other blogs
illconsidered | April 23, 2009Things Break does a nice job documenting the way Rupert Murdoch uses his media empire to disseminate misinformation.
A recent commenter pointed me to one of the articles in that chain, but I really did not give it much thought, it seemed like such a shrug of a story. Nothing new happening and it still doesn't disprove global warming.
Anyway, it is worth a look at the way these things are actively spread, truth be damned!
illconsidered | April 22, 2009It is of course Earth Day today.
It is an appropriate launch day for a new Science Blog, Guilty Planet. Head on over there for discussions about whether or not humans are a parasitic plague on Mother Earth or not, and how we could choose to live in a sustainable way.
I even saw a link (not an endorsement, BTW) to something called the Voluntary Human Extinction movement...yikes! That seems a tad...um, extreme.
illconsidered | April 21, 2009I was asked recently to write a guest posting for the Reeftank as part of their effort to grow a scientifically minded audience. Not really having any extra time, (newborns will do that to you!) I offered and they accepted a recycling of a previous posting from October last year.
It is called "The other CO2 problem" and they published it here.
The more geoengineering discussions creep into the mainstream dialogue, the more critical it is to remember this issue.
(original posting can be found here)
illconsidered | April 16, 2009Now this is worth checking out!
(for the incurious, it is a bit of fantastic photography of various insects)
The mosquito larvae are my favorite so far.
illconsidered | April 15, 2009Two common assertions: melting sea ice has no effect on global sea level, and alarmists will grasp at every straw in trying to scare us all.
It turns out that they are both wrong.
Robert Grumbine has the details on why melting sea ice does in fact raise sea levels. In a nutshell, what is frozen and what it floats in are not the same. Fresh water is less dense than sea water.
Now the effect is small, but if the scientists who are aware of this are truly just out to scare us out of our research funding, shouldn't they be scrambling to correct this common misconception?
Just wondering...
illconsidered | April 8, 2009So, George Will and the Washington Post are at it again, head over to Things Break for the details.
These institutions are oblivious to their own impending demise, a demise that articles like George Will's show they fully deserve.
[Update: Grist notes that Will is called out by name by his own paper for making claims contradicted by the facts...and let's call a spade a spade, given that he has been loudly and repeatedly informed of his factually incorrect claims and yet repeats them, he must be stupid or a liar.]
illconsidered | April 3, 2009Giant Razor Clawed Crabs pose no threat, experts say At least I thought it was funny.
illconsidered | April 1, 2009Michael Tobis finds an illustrative example of misleading with a scientific accent.
On a related topic, Robert Grumbine examines how to actually answer the question "Does CO2 correlate with temperature?" (More Grumbine Science recently added to the blogroll here, btw).
I have a couple of Sceptic Guide postings on that here and here.
illconsidered | March 25, 2009I may be very late to the party, but I would still like to refer readers to Chris Mooney's Op-Ed response to the recent George Will fiasco.
Congratulations, Chris, it is very well presented and important material. I can't however share your warm fuzzies for the WaPo's change of heart, because, well somehow presenting two sides to a debate, you know, bat-shit crazy versus intelligent reality, still falls a little short for me!
illconsidered | March 20, 2009James Hrynyshyn at Island of Doubt yesterday put up a really interesting examination of the Copenhagen Conference's efforts to deal with just what is the "safety limit" for global warming. I won't add much accept to lament the fact that "as much as possible as soon as possible" is too vague for public policy goals.
Because really, that is the only correct answer to the question politicians want scientists to answer: how much do we need to reduce CO2 emissions?
Have a read.
illconsidered | March 18, 2009While on the subject of being talked about, a columnist writing for Pajamas Media recently took a pot-shot at me and my How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic series.
No publicity is bad publicity, right? Plus, a close second to imitation, mockery is another of the most sincere forms of flattery, at least in the blog world, so I'm not complaining.
