Cleaning off my desk this evening, I found an interesting paper I’d printed and set aside to read weeks ago by Alison Smith in Holocene about the relationship between climate change and human evolution. Smith uses data from the human genome project on the timing of major bits of human evolution to argue that pressures …
Continue reading ‘Did Climate Change Make Us What We Are Today?’ »
One of the disconnects between science as it’s practiced and science as it’s understood by the public is “the results of the latest study”. When we report on “the results of the latest study,” the public is likely to be left shouting: “But last week I though they told me coffee was good for me!” …
Continue reading ‘The Colorado River: Dwindling Under Climate Change’ »
Funny is hard, especially when it’s about the fact that we’re all screwed because we’re running out of water. So I’m happy to discover a water blog that is both informative and funny: As we glumly consider our half-empty glass of tap water, which may or may not be contaminated, we decide that we have …
There’s an exchange over at Prometheus that nicely illustrates the fundamentally linear face of the public climate debate, as so eloquently characterized by Andrew Revkin’s “pushmi-pullyu” metaphor. The example at hand is the Prins and Rayner paper in Nature last month laying out, in part, the argument for a fuller integration of adapation to climate …
The Kentucky legislature held a hearing the other day about global warming. The featured speakers: James Taylor of the Heartland Institute and the ubiquitous Lord Monckton: Before the hearing, Gooch said he called the Heartland Institute once he decided to address global warming and asked for any skeptical experts it might send. Scientists weren’t necessary, …
Official Albuquerque low today: 40. Two days from the record.
La Niña seems to be cranking it up.
This morning’s low temperature at the National Weather Service’s Albuquerque station was 37. As I wrote in this morning’s newspaper, we’re near the record for the latest first freeze of autumn. It’s been warm here, especially the overnight lows.
I’ve always loved the minimalism of the desert. Like everything, it’s more complicated than you think, but it’s easier in the desert to see how the pieces fit together. Nora captures that brilliantly in a little bit of business from her novel that she posted on her blog: “When I was growing up, I read …
Can one of my European readers help with a currency conversion? How does Euros per MWh translate into dollars per ton of carbon? The context: RWE will proceed with the construction of two, 1,530 MW coal-fired plants in Germany, believing that the units will make money even if carbon dioxide costs of up to Eur30.00/MWh …
Continue reading ‘A Little Help Please With A Conversion?’ »