editorial
illconsidered | September 28, 2008So I was just listening (a little late, I know) to Friday's DemocracyNow, and they had a segment on the impending 700 billion dollar obscenity congress is about to roll over on.
One of the guests said he anticipates another 1 million foreclosures still to come over the next two years.
Offered as perspective, not a policy recommendation:
700 billion dollars is enough to give all 1 million defaulting mortage holders $700,000 dollars each.
illconsidered | September 18, 2008Anthony Watt's blog seems to be a rather high profile climate sceptic site that usually seems to at least try to have substantive content, but I can't see watt's so interesting about this article from The Province, a BC, Canadian newspaper.
The article starts off with this remarkable statement:
As evidence to the contrary started rolling in and one prominent scientist after another abandoned ship, the global warming brigade lost much of its sizzle in the past year.
I think I can guess what he thinks is "evidence to the contrary", probably the supposed huge temeprature drop this year, the […
illconsidered | August 22, 2008Roger Pielke Jr has another post promoting the whole Hockey Stick schtick. My "sceptic guide" entry on that is still here, and I don't have much more to say about it still to this day.
But as for the meta discussion...
I think it is self-serving and a real disservice to humanity for Roger to still be fanning the flames on this issue, but it certainly seems he has found the audience and following he must have been seeking if one is to judge be the plethora of "me too" comments he has received. I don't have much more to observe than that, but Michael Tobis has a more lengthy and well thought…
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 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 4, 2008Roger comes down on Junkscience for a refreshing change, usually prefering to disguise himself and mingle with the sceptics. Of course, if you read him carefully, he is not one, he just plays one on "the internets". It is all about personal positioning in a very public debate.
Roger posts about Steve Milloy, who has written a letter to the U.S. government's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) trying to stop certain corporations from "making potentially false and misleading statements pertaining to global warming and other environmental issues".
Of course, the statements he calls out…
illconsidered | August 1, 2008Via Prometheus I read this article from the AFP that describes some new findings about land mass in the river delta that is Bandladesh. Apparently it is growing and has been for the last 32 years at about 20 km^2/year.
Roger points out, no doubt correctly, that the climate septics will make great hay with this, as supposedly another IPCC prediction turns sour.
But will they be correct?
Regardless of the extent of the Bangladeshi delta, obviously the only thing that will determine if it is submerged or not in future sea level rise scenarios will be its altitude. 640 square km of new land is…
illconsidered | July 31, 2008Via the contest notification I posted about here, I just watched a very effective video they say was conceived, written and directed by a 10 year old boy. Watch it below, it is about a minute:
"Save It" Global Warming message by 10 yr old from 1skycampaign on Vimeo.
Not to be critical at all, especially not of a 10 year old who has not contributed to the framing of environmental debates yet, but it does bring up something that has been bugging me for a while. The whole "Save the Planet" meme is a bit misguided and I think presents a weak point for activists in the media circus that…
illconsidered | July 30, 2008Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy is a new film from scientist turned filmmaker Randy Olsen ("Rediagnosing the Oceans", "Flock of Dodos") and rather than being a film about global warming, it is a film about the making of a film about global warming. Sizzle is also a self described "novel blend of three genres - mockumentary, documentary and reality." Olsen, as well as directing, is the main character who sets out to emulate Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth but this time featuring the actual scientists.
The challenge of combining three genres is avoiding failure three times. The film needs to…
illconsidered | July 29, 2008Science Blogs had an event July 15 they called "Sizzle Tuesday" where a few dozen bloggers were given advanced screening copies of Randy Olson's new film "Sizzle". Seems it went well, there are links to 46 reviews on the Sizzle Tuesday page.
I was supposed to have been in on all that but July 15th came and went and my DVD never showed up....well now I know why at least.
