Not only does this report call attention to objectively serious risks of climate change, but on Earth Day,…
sastyk | April 22, 2010A number of commenters to my previous post argued that I'm being unfair to Earth Day - of course, there's greenwashing. of course people are cashing in, but underlying the greenwashing, there's something good and serious and worthwhile there and I'm being churlish to deny it.
And in some ways, I agree that both points are true - I am a little churlish about Earth Day, and there are some good things about it. For example, because Earth Day is an established "holiday," (it comes in after Mother's Day and Valentine's Day and probably before Father's Day and Groundhogs Day in minor holidays by…
jgoldman | April 22, 2010Happy Earth Day, everyone!
In honor of the day, here's a modified re-post of piece I wrote recently for LAist.
Figure 1: Photo by poloroid-girl via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr.
The great philosopher Kermit the Frog once said, "It's not that easy being green." Maybe he was on to something.
You can't walk three steps down an aisle in any store without running into eco-friendly or "green" products. You probably have many of these products. Is your refrigerator or dishwasher Energy-star compliant? Do you have a paperless Kindle? Maybe bamboo guest towels in the bathroom? A Prius?
Why do you…
cwilcox | April 21, 2010A little over forty years ago, Cleveland's Cuyahoga River caught fire. It wasn't the first time the polluted waters had gone ablaze - indeed, since 1868, the river had lit up at least thirteen times. At the time, the excessive pollution of our nation's waterways was the "price of optimism," the inevitable cost of life in an increasingly urban world.
The fire that burned on June 22, 1969 had a different meaning for many others. To them, it was the Earth's cry for help. In a blaze of glory, Mother Nature was calling out to her children to do something to save her before it was too late.…
gregladen | April 21, 2010 ... continued ...
In the US, political parties have what is called a "platform" which is a list of assertions ... "we want this" and "we want that" sort of assertions. The "platform" is made up, quaintly, of "planks" with each plank being about one issue. Like for my local Democratic Farm Labor party unit, one of our Planks is to get the damn road fixed over at Devil's Triangle, a particularly bad intersection down on Route 169. That's a local plank, but if we go to a party event, and a gubernatorial candidate is answering questions, she or he is expected to know what the heck is being…
gregladen | April 21, 2010The first Earth Day was a red letter day in the long, hard struggle to make being good to the environment ... to the Earth ... normal instead of a fringe idea held only by quirky college professors and stoned-out hippies. This year, the first significant health care insurance reform bill was passed and it will be a red letter event in a long, hard struggle to make universal quality heath coverage and care normal instead a fringe idea held only by Kenyan born socialist Negros from Chicago. Or whatever the teabaggers are calling it now. So today, at the beginning of a true change in how we do…
hrynyshyn | April 21, 2010Nothing I could write on the subject of the corporatization of environmentalism can best this.
sastyk | April 21, 2010I bloody hate Earth Day. No offense to those of you who love it, and I know there are some awesome Earth Day programs out there, but by the time we get there, I'm spending my days hiding under the covers, because every freakin' time I open my email inbox a wave of the most nauseating spew of greenwashing comes flowing out.
Guess what? A major department store chain, nearly in bankruptcy, is now selling the eco-tote, made from organic sheepskin, embossed with "Think Global, Act Local" to show your care for the earth and indifference to grammar. And not to trouble me, but just so you know,…
grrlscientist | April 20, 2010tags: Eyjafjallajökull, volcanic particulate material, ash clouds, airborne-particle deposition, respiratory physiology, respiratory toxicology, medicine, veterinary medicine, birds, avian health, bioassay, anatomy, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, journal club
Figure 1: The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, photographed by a farmer in Iceland. This eruption sent massive billowing clouds of volcanic ash several miles into the atmosphere.
Image: Ãlafur Eggertsson (Newscom/Zuma) [larger view]
April is the peak month of spring migration for millions of birds, so the ongoing…
illconsidered | April 19, 2010 Logging 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
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Instability News Sipping from the internet firehose...April 18, 2010 Chuckles, Copenhagen, COP16, Bonn, Cochabamba, MEF, WHCEM, Missing Heat, Volcano, Lockwood, Endangerment Bottom Line, Carbon Tariffs, Subsidies, Medupi, Krugman, QUB, CRU, Oxburgh Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Land Grabs, Food Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, GHGs…
gregladen | April 16, 2010What next, will we be seeing the CEO of Discovery Channel out harpooning whales?
The media conglomerate Discovery Communications used to be known for their earth-friendly offerings. But they've just paid millions to Sarah Palin to host a "nature" show, despite her decidedly anti-environmental stance: She vocally advocates for habitat-destroying oil drilling, she denies global warming is a human-caused threat, and she spearheaded a brutal wolf-slaughter program as governor of Alaska.
More details and a petition for you to sign.
stoat | April 14, 2010Scientists cleared of malpractice in UEA's hacked emails inquiry says the IOP, which isn't quite the headline I chose, but once again you'll have to forgive a little poetic licence on my part. The Grauniad says much the same, as does Aunty. Perhaps more tellingly, The Torygraph and Times have ignored it entirely.
The report itself is here. Thankfully, it is quite short.
[Update: other views:
* Eli
* TL
* Keith Kloor - for the "opposition"
* HT
* mt - this is well worth reading for mt's thoughtful take on what is and what is not worth noting about the report.
* CA - McI is deeply miffed that…