[It’s interesting how a much larger event than the Boston Marathon bombings – by every conceivable measure – gets so much less press coverage. Charitably, it’s because the chain of responsibility is diffuse in corporate malfeasance, and this makes for a much less exciting story than a couple of insane kids blowing shit up. Uncharitably, […]
WASHINGTON, 22 April 2013 (The Onion) – After nearly a decade of promises that the nation was on the brink of a technological, economic, and scientific golden age, citizens across the country confirmed Monday they are now realizing a bold new era of American innovation is just flat-out not gonna happen. Citing the fragile economy […]
By Will Oremus 22 April 2013 (Slate) – Environmentalists like to think that the public is in their corner—that it’s only the pernicious influence of Big Oil and Big Coal that keeps Congress from passing a carbon tax or Obama from nixing the Keystone Pipeline. They’re right that most voters care about the planet, insofar […]
By Harold Meyerson23 April 2013 (Washington Post) – On May 21, Los Angeles voters will go to the polls to select a new mayor. Who will govern Los Angeles, however, is only the second-most important local question in the city today. The most important, by far, is who will buy the Los Angeles Times. The […]
By Eric W. Dolan20 April 2013 (PsyPost) – A strong belief in a hands off approach to economics is tightly linked to the rejection of scientific facts such as climate change, according to research published in Psychological Science in late March [NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax]. “The conspiracist ideation that […]
By AMY CHOZICK20 April 2013 (The New York Times) – Three years ago, Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists and supporters of libertarian causes, held a seminar of like-minded, wealthy political donors at the St. Regis Resort in Aspen, Colo. They laid out a three-pronged, 10-year strategy to shift the country toward a smaller […]
By Peter Sinclair8 April 2013 New Zealand Herald: New Zealand’s top climate change scientists have rallied together to slam a visiting sceptic who is touring the country to proclaim global warming as a myth that should be ignored. Dr James Renwick, associate professor of physical geography at Victoria University, dismissed Lord Monckton’s views as […]
By Dana Nuccitelli and Michael E Mann 12 April 2013 (ABC Environment) – The Economist recently published a lengthy article about Earth’s climate sensitivity — how much the planet’s surface will warm in response to the increased greenhouse effect if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles relative to pre-industrial levels (something that […]
By Tom Spears13 April 2013 OTTAWA (The Ottawa Citizen) – Claims that Alberta’s oilsands are environmentally harmless are “lies” and won’t convince anyone in Washington, one of this country’s most famous ecologists said Friday. Political leaders in Alberta and Ottawa “seem to think that Americans believe in magic fairies — just shut your eyes and […]
By Phil Plait5 April 2013 “Against unreason, the gods themselves contend in vain.” —with apologies to Friedrich Schiller (Slate.com) – Lately I’ve been trying to write more about science, rather than write about those who attack it. I love science, and I love promoting it. It gives us wonder, knowledge, advances in technology and medicine, […]
