global warming
tlambert | February 10, 2009Hey, remember Joanne Nova? Well she recently emailed Skeptico:
I recently received an email from Joanne Nova, who writes a blog where she claims global warming isnât caused by human created greenhouse gas emissions. In her first email to me she wrote âthere is no empirical evidence left that supports the theory that man made CO2 makes much difference to the climate.â Note, âno empirical evidenceâ, not âI disagree with the evidenceâ, or âthere is contrary evidenceâ â but there is no evidence. None! She emailed me to ask why I had come to a different conclusion from her…
tlambert | February 10, 2009Zachary Roth was intrigued by this passage from a Fred Barnes column in the Weakly Standard:
Democrats couldn't hide their self-consciousness about the excesses of their own bill. Supporters made few TV appearances to defend it and rarely talked about specific spending items. Obama sounded like Al Gore on global warming. The more the case for man-made warming falls apart, the more hysterical Gore gets about an imminent catastrophe. The more public support his bill loses, the more Obama embraces fear-mongering.
So he asked Barnes to provide details on how the case for AGW was falling apart:…
nisbetmc | February 10, 2009For readers in the New York area, I will be on a panel tonight at the American Museum of Natural History, focusing on climate change and the news media. The panel starts at 630 and features Andrew Revkin of the NY Times, Bud Ward of the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media, Bill Blakemore of ABC News, and Diane Hawkins-Cox of CNN. Go here for more information.
tlambert | February 8, 2009Russell Seitz sends me a poster he made for Heartland's denialist conference.
I wonder how long before Heartland put in on their own page?
illconsidered | February 5, 2009I know I said I would do a weekly "Climate Science for the iPod" feature on A Few Things, but the week after just one edition, I left for a business trip to Tasmania, Australia. So...not a good start!
I am not back yet, I am writing this in a hotel near Melbourne Tullamarine airport(ok, that's a boring link) on my way home (yea!) so still can not check all my podcast subscriptions to see what is fodder for blogging BUT in the meantime I would like to draw your attention to a three part series from CBC Radio called "Climate Wars" by Gwynne Dyer. There is a page here where you can down load…
sheril | February 5, 2009
An article in this week's PNAS reports ocean acidification and climate change threaten reef clownfish. Changing CO2 levels disrupt larvae's sense of smell, which is crucial to survival.
According to Dr Philip Munday, "What our study is showing is that animal behaviour is affected by the acidification of the oceans. It's opening our eyes to another issue of acidification that we need to be aware of."
More at ABC Science...
cmooney | February 5, 2009My latest Science Progress column takes on those, like right wing columnist Deroy Murdock or Lou Dobbs, who persist in trying to claim that winter weather refutes global warming. There are so, so, so many reasons this argument is dumb; and yet at the same time, who can dispute that the prevailing weather at a given time does highly influence the trajectory of the climate debate?
So while it's intellectually silly to pretend that winter weather refutes global warming, it was also strategically silly to hold the giant United Nations conference in Copenhagen this December.
You can read the full…
tlambert | February 3, 2009Now featured in the news section for Heartland's Denialist Conference is Frank Bi's parody video.
Check it out before they take it down!
Update: Show's over. They replaced the video.
illconsidered | February 3, 2009I have made it pretty clear before that I am no fan of Roger Pielke Jr. Everytime I stick my nose in there the smell seems to get a little worse.
His latest effort at sabotaging productive discourse on climate science and policy is a really low blow, putting to rest any lingering hopes one might have had that he still had some integrity stashed away in there somewhere. Now I know these are strong words, but I have to confess this really gets my blood pressure up, it is just the slimiest of tactics. (I will happily retract this post and apologize if Roger makes ammends for his ethical…
tlambert | February 2, 2009Jim Prall writes:
I've been updating my 'faces of climate science' website, with an ever growing list of names and citation stats. I've just completed a big update in which I've tracked down nine open letters and declarations on climate - five 'inactivist' and four 'activist' - and added tags showing who signed which statements. Not surprisingly, a large share of the top tier signed activist declarations, while signers of the pleas for inaction add up to fewer than 5% of the top 500 most cited sources, and are mostly concentrated near the 'never cited' end of the scale:
table of climate…
grrlscientist | February 2, 2009tags: glaciers, global warming, Alaska, environment, streaming video
Tom Gaylord's glacier photos tell a story, in pictures, about Alaska's beautiful but dwindling glaciers. These photos, along with a brief in-flight helicopter movie, were taken in June 2006. The rapid retreat of glaciers throughout the world is an undeniable observation, and that human activities are the major reason for this is a scientific fact. The world needs to move away from speculation and start taking steps to prevent even more devastation to the planet's life [3:02]
tlambert | January 29, 2009The usual denialists (e.g. The Register) are excited because some guy they never heard of before has joined Inhofe's merry band, writing:
"I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made."
