hrynyshyn
Posts by this author
July 29, 2008
The man himself has been reduced to a footnote in the last advertisement from his new "we" campaign. The ad is scheduled to appear in the usual suspect media "to make sure Al Gore's clean electricity challenge stays on the top of our leaders' minds during their break." See a bigger version here.…
July 29, 2008
Andy Revkin demonstrates once again why he's among the best science journalists around in his latest exploration of the challenges facing climatologists frustrated with the way their science is portrayed in the popular media. No real answer emerges from his analysis, but if every researcher and…
July 25, 2008
As if the developing world didn't have a enough to worry about when it comes to joining the industrialized 21st century without following in the developed world's polluting footprints. A new study by British researchers finds that where you fly makes a difference to your impact on the climate. The…
July 23, 2008
We have to nip this idea in the bud: Shell is reviving the notion of liming the oceans. Why?
...because adding lime to seawater creates an increase in alkalinity, which in turn improves the water's ability to scrub the air clean of carbon.
Right. We know everything we need to know about ocean…
July 22, 2008
I doubt whoever chose today's "quote of day" as it appears on my RSS-fed personalized Google homepage, was thinking about the recent climate-denying nonsense at the American Physical Society. But the timing was impeccable. First, the quote:
My definition of an expert in any field is a person who…
July 19, 2008
The Internet makes it waaaay to easy to be stupid. Over at my other blog, a collective effort assembled by the Weather Channel, I write exclusively about climate issues. Each of my posts and just about all my colleague's posts dealing with the subject assume that climate change is real and that…
July 17, 2008
I don't have time today to comment on Al Gore's latest challenge to America ;;; "to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years" — except to say that such a plan is at once the best idea to make it to the national stage in…
July 14, 2008
I wanted to like Sizzle. I really did. I like Randy Olson's contributions here on ScienceBlogs to Shifting Baselines. Randy is a former marine biologist and I have a degree in marine biology. He thinks the climate crisis is one of if not the most important public policy challenge of our time. So do…
July 11, 2008
If you had to identify the most popularly cited threats posed by a changing climate, rising sea levels would be a strong contender. While no one would argue that the fate of hundreds of millions of humans who live in low-lying coastal regions is not a good enough reason to put the brakes on global…
July 10, 2008
Not everyone here at ScienceBlogs is happy about a new project appearing here, under the auspices of SEED, and underwritten by none other than Shell. Yes, that's right, the big bad petro products transnational. "The Next Generation of Energy Ideas" is another blog collective, featuring some…
July 10, 2008
It's time for the Union of Concerned Scientists' annual scientific integrity editorial cartoon contest. See the candidates and vote for your favorite here. My favorite:
July 9, 2008
What's not to love about Hawai'i? Well, Honolulu's a bit much, but the island state as a whole seems to understand what it's going to take to beat this whole global warming thing. It just put into a law a requirement that beginning in 2010, all new homes must incorporate solar water heaters.
In so…
July 7, 2008
Some guy named Ken Sprague had a thousand pounds of British currency to throw around each year so he decided, for the second year in a row, to hold a competition for editorial cartoons dealing with "climate change and other threats to the environment." Not too surprisingly, many of the entries aren…
June 27, 2008
So much has come down the political pipe in the past few days I've barely had time to think about science. Plus, I'm just about to head off for a 10-day vacation back on Canadian Shield birthright, so I need to get this off my chest: The Second Amendment has to go.
Yesterday's ruling that gives…
June 24, 2008
The Pew Forum surveys on what Americans think always churn out fascinating results. The latest one, released Monday, is no exception. My favorite tidbit emerges from the clever decision to drill down past the simple question of whether the recipient believes in god to a more sophisticated…
June 24, 2008
It shouldn't be all that difficult to figure out. Do we have the means at our disposal, now, to replace fossil fuels with clean alternatives that won't bankrupt us all? The only two variables we need consider are the energy conversion efficiency ratios of each candidate technology and the costs, up…
June 23, 2008
There's much gnashing of teeth among the secular set these days, as South Carolina prepares to offer automobile license plates that declare "I Believe." Just in case other drivers don't get it, the specialty plates will also feature a cross, just as Florida's proposed and rejected plates would have…
June 20, 2008
Sixty years is a blink of the metaphorical eye on geological time scales, and it's still damn fast when you're talking about climate change. While it may be far too long for Wall Street to worry about, six decades is safely with human lifespans, and a study that concludes temperatures in Greenland…
June 17, 2008
The man that Republicans believe is the best candidate for president their party has to offer says that lifting the federal moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling would "be very helpful in the short term resolving our energy crisis." This may not be the least intelligent statement to be made…
June 13, 2008
Among the most common arguments to emerge from attendees of the climate-change slide show we members of Al Gore's Climate Project hear is "what about nuclear energy?" After all, it doesn't produce any greenhouse gas emissions, at least not while operating, and the technology is already available.…
June 12, 2008
I have exaggerated and generalized to grab your attention. But it's not that much of a stretch to put reviving the North American continent's moribund passenger rail network at the heart of what really matters in this election year. By this, I mean how the American presidential and congressional…
June 9, 2008
Earth: The Sequel
The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming
by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn
Has the climate crisis got you down? Cheer yourself up with yet another dose of (almost) unbridled optimism from the president of the Environmental Defense Fund (Fred) and one of his staffers (Miriam…
June 5, 2008
Given just how much we don't understand about the Earth's climate, it's understandable that a newcomer to the science of global warming would doubt that we are capable of predicting much of anything. Many a climate change pseudoskeptic makes this argument, which can be compelling, but only if you…
June 3, 2008
The report of NASA's Office of the Inspector General on the clumsy attempts to censoring climate science makes for a most enjoyable read. We can laugh now that it's over, I mean. There are lots of gems among the overall finding the a small cabal of political appointees in the public affairs office…
June 2, 2008
Wired magazine's June cover story would have the entire environmental movement drop everything but one campaign. You don't need to see the cover to know they're talking about climate change. Does such single-mindedness make even the slightest bit of sense? Sort of. But not for the reasons the…
June 1, 2008
There's a reason the Japanese, Norwegian and Icelandic whaling fleets mostly take the smallest of the great whales ;;;;; whalers had taken so many of the bigger species that only the minke could tolerate any kind of hunt. There are supposed to be hundred of thousands of them out there, just waiting…
May 30, 2008
This may strike some as a bit much, but why the heck not? An opera based on "An Inconvenient Truth." The only problem is, how will the librettist keep the science of climate change current with an expected opening (at La Scala) of 2011? By then, we may be looking at a tragicomedy. Or perhaps an…
May 29, 2008
Climatologists have long puzzled over what caused an abrupt drop in global average temperatures in 1945. To explain the anomaly, which, unlike most other similar rapid falls, is not associated with a volcanic eruption, most invoke an increase in airborne industrial activity following the end of the…
May 27, 2008
We've all heard economics described as the "dismal science," yet it still qualifies for a Nobel prize. Many still grumble about the decision to tack on economics to the short list of true science Nobels, and while I don't know whether such complaints are justified, there is good reason to remain…
May 26, 2008
I love Alaska. I really do. Not the political jurisdiction; the geographical entity that Michelle shocked felt compelled to remind her fans is the largest in the union. It's full of spectacular, mostly pristine wilderness. There's Denali, the fjords of the panhandle, its salmon, whales, eagles and…