cmooney
Posts by this author
April 18, 2006
I just gave a speech at George Mason, to a much more scholarly and academically oriented crowd than I'm used to addressing. The event, after all, was entitled "Who Owns Knowledge" and was sponsored by the cultural studies Ph.D. program. There was a time when these sorts of scholars, who study…
April 17, 2006
Global warming. Stem cells. Evolution. These are high profile scientific topics that are extremely politicized. They get a fair amount of press regularly. One or the other of them is pretty much always in the news in some way. It's almost like they take turns, or rotate.
But as I and others have…
April 17, 2006
You may not have ever heard of it, but one of the right's more interesting think tanks dealing in matters of science is the so-called Annapolis Center, or the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy. The group does the typical global warming and mercury type stuff, but it also does one…
April 16, 2006
I'll be speaking on Tuesday at what looks to be a great event hosted by George Mason University's cultural studies Ph.D. program. Here's the roster of talks (for more details see here):
Who Owns Knowledge?
A Symposium on Science and Technology in the Global Circuit
9:00-10:20 AM: States of…
April 14, 2006
I just left the National Hurricane Conference in Orlando, Florida; I'm currently sitting in the happily wired Orlando airport. Anyway, I noticed something at the conference that I can't resist mentioning--and no, this has nothing to do with hurricanes.
Just as the hurricane conference ended, a new…
April 14, 2006
Taking over for Henry Waxman (not that the bulldog has gone to sleep or anything), Rep. Brad Miller is starting to cause some serious trouble for the Bush admin over politics and science. See here for an interview with Miller at DailyKos--which, thanks to DarkSyde, is once again doing a great job…
April 12, 2006
Famed global warming "skeptic" Richard Lindzen has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today about global warming--which includes some debunking of the proposed hurricane/GW link. He writes:
If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the…
April 12, 2006
Since he's been in the news I perused his website...and what did I find? An outright denial of human caused global warming, based upon a questionable-sounding argument (culled from some dude writing in The Telegraph) that I've never actually heard before:
Consider the simple fact, drawn from the…
April 12, 2006
Basic Books has just published The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius, by Harvard historian of science Joyce Chaplin. I got to read the book in galleys and it was excellent. From his studies of electricity and storms to his charting of the Gulf Stream, Franklin…
April 9, 2006
Not that you shouldn't drink liberally on other days...but seriously, I'm speaking in DC this Wednesday night at a Drinking Liberally event. It should be a heck of a lot of fun. Vital details: Mark & Orlando's, Wednesday, April 12th, 7:30PM. There should be a book signing after. And then, er,…
April 6, 2006
In case anyone was wondering why I didn't blog yesterday, I was traveling--and a long day on the road culminated in a very well received speech at Bowling Green. I'd say there were over 200 people present. They laughed at my jokes.
Now I'm off to Michigan State for another one of these events....…
April 4, 2006
Very apropos of my previous post about George Will and Robert Novak, just found this quotation from Michael Kinsley:
Abandoning the pretense of objectivity does not mean abandoning the journalist's most important obligation, which is factual accuracy. In fact, the practice of opinion journalism…
April 4, 2006
I really think the folks at Real Climate have an important point when they write, in outrage over Robert Novak's recent attack on James Hansen, the following:
What is happening at the Washington Post, unfortunately, has nothing to do with a critical examination of the evidence for an imminent…
April 4, 2006
The junior senator from Illinois recently gave a long speech on global warming, which included the following:
And while the situation on the land may look ugly, what's going on in the oceans is even worse. Hurricanes and typhoons thrive in warm water, and as the temperature has risen, so has the…
April 4, 2006
Today I'm working on updates to Chapter 9 of my book, which is divided up into sections about misuses of science to favor food industry interests and misuses of science to deny the dangers of mercury pollution and contamination of fish. The chapter itself is entitled "Eating Away at Science."…
April 3, 2006
When it comes to global warming and prominent national columnists, there's probably no one with his head further crammed into the sand than George Will. Anyway, there's no need for me to debunk his latest nonsense, Real Climate and the Progress Report have already done a great job. But hey, Will…
April 3, 2006
Sometimes I hear a slight bit of trash talk about how my "war on science" message goes down smoothest on the two left coasts. There's some truth to the claim, but I certainly haven't been avoiding other parts of the USA--and my events this week prove it. I'm doing the heartland, the swing states--…
April 1, 2006
This op-ed in today's New York Times, by "End of Environmentalism" prophets Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, is seriously weak. Actually, I would go so far as to call it lame. To wit:
We can agree to disagree on the causes of climate change. What we all must agree on, though, is that it…
March 31, 2006
NASA is to be commended for a new media policy easing up restrictions on scientist communications. Most importantly, scientists don't have to have little PR minders on their phone calls any more. Bravo. See here to learn more about the policy.
NASA's move is entirely positive--it represents…
March 31, 2006
I am still busy at work revising The Republican War on Science for the paperback edition. Now the plan is to have both a new author preface, and then also to have updates at the end of most of the body chapters. And to complete this project, I am seeking more feedback.
Today I'm working on updates…
March 30, 2006
Via the Progress Report, I see that George W. Bush is sounding more and more like an out-and-out greenhouse skeptic. Perhaps his meeting with Michael Crichton influenced him? From Bush's recent press conference:
Q From Australia. I've got a question about global warming -- in the Australian…
March 30, 2006
Over at Prometheus, Roger Pielke, Jr., has an interesting post taking Kevin Trenberth to task for discussing how global warming may have increased Katrina's total rainfall and thus caused direct damage to New Orleans. Pielke doesn't think Trenberth can justifiably say this, although previously (I…
March 27, 2006
Over at the excellent blog Crooked Timber, a lengthy and extremely productive seminar discussion has just gone online about my book, with contributions from John Quiggin, Daniel Davies, Ted Barlow, John Holbo, Steve Fuller (of Dover evolution trial fame), Tim Lambert, Henry Farrell, and John…
March 26, 2006
Here's a longer excerpt from that Time cover story--up through the full second paragraph:
No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades…
March 26, 2006
Just for the record (and since everybody's doing it), my blog owns 18.25 percent of me. I expected it would be much worse. I can't imagine how PZ could have gotten 6.25 percent, given that he posts much more frequently than I do. He must be super efficient....
(If you're confused what I'm talking…
March 26, 2006
The latest Time magazine cover reads, "Be Worried. Be Very Worried." Inside, Jeffrey Kluger's cover story begins:
No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency…
March 25, 2006
Tomorrow I am off to New York for this meeting on hurricanes and climate, sponsored by Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society. I'm very appreciative that Columbia-IRI has allowed me to attend the event, which will feature presentations from Kerry Emanuel,…
March 24, 2006
I have just found out that an edition of The Republican War on Science is coming out in South Korea, and I have to write an introduction to it. I'm supposed to address the book to South Koreans, and obviously I should say something about the central issue of embryonic stem cell research--but beyond…
March 23, 2006
I really, really enjoyed Elizabeth Kolbert's new book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe. I gave it a nice little review/plug in Seed. I would recommend it to anyone.
Still, I must say, I was staggered to read on the book's Amazon page the following editorial review (it's unclear who from): "An…
March 23, 2006
I am psyched to be among the list of speakers for a great upcoming conference on "Bioethics & Politics: The Future of Bioethics in a Divided Democracy," sponsored by the Alden March Bioethics Institute of Albany Medical College. Other confirmed speakers include:
Nigel CameronArthur CaplanAlta…