Environment

	"Alien Life" on Titan? Misleading headline at the Telegraph ... by Casey Saturday, the Telegraph published an article deceivingly titled, "Titan: NASA scientists discover evidence 'that alien life exists on Saturn's moon'" Sounds pretty cool, right? 2 Comments Read More
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	Climate Truthers Spend Weekend Looking at Boring E-mails ... by Martin
It's amazing what you can find if you have a bit of imagination, and access to somebody's personal e-mail account. Careful scrutiny of my mails, for example, could reveal many interesting things; that I cycle to work every day, that I am Belle de Jour, and that my... 9 Comments Read More
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	The Express and the European Foundation on Climate: Wrong in 100 Ways ... by Martin
Even as the circulation of The Express collapses, the newspaper continues to lead the way to oblivion with the sort of conspiracy-driven journalism that wouldn't look out of place in the National Inquirer. 16 Comments Read More
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BP doctored photos....hilarity

Wed, 07/28/2010 - 22:01

It's pretty easy to attack BP these days--with hundreds of millions of gallons of oil floating around in the Gulf of Mexico, faulty traps and caps, and lousy attempts at compensation.

The BP photoshop mini-scandal is just one of the twigs branching off this tree of disaster. But, a funny one. Basically, BP put up a fake picture of it's 'Crisis Command Center' for the oil spill. Here's a summary in links, for those of you who haven't followed:

A blogger notices the discrepant photos.

"Alien Life" on Titan? Misleading headline at the Telegraph

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 23:53

Saturday, the Telegraph published an article deceivingly titled, "Titan: NASA scientists discover evidence 'that alien life exists on Saturn's moon'" Sounds pretty cool, right?

Climate Change and National Security

Sun, 07/11/2010 - 16:58

To flush or not to flush: that is the (pissing) question!

Tue, 06/29/2010 - 15:47

Photo: Dan Forbes

In a laboratory 10 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, a mechanical penis sputters to life. A technician starts a timer as a stream of water erupts from the apparatus’s brass tip, arcing into a urinal mounted exactly 12 inches away. James Krug smiles. His latest back-splatter experiment is under way.

BOING and WOW explain climate change

Tue, 06/29/2010 - 04:30

BOING AND WOW EXPLAIN CLIMATE CHANGE

I was looking at a Liar-for-Hire website that purports to refute the notion of global climate change. Among other gems it claimed the sun was too hot to emit in the measly low energy infrared wavelengths. In other words, it said the sun is too hot to give off heat. As an aside, the median wavelength the sun does emit is green. The same site also said it doe not matter if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is doubled, because that does not increase the amount of infrared radiation it absorbs. It just absorbs the same amount in half the distance, with no change in temperature.

Bill McKibben on how the media is missing the real drama of BP's oil disaster

Mon, 06/14/2010 - 18:51

In an excellent essay on finding real meaning in the Deepwater Horizon blowout that the media seem to be entirely missing, Bill McKibben reminds us:

When a well started spewing oil off Santa Barbara in 1969, it spurred the first Earth Day, which in turn launched the environmental movement and a fundamental questioning of the balance between humans and the rest of nature. It turned out, in other words, to be a real Moment.

Scientific Data and Freedom of Information

Mon, 04/26/2010 - 22:04

So last week I was given a bit of a roasting by guest blogger Sarah over a remark I made on Twitter, where I said that I couldn't see why academic data should be covered by the Freedom of Information Act. Unfortunately, Twitter is not a good place to put things in context, so here's a post clarifying my views.

Setting free the Data

Thu, 04/22/2010 - 11:21

The Guardian published a story earlier this week about a Belfast climate scientist Prof Mike Baillie, who is disgruntled at having to make his department's decades' worth of tree ring data available to a known climate sceptic as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request. This story prompted the editor of this blog to post the above tweet. Also: "I don't see the point of curating data for the public", and "any nutter can attempt to disrupt my research".

Really? Let me turn this question round: what reason could there be for the public not to have access to publicly-funded academic research? When research is funded from the public coffers, surely it's automatically relevant to public interest?

Also, don't some of our most respected colleague science bloggers frequently campaign for increased transparency in the handling of data from, say, clinical trials? Why should that call not apply to other subjects?

Let's backtrack for a moment.