M. J. Murphy has some information about Theon. It seems that Inhofe's claim that Theon was Hansen's supervisor is completely untrue:
Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. "I was, in effect, Hansen's supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his…
cmooney | January 29, 2009My latest Science Progress column is up: It makes the case that Stephen Colbert is the heir to Johnny Carson in terms of talk show promotion of science.
It also includes various lame and stupid talking points that I made up and didn't use on the show, such as the following hypothetical Q&A responses:
Didn't scientists start the "war" in the first place? Didn't they commit acts of aggression?
Yes, if you mean by learning things.
Why should I care about science?
Because America is really good at it--much better than France.
Is there really a "war" on science? Where are the bodies?
Well,…
mikethemadbiologist | January 29, 2009One of the rhetorical strategies that has been employed against science deniers has been the claim that a 'broad scientific consensus exists' to support a certain position (e.g., global warming, evolution). A problem with this strategy is shown by the blog belonging to this commenter (I don't give links to wackaloons) which provides lists of scientists that don't think global warming is partly due to human influences.
This misses the entire meaning of scientific consensus: it's a process, not a list of names.
This is not how a scientific consensus is reached:
"Dude, the earth is kinda hot…
tlambert | January 28, 2009I asked the Bond University registrar about Marohasy's claim that:
For his opinion,
Professor Jenkins received an official reprimand from the Bond
University Registrar and then was informed last Friday that his
adjunct status had been revoked.
The registrar replied:
Dr Jenkins was a member of staff here for some considerable time and
resigned to enter the NSW Parliament.
Dr Jenkins was asked to keep an association with University as an
adjunct but indicated in 2008 that serious health problems would
probably prevent him taking an active role. As a result Dr Jenkins was
removed from the…
cmooney | January 28, 2009Here it is:
*/
The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Obama's New Science Policy - Chris Mooney
Colbert Report Full EpisodesColbert Report Tickets
Paul McCartney AppearanceMore Funny Videos
I'll have more to say about the whole experience in my next column....thanks to everyone who wrote in with positive words about the segment.
mikethemadbiologist | January 27, 2009Our Benevolent Seed Overlords ask "What is science's rightful place?" which refers to a line from Obama's inaugural address where he vowed to "restore science to its rightful place."
Since ScienceBlogling Jake discussed the importance of basing policy on evidence--as well as correctly recognizing that the method we use to solve problems does not shed much light on whether we should address those problems in the first place--I want to bring up one problem that science faces: it is, to a great extent, elitist.
Before all of the TEH SCIENTISMZ R EVUL!!! crowd gets all hot and bothered, what I…
cmooney | January 27, 2009You can watch it here. Tons of funny stuff in Colbert's segment on science, which starts roughly at 6:15 and runs to roughly 10:45. I was on for about three minutes, and was instructed: "No monkey business. No evolution."
Of course, even though Colbert plays a rightwinger who thinks with his gut rather than his head and doesn't trust book learning, the truth is that his show features a ton of science content and, indeed, is doing vastly more than most other parts of the media to improve the role of science in our culture.
I was thrilled to be on.
mikethemadbiologist | January 26, 2009And you thought the War on Science was over. Bush appointee Kathie Olsen, who was the deputy director of NSF, and who couldn't give a straight answer to Senator John McCain when asked about human influences on global warming, might have been "burrowed" into the NSF:
How was Olsen permitted to slip inside the NSF bureaucracy after playing such a front-and-center role in the Bush administration's politicization of science? We're looking into whether her case fits the technical definition of "burrowing" -- and what the Obama team can do about it -- but suffice to say that her survival hasn't…
tlambert | January 25, 2009Remember Jon Jenkins and his sixth degree polynomial fit? Well, Jennifer Marohasy is presenting him as a martyr for the denialist cause.
Interestingly Bond University has a new name for its business and IT faculties, The Faculty of Business, Technology & Sustainable Development, but apparently didn't like Professor Jenkins' very public opinion on the subject of sustainable development. For his opinion, Professor Jenkins received an official reprimand from the Bond University Registrar and then was informed last Friday that his adjunct status had been revoked.
And sure enough, he's not…