More information can be found here: The Canadian government is requiring foreign researchers who collaborate with federal scientists to sign agreements that could potentially muzzle them, a U.S. scientist says.
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Mind of Dan: Bury your head in the (tar) sand
from the what-you-don’t-know-can’t-hurt-you-department: One year after plans were announced for a new system to monitor the environmental effects of the Alberta tar sands, there is still no sign of any formal data… The plans indicated that scientists would release information on an ongoing basis in some cases, and on three
Continue readingMind of Dan: Melting permafrost
Allie Wilkinson writing in ArsTechnica brings us some bad news: Evidence from caves in Siberia indicates that a global temperature increase of 1.5° Celsius may cause substantial thawing of a large tract of permanently frozen soil in Siberia. The thawing of this soil, known as permafrost, could have serious consequences
Continue readingMind of Dan: Another pipeline proposal
In my recent post on the Keystone XL pipeline I mentioned that until digging up the bitumen becomes unprofitable there will be an endless parade of proposals to ship the bitumen to markets around the world. TansCanada (which is also behind the Keystone XL pipeline) has just announced a proposal
Continue readingMind of Dan: Thinking beyond pipelines: A rebuttal
My latest post on the Keystone XL pipeline was, unsurprisingly, not well received by some of the Planet3.0. I argued that I don’t think the fighting the Keystone XL pipeline is the best use of our limited resources. In the comments Andy Skuce provided a rebuttal that deserves to be
Continue readingMind of Dan: Thinking beyond pipelines
The Keystone XL pipeline proposal, which would transport diluted bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to refineries on the gulf of Mexico coast, is in the news again because of the recent protests outside the White House and the because of the recent appointment of Senator John Kerry to the
Continue readingMind of Dan: Canadian Environmental regulations are falling behind
Scott Vaughan, Canada’s departing Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, released his final report. In it he describes how the development of Canada’s natural resources is running dangerously ahead of Canada’s laws and policies to protect the environment. The Pembina Institute highlights the clearest example:
Continue readingMind of Dan: Jon Foley on why environmentalists disagree with each other
I think a lot of debates we see in the environmental community boil down to people having different “theories of change”. A theory of change is simply that: a theory about how you think the world changes for the better. Some people think the world changes because of political movements.
Continue readingMind of Dan: Obama on Climate
Having the leader of the free world state so clearly that we must respond to the threat of climate change is absolutely a good thing. Having him state that the path is both long and difficult is even better. But forgive me for being cynical; haven’t we heard all of
Continue readingMind of Dan: Aaron Swartz, 1986-2013
Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. I think a lot of what people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity -Aaron Swartz, 1986-2013 The past weekend open-access advocate and activist Aaron Swartz sadly took his own life. He was 26 years old. Aaron accomplished more in his 26 years
Continue readingMind of Dan: The colour of hot or inadequate heatmaps
The recent Australasian heatwave has been so unprecedented that the Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has had to add a new colour (purple) to represent the hottest region:
Continue readingMind of Dan: Richard Alley: Ice sheets and sea level in a warming world
(h/t Peter Sinclair)
Continue readingMind of Dan: Santa’s regret
via Skeptical Science
Continue readingMind of Dan: About that IPCC cosmic rays game changer…
… or nothing to see here. Move along folks. All of this cosmic nonsense was pre-debunked by Richard Alley in his great AGU talk from 2009 titled: The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth’s Climate History (starting at about 42 minutes): So despite what you might have read at
Continue readingMind of Dan: The largest iceberg break-up ever filmed
I find it hard to fully comprehend the scale of it
Continue readingMind of Dan: Quote of the day
We all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it. –Jean-Claude Juncker Talking about financial reforms, but the exact same situation applies to climate/sustainability.
Continue readingMind of Dan: TEDx on spotting pseudoscience
TEDx has recently been used as a platform for pseudoscience, and in response they have published an open letter full of good advice on how non experts can spot pseudoscience.
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