climate change
gregladen | February 21, 2012A bill in Oklahoma that would, if enacted, encourage teachers to present the "scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses" of "controversial" topics such as "biological evolution" and "global warming" is back from the dead. Entitled the "Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act," House Bill 1551 was introduced in the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 2011 by Sally Kern (R-District 84), a persistent sponsor of antievolution legislation in the Sooner State, and referred to the House Common Education Committee. It was rejected there on February 22, 2011, on a 7-9 vote. But, as The…
hrynyshyn | February 21, 2012Another day, another distraction from the real issue at hand. Yes, a hitherto respectable member of the climate science community, MacArthur fellow, and all-round good guy has admitted appropriating someone's identity to obtain private records of a climate-denial think tank. Was this wrong? Yes, although no more so than was the ostensible betrayal of trust on the part of a long list of whistleblowers. Daniel Ellsberg comes to mind. And he is now remembered as "an icon of truth-telling."
As much as I hate to admit it, the most cogent commentary on the matter so far arrived in the form of a…
gregladen | February 21, 2012The best available evidence now suggests that the most damning of the "Heartland Documents" -- the strategy memo which explicitly states that Heartland's strategy is to interfere with good science education in order to advance their political agenda -- is legitimate. The legitimacy of the document was being questioned because it was physically and stylistically different from the other documents with which it was released. We now know that the strategy memo was sent to climate scientist Peter Gleick and that Peter then took steps to acquire corraborating documents from Heartland (see "The…
denialism | February 16, 2012Everyone is writing about desmogblog's leak of internal documents from the Heartland Institute. But to me I think leaked documents are nothing compared to their fully public, out-in-the-open history of being openly contemptuous of science, funding cranks with advanced degrees (though not in climate) to disparage the field, and their hosting of denialpalooza.
James rightly points out that much hay is being made of a single sentence that, could "easily be the result of sloppy editing, or at perhaps a Freudian slip." This is of course is a sentence describing a curriculum developed by the HI…
illconsidered | February 14, 2012 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 roundup
skip to bottom Another Week in the Ecological Crisis Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is notWisdomFebruary 12, 2012 Chuckles, Horn of Africa, Europe, Maldives, Jacob, WSJ-16, Opinions Bottom Line, Subsidies, Thermodynamics, Cook Fukushima Note, Fukushima News Melting Arctic, USCG Healy, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food Prices, GMOs, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs,…
milhayser | February 14, 2012
On We Beasties, Kevin Bonham reports that scientists have genetically enabled E. coli to digest a sugar found in algae. Bonham writes, "Scientists have been picking this bug's locks for decades, and it's already been engineered to make not just ethanol, but many other useful products as well." With the ability to metabolize sugar from a source as prolific, low-maintenance, and renewable as algae, E. coli could become a much bigger player in biofuel production. Meanwhile, Greg Laden considers the State of the Union address from an environmental perspective. Laden gives President Obama a…
illconsidered | February 6, 2012 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 roundup
skip to bottom Another Week in the Ecological Crisis Information Overloadis Pattern RecognitionFebruary 5, 2012 Chuckles, COP17, Horn of Africa, RPRP, Miller, Lenton, Europe WSJ-16, Intimidation, Rodentia, Subsidies, Thermodynamics, Cook Fukushima Note, Fukushima News Melting Arctic, Orca, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Fisheries, Food Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, Food Production…
hrynyshyn | February 6, 2012For reasons that can only reflect poorly on the paper, the Wall Street Journal recently decided it was a good idea to publish an op-ed that recycled some the of the most soundly discredited notions associated with the climate change denial movement. The piece was signed by 16 ostensible "scientists," though only four have any experience with climatology, and even they work on the extreme fringes of respectable research.
The same editors refused to publish a letter from a longer list of actual climatologists, a letter that does reflect the science of the day and one that the journal Science…
hrynyshyn | February 4, 2012Two examples of why blogs are better than mainstream news coverage, when it comes to confronting reality and doing something about it, one from the climate wars, one from the front lines of women's health.
First, Andy Revkin, a former New York Times journalist who still blogs there. He calls out a coal-industry-backed attempt to silence one of the world's leading climatologists as the "Shameful Attack on Free Speech" that it is. By launching a Facebook campaign to convince Pennsylvania State University to cancel a scheduled talk by Michael Mann, the coal interests have indeed shamed…
tfk | February 1, 2012Shorter David Klinghoffer, Minister of Propaganda for the Disco. 'tute: "Then They Came for Me -- and There Was No One Left to Speak for Me.":
I'm Jewish so it's OK for me to claim NCSE's decision to oppose pseudoscience in earth science classrooms as well as biology classes is just like Nazis dragging people off to be murdered in the middle of the night.
