hrynyshyn | June 12, 2008I have exaggerated and generalized to grab your attention. But it's not that much of a stretch to put reviving the North American continent's moribund passenger rail network at the heart of what really matters in this election year. By this, I mean how the American presidential and congressional candidates, and their analogs in Canada, approach the subject of mass transportation will tell you a lot about whether or not they understand the most important challenges facing society.
OK. I'm still exaggerating. But not much. Passenger rail and other forms of efficient ways of moving people…
hrynyshyn | June 9, 2008Earth: The Sequel
The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming
by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn
Has the climate crisis got you down? Cheer yourself up with yet another dose of (almost) unbridled optimism from the president of the Environmental Defense Fund (Fred) and one of his staffers (Miriam). Don't be fooled by the odd choice of title; this is actually an ode to the free market.
We've been here before. Last year came a compendium of attractive investment options in the form of The Clean Tech Revolution by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder, and for those who really can't stomach the idea…
hrynyshyn | June 5, 2008Given just how much we don't understand about the Earth's climate, it's understandable that a newcomer to the science of global warming would doubt that we are capable of predicting much of anything. Many a climate change pseudoskeptic makes this argument, which can be compelling, but only if you don't understand how science works. A paper in this week's Nature Geoscienceis a perfect example of why so many people who otherwise consider themselves skeptics, people like me, find the anthropogenic explanation for climate change so persuasive. It's not so much what we know as the trends…
hrynyshyn | June 3, 2008The report of NASA's Office of the Inspector General on the clumsy attempts to censoring climate science makes for a most enjoyable read. We can laugh now that it's over, I mean. There are lots of gems among the overall finding the a small cabal of political appointees in the public affairs office tried to delay or bury new findings on climate change. Here, then are some of my favorites:
...we believe that many of these scientists (and the majority of career Public Affairs Officers interviewed) would argue that the actions of NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs -- in delaying, unduly…
hrynyshyn | June 2, 2008Wired magazine's June cover story would have the entire environmental movement drop everything but one campaign. You don't need to see the cover to know they're talking about climate change. Does such single-mindedness make even the slightest bit of sense? Sort of. But not for the reasons the editors provide.
First, it should be noted that Wired's attempt to explain why you should "Keep your SUV. Forget Organics. Go nuclear. Screw the Spotted Owl" and instead focus on just one thing: cutting carbon, is accompanied by a counterpart that makes eminently more sense. In his rebuttal, Alex Steffen…
hrynyshyn | June 1, 2008There's a reason the Japanese, Norwegian and Icelandic whaling fleets mostly take the smallest of the great whales ;;;;; whalers had taken so many of the bigger species that only the minke could tolerate any kind of hunt. There are supposed to be hundred of thousands of them out there, just waiting to be exploited by responsible, sustainable whaling operations. But wait...
This past weekend comes news from Iceland of a dramatic drop in minke whale number in the country's waters.
According to a whale count from 2001 compiled by aircraft, there were 43,600 minkes in Icelandic waters, but last…
hrynyshyn | May 30, 2008This may strike some as a bit much, but why the heck not? An opera based on "An Inconvenient Truth." The only problem is, how will the librettist keep the science of climate change current with an expected opening (at La Scala) of 2011? By then, we may be looking at a tragicomedy. Or perhaps an opera buffo, depending on how hot things get.
From the Guardian's story on the announcement:
La Scala's artistic director, Stephane Lissner, told a press conference the new opera had been commissioned from an Italian composer, Giorgio Battistelli. He said it would be staged in 2011.
"Lissner has had…
hrynyshyn | May 29, 2008Climatologists have long puzzled over what caused an abrupt drop in global average temperatures in 1945. To explain the anomaly, which, unlike most other similar rapid falls, is not associated with a volcanic eruption, most invoke an increase in airborne industrial activity following the end of the Second World War, even though the ocean temperature dip begins several years before industrial activity takes off. The idea is the clouds seeded by the extra aersols reflected more sunlight before it could be trapped in the atmosphere. But that was always a guess, and now it seems there was a…
hrynyshyn | May 27, 2008We've all heard economics described as the "dismal science," yet it still qualifies for a Nobel prize. Many still grumble about the decision to tack on economics to the short list of true science Nobels, and while I don't know whether such complaints are justified, there is good reason to remain highly skeptical of the field's predictive powers in general. Take the just-released Tufts University study on the cost of climate change.
The main authors of the study, which was commissioned by the Natural Resources Defence Council, are economists from the Global Development and Environment…
hrynyshyn | May 26, 2008I love Alaska. I really do. Not the political jurisdiction; the geographical entity that Michelle shocked felt compelled to remind her fans is the largest in the union. It's full of spectacular, mostly pristine wilderness. There's Denali, the fjords of the panhandle, its salmon, whales, eagles and bears, incomparable glaciers and some of the best aurora viewing on the planet. Too bad, then, that its human population seems hell-bent on doing everything it can to destroy what makes the place special.
