For a long time I have struggled with what to call the people who insist that climate change is natural/nonexistent/a global conspiracy. “Skeptics” is their preferred term, but I refuse to give such a compliment to those who don’t deserve it. Skepticism is a good thing in science, and it’s not being applied by self-professed [...]
Posts Tagged ‘environment’
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Posted in Musings, tagged AGU, climate change, contrarian, denial, education, environment, global warming, john cook, science, skeptic, skeptical science on December 13, 2011 | 39 Comments »
General Thoughts on AGU
Posted in Other Advocates, Research Blogging, tagged AGU, ben santer, bill mckibben, climate change, education, environment, gavin schmidt, global warming, james hansen, john cook, michael mann, michael tobis, physics today, richard sommerville, science, skeptical science, stephen schneider, susan joy hassol on December 12, 2011 | 2 Comments »
I returned home from the AGU Fall Meeting last night, and after a good night’s sleep I am almost recovered – it’s amazing how tired science can make you! The whole conference felt sort of surreal. Meeting and conversing with others was definitely the best part. I shook the hand of James Hansen and assured [...]
Uncertainty
Posted in How Science Works, tagged cancer, climate change, climate sensitivity, drought, environment, flood, glaciers, global warming, ice sheets, medicine, precipitation, science, sea level rise, smoking, tobacco, uncertainty on November 9, 2011 | 8 Comments »
Part 5 in a series of 5 for NextGen Journal Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 Scientists can never say that something is 100% certain, but they can come pretty close. After a while, a theory becomes so strong that the academic community accepts it and moves on to more interesting [...]
A Vast Machine
Posted in Reviews, tagged climate change, climate models, computing, data, edwards, environment, global warming, history, mathematics, ncar, science on October 25, 2011 | 6 Comments »
I read Paul Edward’s A Vast Machine this summer while working with Steve Easterbrook. It was highly relevant to my research, but I would recommend it to anyone interested in climate change or mathematical modelling. Think The Discovery of Global Warming, but more specialized. Much of the public seems to perceive observational data as superior [...]
The Pitfalls of General Reporting: A Case Study
Posted in Media and the Public, tagged arctic, atmosphere, canada, canadian press, CFCs, climate change, communication, education, environment, global warming, journalist, manitoba, media, nature, ozone, reporter, science, stratosphere, troposphere, weather, winnipeg free press on October 2, 2011 | 15 Comments »
Today’s edition of Nature included an alarming paper, indicating record ozone loss in the Arctic due to an unusually long period of cold temperatures in the lower stratosphere. On the same day, coverage of the story by the Canadian Press included a fundamental error that is already contributing to public confusion about the reality of [...]
Another Sporadic Open Thread
Posted in Open Threads, tagged AGU, climate change, communication, education, environment, global warming, la nina, richard alley, science on October 1, 2011 | 13 Comments »
I keep forgetting to put these up. Possible topics for discussion: La Niña is expected to continue into the winter. This is definitely not what southern U.S. states, such as Texas, want – after a summer of intense drought, the drying effect of La Niña on that area of the world won’t bring any relief. [...]
News
Posted in News and Reports, Research Blogging, tagged AGU, alberta, arctic, british columbia, climate change, environment, global warming, jack pine, lodgepole pine, mountain pine beetle, science, sea ice on September 21, 2011 | 9 Comments »
Two pieces of bad news: Mountain pine beetles, whose range is expanding due to warmer winters, are beginning to infest jack pines as well as lodgepole pines. To understand the danger from this transition, one only needs to look at the range maps for each species: A study from Molecular Ecology, published last April, has the [...]
What Does the Public Know?
Posted in Media and the Public, tagged climate change, democrat, economy, education, environment, global warming, independent, media, politics, republican, science, tea party, united states, urban planning on September 15, 2011 | 7 Comments »
Part 4 in a series of 5 for NextGen Journal Like it or not, a scientific consensus exists that humans are causing the Earth to warm. However, the small number of scientists that disagree with this conclusion get a disproportionate amount of media time, particularly in the United States: most newspaper articles give the two [...]
The Tar Sands
Posted in Mitigation and Policy, tagged 350.org, alberta, athabasca, bill mckibben, canada, civil disobedience, climate change, environment, global warming, james hansen, keystone xl, obama, oil sands, protest, science, Stephen Harper, tar sands, united states, white house on September 7, 2011 | 14 Comments »
Apologies for the few weeks of silence. Moving cities again, combined with the beginning of a new term, meant hardly any writing time! I should be back into a regular routine now, though. Enjoy. In the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama seemed serious about climate change action. He promised an 80% reduction in American greenhouse [...]
Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand
Posted in Reviews, tagged climate change, communication, cook, denial, education, environment, global warming, hansen, postmodernism, science, skeptic, skeptical science, venus, washington on August 11, 2011 | 17 Comments »
I recently finished reading Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand by Haydn Washington and Skeptical Science founder John Cook. Given that I am a longtime reader of (and occasional contributor to) Skeptical Science, I didn’t expect to find much in this book that was new to me. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Right from [...]
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