"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
After two big Antarctic ice shelves
broke off several years ago, a
world of new species was found underneath.
Pictures and a press release came out yesterday, showing spindly orange starfish among other interesting creatures. Here is some more
information on the expedition.
The fact that the shelves melted when they did is most likely a result of global warming, but having them out of the way gave researchers a golden opportunity to study what lives beneath the ice.
Other occassions where a disaster has simultaneously been a great research opportunity include radioactive fallouts: at Chernobyl the evacuated area has been
monitored for the past decades to see which species move in and how they thrive (
previously on Metafilter)
posted by easternblot
on Feb 26, 2007 -
21 comments
A New Alpine Melt Theory: "The Alpine glaciers are shrinking, that much we know. But new research suggests that in the time of the Roman Empire, they were smaller than today. And 7,000 years ago they probably weren't around at all." Fascinating report from Der Spiegal about the "Green Alps" theory.
This page has a small graphic showing the Alps today and how they might have looked in a warmer period. Another article
here. Maybe
Otzi forgot to pack his sunscreen?
posted by LarryC
on Jun 18, 2005 -
9 comments
Junk Science. George Monbiot has a critical look at some the claims put forward by
"climate change" deniers. There's lots of interesting refutation, with some amusement: "But there was still one mystery to clear up. While Bellamy’s source claimed that 55% of 625 glaciers are advancing, Bellamy claimed that 555 of them – or 89% – are advancing. This figure appears to exist nowhere else. But on the standard English keyboard, 5 and % occupy the same key. If you try to hit %, but fail to press shift, you get 555, instead of 55%. This is the only explanation I can produce for his figure. When I challenged him, he admitted that there had been “a glitch of the electronics”."
posted by gsb
on May 10, 2005 -
35 comments
RealClimate is a blog written by nine working climatologists from around the world (all experts in their field), focusing on explaining climate science, providing context to current reports in the mainstream media, and rebutting the fallacious arguments of carbon lobby hacks. (
via World Changing)
posted by stbalbach
on Dec 10, 2004 -
6 comments
Republican environmental politics as usual? While the president's policies seem to be standard for his party, Bill Moyers thinks there's more than meets the eye. On receiving Harvard medical school's Global Environment Citizen Award, Moyers posits that destruction of the environment isn't just good for big business, it's a self fulfilling prophecy of the apocalypse. Not just any old apocalypse, it's
The Rapture, complete with plagues for the non-believers and immmediate ascension to the right hand of God Himself for the righteous.
Two days after Moyer's speech, Science magazine looks at
the scientific consensus on global warming. If you're having a hard time explaining all this to your kids, don't worry, your
tax dollars are hard at work.
posted by jimray
on Dec 8, 2004 -
51 comments
Did belief in extraterrestrials pave the way for today’s general belief in
global warming? Is the blending of public policy with science creating junk science? Michael Crichton drew out an intriguing connection in this lecture at Caltech. Via
Arts & Letters Daily.
posted by gd779
on Jan 3, 2004 -
42 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
