How inconvenient. I go away on vacation for a few weeks and during that time everybody, it seems, becomes convinced that global warming has struck the earth like the Ten Plagues of Egypt. So does this mean the message (unabated carbon emissions = climate damnation) finally–finally!–has been received by 1) the media, 2) all earthlings…Continue Reading…
Of all the postmortems on the recently concluded (and much maligned) Rio +20 Earth Summit, this observation strikes me as the smartest takeaway: “I think the expectation that there is one document or one approach that can solve one of the major questions of our time “” how do you maintain economic growth and protect the…Continue Reading…
Anyone familiar with sensationalist media coverage of science knows that many stories need to be taken with a big dose of skepticism. Thus, people increasingly shake their heads at screaming headlines on the latest autism/red wine/exercise/gay parenting/climate change study. When it comes to GMOs (genetically modified organisms), however, plenty of people are also prepared, it…Continue Reading…
It’s hard to overstate the legacy of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which was published in June of 1962. Carson’s monumental book drew widespread attention to the overuse of pesticides and their lethal effects on wildlife and the environment. But Silent Spring accomplished much more than that. As Robert Gottlieb observed in his own seminal history on environmentalism, Carson…Continue Reading…
In the science blogosphere, medical falsehoods and pseudoscience are routinely called out. The watchdogging is done by a mix of scientists and journalists, who are constantly rebutting a never-ending stream of misinformation about vaccines, autism, and other public health-related subjects. For example, the indefatigable blogger known as Orac (he is a medical doctor and cancer researcher) regularly…Continue Reading…
My previous post on Nature’s use of “denier” in a recently published paper has triggered a lively comment thread, including this question to me: Since you obviously object to the usefulness of the term “˜denier’, would you care to comment on its appropriateness after considering Micha Tomkiewicz“˜s thoughts? This is in reference to several provocative blog posts by a Holocaust…Continue Reading…
Several years ago, while wrestling with the climate skeptic/denier terminology, I queried a number of my colleagues on which term they used as shorthand. None of them used the “denier” term, but most were also uncomfortable with “skeptic” as a one-size-fits all label. My own thinking on this was captured by Time’s Bryan Walsh, who…Continue Reading…
In the not so distant past, before there was a “collective fixation on global warming as the mother of all environmental problems,” as Jon Foley lamented in 2009, biodiversity was the poster child for environmental crises. It was an issue that captivated journalists, scientists and greens alike–much as climate change does today. Indeed, concern over the loss…Continue Reading…
Last week, I noted that the findings of this Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) report were parroted by all mainstream media journalists. Except this one, who actually vetted the report. Well, turns out that Ron Bailey at Reason magazine is the reason why UCS has now issued a clarification about one of its claims. The Guardian (which I…Continue Reading…
If climate information were perfect AND unfiltered, then people would get the facts directly without having the ideological spin on it. They would know inaction is suicidal AND in fact more disruptive of individual freedom AND requiring more government intervention than action [nothing requires more government intervention than scarcity, food shortages, telling people where they…Continue Reading…