environment
pharyngula | November 30, 2006Justice Scalia: "I told you I'm not a scientist. That's why I don't want to deal with global warming."
He's quite right, actually: he's not a scientist, nor should we expect him to be. That's why our government ought to be served by competent scientific advisors…and why it's a shame that Scalia will probably think he's doing his job if he listens to people from hack tanks like CEI and the Heritage Foundation.
purepedantry | November 30, 2006Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Massachusetts et al. v. EPA. In the case, several state governments are suing the EPA for failing to regulate CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
There are many levels of legal conflict on which the justices could rule, summarized in the NYTimes coverage:
On one level, the argument was about the meaning of the Clean Air Act, which the Environmental Protection Agency maintains does not treat carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases as air pollutants and thus does not give the agency the authority to regulate them.
On another level, the argument was…
clock | November 29, 2006A paper just got published in PLoS - Biology - "A Human Taste for Rarity Spells Disaster for Endangered Species" - describes how high monetary value of rare species leads to a vicious spiral in which each capture reduces the remaining number of individuals at the same time as increasing the monetary value - until the last individual is captured and stuffed in some rich guy's collection:
"This phenomenon, the authors explain, resembles an ecological process called the Allee effect, in which individuals of many plant and animal species suffer reduced fitness at low population densities, which…
grrlscientist | November 29, 2006
A frog on a temperate rainforest floor in the Pacific NorthWest.
Here's one of my first photos taken with my Pentax K100D, significantly
compressed for blog purposes.
Image: David Warman.
How many different species of flora and fauna can you identify in this picture, amigos bonitos?
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, dear readers, that I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images and the creatures and places in them. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me,…
grrlscientist | November 28, 2006
A view of the Earth from the space shuttle Endeavour
shows sunshine reflected off an ocean. Rising global
temperatures are increasingly melting icecaps, causing
storm havoc and flooding large areas.
Image: Corbis.
The Guardian has listed the top 100 people of all time who have done the most to save the planet.
Rachel Carson, Author of Silent Spring
EF Schumacher, Green economist
Jonathan Porritt, Government adviser
David Attenborough, TV naturalist
James Lovelock, Biologist
Wangari Maathai, Conservationist
Prince of Wales, Green royal
William Morris, Craftsman and writer…
pharyngula | November 27, 2006This is a troubling development, and perhaps some members of the National Science Teachers Association in the readership here know something about it. They seem to be in the pocket of the oil industry.
In tomorrow’s Washington Post, global warming activist Laurie David writes about her effort to donate 50,000 free DVD copies of An Inconvenient Truth (which she co-produced) to the National Science Teachers Association. The Association refused to accept the DVDs:
In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other “special interests” might ask to distribute materials, too; they said…
purepedantry | November 26, 2006This was forwarded to me in an email, and it is just too "dam" funny for me not to post. It is a letter that was sent to a man named Ryan DeVries by the Pennslyvania Department of Environmental Quality and his letter in response. Make sure you read the first letter first.
SUBJECT: DEQ File No.97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20;
Lycoming County
Dear Mr. DeVries:
It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who…
clock | November 26, 2006Laurie David, one of the producers of An Inconvenient Truth, wrote a piece for today's Washington Post describing her efforts to make 50,000 DVD copies of that movie available to America's science teachers through NSTA. They said no. And, more weirdly, they explained why.
Read the rest here. Horrifying. Go here to tell them what you think.
pharyngula | November 21, 2006I just received word from Per Ahlberg that the status of the Australian lungfish conservation efforts have reached a critical phase: letters are needed NOW. Here's the situation:
The Traveston Dam proposal has moved into a new and critically important phase: it has been referred to the Federal Environment Minister (Mr Ian Campbell) for consideration under the Federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Ian Campbell has the power to stop the dam, but if he doesn't it is unlikely that any other organisation or individual will be able to do so.
The first hurdle that must…
scientificactivist | November 20, 2006One of the most significant anticipated results for many--particularly within the scientific community--of a Democratic victory on Election Day was going to be a new-found ability to hold in check the Bush Administration and its penchant for political interference in science. It appears that the Democrats are looking to make good on their promise, and to do so in an impressively proactive way, by making oversight of the Bush Administration a top priority for the incoming Congress. This oversight will include taking on political interference in science and environmental issues, as Roll Call…
grrlscientist | November 19, 2006Recycling has not been especially successful, even in Seattle, which seems to be the city that is most friendly to recycling in the country from my experience (although I might be wrong about this). So, in an effort to encourage recycling throughout the nation, what would you say about imposing extra taxes on disposable items, such as cameras, razors, and nonrechargable batteries? Below the fold is a story about how well this very program has been working in Europe, but I think they missed some very important items in their campaign; cell phones, ipods and computers, many of which are simply…
j7uy5 | November 18, 2006Rehabilitation of disused industrial sites has been a costly and
contentious issue in urban planning. Sites that are mildly or
moderately contaminated are called
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownfield" rel="tag">brownfields.
