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Sending Out an SOS

Protesters ask whalers for help in missing-persons search The bone-chilling waters of Antarctica are seeing heated conflict as the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society tangles with Japanese whalers. The protesters, upset over a 1,000-whale hunt they deem illegal — but which was OK’d by the International Whaling Commission as a scientific pursuit — have dumped […]

A guest essay from Environmental Defense

The following is a guest essay from Bill Chameides, the Chief Scientist at Environmental Defense. He maintains a blog on global warming at climate411.org. —– Some folks think global warming is best fought through a federally-imposed tax on greenhouse gas emissions — often called a carbon tax. The government would use the additional tax dollars […]

Roger Pielke Jr. is at it again

Based on a bit of methodology that sounds like a bad joke — only he never tells us the punch line — Roger Pielke Jr. ventures the "hypothesis" that An Inconvenient Truth is "alarmist." Perhaps Republicans will call him to testify about it.

And no, global warming doesn’t change that

As far as I can tell, there are precisely three environmentalists of any note who have come to support nuclear power: James Lovelock, Stewart Brand, and Patrick Moore. It’s become something of a parlor game for journalists to mix and match those three names in an effort to claim that there’s a "growing debate" among […]

Raise a toast, you monkey

Today is the 198th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 148th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. So take some time out today to celebrate Darwin Day and the body of scientific work from him and others that makes up what we know about evolution.

If your knowledge of Darwin and his work is skimpy, consider picking up David Quammen's The Reluctant Mr. Darwin for a highly enjoyable and insightful introduction. Or if you are in the Boston area, consider visiting the excellent Darwin exhibit that will open February 18th at the Museum of Science.

And freedom of speech wins big

Dreamy Al made a surprising appearance at the Grammy Awards last night, presenting the award for Best Rock Album along with Queen Latifah (who acknowledged that most of the cheers coming from the audience were for the Oscar-nominated supa-star). Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to win Melissa Etheridge the Grammy for her Inconvenient Truth score "I […]

Gets into it

Clearly nobody slipped this guy the memo on the necessity for bipartisanship on climate change:

Just as misleading as the old round

Because of the enormous credibility of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's reports, and because they suggest that human-induced climate change is a very real risk, opponents of action on climate change must attack the IPCC or completely cede the scientific high ground in the debate.

With the release of the latest IPCC report, a whole new crop of specious skeptical arguments has arisen. Here's a good example, which appeared in this week's Weekly Standard:

One possible reason for the timing is that there appear to be some significant retreats from the 2001 IPCC report. The IPCC has actually lowered its estimate of the magnitude of human influence on warming, though we shall have to wait for the full report in May to understand how and why. Only readers with detailed knowledge of the 2001 report would notice these changes, which is why most news accounts failed to report them.

As with most skeptical arguments, there is a grain of truth here, sitting under a mountain of deception.

Op-ed on the IPCC and climate change

An op-ed I wrote with my colleague Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech appeared last Sunday in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The editorial can be found here.

Update [2007-3-16 11:55:39 by Andrew Dessler]: The link no longer appears to work. The text of the op-ed is reproduced below:

Pro Bowl will go carbon neutral

Not to be outdone by the Super Bowl, tomorrow’s Pro Bowl in Honolulu is also going carbon neutral. (Note: This statement is not to be construed as “tree planting = true carbon neutrality rah rah rah!”) Apparently it takes a village to carbon-neutralize a Pro Bowl; the NFL is partnering with the U.S. EPA, nonprofit […]