Environment
grrlscientist | April 26, 2007tags: conservation, environment, plastics, oil, petroleum products
... Stop using plastics -- especially those flimsy plastic grocery bags -- unless you plan to reuse reuse reuse them.
People ask me if I could do only one thing to preserve the planet, what would it be? I tell them that the best, and easiest way to help save this planet would be to cut down on one's use of plastics, beginning with those flimsy plastic bags that are given out by supermarkets. If people would only make or purchase several strong canvas bags and reuse them for carrying groceries, they would have taken a big step…
hrynyshyn | April 26, 2007The cover story of the latest edition of SEED, which arrived in my physical mailbox today, explores the green technological revolution under way in China. According to Shanghai correspondent Mara Hvistendahl, "an environmental consciousness is building" there. I sure hope she's right, because the latest news, too late to be included in the SEED feature, is that China will...
...exceed the United States as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases as early as the end of this year -- not 2010, as energy experts had previously forecast. (Nature 446, 954-955)
London's Independent, not too…
integrityofscience | April 25, 2007John Marburger, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and James Connaughton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality are still peddling their Feb. 7 Open Letter on the President's Position on Climate Change, a letter that plays fast-and-loose with the historical record. Despite having portions debunked cherry-picking data and misquoting President Bush, it showed up yesterday as an op-ed in the Leading the News section of The Hill under the headline President Bush consistently has addressed climate change issues.
First off, note the difference between "consistently…
cmooney | April 24, 2007
My new book, Storm World, will not be out for another two months yet; it hits in early July. However, the early reviews are coming in from outlets serving the literary and publishing industry such as Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. And I'm now tremendously pleased to be able to report that both of these publications have singled out the book, giving it starred reviews.
The reviews themselves are reproduced in full below the fold; the Publisher's Weekly version is also available online without a password (search for my name or the title).
From Publishers Weekly:
(Starred Review)
Storm…
vhughes | April 23, 2007
In the urban metropolis, a small patch of rooftop garden is often the closest you can get to green landscape. But what if skyscraper roofs held not just geranium patches and brick patios, but full-scale farms that produced fruit and veggies year-round, generated clean energy, and purified wastewater?
Six years ago, Columbia University professor of environmental sciences and microbiology Dickson Despommier came up with a concept he calls "vertical farming" to alleviate the growing demand for farmland.
As the world gets warmer and more populated, Despommier says, we'll need to curb the…
voltagegate | April 21, 2007Jenn over at Invasive Species Weblog wrote a brilliant post about corporations that are distributing seeds as a supposedly "green" gesture of peace and love straight out of 1969. Betcha they don't have answers to her questions:
...someone needs to tell Starbucks that "wildflower" is not the beautiful, perfect embodiment of do-gooding they seem to think it is (I tried, but they have yet to respond). What species are these? Where are they native to? Are they potentially invasive?
[...]
But this is an environmental campaign - isn't anyone looking at the big picture? Sowing seeds from who-knows-…
jrosenhouse | April 19, 2007Some of the commenters to my previous two posts have suggested that they are tired of this subject. But since Matthew Nisbet himself stopped by to alert me to this post over at his blog, I figure the least I can do is reply to it.
The bulk of the post consists of comments from Steve Case, an assistant director of the Center for Science Education at the University of Kansas. Case is supportive of the Mooney/Nisbet thesis about the importance of framing in discussions of evolution. Let's consider his remarks in full:
OK, here is a from the hip Monday morning rant . I have been reading all…
thescian | April 17, 2007I Am John by Emil Svanängen.
What did the pope say? Ask gawker.
Darfur.
Keeping cool and waiting for strange things to leap out of a seething sea.
The real deal. A Romantic or more appropriately Anarcho-Environmentalist in India. A review of his Manifesto. I read some chapters. The prose is not eloquent but the points are.
tfk | April 15, 2007Space on Earth: Saving Our World by Seeking Others by Charles S. Cockell: A fascinating argument, and a book I find myself constantly thinking about. Cockell is the Chair of Microbiology at the UK's Open University, and the creator of the Earth and Space Foundation. The book argues that "the lack of communication between environmentalists and space explorers has been damaging." On a range of issues from biodiversity research to technological innovation, there are useful ties to be forged between "green" groups, and what he calls "velvet" groups, those devoted to space.
The ties between…
sb admin | April 13, 2007Revere at Effect Measure updates us on the medical communityâs latest plea for Libya to release the six health care workers unjustly sentenced to death for âdeliberately infectingâ children with HIV, and links to Physicians for Human Rightsâ campaign to get the U.S. government to exert more pressure on Libya to free the nurses and doctor. Time is running short: The Libyan Supreme Court may hear the health workersâ appeal as early as the end of the month.
