The Island of Doubt

Black carbon: Color matters when it comes to climate change

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 12:52:26 -0500

Upon first read, a new study about the contribution of "black carbon" to the global carbon cycle, and therefore to climate change, suggests things might not be as bad as now commonly thought. But first reads, especially by those who don't have a graduate degree specializing in exactly the field in question, can be misleading. And "Australian climate-carbon cycle feedback reduced by soil black carbon," which appears in the latest Nature Geoscience, is a case in point.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

What do you call the anti-global warming crowd?

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:09:09 -0500

Over at A Few Things Illconsidered, the commenters are debating what to call those folks who just can't bring themselves to accept the science of climate change. You know, the science that says we have to stop spewing the products of the combustion of fossil fuels into the air if we want to keep the planet's ecology close to something we'd consider habitable.

Denialists? Skeptics? Scoffers? I'd like to weigh in with a defense of the term that I now use regularly in this space: "Pseudoskeptics."

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Why I'm now an optimist

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:14:01 -0500

Mostly because I'm tired of being a pessimist. But there's also things like this:

"Delay is not an option. Denial is no longer acceptable." Gotta love that.

h/t to Reader Brian D for directing me to the video. Much better than the print coverage of same.

Read the comments on this post...

Brave New World, Part I

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:10:12 -0500

So much has changed in the last few weeks that I'm only now beginning to get a handle on things. I'm still processing and unsure about so much that I'm going to do something that I have resisted doing since joining the blogosphere three and half years ago. I'm going to share some personal thoughts about who I am and where I call home.

First, there's the issue of my relationship to government.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Why do I bother?

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:21:05 -0500

I've got a post up at my other blog, where I write about climate change for the Weather Channel's Forecast Earth site, that briefly discusses James Hansen's new paper on appropriate targets for CO2 levels. I still intend to write something more consequential here, but in the meantime, I thought I'd draw ScienceBlogs readers' attention to the reaction at the TWC blog. Here's a selection:

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Carbon capture made easy

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 07:13:05 -0500

There's talk of "a low-cost, safe, and permanent method to capture and store atmospheric CO₂." All it would take is some conventional rock drilling and a little energy in the form of warm water. That's what the authors of a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences say is theoretically possible thanks to natural weathering processes at work in the Sultanate of Oman. It's geo-engineering for those who don't much like geo-engineering!

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

No time to be timid

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:18:15 -0500

Words of wisdom are pouring from the pages of America's punditocracy, and many embrace a common theme: dare to be bold, Mr. President-elect.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

What he said

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:48:43 -0500

I would have included something about the need for a googolplex of public transportation projects instead of simply encouraging cleaner automobiles, but yeah: this is what Obama should do.

Read the comments on this post...

RFK Jr: crank candidate for EPA chief?

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:05:09 -0500

Most of my favorite ScienceBlogs colleagues are up in arms at the very hint that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could end up as the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. The problem is RFK, while justifiably cherished for many years by the environmental movement, also happens to be the best-known member of a group of cranks that opposes childhood vaccination because of its alleged links to autism. Are Orac, MarkH, Mike the Mad Biologist, Mike Dunford and the rest justifiably worried? I think so.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

The enormity of the challenge

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:54:20 -0500

"Now the hard part" writes Peter Baker in today's New York Times. Sure enough. It's never too soon to be reminded that Barack Obama is just this guy, you know? But it doesn't take Baker two paragraphs to completely misconstrue the enormity of the challenge facing the next president:

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Who needs a PhD?

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:10:58 -0500

The conventional wisdom is that you have to get a PhD if you want to be a serious scientist. I don't have one, but I'm not a scientist, just a journalist with a BSc who can't claim to have advanced any particular branch of marine biology. There are accomplished researchers out there that have managed to make significant contributions to their field without the cache of a graduate degree, though. Today's New York Times offers a profile of one such scientist, a hero of mine named Alexandra Morton. It wasn't easy and it took years of suffering contempt from "real" scientists before her work was accepted, but when it comes to the environmental impact of salmon farming, she has few equals.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Even with Obama at the helm...

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:30:06 -0500

Given than John McCain is now relying on non-Euclidean geometry to construct a scenario in which he prevails on Tuesday, I think it safe to pour to cold on water the hyper-optimism now coursing through progressive America.

Yes, Barack Obama's victory will be cause for celebration. It will be a good thing if for no other reason than his presidency will represent an unprecedented sea change, one that signals to the country and the rest of the world that the 21st century has finally arrived, seven years delayed but hopefully not too late. Regardless of Obama's real capacity to effect change, the world will be a different place on November 5, one in which racism is that much more diminished in power, and one where hope has replaced fear as the dominant political currency. And yet...

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Read this first (before taking on the climatology community)

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:59:22 -0500

After Doonesbury, my morning reading begins with a peek at the RSS feed from Real Climate. Most mornings it's worth a repeat look at posts I've already reviewed as the comments left there offer one of the highest signal-to-noise ratios in the blogosphere. Today I came across this noteworthy note from one Lawrence Brown:

Even Albert Einstein was no Einstein when it came to quantum mechanics. Neils Bohr turned back Einstein's skepticism several times on certain aspects. Which ought to give all of us pause. If Einstein can be wrong what can anyone expect from the rest of us?!
However if you're going to challenge an Einstein you'd better have the goods. [Wilhelm] Reich, [the controversial Freudian psychoanalyist] didn't, Bohr did. The same holds true of climate science. If you want to challenge someone with the stature of say a James Hansen, you'd do well to have an excellent grounding on all aspects of this discipline.

Which brought to mind a new paper in Environmental Research Letters, "What do recent advances in quantifying climate and carbon cycle uncertainties mean for climate policy?" by Joanna House of the University of Bristol and eight other British climatologists who should receive some kind of prize for succinct and clear science writing.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Obama gets the nod from ....

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:40:15 -0500

I know of no solid evidence that editorial endorsements have even the slightest effect on presidential campaigns. You might be able to find some correlations in some states, but that could easily be because the newspaper and magazine editors are good at following the general feeling of their readers, rather than the other way around.

But that doesn't mean editors should stop making the endorsements. And our overlords at SEED magazine are taking this first opportunity to officially sanction the candidacy of ...

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

The new China syndrome

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:03:57 -0500

The Chinese are a complicated lot. On the one hand, they're building a new coal-fired power plant every four or five or six days, depending on who's counting, an endeavor that cost them $248 billion in hidden costs last year "through damage to the environment, strain on the health care system and manipulation of the commodity's price" says Greenpeace. On the other, they've just announced that they're going to spend the equivalent of $280 billion enhancing their passenger rail network. Impressive. Just imagine if we dumped a proportional $75 billion into American passenger rail.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...