On to some substance in a moment, but one thing I found rather remarkable was that even though they get some 450,000 hits per day, my traffic barely registered a blip, despite a prominent link in the first paragraph! The main thrust of the article was…
illconsidered | March 17, 2009While on the subject of interviews, I was recently contacted with an interview request by the website The Reef Tank. Loath to turn down any opportunity to talk about myself (what do you expect, I'm a blogger fer cryin' out loud!) I filled out the question sheet they sent over and you can read the interview here.
Given the marine life focus of their site, we discussed ocean acidification and the PETM event after a couple of blogging generalities.
They also asked my opinion of aquariums, with a warning it is controversial. I did not have much to say, and I guessed that the controversies must…
illconsidered | March 16, 2009Elizabeth Kolbert, journalist and author of "Field Notes from a Catastrophe", is interviewed by Yale Environment 360 editor Roger Cohn.
The interview was put on their site mid-last week and readers might find it quite interesting.
Kolbert discussed a wide range of issues: how the media and scientists are both responsible for the lack of public understanding on climate change; the Obama administration's chances of passing climate-related legislation; and the prospects of geoengineering the planet to mitigate the effects of warming. On whether there is a moral or ethical dimension to this issue…
illconsidered | March 4, 2009Great name, eh?!
Drop by and welcome a new member of ScienceBlogs.
Hi Kim!
(She used to be here)
illconsidered | March 3, 2009Roger puts up another post (guest post, gotta love plausible deniability) about James Hansen:
blah blah blah....dictator who ordered millions of people to be gassed and then burned in crematoria...blah blah blah
No, he isn`t (yet) calling Hansen a Hitler, but we all know how Godwin`s Law works.
Or almost all of us...
[UPDATE: Things Break has a stronger stomach than I do, and he takes a more thorough look at Roger's latest. As usual with Pielke's positions, the closer you look, the less it holds up.]
illconsidered | March 2, 2009Just while we are on the subject of George Will and lying with impunity...
illconsidered | February 27, 2009Things Break does a thorough take-down of George Will's continued dishonesty in the Washington Post. For the background, if somehow you have missed this kerfuffle, check his earlier post.
The story in a nutshell is not remarkable: mainstream columnist prints op-ed full of outright falsehoods, complaints are rejected, paper stands by its right to fill the information age with disinformation. ie Facts don't matter.
The only remarkable thing really is the attention it is receiving and who knows, perhaps there will be some real consequences... like maybe people will remember this for a change.…
illconsidered | February 21, 2009Michael Tobis has another well written and thought provoking essay on In It for the Gold asking if continuing developments in climatology are going to affect mitigation policy.
It can be argued that climatology is not an important input into climate change related policy. It is premature to take climatological input into account in adaptation strategy, while on the other hand as far as mitigation goes (i.e., on the global scale) the picture has pretty much stayed about the same for some substantial time.
That idea does not fit in very well with the common denialist refrain that climatologists…
illconsidered | February 16, 2009I recently wrote about the tragic bushfires in Australia and how it seems to me that it is reasonable to ask if this would have happened without anthropogenic climate changes.
Real Climate has the details on this in their latest post: Bushfires and extreme heat in south-east Australia.
The post is by David Karoly, Professor of Meteorology at the University of Melbourne in Australia. He identifies four factors in the fire's ferocity - maximum temperatures, relative humidity, wind speeds and the ongoing drought - and discusses the possible role of climate change in each of them. For three of…
illconsidered | February 13, 2009A fellow named Jim Prall left a comment here a few days ago mentioning some work he has recently done compiling information on the contributing authors of the most recent IPCC WG1 report.
I went to have a look and I must say what a terrific resource!
It is a common septic fallacy that the IPCC report is actually written by politicians and very few real scientists are involved. Like 95% of their talking points it is 100% bunk as a cursory investigation will reveal.
Well, cursory this listing is not! All 619 IPCC WG1 AR4 authors are listed here and for each there is a link to their personal…