Latest Articles

Fast food goes organic and natural

The succulent wares of Whole Foods’ enormous flagship store in Austin are always tempting, but especially so during a harried lunch hour. Everything in the vast prepared-food section looks irresistible. The salad bar features a mountain of fresh, organic toppings. Pricing is mostly by weight, so one can escape with a cup of splendid, coconutty […]

Cleared up once and for all

The answer depends on the exact question you're asking. Here is my view of the scientific consensus on a range of questions:

1) Did global warming cause Katrina? Or Rita? Or any single storm?

As far as I know, there exists not a single peer-reviewed article that connects global warming with the increased ferocity of any single storm. The commonly used dice analogy provides a good explanation of why the case is so hard to make. Assume the weather is determined by rolling a six-sided die, with a six corresponding to a massive hurricane. Now assume that by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, we've loaded the die to make six come up twice as frequently.

Now, we roll the die once, and it comes up six. Did it come up six because it was loaded? After all, a normal die has a 16% chance of coming up six, so it's absolutely possible that the die would have come up six even without the loading.

So the answer to this question is "maybe, maybe not, we just don't know," and I think it's likely to stay that way.

New scientific advance could help whales

This advance could nullify one of the primary excuses (I mean arguments) that nations use to continue whaling under the auspices of "scientific research." But of course, it won't do anything about the argument that whales are just like any other animal we eat, and therefore can be hunted like any other, which it seems more and more environmentalists accept.

Phoenix, Arizona

On Friday, it will be in Arizona. The Arizona Corporation Commission is set to vote on a proposed rule to increase the state's renewable energy standard to 15% by 2025, with 30% to come from distributed energy resources like rooftop solar.

Apropos of absolutely nothing

My favorite word in the English language is "biscuit." My least favorite is "moist."

What are yours?

E.O. Wilson on religion and science, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Two’s Company, 300 Million’s a Crowd Ice Vice, Baby Hormones and Groans Go for Choke Did You Mean: Solar Power? Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: EOphilia Chemically Dependent When Guvs Try C’est Bon She’ll Tumble For Ya The Roach Approach

Halloween inspires ocean supporter contest

I've always been a fan of Halloween. Not so much for the costumes, but for the social acceptance of eating massive amounts of sugar for 24 hours and "fright night" marathons. In honor of this freaky holiday, the folks at my organization put together a freaky fish contest. Check it out.

One of my personal favorites is the fangtooth. Believe it or not, this fish is all bark and no bite. Despite its impressive set of choppers, the fangtooth is actually quite small and harmless to humans. But it sure isn't about to win any beauty contests ...

The shining promise of ethanol doesn’t add up for farmers

No one can begrudge corn farmers their share of euphoria over the recent ethanol boom. Until very recently, their plight could be summed up by a bit of gallows humor I once heard from a dairy farmer: “I lose money on every gallon, so I try to make up for it on volume.” Hopes are […]

A new book says tackling climate change is doable

Too many months ago now, I was emailed the manuscript of a book called Cooling It: No Hair Shirt Solutions to Global Warming by Gar Lipow, an occasional commenter at my own blog. I promised Gar I would read it, and then it languished on my desktop for months, silently mocking me.

In any case, I recently finished it and with his permission I thought I'd share my impressions.

Wonder why?

Though it has a noble history and many smart, good-willed people among its ranks, the Republican party now suffers under leadership that has become utterly, irredeemably corrupt. Virtually no coherent public policy agenda remains; efforts to keep up the pretense of one have all but vanished. What's left is pandering to the base with symbolism, terrifying the middle with terrorism, and -- the linchpin around which the rest is organized -- serving the interests of corporate America with lax regulation and enforcement, industry-authored legislation, and boatloads of subsidies and pork.

Corporate America knows this all too well. And with Republicans in real danger of losing one or both houses of Congress in November, it's starting to sweat. A story in the Wall Street Journal (sub. only, I think) details the enormous amounts of corporate campaign cash flowing in to Republican campaign coffers. It focuses mainly on drug companies, but here are some other tidbits of interest: