environment
clock | August 31, 2007Naomi Oreskes, the author of the 2004 paper in Science about the scientific consensus on global warming, recently had her work attacked by regressive denialists (including on Senator I-hate-science-Inhofe's blog). Her full response is now available on Stranger Fruit. Go and read it. Now.
voltagegate | August 29, 2007Arthur Kanegis may have written the worst (best?) movie review of all time. Get Leo some green tights, cape and a steamy cup of shade grown.
Speaking of garbage, Ben Stein has sided with the IDers and will play a central role in a sinister new documentary called Expelled. If you haven't heard already, PZ was interviewed for the movie (under the impression that he was being interviewed for a more objective film), Randy Olson has shared his concerns on Pharyngula, and people have been laying into Stein on his first blog post about the movie. Here we go again, folks. Another big battle is…
pharyngula | August 29, 2007Salon has a refreshingly hostile interview with Bjørn Lomborg, and they also have a strongly negative review of his new book, Cool It. This makes me very happy; I'm not a fan of the "contrarian" label for this guy — he's just another unqualified denialist, as far as I can see. I hope one of our blogs that discuss climate, like Deltoid or Island of Doubt or the Intersection, picks up on it and adds to the pile-on.
There are multiple mischaracterizations and confused arguments in the interview. Here's one that jumped out at me:
Left-wingers say it's a catastrophe and we need to change our…
mikethemadbiologist | August 28, 2007This is all Massachusetts needs--an invasion of rock snot:
Already a scourge in New Zealand and parts of the American South and West, the aquatic algae called "rock snot" is creeping into New England, where it is turning up in pristine rivers and alarming fishermen and wildlife biologists....
Over the past 10 years, the algae with a scientific name of Didymosphenia geminata, or didymo, has turned up in California, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, the Dakotas, Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee....
The algae has the potential to bloom into thick masses with…
revere | August 28, 2007I like John Edwards and tend to agree with him on poverty and campaign finance, although his Iraq war opposition is weak and ambiguous. But he's got a lot of company there, unfortunately. The one thing you can say about the Republican candidates is their pro-war stance isn't ambiguous. It is explicit -- disgustingly so. But that's not what this post is about. It's about different Edwards disappointment, his newly announced position on cancer policy. For someone who was a plaintiff's lawyer in tort cases and whose wife is a cancer patient, his policy is mostly silent about a public health…
clock | August 28, 2007Grist takes a look at all candidates from both parties and evaluates their stands on environmental issues, global warming and energy:
How Green Is Your Candidate?
grrlscientist | August 27, 2007tags: researchblogging.org, bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus, fishing, fishery, overfishing, sushi
Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus.
Orphaned image [larger image].
The western Atlantic Bluefin Tuna fishery in the Gulf of Maine is in danger of collapse, according to University of New Hampshire (UNH) researchers. Further, the team found that the number and quality of the captured fish has declined markedly in recent years.
Using notes collected by veteran tuna grader Robert Campbell from the Yankee Fisherman's Co-op in Seakbrook, New Hampshire, Walter Golet led a team of marine biologists that…
j7uy5 | August 23, 2007The Global Change Research Act of 1990 requires the federal
government
to publish climate-change research plans every three years, and
assessment reports every four years. Both are now overdue.
The research plan is one year overdue, and the assessment
report is three years overdue.
On 21 August 2007, a federal judge ruled that the Administration was
violating the law, despite their claim that compliance was "
href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=avpEoyrooXLI&refer=us">discretionary."
The case was: Center for Biological Diversity v. Brennan, 4:06-cv-7062…
clock | August 23, 2007On September 2nd this year go out somewhere: into your backyard, or the woods, or the bottom of the sea, and turn a rock or two or three. Take pictures of what you find underneath. Perhaps you'll find earthworms, or pillbugs, or beetles. Or a starfish. Maybe even a snake. Perhaps even a snake guarding the entrance to Dick Cheney's Undisclosed Location. If you turn a rock in Iraq and find WMDs please let us all know as that would be the biggest scoop in the history of the blogosphere (good luck with that one, though).
