Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Michael Harris slams the Cons for their attacks on science: How far has the government been prepared to go to smother the…
science
A Court’s Scientific Smackdown: The D.C. Circuit Trashes Science Deniers on Global Warming and the EPA
800px-Meade_and_Prettyman_Courthouse.jpg Tomorrow, we may see a court—the highest in the land—flout precedent for partisan ends in its ruling on President Obama’s signature health care law. However, in the meantime, we…
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…
Scientists warn, politicians ignore
The Global Network of Science Academies, representing 105 science academies around the world, issued a press release last week highlighting what they referred to as “two of the most profound…
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…
ConCalls: 3% Reduction in Voting
I think it’s rather clever how these researchers, Tom Cornwall & Anke Kessler, realized that the individual polling stations within a riding could be used to determine the effect of…
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.…
Earth May Reach Tipping Point
* More links: Scientists Uncover Evidence Of Impending Tipping Point For Earth Carbon Targets Need Strong New Measures, Panel Argues
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…
God Created Adam and Eve Not Adam and Steve
I’m really not sure why religious right wingers always seem to use this phrase in reference to the Adam and Eve story (as well as other Old Testament references) to…
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,…
Transit of Venus from Saskatchewan
The last chance for humans alive today to witness a transit of the planet Venus (directly from Earth), happens in a little over one hour from now. There are 7…
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”…
Two reports on pesticide risks
Thursday, May 31, 2012 When a politician says that his report is about the science, and not about the politics, it’s probably wise to take that claim with a grain…
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…
Quacks invade Richmond City Council
Richmond’s city council recently approved a motion to ban genetically-modified crops from being planted in their municipality. Richmond is likely the largest municipality in BC to pass such a ban…