You may not know this, but there is a celebrity data geek who isn’t named Nate Silver. This other famous statistician is a rock star in the global health and development world. He captivates audiences with innovative presentations that illuminate abstract facts and figures. Last year, Time magazine called Hans Rosling one of the 100 most influential…Continue Reading…
In a recent report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) lamented: The picture is as clear as it is disturbing: the carbon intensity of the global energy supply has barely changed in 20 years, despite successful efforts in deploying renewable energy. Another fact, noted in the IEA’s report, will disturb anyone concerned about climate change: The unremitting…Continue Reading…
Mark Bittman, the popular food writer for the New York Times, has written a column that is almost beyond parody for its unintentional irony. The only way to fully appreciate his lack of self-awareness is to stop and marvel at numerous passages. Let’s start at the top: Things are bad enough in the food world…Continue Reading…
Sometimes I think the climate debate remains stalled because those who are most concerned refuse to ask the pertinent questions. Instead, they keep refighting old battles that are no longer relevant to a constructive discourse. The latest example is this survey by John Cook et al that is getting a lot of undeserved attention in…Continue Reading…
When the definitive history of the GMO debate is written, Jeffrey Smith is going to figure prominently in the section on pseudoscience. He is the equivalent of an anti-vaccine leader, someone who is quite successful in spreading fear and false information. (As David Gorski at the Science-based Medicine blog has noted, the anti-vaccine and anti-GMO movements…Continue Reading…
There are two camps that favor labeling genetically modified [GM] foods: 1) The “Right to Know” people, who say they just want to know what’s in their food. This is a specious argument. The truth is they think there is something harmful about GMOs. Why else would they feel so strongly about labeling genetically modified…Continue Reading…
Last year, in an interview with New York Times reporter Justin Gillis, CJR’s Curtis Brainard asked: There’s been a lot of debate about the extent to which media coverage does or does not influence public opinion about climate change and society’s willingness to address the problem. Do journalists matter in this regard? Gillis answered exactly…Continue Reading…
I’m not on the pandemic beat, but some of the best science journalists are, and they are busy these days. Today, David Quammen, author of the recently published and critically acclaimed book, Spillover: Animal infections and the next human pandemic, has an op-ed in the New York Times. It begins: Terrible new forms of infectious…Continue Reading…
There are a couple of ways to interpret the story about a revoked ordinance in San Francisco that, as Reuters reports, would have been the first in the United States to require [cell phone] retailers to warn consumers about potentially dangerous radiation levels. Before it was reversed it was known as–get ready for it–the “right…Continue Reading…
The Guardian reports that Prince Charles is standing up for climate science and criticizing the forces of climate change denial. If you know about the Prince’s GMO fear-mongering and falsehoods about GM crops and his dangerous promotion of alternative medicine (such as homeopathy), then you know he is not the best emissary for science. Indeed, one well-respected scientist…Continue Reading…