There is increasing evidence that not only are we currently altering the global climate, but that humans have influenced regional climates in the past. A good place to start looking at this idea is today’s post on the NASA Earth Observatory. The paper discussed contributes to the evidence that Mayan agriculture contributed to the collapse [...]
In reading some sections of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007 (usually just called AR4) while looking for sources for another project, one thing really stood out: it is full of optimism. This optimism may surprise you. It certainly surprised me, given the severity of the environmental problems we must deal with in [...]
As someone who enjoys debunking myths and misconceptions, I found The Debunking Handbook by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky interesting. It is only six pages long, but includes some tips that will be useful for teaching in general as well as in debunking efforts.
I am pro-clean air. I am pro-clean water.—Rand Paul Libertarians invariably claim they want clean air and water, but then go out of the way to ensure that gratuitous damage to the earth continues. An example of this pattern is Senator Rand Paul’s recent attempt to prevent the EPA from regulating cross-state pollution from power [...]
While reading a recent post on RealClimate, something that I noticed several years ago was reinforced: climate scientists are more careful at math than their detractors are. Even in a simple blog post, Ray Pierrehumbert is careful to avoid double-counting emissions. This is a nice contrast to the ‘skeptics’ who typically double-count the cost of [...]
Since the price of gasoline in the US is increasing again, the talk making ridiculous claims about gas prices are too. For example, I recently received a chain email titled “Buy AMERICAN Gasoline”. This particular email (which I won’t help spread by posting a link) claims that we should buy “AMERICAN” gasoline or we will [...]
Here are four articles to read this weekend: ‘The Tyranny of Defense Inc.’ from The Atlantic about the insight of two of Eisenhower’s speeches. ‘Light Out, Huck, They Still Want to Sivilize You’ from the New York Times is about the latest edited edition of Huckleberry Finn. The original is public domain (as it should [...]
Also filed in energy, politics
Tags: Bosnia, climate, Eisenhower, energy, Huckleberry Finn, Koch, military-industrial complex, politics, public domain, Tea Party
Interesting fact of the day: multiyear sea ice is ~1/3 more reflective than first-year sea ice. I knew that salt is gradually forced out of ice, but didn’t grok that this changes reflectivity. What this means is that the loss of multiyear ice in the arctic is even more significant than I thought it was. [...]
We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one [...]
According to a Journal Gazette article, the recycling rate in Fort Wayne is currently 8.5%, down from 11% ten years ago. Only around 30% of people recycle anything. These numbers are embarrassingly low. According to the story, even Bloomington has a recycling rate over 30%, with Valparaiso’s rate even higher. It is odd that the [...]