Goring it up!
I don't care who made it, I like it anyway:
And this one's pretty good too:
And don't forget this one:
August 03, 2006
August 02, 2006
Coporate Funded Research
We've been discussing whether or not corporate funding leads to biased research in light of recent attacks on Patrick Michaels and other global warming skeptics. This week, Newsweek published a fascinating interview on the same question in medical research, where corporate funding is much more pervasive.
July 31, 2006
Patrick Michaels Controversy Roundup
It's amazing how much attention the Patrick Michaels story is ... and is not getting. On the on hand, Michaels was attacked last week by BC, Reuters, and AP for taking money from Intermountain Rural Electric Association and other industry groups. Each article casts itself as a "smoking gun" (the Reuters piece even uses this subheading) proving that climate change skeptics are on the take.
July 28, 2006
What is it about skepticism you don't understand?
Harold Henderson asks "Who are you and what have you done with The Heartland Institute" in a post complaining about Heartland's position on global warming. He writes:
It gives the impression that libertarianism really is a right-wing philosophy, lined up with anti-science Republicans who think evolution is some kind of dubious hypothesis. What possible reward could be great enough for intelligent people to seek such company?
Continue reading "What is it about skepticism you don't understand?" »
July 21, 2006
Saviors Don't Debate
Global warming crusader Jim Hansen apparently backed out of a House committee hearing on global warming yesterday. Hansen, it seems, took issue with the inclusion of John Cristy, director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, who according to E&E News "told lawmakers that scientists 'cannot reliably project the trajectory of the climate' for large regions of the United States." Hansen attacked Congress as "still in denial, inviting contrarians to 'balance' the science of global warming."
So when Al Gore and Jim Hansen claim the "debate is over," they apparently mean only that they're tired of debating those who don't agree with them.
July 05, 2006
Hockey Sticks and Press Punts
Journalist and energy blogger, Ken Maize, slams the New York Times coverage of the National Academy of Sciences reexamination of the "Hockey Stick" controversy. According to Maize:
Here’s how [Andrew Revkin] started his story on the NAS report. “An influential and controversial paper asserting that recent warming in the Northern Hemisphere was probably unrivaled for 1,000 years was endorsed Thursday, with a few reservations, by a panel convened by the nation's pre-eminent scientific body.”Wrong, and badly wrong. The panel found a “high level of confidence” in the Mann study’s conclusion that temperatures in the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than comparable period in the last 400 years. But the climate skeptics don’t dispute that, as the planet is coming out of a period known as the “Little Ice Age,” which the Mann study says did not exist.
Here’s what’s most relevant about the NAS report, which most accounts missed and Revkin steamrollered. “Less confidence can be place in proxy-based reconstructions of surface temperatures for A.D. 900-1600,” says the academy, adding that “even less confidence can be placed in the Mann team’s conclusions about the 1990s, and 1998 in particular.”
June 29, 2006
Replacing Transit with 5 Light Bulbs
Chicken Little Makes Policy: "Global warming" has become the latest weapon of the anti-automobile crowd. This may be best illustrated in Montreal, where public officials and the local media object to virtually every road improvement and suburban development on the basis of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Never mind that Environment Canada data shows automobile GHG to be so small that if all Canadians gave up their cars and began walking tomorrow, the nation would still fall far short of meeting its Kyoto agreements. (See Housing and Transportation in Montreal – How suburbanization is improving the region's competitiveness .)
June 01, 2006
Global Warming Gone to Your Head?
If you ever find yourself think "Maybe the debate over global warming really is over" just come on back to FTH and dig up this entry. Andrew Revkin, writing for NYT, reports today that three papers published in the journal Nature are detailing new information about the earth's climate history:
The first detailed analysis of an extraordinary climatic and biological record from the seabed near the North Pole shows that 55 million years ago the Arctic Ocean was much warmer than scientists imagined--a Floridian year-round average of 74 degrees FahrenheitHow are they going to pin that one on SUVs?
March 30, 2006
Uh ... Non Sequitur?
There are moments in journalism when I am bewildered that we actually pay attention to reporters. For instance, take this little non sequitur from Science:
The scientists estimate that atmospheric temperatures over Antarctica in the winter have risen by about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 Celsius) in the last 30 years, and the change is due in large part to greenhouse gas emissions.The reporter writes that the warming is due to greenhouse gas emissions. This is loosely evidenced by a scientist who seems to be saying something else altogether. The scientist is seems to be saying that the presuposition that greenhouse gases cause warming doesn't seem to explain why Antarctica is getting warmer faster than other places on the planet. This would seem to imply that warming in the Antarctic is undermining the mainstream theory behind global warming (i.e. greenhouse gas) rather than the other way around.“Greenhouses gases could be having a bigger impact in Antarctica than across the rest of the world and we don't understand why," said John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey.
And I'm not a scientist!