I finally received it yesterday, much the worse for wear. It seems that customs had held it up at the border for over a month. I hope they at least watched it a few times! They also assessed its value at over$150 ($151.58…
illconsidered | July 23, 2008The background for this post is The Great Global Warming Swindle and the recent judgement [PDF] by the British media regulator OFCOM regarding complaints of misleading the public and misrepresenting the science. Tim Lambert has a detailed look at the ruling here.
All in all it looks like the ruling was a mixed bag and will provide fodder for both sides of the climate disruption PR battle.
So on to the subject of the post.
Roger Pielke Jr. over at Prometheus rather predictably rises to the defense of Martin Durkin's socially destructive and cleary deceitful propoganda. His point is all about…
illconsidered | July 23, 2008The setup is George Bush, as usual, being an insensitive fool and making stupid jokes about tens of thousands of destroyed lives:
There's no question about it. Wall Street got drunk--that's one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras. It got drunk, and now it's got a hangover. The question is how long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments. And then we got a housing issue, not in Houston, and evidently not in Dallas, because Laura's over there trying to buy a house.
The punchline?
The White House says Bush's comments were in line with previous…
illconsidered | July 18, 2008I'm not really a big fan of digging way into the past for embarassing or otherwise damning quotes to bring up in a present day campaign. With John McCain there really is not much need for it anyway, he is a hypocritical emarrassment (IMHO). But this really repulsive bit of history (h/t to CrooksAndLiars) does not seem like the kind of thing that you can dismiss or minimize due to unknown context or the passage of time.
According to a report (from 1986 no less! [PDF]) John McCain made the following repulsive attempt at a joke:
Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the…
illconsidered | July 10, 2008Roger Pielke Jr is back at his own teapot, blogging up a tempest or two again. Whether you agree with his points or not, he usually makes for provocative reading and comment threads can be very entertaining and informing. I have not hung around there for quite a while but will pay more attention from now on I think.
Anyway, this post is about his post from last Wednesday, titled "Climate Science and National Interests" - rather more general than its actual subject.
His implicaion would seem to be there is some hypocrisy on the part of the usual climate change activists and the IPCC but not…
illconsidered | July 10, 2008The good news: George W Bush actually does know what a disgrace US economic policy has been for the environmental health of the world.
The bad news?
He thinks it is funny.
The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."
He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.
BTW, a remedy for any possible feelings of nausea upon reading that can be had by reading to…
illconsidered | March 14, 2008One of the favories squeals of the climate change denialists is that proponents of action to slow the current global warming are "alarmists", exagerating threats and mongering fear to push past rational debate. I have always found this a bit ironic considering the economic doomsday that they asure us will arise if we dare burn one drop of gasoline less than our slightest whims would require.
So this piece from a usually far left blog is especially amusing, and also demonstrates another fundamental law of The Blogosphere: a wingnut is a wingnut, whether you twist to the right or twist to the…
illconsidered | January 9, 2008Via my father I came across this anonymously authored modern day parable, which I think is a good analogue for the economic growth vs sustainability argument:
An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican
village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the
small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American
complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how
long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied "only a little while".
The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more
fish.
The Mexican said he had…
illconsidered | November 5, 2007Reading a post on Deep-Sea News, and considering some of the recent worries about it I've read and considered on my own it occurs to me that, like flouride in drinking water, ocean fertilization is promising to be a great excuse to dump all kinds of crap in the ocean.
Got some industrial waste? If you can find some dubious mechanism whereby it may cause some plankton blooming, why not get paid to dump it in the ocean instead of paying to properly dispose of it?
Stay tuned for all kinds of abuses and misuses....
illconsidered | October 31, 2007"Bright Scientists, Dim Notions" is the title of a NYT article from a few days ago prompted by the recent controversy over scientifically unfounded and racist remarks made by James Watson about the supposedly inherently inferior intelligence of the African race as compared to Caucasians.
The article is an interesting review of a few other notable examples of scientific crack-pottery in one field coming from the mouths of scientists who have in fact achieved brilliance in there own fields. There is also some speculation as to why this happens and why it is different when a famous scientist…