Thanks for being a reader, and thanks to many of you for making this site a lively exchange of interesting perspectives, particularly on climate change related issues. Early next week, I’ll have a post up elaborating on a few new wrinkles to the blog. Meanwhile, I’d like to hear from you on something. What particular…Continue Reading…
I have a family member with some apparent gastrointestinal issues. The other night, while visiting, she was belching like a frat house drunkard. The episodes picked up in intensity after dinner. It was quite the entertainment for my two boys, who began gulping their grape juice to keep up with their best imitations. Amid the…Continue Reading…
The Economist has an excellent article about the “fate of India’s amphibians” and what is a universal conservation paradox: As economic growth has accelerated so, it appears, has the destruction of [India’s] forests. The Centre for Science and the Environment, a lobby group, reckons that the pace at which clearance permissions have been granted has…Continue Reading…
An archaeologist is peeved about the “craze over the supposed Maya prophecy of the end of the world in 2012,” which he says “is based on bogus, commercialized, fake claims.” Well, blow me down, are there any rational-minded people who would seriously entertain such a prophesy even if it came straight from a Carlos Castaneda…Continue Reading…
The prestigious journal Nature has published a special supplement on traditional Asian medicine (free access). Financial sponsorship for it came from the Kitasato University Oriental Medicine Research Center and the Saishunkan Pharmaceutical Co, which is described as a herbal medicine manufacturer which aims to help people make the most of their natural powers of healing…Continue Reading…
Ryan Avent at the Economist gets my nostalgia award for the day with this romanticized dreck: But turn again to those living 100 or 500 years ago. How would they have viewed civilisation today? Think of all the animals, languages, and societies that have since gone extinct. Modern lives might seem like a vision of…Continue Reading…
My latest post at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media asks if the ratcheting up of climate fear will grab hold of a public already numb to such appeals. I think David Roberts at Grist makes a strong case for how it can work, but it rests on this assumption: what drives social…Continue Reading…
Is Marion Nestle stoking nanotechnology fears here? Or is she trying to head off an ugly variation of the GMO wars? I’m not sure, but this is what she advises: Companies using this technology should be telling the public more about it. Nanotechnology is technical, difficult to grasp intuitively, “foreign,” and not under personal control….Continue Reading…
Several weeks ago in Washington D.C., I met with a scholar whose work I find fascinating. My interview with Ed Carr, an archaeologist-turned geographer, is now up at Yale Environment 360. Here’s an excerpt: e360: Over the summer various commentators talking about the famine in Somalia and the drought in the Horn of Africa were making…Continue Reading…
I dip in and out of the comment threads at Judith Curry’s blog. The nesting style annoys me, so I rarely follow an actual conversation all the way through. But there are some commenters, such as Joshua, Martha, and Louise, and a few others on the skeptical side, who I find quite engaging. They usually…Continue Reading…