The IPCC Working Group II published their âSummary for Policymakersâ on the impacts of climate change, and reports surfaced about…
hrynyshyn | April 13, 2007Jeremy Bruno, one our newest ScienceBloggers, hit the nail on the head with a post about the folly of assuming that we can do about something climate change by planting more trees, at least in the non-tropical regions. This is not a new idea, and studies pointing out that lowering the albedo of snow-prone northern latitudes by increasing forest coverage more than offsets any increased carbon uptake by those very same trees have been coming out every few months for at least six years now. What I like about Jeremy's take is his observation that tree-planting advocates are symptomatic of the…
voltagegate | April 13, 2007PNAS will print a study next Tuesday that takes a closer look at the effects of deforestation at specific latitudes. The study suggests that deforestation of higher latitudes may lead to a greater cooling effect than leaving areas intact or implementing afforestation plans. Needless to say, their findings have riled some folks.
Part of what they found was already accepted. Forests on and around the equator (mostly rain forests) are exceedingly good at cycling water back into the atmosphere. When the forests are removed en masse, this evapotranspiration is greatly reduced, allowing the…
grrlscientist | April 12, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007.
I was saddened this morning to learn that another one of my favorite writers, Kurt Vonnegut, died. He died last night in Manhattan after suffering a head injury several weeks ago. Like another one of my favorite authors who recently died, William Styron, Vonnegut struggled with depression, and survived a suicide attempt in 1984. But despite this challenge, he still managed to publish 14 novels, three collections of short stories, five plays and five works of non-fiction. His last book, Man Without a Country, was a collection of essays published in 2005, and was a…
tqa | April 11, 2007
The more you look for news, the more you find, I guess. It's another morning with a lot of interesting stuff happening.
In the quick roundup/commentary today, we've got John McCain's brains continuing to liquify and escape, a really embarrassing White House personnel problem (a new one), an unholy environmental alliance, a hell of a lot of really good blogging (mostly by other people), and a massively cool Google partnership that might just show us how to educate more Americans about global problems.
OK, Egor, Where did you hide McCain's brains?
John McCain just cant figure out when or…
purepedantry | April 11, 2007TCS published an interview with Freeman Dyson about his iconoclasm and his optimism about the future of science and humanity:
Benny Peiser: One of your most influential lectures is re-published in your new book. I am talking about your Bernal Lecture which you delivered in London in 1972, one year after Desmond Bernal's death. As you point out, the lecture provided the foundation for much of your writing in later years. What strikes me about your remarkably optimistic lecture is its almost religious tone. It was delivered at a time, similar to the period after World War I, when a new age of…
voltagegate | April 9, 2007"A major environmental issue is the question of lowering carbon dioxide emissions to ameliorate the greenhouse effect.
Those who profit from foul air and a poisoned atmosphere will profess to worry about more expensive automobiles. But I see no percentage in gloating over a few hundred dollars saved while dying of lung cancer and emphysema, and while the Earth warms, the ice caps melt and the coastal regions drown."
-Isaac Asimov, 1990
jjacquet | April 8, 2007YES, SAYS RANDY OLSON: Until There Is Effective Leadership, There Is Little Point in Making Sacrifices
I say we should not be expected to stop eating seafood until there is a clear strategy that will make use of individual efforts -- namely boycotts. Asking people to make sacrifices in the absence of organized efforts is asking them to make gestures that are more symbolic than real. That, in my opinion, is essentially religious behavior.
Let me describe a similar situation. I support in general the idea of a reasonably high tax burden in our society with the intention of funding an…
mikethemadbiologist | April 5, 2007From the archives comes this bit about the ludicrous (and willful) misunderstanding that creationists have regarding 'beneficial' mutations:
Whether they are young earthers or intelligent design advocates, one tactic creationists use is to claim evolutionary biologists-always described as "evolutionists"-think something which we do not. Over at Thoughts from Kansas, Josh had a very nice post describing the mechanisms by which mutations happen (among other things). Without fail, in charged a creationist:
The evolutionists make the claim that there are enough mutations that turn out to be…
bcohen | April 3, 2007Honestly, I didn't intend to barrage the site with this series of MTR posts, but a lot of news came through in the past few weeks.
One is this New York Times Editorial on Mountaintop removal legal action (I'm also pasting it under the fold). Another is the court case that the editorial refers to (here in full, as an 89 page pdf). This link is a third resource, an Audubon Magazine photo essay. Then we have the postcards I just added earlier today, as a fourth example. Go download them, post them, advertise. Plus, fifth and finally is the post I offered last week about other updates (…
tetrapodzoology | March 31, 2007
I am always surprised when I meet zoologists who aren't familiar with Harald Stumpke's* famous 1957 book Bau und Leben der Rhinogradentia, a volume translated into English by Leigh Chadwick in 1967 as The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades (and referred to from hereon as 'Stumpke 1967'). For the few who don't know, this legendary text discusses in marvellous detail the biology, lifestyle and evolution of the snouters (aka rhinogrades or rhinogradentians), a bizarre and unique group of small mammals originally thought endemic to the south Pacific Hi-yi-yi archipelago, an island group…