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Columbia suspends evironmental journalism program

Columbia Journalism Review itself reports the startling and depressing news: For the first time since it was created fourteen years ago, Columbia University’s highly regarded dual-degree graduate program in environmental journalism will not be accepting applications for next academic year. In a letter to faculty at the Graduate School of Journalism, the Department of Environmental […]

Anatomy of Debunking

  UPDATE:  For an independent vindication of my reporting here, see Bloomberg interview of Dubner and Caldeira backs up my reporting on error-riddled Superfreakonomics. Dubner is baffled that Caldeira “doesn’t believe geoengineering can work without cutting emissions.” I wish I didn’t have to waste valuable blogging time writing this post to set the record straight.  […]

Error-riddled 'SuperFreakonomics,' Part 5

n SuperFreakonomics, Levitt and Dubner write of Ken Caldeira (page 184), “Yet his research tells him that carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight.”  What he really believes, as he wrote me last weekend, is: I compare CO2 emissions to mugging little old ladies….  It is wrong to mug little old ladies […]

Error-riddled 'SuperFreakonomics,' Part 4

This post looks at Nobelist Krugman’s first take-down of the single most stunning economic error in SuperFreakonomics.  I’ll also take on the authors disingenuous response to the critics (including me), “The Rumors of Our Global-Warming Denial Are Greatly Exaggerated.” No, I don’t know any critics who called them global warming “deniers” — I don’t use […]

Error-riddled 'SuperFreakonomics,' Part 3

First a favor:  Please digg my original debunking of Superfreakonomics by clicking here. I’m trying to draw as much attention as possible to the post since the book comes out Tuesday, it has a huge media blitz, and will be heavily reviewed.   My post already been referenced by Nobelist Paul Krugman on his blog […]

NOAA – Second hottest September on record

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has issued its latest monthly, “State of the Climate: Global Analysis,” which found: The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for September 2009 was 0.62°C (1.12°F) above the 20th Century average of 15.0°C (59.0°F). This was the second warmest September on record, behind 2005, and the 33rd consecutive September […]

EPA analysis appears doubly flawed

Midwesterners are operating under the misimpression that the allocation formula in the House bill is unfair to them.  It doesn’t, although a new, flawed EPA “analysis” (”here“) suggests otherwise. Certainly the formula is a tad ambiguous and that will no doubt be fixed in the Senate.  The figure above shows the results of analysis by […]

Santer, Jones, and Schneider respond to CEI’s phony attack

When we last left the Competitive Enterprise Institute, they were going ape for the Scopes climate trial that the Chamber of Commerce had proposed for the EPA.  The deniers just stick their fingers and their ears and scream whenever they hear any science-based finding that GHGs harm human health.  What else can you expect from […]

Climate Corps interns save Fortune 500 firms $54 million

Climate Corps. Photo: Environmental Defense FundBack in May I wrote about the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Climate Corps, a cadre of 26 MBA students who were then prepping for summer internships at Fortune 500 companies. Their mission was to green up corporate operations to save money and cut carbon emissions. With winter on the way […]

Error-riddled 'SuperFreakonomics,' Part 2

UPDATE: For an even bigger shocker, read Myhrvold’s “rebuttal,” which actually endorses my main critique (!):  Nathan Myhrvold jumps the shark — and jumps ship on Levitt and Dubner (on their blog!) asserting: “Geoengineering is proposed only as a last resort to try to reduce or cope with the even greater harms of global warming! […]