Environment
illconsidered | June 17, 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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Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom
June 16, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, Bonn, Xi-Obama, G8, IEA, EIA, Europe Flood, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers
Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather,…
esiegel | June 14, 2013"One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds." -Frank Zappa
One of the most difficult things to talk about, for any self-respecting scientist, is politics. Like all of you, I have my preferences, my opinions, and my vision for what a better world would look like. I'm also well aware that if I talked about all of them, there probably wouldn't be a single one of you out there who agreed with everything I had to say.
Image credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP.
And it would be completely…
oracknows | June 11, 2013What's Keith Kloor got that I haven't got?
What's Laura Helmuth got that I haven't got?
Why won't Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. call me to complain about all the not-so-Respectful Insolence I've directed his way over the years. I mean, seriously. I spend nearly eight years criticizing his antivaccine crank views, and these two get personal attention from The Man after just one post! I don't even get an e-mail, even though it's right there: orac@scienceblogs.com.
I'm sorry. I'm just feeling a little envious (do Plexiglass boxes of blinking colored lights feel envy?) because both Kloor and Helmuth…
illconsidered | June 10, 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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Information Overloadis Pattern Recognition
June 9, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, Bonn, WED, WOD, European Floods, Patriot, CO2 Fertilization
Bottom Line, Pricing Nature, Global Legal Framework, Cook, Warnings, Lu, Weathermen
Fukushima: Note, News, Related Papers
Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes,…
jhalper | June 4, 2013The world – or at least a large swathe of Israel – was their classroom. An unusual international conference for science teaching experts started out at the Clore Garden of Science, on the Weizmann Institute campus. From there the “nomadic” conference made its way down to Eilat at the southern tip of the country, Jerusalem in the east and points in between.
Outdoor Learning Environment conference at the Ramon crater
Participating in the first international Outdoor Learning Environment conference were science education researchers from the US, UK, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Portugal,…
illconsidered | June 3, 2013Sipping from the Internet Firehose...
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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June 2, 2013
Chuckles, Roll Cloud, COP19+, Black Carbon, WIN, Patriot, Bodman
Otto, Cook et al, Aurornis, Bottom Line, Pricing Nature, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production
Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather
GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures,…
illconsidered | May 28, 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
May 26, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, GWSP, State of Nature, MAHB, Moore EF5, Otto
Consensus , Warnings, Subsidies, Thermodynamics, Cook, Shrinkology
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Research Station, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures,…
illconsidered | May 20, 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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May 19, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, Arctic Council, Consensus, Warren
400 ppmv, Ventus Project, Red List, Bottom Line, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather
GHGs, Temperatures, Aerosols, Paleoclimate…
jdupuis | May 20, 2013This is a brief chronology of the current Conservative Canadian government's long campaign to undermine evidence-based scientific, environmental and technical decision-making. It is a government that is beholden to big business, particularly big oil, and that makes every attempt to shape public policy to that end. It is a government that fundamentally doesn't believe in science. It is a government that is more interested in keeping its corporate masters happy than in protecting the environment.
As is occasionally my habit, I have pulled together a chronology of sorts. It is a chronology of…
gregladen | May 18, 2013Several environmental advocacy groups are asking the US State Department to launch an investigation over the State Department's handling of the Keystone XL review.
This is a bit nuanced but important, and I want to make clear what is going on here.
Normally, environmental impact assessments are done by private contractors ultimately hired by the entity that is building the project that could have the impacts. I often hear people complain that Trans Canada, the group that wants to build the Keystone XL pipeline across the United States to allow the export of it's bitumen (a kind of soft coal…
gregladen | May 16, 2013An important study has just been published1 examining the level of consensus among scientists about climate change.
The issue at hand is this: What is the level of agreement in the scientific community about the reality of climate change and about the human role in climate change? The new paper, Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, address this question and the answer is very clear. The number of climate scientists who question the reality of global warming or the human role in global warming is vanishingly small.
This is not the first…
illconsidered | May 14, 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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Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom
May 12, 2013
Chuckles, Beauty, COP19+, G8, Red Lists, 400 ppmv
Lake El'gygytgyn, CCAC, Unburnable , Pricing Nature, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers
Melting Arctic, Arctic Fox, Methane, Geopolitics
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production
Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather…
pharyngula | May 8, 2013He has a new movie coming out this summer, After Earth. It looks awful, but then, that's what I've come to expect from Will Smith's Sci-Fi outings.
Jebus. Anyone remember that abomination, I, Robot? How about I Am Legend? I steer clear of these movies with a high concept and a big name star, because usually what you find is that the story is a concoction by committee with an agenda solely to recoup the costs and make lots of money…so we get buzzwords and nods to high-minded causes and the usual action-adventure pap. Just looking at the trailer, I'm getting pissed off: it's supposed to be a…
illconsidered | May 6, 2013 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsThis 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 Overloadis Pattern RecognitionMay 5, 2013 Chuckles, May Day, COP19+, MDGs, Unburnable, PAGES2k, Bottom Line, CookFukushima: Note, NewsFood: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Greece, Food vs. Biofuel, GMOs, Production Melting Arctic, Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, GHGs, Temperatures Feedbacks, Aerosols, Paleoclimate, Solar, Extinctions, Bees & CCD,…
illconsidered | April 29, 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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Sipping from the Internet Firehose...
April 28, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, PAGES2k, Ocean Heat, Earth Day, Unburnable
Subsidies, Pricing Nature, Thermodynamics, Cook, Shrinkology
Fukushima: Note, News
Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food Crisis, Fisheries, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Food Production
Monsoon, Notable Weather, New Weather, GHGs, Temperatures, Aerosols
Paleoclimate…
jdupuis | April 29, 2013What kind of place has Canada become?
The kind of place that closes world-class research facilities in the arctic and in lake country. (Thanks, Ontario!)
The kind of place where the government actively muzzles it's own scientists and librarians, the scientists for wanting to share their research and librarians who want to talk about the importance of preserving our heritage, scientific and cultural.
The kind of place where Environment Canada would take their own name off their weather service website. Really? Yeah, really.
The kind of place where the Federal Government slashes its own role…
jdupuis | April 28, 2013hardly ever does The Globe and Mail books section every Saturday feature more than one, maybe two, books that I'm interested in. They're pretty heavy on the Canlit side, with a heavy helping of the kind of public affairs books that don't really do it for me. The mystery roundup feature is usually my best bet. Well this week there were three -- count'em three -- books that really piqued my interest. And a pretty diverse bunch too, one physics, one horror fiction and another environmental non-fiction featuring the kind of intersection between food, science and policy that I find so interesting…
illconsidered | April 22, 2013(featured image is the effect of Australia's summer heatwave on Melbourne's historical record, source)
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
Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
April 21, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, UNFF10, Unburnable, EU-ETS, Earth Day, Warnings, Externalities
Subsidies, World Bank, Pricing Nature, Thermodynamics, Cook, Prizes
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food…
pgleick | April 22, 2013We live on solid ground, but the truth is, our planet is mostly covered in water. The famous writer Arthur C. Clarke noted this when he said, “How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.”
Today is Earth Day, when we celebrate the planet, and in particular the functioning ecosystem that supports all life, including our own. In recognition of Earth Day, here is a short piece about bottled water in the United States and most developed countries, with some basic facts that should help any readers still in doubt about the downsides of that industry.
The Money…
sastyk | April 22, 2013I wrote this a few years ago for Earth Day's 40th anniversary, and frankly, I haven't changed my mind.
I 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…