Climate Denial in Brazil: A Translation
ricardo augusto felico.jpg This is a translation of the May 2, 2012 “Programa do Jo” on Globo, a half hour interview with the climate skeptic geographer Ricardo Augusto Felicio on…
Political Spin
Climate Denial Hits Brazil
ricardo augusto felico.jpg Last year, I wrote about how journalists in developing nations were doing a better job of covering climate change, largely because denial hadn’t really taken root in…
Rio-Inspired Optimism (If Not Optimism About Rio)
Rio de janeiro.jpg If the goal was to get the world focused on sustainable development, then this definitely counts as terrible timing. With global leaders pressured by the unending European…
The Normalcy of Hypocrisy: From Clean Energy to Health Care, Conservatives Flip Flop in Support of the Team
go team.jpg One striking feature of the liberal psyche is how it is simultaneously outraged by hypocrisy on the conservative side of the aisle—and yet also morbidly fascinated by it.…
Media Helps Sell The Myth Of “Job Killing Regulations”
unemployment-numbers.jpg Repeat something often enough, and it becomes true. That phrase has been a common theme among think tanks and politicians for decades. And sadly, there is a lot of…
The New ExxonMobil: Has the Tiger Changed Its Stripes?
Private-Empire-ExxonMobil-and-American-Power-by-Steve-Coll.cover_.jpg For a decade, now, I’ve been a reporter on climate science. And one of my earliest stories was a Mother Jones cover, exposing ExxonMobil’s funding of think tanks that…
Mann Handled: A Decade Ago, Conservatives Attacked a Scientist—And Created a Leader
hockeybookmann (1).jpg This is a review of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches From the Front Lines, by Michael Mann. I first became familiar with the name Michael…
Will Dismal Jobs Report Give New Life To Keystone XL Plan?
boehnerand pipelines.jpg While the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline might have disappeared from the front pages in the last few weeks, the battle is still raging. And a grim…
Is BP’s Attempted Climategate Strategy To Attack Scientists Ethical?
fish oil.jpg In late 2009, climate change deniers thought they had found the Holy Grail in terms of climate denial – a collection of more than 3,000 hacked emails that…
How Do We Explain Scientifically Literate But Anti-Science Conservatives? Paging Drs. Dunning and Kruger
dunning_kruger_percieved_actual_graph.gif As regular readers of this blog know, I have spent a lot of time discussing what we call the “smart idiot” effect: Political conservatives who know more about science—or,…
The Polarizing Poles: Yet Another Study Shows That More Knowledgeable Conservatives Are *Worse* on Global Warming
Figure1b.png Bloggers and commentators have been talking a lot lately about a recent study, by Dan Kahan and colleagues in Nature Climate Change, capturing what I call the “smart idiot”…
The Big Waffle? New Report Exposes Corporations That Try to Split the Difference on Global Warming
caterpillar-logo-2401.jpg We hear a lot about the Koch brothers. And before them, we heard a lot about ExxonMobil. In other words, we all know the names of the corporations, and…
A Top Scientist Ignores the Science of Why People Deny Science
800px-Richard_Leakey.jpg In the world of evolutionary science, you don’t get much more prominent than Richard Leakey (pictured here). An anthropologist and conservationist, he’s the son of the archaeologist couple Louis…
Will Climate Denial, Like, Ever End?
The_Heartland_Institute_logo.png This week, as the Heartland Institute commences its annual conference, the organization is clearly back on its heels. Funders, experts, and even some staff are bailing, reports The Guardian.…
Is The EPA Covering Up Oil Dispersant Dangers?
dispersant.jpg Less than two years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told BP that they had to stop using the highly dangerous and potentially toxic oil dispersant Corexit on the…
FreedomWorks Creates Error-Filled Site To Accuse EPA Of "Killing Jobs"
EPA Kills Jobs Facebook Ad.jpg FreedomWorks, the sister organization to the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP), has launched a new website and advertising campaign to convince American voters that the…
The Weekly Standard on “Hillbilly” Climate Denial
WStandard.c1.v17-34.May21.Cover_.jpg In its latest cover story, the conservative Weekly Standard has decided to try to refute, outside of the scientific literature, the large body of research on the psychological underpinnings…
Greenpeace Uncovers Shocking Photos Of Gulf Of Mexico Oil Disaster
More than two years after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and BP's well spewed millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Greenpeace has finally been…
Us and Them: The Psychology Behind the Heartland Institute Billboards
Leo-blog–The-Heartland-I-007.jpg The Heartland Institute’s jaw-droppingly ill-advised, and now withdrawn billboard campaign—pictured here—has drawn a huge volume of denunciations in the last week. There’s not much more to say substantively about…
A View From Nowhere? The Case Against Knee-Jerk Centrism When It Comes to Politics and Science
n_hayes_gopuniteso_120505.jpg Debate over The Republican Brain is mounting, as emotional (and highly extraverted?) conservatives fling meaningless attacks at the book—attacks so off target it’s doubtful in most cases that the…