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Geeks, Freaks and Eggheads

October 20, 2011 by Barry Brook
with 103 views
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In early September 2011, I attended the Brisbane Writer’s Festival and participated in a number of events. One was an excellent discussion with Ian Lowe, my co-author on the book “Why vs Why: Nuclear Power“, which unfortunately wasn’t recorded, but was a terrific exchange. The other was a joint session I did with Prof Brian Gaensler,... [read more]

Translating Science Is Translating Culture

October 12, 2011 by Katherine Friedrich
with 190 views
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When I jazz information up to present it in this blog, I’m aware translating science can be risky. When I started introducing myself as a journalist at parties, some people backed away. There’s a perception that professional communicators aren’t trustworthy – and that polishing information for presentation makes it less real or less... [read more]

Thoughts on Avoiding Doom

May 22, 2011 by Michael Tobis
with 102 views
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"Science is not enough, religion is not enough, art is not enough, politics and economics are not enough, nor is love, nor is duty, nor is action however disinterested, nor, however sublime, is contemplation. Nothing short of everything will really do. We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn... [read more]

VIDEO: Belief Formation- Mooney & Kay on MSNBC

April 29, 2011 by Michael Tobis
with 92 views
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I don't usually care for the intellectual bandwidth of audio and video chats on commercial media but here's an impressive exception, about conspiracy thinking and denialism, following neatly on some of my observations about belief formation yesterday.Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyAnother related... [read more]

The Future Will Not Be Boring...

April 26, 2011 by Michael Tobis
with 156 views
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Let's start at the very beginning. Every month we dig ourselves deeper in the hole. Every month the future bottleneck looks tighter, the future crisis deeper, the future losses more tragic. And for a few years, we have been out of the realm of the hypothetical, with real damage starting to occur.The changes we will need to avoid a... [read more]

The Fierce Insanity Of Us

April 18, 2011 by Lou Grinzo
with 166 views
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Chris Mooney is valiantly attempting to understand the mindset of deniers, particularly those of the climate change stripe. In a new, longish piece in Mother Jones, he covers a lot of ground that will be familiar to many of you, dear readers. Chris wraps up an excellent overview of the situation: Given the power of our prior beliefs to... [read more]

Decision time on climate change

September 10, 2010 by Eric Smalley
with 999 views
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The news that today’s power plants and transportation systems are probably not enough to doom the planet to catastrophic climate change feels a bit like our last warning. A study in the current issue of the journal Science projects that future carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil fuel sources would, by themselves, leave the... [read more]

Science: Scale of the Climate Challenge Demands Committment to Technology Innovation

September 10, 2010 by Breakthrough Institute
with 399 views
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By Roger Pielke Jr., Breakthrough Institute Senior Fellow. Cross-posted from Roger Pielke Jr's Blog. In a perspective just out in Science commenting on a new paper (Davis et al.) that shows another way to explain the decarbonization challenge, Breakthrough Institute Senior Fellow Marty Hoffert of NYU explains how the magnitude of the... [read more]

Nature warns: “The anti-science strain pervading the right wing in the US is the last thing the country needs in a time of economic challenge.”

September 9, 2010 by Joseph Romm
with 830 views
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US citizens face economic problems that are all too real, and the country’s future crucially depends on education, science and technology as it faces increasing competition from China and other emerging science powers….  Yet the public often buys into anti-science, anti-regulation agendas that are orchestrated by business... [read more]

Elementary Particles, Complex Challenges

July 8, 2010 by Breakthrough Institute
with 651 views
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This is a guest post from the Breakthrough Generation blog. To read more writings from this year's 2010 Breakthrough Fellows, head to http://breakthroughgen.org. By Mark Caine, Breakthrough Fellow Environmentalists have long couched their opposition to nuclear power in the argument that tinkering with elementary particles to produce... [read more]

The Climate Change Thought Police

June 25, 2010 by Robert Rapier
with 770 views
3

I have taken grief from some readers at times for my position on the issue of Climate Change. I have always maintained that I am not an expert, and therefore I accept the scientific consensus on climate change. This is no different than my standard in many other fields in which I am not an expert. If I get a diagnosis from my doctor, I... [read more]

A call for scientists to call on citizens

May 13, 2010 by Eric Smalley
with 303 views
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A research paper in tomorrow’s Science shows that higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide inhibit plants’ ability to take up nitrogen from the soil. This counteracts much of the boost plants get from breathing more carbon dioxide, and it could pose a threat to agriculture. What flashed in my mind when I saw the paper was that I’d... [read more]

Turning Point in Attack on Climate Science

May 11, 2010 by Keith Schneider
with 692 views
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On May 5, in an unusually aggressive response to what they saw as an academic witch hunt, the University of Virginia Faculty Senate condemned state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s demand to turn over six years of documents related to the work of Michael Mann, a former UVa climate scientist. Two days later, members of the National... [read more]

Climate Change and the Integrity of Science

May 6, 2010 by Michael Tobis
with 317 views
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NOTE: My byline shouldn't have appeared on a joint blog over a statement I was not eligible to sign. (It wasn't my doing, though I did replicate it on my own solo blog.) I've deleted it from here but it is easy to find elsewhere. The ensuing exchange of letters below is somewhat interesting. Many thanks to Peter Gleick for his... [read more]

The Danger of Science Denial

April 12, 2010 by Michael Tobis
with 437 views
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Not what you're expecting, perhaps. "Be sceptical, ask questions, demand proof. Demand evidence. Don't take anything for granted. But here is the thing: When you get proof, you need to accept the proof. And we're not that good at doing that." "You know, science isn't a company. It's not a country. It's not even an idea. It's a... [read more]