The idea was hatched by Dave Bonta, Fred Garber and Bev Wigney. Dave…
pharyngula | August 21, 2007I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't been following the story of Hurricane Dean at all — it's far away, and I've been busy traveling and trying to get my classes organized — but Chris Mooney has. In a short summary on his blog and a longer article on the Daily Green, he explains why I'm a bad person for failing to note the significance of this storm. It's been a horrific decade for hurricanes.
voltagegate | August 21, 2007One of our geography profs, who is teaching a storm chasing class over the summer, was featured on Good Morning America this past Sunday:
"I think it's important the general public begins to understand the concept of inquiry-based science education, which is what this course is all about, and that Frostburg State University is one of those higher education institutions that is leading the way in this area," Arnold said. "I am thrilled that we have the opportunity to communicate these messages through the national media, and am very happy that 'Good Morning America' chose to broadcast a…
mikethemadbiologist | August 20, 2007...to me. Or at least, to the residents of my congressional district. MoveOn.org has a district-by-district list of what your congressional district's contribution to the Iraqi War and Occupation could have bought instead. For me, a resident of Massachusetts' Eight District:
*The cost to Massachusetts taxpayers alone is $12.89 billion.
*Taxpayers in the 8th congressional district are paying $998 million for the Iraq war.
What Citizens of Massachusetts's 8th District Could Have Gotten Instead:
· Health care coverage for 290,837 people--or 363,877 kids, or
· Head Start for 118,751…
scientificactivist | August 16, 2007Via Deep Sea News, I came across a story from Tuesday's LA Times about recent corporate and fashion-industry efforts to ween Americans off of bottled water. With Americans currently throwing away 38 billion plastic water bottles each year (that's over 100 bottles per American!), it's a cause that can't be emphasized enough. Bottled water is wasteful. Period.
Still, I find parts of the article somewhat tiresome, especially the title: "On the anti-bottled-water bandwagon: Filter and container makers are capitalizing on the latest green trend." Although this is mostly this is mostly just a…
voltagegate | August 13, 2007"Without knowing it, we utilize hundreds of products each day that owe their origin to wild animals and plants. Indeed our welfare is intimately tied up with the welfare of wildlife. Well may conservationists proclaim that by saving the lives of wild species, we may be saving our own."
- Norman Myers
voltagegate | August 13, 2007
I found this article on Reuters this morning that tries to spin old news into a fresh bit of controversy:
Doctors recommend a good dose of salmon or tuna in the diet because of its benefits to the heart. But is it good for the environment?
Surging demand for salmon in particular has been spurred in part by numerous studies touting the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, which are present in some kinds of fish.
A study published in June in the American Heart Association journal Circulation said a diet with liberal servings of fish, nuts and seeds rich in such nutrients can help lower a…
j7uy5 | August 13, 2007An
article in Forbes documents exorbitant commuter costs in some
communities. In and around Houston, for example, the average
commuter spends 20% of their household income on commuting.
That, together with housing costs, adds to more than 50% of
household income. The author ends up making a case for a
pro-environmental cause: mass transit.
The make the point that mass transit systems are cost-effective, in
light of these high commuting costs.
href="http://www.forbes.com/home/realestate/2007/08/07/commute-housing-expensive-forbeslife-cx_mw_0807realestate.html">America's
Most…
voltagegate | August 11, 2007I meant to post on this earlier this week, but things have been hectic lately.
The National Resources Defense Council released their review of 3,500 beaches in the US, organizing data on pollution, the frequency of closings and the level of monitoring in these areas. Of the six worst beaches, dubbed "beach bums", defined as having "violated public health standards 51 percent or more of the time samples were taken", Maryland has two: Hacks Point and Bay Country Campground and Beach.
The problems have been on the rise for years now, but seemed to spike in 2006. Runoff carrying pollution into…
voltagegate | August 7, 2007
I found the following article on the shortnose sturgeon (Acipenser brevirostrum) this morning on ScienceDaily, and due to the conservation problems we're having with the endangered fish, I thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss eutrophication and hypoxia, two huge issues in marine and aquatic sciences.
Dwindling numbers of shortnose sturgeon in Georgia's blackwater Ogeechee River system have prompted an effort to quantify the causes and prioritize recovery efforts.
Yetta Jager and colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are conducting a population viability analysis, which…
mikethemadbiologist | August 3, 2007Once again, Michigan congressman John Dingell has decided to side with Detroit automakers who continue to resist entering the 21st century. The House has scrapped legislation that would raise fuel efficiency standards...to those less than Europe and Japan:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, decided not to allow a vote on an amendment requiring cars and light trucks sold in the United States to achieve a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2019. The measure, similar to one the Senate passed in June, drew fierce opposition from automakers and dealers, the United Automobile…
voltagegate | July 27, 2007I finally got around to reading this study from PLoS One, another paper trying to address socioeconomic influences on ecology and biodiversity. The researchers explored a possible correlation between economic inequality - the distribution of wealth - and biodiversity in the US (state by state) and several other countries.
They used the Gini coefficient for measuring economic inequality. Gini coefficients are expressed in a scale from 0 to 1.0, with 0 being an area in which all families/households earn exactly the same income (perfect equality) and 1.0 being an area in which one family earns…