reading: My goofball daughter gave me The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster for Father’s Day. Way better than a barbecue, frankly.

climate news: Sergey Zimov of the Russian Academy and colleagues have a paper in Friday’s Science arguing that the potential for carbon loss from permafrost has been underestimated. That’s another “plus” feedback: “Factors inducing high-latitude climate warming should be mitigated to minimize the risk of a potentially large carbon release that would further increase climate warming,” they argue.

film: Lissa and I saw “the Al Gore movie” last night. As Eric Steig has already explained, he pretty much got the science right. My quibble is with the hurricane stuff, but on the whole the science is solid. What’s more interesting is the passion. It’s a passionate personal essay, and that is what touched me about it.

music: Via my office neighbor, the Kleptones and Radio Clash. I’ll never be as hip as the cool kids, but a boy’s gotta dream, eh?