illconsidered | August 20, 2008Check out a cool post (bad pun not intended...unless you thought it was good) on the physics of making ice cream from Green Gabbro!
illconsidered | August 20, 2008From yesterday's DemocracyNow headlines:
The Washington Post reports F. Chase Hutto III, a senior aide to Vice President Cheney, is the leading contender to become a top official at the Energy Department. The promotion would put one of the administration's most ardent opponents of environmental regulation in charge of forming department policies on climate change. Officials say Hutto has played a prominent behind-the-scenes role in shaping the administration's environmental policies for several years and has been one of the oil and gas industry's key points of contact for energy and…
illconsidered | August 20, 2008I poke into Jennifer Marohasy's blog from time to time, though I am no longer a regular commenter. I gave that up a couple of years ago but still take any special cases as opportunities to chime in again. She's one of those standard types of sceptics, the "scientist" from another discipline just "honestly" investigating an important issue about which she has no preconceptions.
Well, a recent post prompted Deltoid's Tim Lambert to shake his head in consternation as Jennifer gives a soapbox to yet another crackpot pseudo-science post where we are told that the concept of radiative equilibrium…
illconsidered | August 18, 2008
John McCain like to talk about renewable energy and flash photos of windfarms like this one in his campaign ads, but does he actually support wind and solar energy development? He also vapidly criticised congress for being on holiday - "Tell them to come back and get to work!" - and not fixing the energy crisis. But in an NYT Op-ed, Tom Freidman details McCain's glaring failure to back his words with actions.
Recently there was a critical vote that would have renewed desparately needed tax credits for wind and solar development, the failure of which has halted many projects that can…
illconsidered | August 18, 2008 Sipping 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
(skip to bottom) August 17, 2008 Top Stories:World Water Week, Electric Bicycles, Grumbine, Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Temperatures, Paleoclimate, Glaciers, Sea Levels Impacts, Forests, Wildfires, Floods & Droughts Mitigation, Transportation, Buildings, Sequestration, Geoengineering, Adaptation Journals, Misc. Science, Hansen, Koerner…
illconsidered | August 15, 2008Via Truthout, here is some interesting and important background on the Russian-Georgian conflict that is going on right now, because as usual, these things do not just happen out of the blue despite the dazed and confused coverage in the mainstream media:
When he was president, Clinton promised Yeltsin that NATO would not expand into former Soviet republics.
In 2004, seven countries joined NATO, some of them right on Russia's borders
At the same time, three other nations, including Georgia, took steps towards becoming members
Pro-western governments took over in Georgia and the Ukraine (not…
illconsidered | August 14, 2008For the second year running, the formerly mythical "Northwest Passage" has opened in the far north of Canadian waters.
(image and story at NASA's Earth Observatory newsroom)
Also in this weeks dispatches: images of Lake Faguibine in Mali drying up, locusts in West Africa, pyramids in Egypt, and drought in Oklahoma and Texas.
With regard to the Northwest passage, unfortunately the warning bells this event merits are drowned out by the "black gold" rush into previously unreachable areas.
illconsidered | August 13, 2008Scienceblogs is asking readers to fill out a survey. They are offering a chance to win an iPod AND a MacBook Air AND an Apple TV.
Got a few minutes?
illconsidered | August 11, 2008 Sipping 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
(skip to bottom) August 10, 2008 Top Stories:UK Warming, Tropical Rainfall, Forest CO2, Melting Arctic, Arctic Geopolitics Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Temperatures, Paleoclimate, ENSO, Glaciers, Sea Levels, Satellites Impacts, Forests, Wacky Weather, Wildfires, Floods & Droughts Mitigation, Transportation, Buildings, Sequestration, Geoengineering Journals, Misc. Science,…
illconsidered | August 8, 2008Again, just because!
Love that music, too. I heard that on SBS in Tasmania in 2001 and struggled hard to find out what it was but never did. Now I know, "Sweet Lullaby" by Deep Forest (this video has a different version). Waiting for the CD now.
illconsidered | August 7, 2008Fed up of trying to decide who to believe in the endless blog wars over climate science? Well, don't despair and don't rely on third parties you may know little about, instead educate yourself!
That link is to a very handy page over at Things Break that lists some great resources for learning the science behind the political debate of anthropogenic climate change.
Books, open courses, audio-visuals, great internet resources, its all there, check it out.
illconsidered | August 7, 2008What would adapting to climate change be like? A picture is worth a thousand words:
But a second picture is worth a few thousand more!
I saw the kids protecting their families from the rising tide at the beach and thought it was an amusing analogy. The running-away photo was just an unforeseen bonus!
I, and the throngs of others, were at that overcrowded beach to see some fireworks. Well actually to take pictures of the fireworks. After four evenings of this, all part of Vancouver's "Celebration of Light" fireworks competition, I think I have learned the basics of photographing them.…
illconsidered | August 7, 2008So, Pielke Jr's blog, Prometheus has a new look. Congratulations!
But just a minute...they have also changed the URL's of all the past postings, thereby breaking the links to to all things Roger in the climate debate blogosphere. And Roger at best is unconcerned, but most likely prefers it that way, judging from his answer to my question as to whether it will remain so. "Gee, I don't know."
Hmm. Why would they do that?
All the internal links have been updated, so his favorite reference sources (himself) can still be clicked, but all of the blog responses to his writings now have broken…
illconsidered | August 6, 2008A common misconception about global warming is that it means warming everywhere on the globe. This is an understandable, if too literal, interpretation of the phrase for a non-scientist and is something that is often played upon by less intellectually honest participants in the debate. This is one reason why "climate change" and "climate disruption" are perhaps better descriptors, even if warming is what the global average temerature is and will do.
Given the above, the fact that sea ice in the antarctic has increased slightly since careful mearsurements began (around 1%) is a frequent, if…
illconsidered | August 6, 2008Global Warming is happening too slowly. Or so says Dan Gilbert, psycholgist and author of the book "Stumbling on Happiness".
Watch this video for a psychologist's explanation of why we are failing to act in the face of the global threat that is climate disruption.
(click here for the page at popcast if the embed doesn't work)
The video is about 15 minutes long and presents some evolutionary psychological reasons why global warming does not trigger our proper threat response mechanisms. He is a good speaker, so it is not as boring as it sounds like it could be!
(hat tip to China at the…
illconsidered | August 5, 2008Eli Rabbet has a great summary of the recent Monckton-APS kafuffle. As this is sure to echo "longly and loudly" in the denier's circle I will add an article tomorrow into the How to talk to a climate sceptic guide.
--ahem-- Eli, care to update your blogroll with my "new" URL? Pretty please? I can't believe I just noticed now....
illconsidered | August 5, 2008The continued mysterious death of honeybees, (36% loss of all colonies in the US this year alone) is now being linked to pesticides.
There are also typically suspicious shenanigans from the EPA involved:
So why did the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 grant an "emergency" exemption allowing increased use of Gaucho -- typically invoked during a major infestation -- when only a few beetles were found in blueberries? Why did the agency also grant a "conditional" registration for its close relative, Pancho, allowing the chemical on the market with only partial testing? And why is the…