Scripps Institute of Oceanography projects that next month its monitoring station will for the first time measure CO2 at
400 parts per million. Atmospheric CO2 has risen from 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. 400 ppm is an arbitrary milestone that we'll blow right past on our way to 450 ppm within a few decades. This is an unprecedentedly fast rate of increase and it's getting faster. Not all measuring stations are exactly the same: A NOAA station in the Arctic measured
CO2 at 400 ppm last year. [more inside]
posted by Sleeper
on Apr 25, 2013 -
125 comments
With a database of over 5,000 scientists, from Nobel prize winners to postdocs and PhD students,
Sense About Science works in partnership with scientific bodies, research publishers, policy makers, the public and the media, to change public discussions about science and evidence.
They make these scientists available for questions from civic organizations and the public looking for scientific advice from experts,
campaign for the promotion of scientific principles in public policy, and
publish neat guides to understanding science intended for laypeople. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb
on Feb 28, 2013 -
9 comments
"Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically." Link.
[more inside]
posted by BobbyVan
on Jan 27, 2012 -
270 comments
Odds of Cooking the Grandkids:
"There is a horrible paper in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which looks at how the limits of human physiology interact with upper-range global warming scenarios. The bottom line conclusion is that there is a small - of order 5% - risk of global warming creating a situation in which a large fraction of the planet was uninhabitable (in the sense that if you were outside for an extended period during the hottest days of the year, even in the shade with wet clothing, you would die)." [more inside]
posted by symbollocks
on May 7, 2010 -
47 comments
The University of East Anglia's
Climatic Research Unit suffered a
security breach this week. Hackers made off with thousands of email correspondences between some of the world's top climate scientists, and posted them to the Internet
1.
Tony Hake has posted an
article at The Examiner, highlighting what he feels are the most egregious examples of scientists manipulating and hiding data to support the established theories about Climate Change. Some of the scientists involved
counter that the quotes are taken out of context, and that "People are using language used in science and interpreting it in a completely different way".
1 I'm not going to link to them, but the Examiner article mentions where to get them.
posted by Who_Am_I
on Nov 20, 2009 -
146 comments
Pederasts of the
mind: Of
kids, lies and Oil. The American Petroleum Institute
partners (in 2004)
with The
National Science Teacher's
Association (NSTA) and
Scholastic
(see: Scholastic's
creedo) to
provide K-12 lesson plans, on energy and oil, which resemble the
API's own "Teacher Lesson
Plans" and snappy
flash presentations such as
Progress
Through Petroleum! which are bundled with
fun stuff and
cool facts. The NSTA/API lessons teach all about energy and oil except the
global environmental impacts. Didactic bonus from
NSTA's oil-friendly curriculum :
a surrealistic gallery of oil industry
imagery for kids to download.
Recent glacial melt speedup in
Greenland and
Antarctica shocks researchers, while the Pentagon games
scenarios of
Abrupt
Climate Change : Don't worry, says the DOE's
Energy Ant - oil's
good, like cows,
m'kay
? . Extra credit : Play the
Oil and natural Gas
Crossword Puzzle, or the "Industry Lesson Plan Game" (that, and more, inside)
posted by troutfishing
on Oct 5, 2004 -
21 comments
Spinning the Environment One section of the memorandum, "Winning the Global Warming Debate," asserts that many voters believe there is a lack of consensus about global warming among scientists. "Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly," it says. "Therefore you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue."
Among the ways to "challenge the science," the memorandum says, is to "be even more active in recruiting experts who are sympathetic to your view and much more active in making them part of your message" because "people are more willing to trust scientists than politicians."
So much for science based decisions regarding the fouling of our nest. Sounds Green = Is Green in the bizarro world of spin.
posted by nofundy
on Mar 4, 2003 -
35 comments
The World Summit on Sustainable Development, aka "Earth Summit II," will start soon in Johannesburg, ten years after the Rio
Earth Summit. Have things improved at all in the last ten years?
While there are some reasons to be
optimistic, the data isn't cheerful. Our
climate is growing unstable; tens of millions are
dying or likely to die, and hundreds of millions more likely to be made refugees, because of environmental pollution and degraded ecosystems; and half the plants and animals on the planet seem
headed for extinction over the next century. In short, things are grim.
What steps, big or small, are you taking to do your part for the environment?
posted by AlexSteffen
on Aug 17, 2002 -
30 comments
When NASA scientists watch Michael Bay films, comedy ensues. 'The technology is not at all far-fetched,' said Dr Greg Laughlin, of the Nasa Ames Research Center in California. 'It involves the same techniques that people now suggest could be used to deflect asteroids or comets heading towards Earth. We don't need raw power to move Earth, we just require delicacy of planning and manoeuvring.'
Oh yeah, nothing could possibly go wrong with
this plan. I'm not being a Luddite here...I realize the scientists involved aren't going to be doing this any time soon, if ever. It still spooks me, though.
posted by Ezrael
on Jun 11, 2001 -
14 comments
Grab your water-wings while you can, because I'm afraid I am the bearer of bad tidings.
We only have a billion years of beach time left, because our planet's ocean's are going to dry up completely. Fortunately, earth will be almost completely unlivable by then, so our descendents will already be dead. According to professor of meterology James Kastings, "My calculations are somewhat pessimistic and present a worst case scenario..."
posted by sixfoot6
on Feb 20, 2000 -
2 comments