âShorterâ concept created by Daniel Davies, perfected by Elton Beard, and popularized by Sadly, No!. We are aware of all Internet traditions.â¢
illconsidered | January 30, 2012 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 roundup
skip to bottom Another Week in the Ecological Crisis Sipping from the Internet Firehose...January 29, 2012 Chuckles, HotW, Poe, Strange, WEF, WSF, Fisheries, CSLDF, Intimidation Open Science, USDA, CCRA, Subsidies, Value, Cook, Post CRU Fukushima Note, Fukushima News Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Freshwater, Methane, Geopolitics Food Crisis, GMOs, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle,…
sastyk | January 30, 2012Christian Parenti has a really good article in TomDispatch about the reasons why Climate Change may change people'st thinking about the role of government:
Global warming and the freaky, increasingly extreme weather that will accompany it is going to change all that. After all, there is only one institution that actually has the capacity to deal with multibillion-dollar natural disasters on an increasingly routine basis. Private security firms won't help your flooded or tornado-struck town. Private insurance companies are systematically withdrawing coverage from vulnerable coastal areas.…
sastyk | January 27, 2012What I think is most important about the Nature article (unfortunately behind a paywall - Energy Bulletin has a summary here) is that part of its underlying presence is that it is possible to make major changes in the use of fossil fuels on the peak oil issue in ways it is not possible to make those changes due to the politically charged nature of climate change.
The authors, James Murray and David King, confirm what geologists involved with peak oil have known for a long time - that reserve estimates are unreliable at best, and that the science behind oil peaks is both clear and…
hrynyshyn | January 24, 2012From the US Energy Information Adminstration's latest thinking:
Total U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions remain below their 2005 level through 2035: Energy-related CO2 emissions grow by 3 percent from 2010 to 2035, reaching 5,806 million metric tons in 2035. They are more than 7 percent below their 2005 level in 2020 and do not return to the 2005 level of 5,996 million metric tons by the end of the projection period. Emissions per capita fall by an average of 1 percent per year from 2005 to 2035, as growth in demand for transportation fuels is moderated by higher energy prices…
illconsidered | January 23, 2012 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 roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Instability News Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsJanuary 22, 2012 Chuckles, Horn of Africa, Keystone XL, WFES, Intimidation, Open Science Subsidies, Global Legal Framework, Cook Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs,…
hrynyshyn | January 17, 2012From the Idiot Tracker comes this pearl of wisdom:
One of my least favorite lukewarmer fallacies is the concept of "no regrets" policies -- that we should push ahead with policies that can be sold to the right wing as energy independence or job creation or whatever appeals to those in denial of the science. This is an asinine idea. Climate change is real. You don't get to smart policy by agreeing to disagree on critical scientific facts pertaining to the future of human civilization. Here's the truth; aggressive emissions cuts are the true no-regrets strategy. Uncertainty in climate change…
tfk | January 16, 2012The National Center for Science Education, where I work, has focused on fighting political attacks on evolution education for all of its 30 year history. When the group was founded in the early '80s, they didn't choose a name narrowly focused on evolution, hoping that they'd make quick work of creationism and then move on to other problems in science education. Today's announcement that NCSE's taking on climate change is a partial fulfillment of that dream.
Creationism is far from dead, of course. This year, legislators in Indiana have filed two bills attacking evolution. One bill revives…
illconsidered | January 16, 2012 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 roundup
skip to bottom Another Week of Climate Disruption News Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is notWisdomJanuary 15, 2012 Chuckles, Rio+20, Horn of Africa, Doomsday Clock, India, 2 Minute Hates, Cohen et al. Tzedakis et al., Oliver, Northern Gateway, Bottom Line, Hype, Cook, Post CRU Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy Melting Arctic, Megafauna, Methane, Geopolitics Food Crisis, Food…
illconsidered | January 9, 2012 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 roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Instability News Information Overloadis Pattern RecognitionJanuary 8, 2012 Chuckles, Durban, Horn of Africa, Australian Climate, Retrospectives, Epsilon Bottom Line, Subsidies, GCF, Thermodynamics, Ecocide, Cook, Post CRU Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, unFisherman, Food Prices, GMOs…
hrynyshyn | January 6, 2012Barring a miraculous revival of the fortunes of Jon Huntsman, Republicans this year will, for the first time, elect a presidential nominee who does not believe that humans are responsible for global warming. How did things get this bad?
The Climate Desk team found a few of the last Republicans among the party's leadership who break with this new orthodoxy and spliced their heresies together in this video.
One can also dredge up a few brave souls who are trying to make difference at the GOP's grassroots, groups like Republicans for Environmental Responsibility. This particular collection of…