environment the state of the earth
From Flickr, by Claudia Castro
May 16, 2008
The Island of Doubt
Gambling on the climate Is putting real money on something as consequential as a computer model of climate trends consistent with the professional detachment that's supposed to accompany honest research?
The Intersection
Please Give to Cyclone Relief! The Intersection just got an email from Oxfam America, asking for our help getting the word out about the urgent need to help cyclone survivors in Myanmar. To quote in brief: "In the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis - which struck...
Shifting Baselines
(Un)Happy Endangered Species Day Today is Endangered Species Day, a resolution introduced by Maine Senator Susan Collins and California Senator Dianne Feinstein to help increase awareness about threats to endangered wildlife, fish and plants. In celebration, let's look at this article in the BBC...
Deltoid
Pielke train wreck If you haven't been watching the Roger Pielke Jr train come of the rails and the carriages smashing into each other and exploding, I suggest you look at this post from James Annan: Roger Pielke has been saying some truly...
Tetrapod Zoology
Scolecophidians: seriously strange serpents The scales of typhlopids at least are thick and strongly overlapping, and in some species the scales glow under UV light (I don't think anyone knows why); furthermore, the scales are so thick that shed skins are said to be rubbery in texture. A pair of cloacal sacs - the retrocloacal sacs - are also present in these snakes, the function of which remains unknown (they were suggested to function in sperm storage but Shea (2001) showed that this was not the case).
Deep Sea News
Friday Deep-Sea Picture (05/16/08): Polar Bear Hang in there, baby...ESA is coming...
May 15, 2008
Greg Laden's Blog
Mark Bittman: What's wrong with what we eat In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what's wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it's putting the entire planet...
Stoat
World's wildlife and environment already hit by climate change, major study shows? Grauniad again, of course:. Its obvious b*ll*cks, at least as measured by my own experience: most of the damage is caused by roads, buildings, farming practices, and so on. Can it really be true that 90% of env damage is...
Adventures in Ethics and Science
Connections. Because it strikes me as somehow related to my last post, and because Memorial Day is the Monday after next, I'm recycling a post I wrote last year for WAAGNFNP: On Memorial Day, because I really needed to do something...
Science To Life
New idea in mortuary science: Dissolving bodies with lye There may soon be a new (more eco-friendly) option in funeral services: dissolving bodies in lye and flushing the residue down the drain. Lye is an alkaline chemical also known as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and the process of using it...
Adventures in Ethics and Science
Ethical considerations in encouraging conservation. I don't want it to fall to our water bills to make us be the people we ought to be.
Deep Sea News
Can we protect Polar Bears from pollution? It feels strange to rejoice the listing of polar bears to the Endangered Species Act, because its nothing to be happy about, really. They are now officially in danger of extinction. I would be more ecstatic if they were being...
Deep Sea News
Support the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument! Do you support the proposal to create a Marine Monument in the northern islands? Do you enjoy the slogan "You'll love how deep we go" as much as us? Do you find it absolute and utter bull-honkey that the CNMI...
Deep Sea News
Japanese Whalers Accused of Stealing Whale Meat They're at it again. Conservation group Greenpeace is accusing the crew of japanese whaling ships of "embezzling" whale meat from the whale "research". CNN reports: The environmental group said "large-scale embezzlement" was allowed as an "open secret" by the Institute...
The Island of Doubt
Why should we care about the polar bear? This is all angels-on-pinhead philosophy. The real question is, would are the real consequences of an ESA listing?
Shifting Baselines
Bottomfeeder: A Review Today, my review of Taras Grescoe's recently published book Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood is up at The Tyee. When Taras Grescoe declares he will try anything on his voyage around the world in...
Shifting Baselines
Polar Bear Listed As 'Threatened' Polar bears are threatened with global climate change and, in recognition of this, were just listed as 'threatened' under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Read more here....
May 14, 2008
Stoat
Losing the plot Lucia lost the plot some time ago, mostly by cherry-picking her time period, using a weird data-fitting method and failing to understand what she was looking at. Now RP Jr follows her down the rabbett hole and bizarrely describes her...
Thoughts from Kansas
Under pressure from courts, public opinion, Feds list polar bear as threatened The Department of the Interior explains: Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne today announced that he is accepting the recommendation of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The listing is based on the best available science, which shows that loss of sea ice threatens and will likely continue to threaten polar bear habitat. This loss of habitat puts polar bears at risk of becoming endangered in the foreseeable future, the standard established by the ESA for designating a threatened species.The press release goes...
The Island of Doubt
Polar bears to be listed Word is the U.S. Interior Department, after much delay, is going to list the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) "as a threatened species because of declining Arctic sea ice," according to major news service alert. Marvelous. Now all we have to...
Effect Measure
McCain on climate change: Bush league More of the McSame.
Highly Allochthonous
Ripples aplenty Last week's geopuzzle was really just an excuse to show off more photos of the rather nice sedimentary structures preserved in the Archean rocks I visited the other week. All of the photos show preserved ripple marks. I've always found...
The Intersection
Yes, Virginia, There Is a War on Science Okay, so....I got sick of this new wave of conservative science punditry, which dismisses the "war on science" argument without even bothering to show it's wrong, and then goes on to claim that we liberals are "new eugenicists" and that...
May 13, 2008
Shifting Baselines
Will the Future Be Fishless? Over the weekend, the Observer's Alex Renton gave it to us straight on how the world's oceans are running out of fish. Here's just a taste: Unlike global warming, the science of fish stock collapse is old and its practitioners...
Tetrapod Zoology
'From the north came the furry tyrannosaurs', and other memorable lines: a look back at 'Dinosaurs - A Historical Perspective' (part II) I have a lot on at the moment, so getting this finished wasn't easy - but I managed it. Here we are with the rest of my recollections from 'Dinosaurs (and other extinct saurians) - A Historical Perspective', held...
“I'm guessing [Alaska] legislators got through their science classes in school by getting copies of the Teacher's Edition of their textbooks.” Michael Burton on Conclusions First!