Research is underway to see if some brownfields can be used
to grow crops, specifically for the production of biofuels.Michigan
State University, known affectionately as "Moo-U," in
collaboration with
rel="tag">DaimlerChrysler and
href="http://www.nextenergy.org/" rel="tag">NextEnergy,
has small plots of soybean, corn, canola and switchgrass plants…
mikethemadbiologist | November 17, 2006Actually, the post title is unfair: Romney is quite capable of screwing over thousands of people at once. In order to further his Republican presidential bonafides by cutting spending, any spending, MA Governor Mitt Romney playing bookkeeping games so he could declare a fiscal state of emergency and unilaterally cut budget items.
During the 2006 election, what with all the fuss about Republican Sen. George "Macacawitz" Allen, I never got around to describing what first tipped me off to his being a complete asshole. When Allen was governor of VA, he vetoed all spending for Meals on Wheels…
j7uy5 | November 14, 2006They are monitoring the content of children's books, that's what.
From the Senate web site of the
href="http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=265811">Environment
and Public Works committee:
New UN Children’s Book Promotes
Global Warming Fears to Kids
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2006
Nairobi, Kenya – A new United Nations children’s
book promoting fears of catastrophic manmade global warming is being
promoted at the UN Climate Change Conference in Kenya. The book's main
character, a young boy, is featured getting so worried about a coming
manmade climate disaster that he yells “I…
j7uy5 | November 11, 2006Often political discourse breaks sown, when both sides resort to
platitudes. This is true especially when the debate is
carried out on the basis of deeply-held generalizations. This
is especially true when empirical evidence is not
taken into account.
It often is argued that environmentalism is bad, and environmentalists
are bad, because pro-environment policies are bad for the economy, and
environmentalists are anti-growth, whatever that means.
Environmentalists counter by saying that good policy is made by
weighing the risks and the benefits.
That does not help much, because everyone…
pharyngula | November 7, 2006Maybe with a little butter and garlic.
This article makes a troubling point: if cephalopods are so smart, shouldn't we feel some guilt about eating them?
I think I actually agree with some of the ethical issues raised, and probably should hesitate to kill and eat something like the octopus. However, it also commits the sin of lumping an extraordinarily diverse clade like the Cephalopoda into one poorly characterized gemisch. Yes, the Pacific octopus is a very clever beastie, but those schools of small, fast-breeding squid that get netted and chopped up for calamari? Not so much. The article…
j7uy5 | November 4, 2006Perhaps this gets tiresome for ScienceBlogs readers, but here is yet
another example of the
href="http://www.waronscience.com/home.php" rel="tag">Republican
War on Science, this time in regard to
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Change"> Climate
Change.
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/01/AR2006110103269.html">
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/01/AR2006110103269.html">IGs
Probe Allegations On Global Warming DataScientists Say Findings Were SuppressedBy Juliet EilperinWashington Post Staff…
grrlscientist | November 2, 200629% of all fish stocks have collapsed.
32% of all amphibians globally are threatened with extinction, and 43% of all amphibian species are in decline.
14% of all bird species are predicted to be extinct by 2100 (as opposed to 1.3% for the 500 years previous), and total number of birds globally estimated to have dropped by 20-25%.
.
tags: extinction, endangered species, fish, amphibian, bird
clock | October 30, 2006Carnival of the Ghoulish Green is up on Groovy Green. Next week, the carnival celebrates its first anniversary by going back home to City Hippy.
grrlscientist | October 30, 2006Birds, bees, bats, butterflies and other species that pollinate North American plant life are steadily vanishing, according to a study released recently by the National Research Council. This "demonstrably downward" trend could damage dozens of commercially important crops, scientists warned, since three-quarters of all flowering plants depend on pollinators for fertilization.
Domesticated honeybees, which pollinate more than 90 commercial crops in the United States, have declined by 30 percent in the last 20 years. In fact, U.S. farmers had to import honeybees last year for the first time…