In 2013, a psychology professor reviewing Malcolm Gladwell’s latest best-selling book was critical of the author’s modus operandi: He excels at telling just-so stories and cherry-picking science to back them. That charge had been percolating for a while, but people were suddenly paying more attention to it, including science journalists. After the WSJ review triggered a larger debate on…Continue Reading…
In the Guardian, Mark Lynas writes about the “need to recapture the climate debate from the political extremes.” Good luck with that! I’m afraid this proverbial horse has left the barn. Of course, you should still read the piece, because it’s a necessary reminder of the real dynamics that shape the public discourse on climate change. As…Continue Reading…
A recent article in Slate carried this headline: If You Don’t accept Climate Change is Real, You’re Not a Sceptic. You’re a Denier. I’ll return to its claim in a minute. The piece, by Arizona State University professor Lawrence Krauss, ruefully notes that the term “climate skeptic” is frequently used in the media as a…Continue Reading…
Of the all the famous names associated with climate change, there are two I would love to see headlined in a debate–against each other. Both of these individuals believe global warming presents an existential threat, both believe Big Green is part of the problem, and both offer a radically different path to decarbonization of the…Continue Reading…
Earlier in the year, Roger Pielke Jr. was named as a contributing writer for Nate Silver’s newly re-launched FiveThirtyEight site. Shortly after that, Pielke, a climate policy scholar and political scientist at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, published an article at FiveThirtyEight headlined, “Disasters Cost More Than Ever–But Not Because of Climate Change.” Critics pounced immediately in…Continue Reading…
We ofter hear that global warming is the existential issue of our day. And that reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuels will be essential if we are to preserve a livable climate for civilization. People can quibble with the various risk scenarios and which computer models are more accurate and so on, but in the…Continue Reading…
In a 2010 editorial, the journal Nature told embattled climate scientists to wise up and “acknowledge that they are in street fight” with their nastiest detractors. At the time, this seemed like a reasonable admonition, since climate scientists were indeed under siege following an illicit disclosure of emails that put the climate science community in an unfavorable light….Continue Reading…
All you people indifferent to climate change, listen up: Global warming is accumulating in the Earth’s climate system at a rate equivalent to about 4 Hiroshima atomic bomb detonations, 2 Hurricane Sandys, or 4 magnitude 6.0 earthquakes per second. This, according to a new widget created by the folks at Skeptical Science. Such a handy little…Continue Reading…
Many people lament the sulfurous climate change discourse, myself included. At this point, the well is so poisoned that I find myself increasingly avoiding the topic. Most of those who read this post already have a strong opinion on climate science. Anything I write is automatically viewed through a skewed lens. True, none of us…Continue Reading…
There is much to recommend this article in the New Republic by Nate Cohn, starting with the sub-headline: Grappling with climate change nuance in a toxic political environment It is an ungrateful task to interrogate the complexities of climate change (which extend to the policy side of the equation) so props to Cohn for taking…Continue Reading…