science
The Climate-Media Paradox: More Coverage, Stalled Progress
who speaks for the climate.jpg For those of us who care about global warming, 2006 and 2007 felt like pretty good years. Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for…
Can Fact Checking be Politically “Neutral,” When Facts Are Not Equally Distributed Across the Political Spectrum?
pinocchio.jpg Recently, I sat in on an off-the-record meeting about political fact-checking. I can’t report or quote from the event, but it spurred along some general thoughts that had already…
Heads In the Sand, or Rolling?
I find it to be a very difficult day to be a proud Canadian. If you don’t agree with scientific fact that there is climate change from our pollution, you’ll…
A Democrat Undermines Science
planb_200x170.jpg In my debate a few months back with Kenneth Green about the left, the right, and science, my colleague really could have used some more strong examples of left…
A Simple Statement Of (Rationalist/Atheist) Creed
It is high time to realize that it is not wise to continue indulging irrational, ideology-driven, religious-driven, science-rejecting, mendacious, folks by allowing them to spew their bullshit without being called…
Take Time To Renew Your Spirit
On this post-COP 17 Sunday, with its indecisive outcome and the sad truth which that outcome reveals about the industrialized world’s myopia and its potentially lethal addiction to fossil fuels,…
U.S. Navy: Climate Change Is A National Security Threat
Here are some more voices from Durban, as the UN climate negotiations continue to the end of the week: Rear Admiral David Titley, Oceanographer and Navigator of the US Navy,…
Hope As A Gas
What if we could frack for natural gas without polluting the drinking water tables? I don’t think it’s as easy as this article suggests. Your only concern cannot be the…
Standarize Electronics
Electronics work best when there are standards to follow. Without standards we wouldn’t have CDs that could be read in any nearly CD-ROM or DVD drive. We wouldn’t have radios…
The Science of Debiasing: The New “Debunking Handbook” Is a Treasure Trove For Defenders of Reason
dbh_large.gif For quite some time here at DeSmogBlog, I’ve been writing about the growing science of irrationality—in other words, our ever-better scientific understanding of why people reject clearly correct information.…
Why It’s Better to Know
If you wonder why it’s better to be smart, these smart people spell it out for you in an easy to watch hour and a half of jokes and scientific…
How a Civilization Dies
Our civilization is coming to an end, sooner than later. It won’t end with a war, or a disease, or a flood, but rather with an abandonment of reason and…
Much to the chagrin…
… of the faith-based and evidence-challenged right! Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
A simple criterion
Agreement seems lacking, among researchers, on the question of which citations to a scientific article are “legitimate”, i.e., worthy of being included among the total number of hits received by…
Putting conspiracy theories to the vote
Inspired by the success of the No HST campaign that saw British Columbians of all stripes push back against a government bent on implementing policies against the popular will of…
COP 17 in Durban – Day 1
Today is the first day of the U.N. climate talks in Durban South Africa. As I wrote earlier, many people’s expectations (including mine) for a meaningful and binding international climate…
Do Developing Nation Journalists Cover Climate Science Better (or at Least Better Than U.S. and U.K. Papers)?
ronaldo-brazil-world-cup-top-scorer.jpg As the European debt crisis scrapes along, there has been talk about the possible need for developing nations, like China and Brazil, to ultimately help bail out some spendthrift…
Autism, Arctic Ice Melt: It’s Gotta Be Genetic … er … Natural Variation, Natural Fluctuation
Polar Bears photographed by Canadian Environmentalists “Arctic sea ice is disappearing on a pace and magnitude unlike anything the Earth has experienced in the past 1,450 years, according to a…