What it doesn’t need is Al Gore, which is kinda the subtext of the quotes from prominent academics and pundits in this USA Today piece by Dan Vergano, who elicits feedback on the recent Climate Reality event. This snippet caught my eye: Gore trying to change public opinion over climate change puts the political cart in front of…Continue Reading…
I have a new post up at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media that suggests Vice President Gore and like-minded allies are fighting their battle from a “defensive crouch,” which won’t get them where they want to go. Nor am I the only one wondering if Gore’s recent 24-hour mediathon is the…Continue Reading…
I’m not sure there is such a thing, but it’s probably good to know what your objective is. In this contentious thread, perspectives ran the gamut. One commenter observed: As difficult it is in this era of “Tea Baggers vs Marxists”, “Denialists vs. Warmistas”, “Conservatards vs. Mann-Made Glo-bull Warmists” or whatever other dumbass portmanteaus each…Continue Reading…
The climate science community must have let out a collective groan after reading this opening line from Bill McKibben’s Daily Beast column: Irene’s got a middle name, and it’s Global Warming. If that sounds familiar, then you’ll remember this from Ross Gelbspan six years ago: The hurricane that struck Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday was…Continue Reading…
Fans of smashmouth science communication have not been disappointed by the response to Texas Governor Rick Perry’s recent statements on evolution. Richard Dawkins, the brilliant evolutionary biologist who is also famously combative, has slugged away in the Washington Post: There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and…Continue Reading…
Evolution, Climate Change, Could Divide the Republican party That’s the headline to Ron Brownstein’s piece at The Atlantic. Like I was saying…
So this past week many of us have been feeding at the trough where religion, politics, and science is ground up. It’s not been a pretty sight. In this Poynter article, a truism is observed: [Tom] Yulsman, the Colorado professor, noted that a [Presidential] candidate’s positions on scientific wedge issues tend to serve as a proxy…Continue Reading…
This one is from the left, and it was laid out last week by Bill McKibben in a Washington Post op-ed, in advance of the climate protests now underway in Washington DC: The issue is simple: We want the president to block construction of Keystone XL, a pipeline that would carry oil from the tar sands…Continue Reading…
In Saturday’s Washington Post, Roger Pielke Jr., a University of Colorado professor and the author of The Climate Fix, was quoted as saying: Climate change has become a wedge issue. It’s today’s flag-burning or today’s partial-birth-abortion issue. I’m not sure how Roger intended this to be construed–as a commentary on the larger, endlessly politicized climate debate…Continue Reading…
Serious, science-based climate skeptics have a chance to separate themselves from the foaming-at-the-mouth lunacy that defines their public image. I mention this because I know that some of you skeptics chafe at the buffoonish antics of Christopher Monckton and the sweeping declarations of Republican Senator James Inhofe. As science writer David Brin has written (which I…Continue Reading…