In 2013, Jeff Goodell wrote a long piece in Rolling Stone explaining how rising seas would eventually drown the city of Miami, Florida. The money quote: “Miami, as we know it today, is doomed,” says Harold Wanless, the chairman of the department of geological sciences at the University of Miami. “It’s not a question of if….Continue Reading…
From an interview between Columbia University Press and science historian Naomi Oreskes:
Many people working in the global sustainability arena tend to be focused on one of two knotty issues: 1) climate change or 2) food security. The former is devilish because we have to figure out how to power the developing world while reducing our overall carbon footprint. The latter is also complex because we have…Continue Reading…
One of the best books I’ve read in the last year is “The Bet,” by Yale historian Paul Sabin. The author penned a New York Times op-ed around the time of its publication. As Fred Pearce wrote in his New Scientist review, Saban “has produced an absorbing narrative of how two people’s ‘clashing insights’ unleashed…Continue Reading…
It wasn’t that long ago that global warming was mostly discussed as (and believed to be) a distant threat– the scope, timing and severity of its impacts considered uncertain. Then in recent years, as climate scientists began studying and asserting linkages between greenhouses gases and severe weather events, the discourse shifted. We are now at…Continue Reading…
This is notable: The dangers of nuclear power are real, but the accidents that have occurred, even Chernobyl, do not compare to the damage to the earth being inflicted by the burning of fossil fuels — coal, gas and oil. That’s from an editorial in today’s New York Times, which will make for uncomfortable reading…Continue Reading…
George Monbiot, Britain’s most popular environmental writer, has arrested himself. Four prominent climate scientists recently issued a pleading letter to greens to stop opposing nuclear power. And now an influential non-profit that for years has focused on climate change is all but begging that we not close down aging nuclear reactors. What the hell is going on? I…Continue Reading…
In the latest report issued last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is a chapter on human security that caught the media’s attention. I thought Seth Borenstein’s AP piece did a nice job distilling the chapter’s essence: Top scientists are saying that climate change will complicate and worsen existing global security problems,…Continue Reading…
I recently gave a talk on agricultural biotechnology and the media to a graduate class taught by Calestous Juma at Harvard’s Kennedy school. I spoke about the frankenfood meme, the Monsanto effect and slanted journalism. During the Q & A, one of the students asked me when I thought misinformation on GMOs would stop appearing…Continue Reading…
When I take issue with the one way skepticism and hyperbolic language of climate skeptics, I’m met with a chorus of “who me?” They especially object to being lumped together with the climate-science-is-a-hoax crowd. It’s a fair complaint. At the same time, it’s worth noting that the representative standard bearers for climate skeptics are Anthony…Continue Reading…