personalities
hrynyshyn | December 20, 2011Andy Revkin thinks so. In a recent Dot Earth post, he writes that the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should either stop straying from a "just the facts" communications strategy or step down.
The offense, in Revkin's mind, is Pachauri's participation in a not-all-that-funny attempt at a joke begun by Richard Branson at a public discussion hosted by California Gov. Jerry Brown. Following up on Branson's joke about offering climate deniers one-way tickets to leave the planet, Pachauri said:
.. those who are becoming obstacles in implementing what is rational should be made…
hrynyshyn | November 4, 2011Among the very best of the science-oriented blogs I try to read regularly is Tom Levenson's Inverse Square Blog. Tom, who teaches science journalism at MIT, isn't a climatologist, but whenever he writes about climate science or politics, it's usually worth a look.
Apparently, the folks at Scientific American agree, and they recently invited Tom to contribute a guest post to the magazine's blog site. It's primarily about the recent kerfuffle over the possibility that neutrinos might be able to travel faster than light, and a bit on the lengthy side, but he does manage to work climate in…
hrynyshyn | October 4, 2011Climatologist Michael Mann is fed up. Actually, he's been fed up a long time, given that he's been the subject of mean-spirited investigations and slander for years now. We probably need more of this kind of rebuttal:
These are just lies, regurgitation of dishonest smears that have been manufactured by fossil fuel industry-funded climate change deniers, and those who do their bidding by lying to the public about the science.
Mann wrote that in an op-ed for the Vail Daily. It's not the New York Times, but that's the point. The climatology community needs to respond every time some ignorant…
hrynyshyn | September 14, 2010I am taking a break from blogging. My reasons are personal. I do not know how long the break will last.
In the meantime, I reproduce a note from the editorial board of Climatic Change. It takes the form of a letter to the late, great Stephen Schneider. I hope they provide some inspiration for those who, like me, are finding the task of thinking about climate change every day a little too much to bear.
Dear Steve:
Many people have been offering chronicles of your amazing life, but it will take
an historian to put all of your accomplishments and contributions into their proper
context. When…
hrynyshyn | August 31, 2010Much is being and will be written about Bjorn Lomborg's volte face on climate change. After a decade of denial -- not of the reality of anthropogenic warming, but of the threat it poses to civiliation -- the Skeptical Environmentalist now says:
"If we care about the environment and about leaving this planet and its inhabitants with the best possible future, we actually have only one option: we all need to start seriously focusing, right now, on the most effective ways to fix global warming."
Is this worthy of a blog post? In a perfect world, no. But then, in a perfect world, I would be…
hrynyshyn | July 19, 2010Andy Revkin is reporting that Stephen Schneider, one of the most important scientific voices on the climate change front, has died.
hrynyshyn | May 7, 2010There's a letter in today's Science from 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences that deserves to be read:
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science
We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the…
hrynyshyn | April 30, 2010April seems to have been "Beat up on Christopher Monckton" month among climate science bloggers. Why all the attention? Part of the reason is even reputable media outlets the likes of The New York Times continue to treat him as the equal of someone with genuine professional expertise in matter climatological. Also relevant is his brief candidacy for public office in the May 6 general election in the U.K. He is now just climate change spokesperson for the UK Independence Party.
I hope it's not too late to add my own thoughts. First, it matters not one whit whether Monckton is or isn't a member…
edyong | March 26, 2008Would you gamble on a safe bet for the promise of something more? Would you risk losing everything for the possibility of greater rewards? In psychological experiments, humans tend to play it safe when we stand to gain something - we're more likely to choose a certain reward over a larger but riskier one. Now, we're starting to understand how our two closest relatives deal with risk - bonobos, like us, tend to be risk-averse while chimpanzees usually play the odds.
Sarah Heilbronner from Harvard University studied the attitudes of five chimps and five bonobos to risky decisions. All the…