Here’s Stephen Harper doing his best to stay out of the Enbridge pipeline debate – the biggest (non-soccer) controversy in Canada these days: Prime Minister Stephen Harper is defending the independence of the environmental review process underway for Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, telling reporters in Vancouver the project will be
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Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Mars Sounds
One thing missing from Curiosity, that seems an obvious oversight since it’s included on every mobile computer now, is a MICROPHONE! It would be more of a novelty than anything, which is why it was left out I’m sure, but we apparently have not heard actual recordings from the surface
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: The Mars Landing Videos
Mars Science Lab which is presently the Curiosity rover, landed on Sunday night Earth time in Saskatchewan. There’s an excellent video first that explains why the landing was carried out in this manner. Then there’s a dramatic version timed with video clips from Earth of the people in charge of
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Martian Automobile Association
Years ago I created the Martian Automobile Association (MAA), and tried selling memberships on eBay. I forget if I managed to sell any membership cards, but remember creating at least one (and have a photo of it), so I probably did. That member hasn’t stayed in touch, probably because they
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Welcome Bad Science Watch!
Hurrah, Bad Science Watch is here! It is about time Canada had its own team of people dedicated to showing the absolute nuttery that goes on under the guise of homeopathy, riki, acupuncture and the rest of the quackery that goes on up here. Go to their blog, click on
Continue readingExponential Book: Online notes
Why do students who take courses with me (but colleagues tell me of similar experiences) routinely insist that I scan and post online my very own notes, the hard-to-read, disorganized and sketchy gibberish that I use for lecturing, whereas if I post a neatly put together summary of the basic
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Are Conservatives Inherently More Biased than Liberals? The Scientific Debate Rages On
Republican Brain.jpg In the first round of critical reactions to my book The Republican Brain, there wasn’t much to impress. As I related at AlterNet, the general conservative response to the book was to misrepresent its arguments, rather than to engage them seriously. (The book predicted this, incidentally.) But now that
Continue reading350 or bust: Climate Change: Lines of Evidence
The National Academies, America’s preeminent independent scientific advisory body, has produced a series of videos about the science of climate change. This one,the second in the series, explains how scientists have arrived at the current state of knowledge about recent climate change and its causes. * National Academies.org Climate Change
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Conversion Fever! Why The Media Adores Former Climate Skeptics
Muller001.jpg If you’ve been following the science of global warming for over a decade—as I have—you might find the recent conversion of Berkeley physicist Richard Muller into a climate believer kind of underwhelming. That’s certainly the reaction of many longtime climate scientists, with whom Muller now, finally, agrees. “At this rate, Muller should
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: If Conservatives Were Really “Conservative,” They Would Want to Do Something About Global Warming
kerry-emanuel.jpg Originally, when I asked MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel to be a guest on the Point of Inquiry podcast, my goal was simple. I wanted someone who could give an expert take on the relationship between climate change and all the freakish weather we’ve been seeing. As for having
Continue readingThings Are Good: Use Your Smartphone to Advance Science
Smartphones aren’t just for games and checking your email anymore! Today, these mobile devices can be used to better the world around us by helping scientists understand more about it. Thanks to the distribution of mobiles research can be crowd-sourced to provide information that would otherwise go unnoticed. Below is
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: It’s the Weather, Stupid: Slowly Re-Awakening the Public About Climate Change
drought monitor.gif The Yale and George Mason Centers on Climate Change Communication, collaborators on the well-known “Six Americas” studies of how the public views global warming, are out with their latest report, the fifth in the series. And it hints at an underlying theme discernible in many of these surveys:
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Understanding Harper’s Evangelical Mission
harpersmiles300px.jpg This post originally appeared in The Tyee, and is re-published with permission. Any Canadian listening to the news these days might well conclude that the Republican extremists or some associated evangelical group has occupied Ottawa. And they'd be righter than Job, I believe. Almost daily, more evidence surfaces that Canada's
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: PostModern PostMedia
Somehow Stephen Maher has a job at PostMedia. It’s amazing, there is still some honest journalism going on at the husk of former Black-owned newspapers, in 2012 no less. Instead of enlightening people about the treasonous robocalls made in the last general election, this time he’s explaining that climate change
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Brit Rallies Support for Canadian Science
Harper’s war on science is the subject of an op-ed piece in today’s Guardian calling for international support for Canadian scientists and warning Harper’s funding cuts could have global impacts. [Protesting Canadian scientists] were sticking up for the right to ask difficult questions and provide uncomfortable knowledge, in particular when
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: As Close As We’ll Get
SaskAdapt.ca feels like waving the white flag, but it is an important website, and a project at the UofR. It’s also the closest we’ll get to an admission from the Sask Party government that climate change is real, and is a grave threat to our people (and every living thing
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: After All That, The Himalayan Glaciers are Indeed Shrinking
800px-Everest_North_Face_toward_Base_Camp_Tibet_Luca_Galuzzi_2006_edit_1.jpg Remember the Himalayan glaciers? They were at the root of the most deserved black-eye to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change during the intensely politicized period of 2009-2010. In so-called “GlacierGate,” it was revealed that the IPCC had published, in one of its reports, a truly bogus assertion that
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Solar Flare – There goes my radio reception.
Solar flares make CBC radio 2 reception crappy. Completely a first world problem, but I really do like clear reception when Radio2 isn’t playing crap. Not to worry too much though, apparently the storm will not wipe our earth slate clean: “A solar storm that began with a massive
Continue readingCall for international solidarity with Canadian scientists
As the federal government’s assault on science encounters increased resistance from Canadian scientists, the international community increasingly takes notice. In a recent column in The Guardian, science writer Alice Bell suggests that our scientists deserve international support, saying “We can’t pretend Canadian science is simply a Canadian matter any more
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: X-Flare from Large Sunspot #skstorm
The probability of nifty northern lights in a couple nights from now, is significant. I happened to be out taking a photo of the very large sunspot facing Earth, since I noticed it was getting some press on my 3D Sun app on my phone. The welding filter I used
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