The latest affront to reason to emerge from Alaska comes in the form of a lawsuit challenging…
hrynyshyn | May 21, 2008One in eight. Is that low enough? Not according to the authors of a new paper in PLoS Biology who conducted the "first nationally representative survey of teachers concerning the teaching of evolution." They did come up with some optimistic data, though. When asked to describe the role, or lack thereof, in human's development over the ages, 28% said it was solely evolution. That's more than twice the rate for the population at large (13%).
But overall, it still makes for depressing reading. Many of the teachers teaching biology don't have much instruction themselves in the subject. Those who…
hrynyshyn | May 19, 2008...read the backgrounder produced by Real Climate's Rasmus Benestad. It's another example of the kind of reseach journalists need to do before writing about climate change research.
Rasmus provides an excellent overview of how much we know, and how much we don't know, about the hurricane-climate relationship, which is the subject of a new paper in Nature Geoscience. And the accompanying comments are, as usual, almost as useful as the post itself.
At the heart of the discussion is Rasmus' observation that
Of most fundamental significance to assessing the reliability of these current…
hrynyshyn | May 16, 2008Should scientists place bets on how well they can predict the future? I'm not talking about inter-lab wagers on the outcome of some arcane experiment. Such games are commonplace, and usually involve ersatz currencies such as beers or domestic services. But what about real money on something as consequential as a computer model of climate trends? Is that consistent with the professional detachment that's supposed to accompany honest research?
The Real Climateers argue that there are cases in which such bets can help explain the science, or at least, the degree of confidence that scientists…
hrynyshyn | May 15, 2008Now don't talk to me about the polar bear
Dont talk to me about ozone layer
Aint so much of anything these days, even the air
They're running out of rhinos, What do I care ?
Lets hear it for the dolphin, Lets hear it for the trees
Aint runnin' out of nothin in my deep freeze
--Mark Knopfler
So the Bush administration finally found a way to officially add the polar bear to the list of endangered species without bringing down the wrath of the robber barons of the petroleum industry. Well, sort of.
Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne's solution was to effectively nullify the Endangered Species…
hrynyshyn | May 14, 2008Word is the U.S. Interior Department, after much delay, is going to list the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) "as a threatened species because of declining Arctic sea ice," according to major news service alert. Marvelous. Now all we have to do to save the species is stop climate change. More analysis as details emerge...
hrynyshyn | May 13, 2008There are basically two kinds of news consumers. Those who will find David Brooks' latest creation from his corner of the New York Times stable of columnists absolutely irresistible and those who will cross the street to Fox News before reading anything with a headline like "The Neural Buddhists."
This David Brooks fellow is a funny sort. Conservative, but not as conservative as some. Respectful of science and reason, but not as respectful as some. Today, perhaps bereft of anything else to say about the candidate who wouldn't die, he decided to wade into the atheism debate. The Neural…
hrynyshyn | May 13, 2008John McCain's plan to decelerate climate change brings to mind the problem posed by fast food restaurant fare. It's attractive and convenient, but ultimately bad for you.
Burgers, fries, onion rings and milkshakes are popular because don't have to wait long to satisfy your hunger, they taste darn good and they don't cost a fortune. You can't live on them for long, though. Just ask Morgan "Super Size Me" Spurlock. Indeed, fast food is at the heart of one of the modern society's most pressing health challenges: rising obesity rates. And you can't make a McDonald's menu healthy just by adding a…
hrynyshyn | May 12, 2008The latest Pew survey on Americans' attitudes toward the climate crisis is so depressing, I am reminded of that old Busby Meyers song, "What's the use of getting sober, when you're gonna get drunk again?" I mean, really. Why bother? But because the only alternative to carrying on is to not carry on, here's my attempt at giving the numbers a positive spin.
The Pew study found that "[T]he proportion of Americans who say that the earth is getting warmer has decreased modestly since January 2007, mostly because of a decline among Republicans." Since January, the percentage who recognize reality…
hrynyshyn | May 5, 2008Got the Monday blues? Then find five minutes to brighten your day by playing what I call spot-the-slander on the Heartland Institute's list of "500 Scientists Whose Research Contradicts Man-Made Global Warming." The rules are simple:
1. Open the PDF that lists the scientists who agree with the proposition outlined on the page linked above search the file for a popular research institution at which climatologists are employed. For example: "NASA."
2. When you get a hit, copy and paste the name of the researcher associated with that institution into a reliable internet search engine. In the…
hrynyshyn | May 5, 2008In a rare treat on the usually quiet and contemplative Island of Doubt, I now bring you the 12th edition of the Carnival of the Blue, a celebration of all things wet and wonderful. Islands are only islands, after all, if they're surrounded by water.
Hong Kong, for example, is what it is because of what it isn't: the mainland. Between the Special Administrative Region and China proper can be found the shallows of Mai Po, a staging area for thousands of sought-after East Asian/Australasian shorebirds, black-faced spoonbills, Chinese egrets, Saunders' gulls, and a host of other species that pass…