A few days ago several outlets reported that the year 2011 set a record, surprise surprise, for global carbon emissions with, presumably if physics is to be believed, a record bump higher in the atmosphere's ability to keep sunlight's rebirth as IR around for a while longer as heat. A report from non-profit...
Category: Environment & Energy Stories
Show only environment and energy story posts
A few days ago several outlets reported that the year 2011 set a record, surprise surprise, for global carbon emissions with, presumably if physics is to be believed, a record bump higher in the atmosphere's ability to keep sunlight's rebirth as IR around for a while longer as heat. A report from non-profit supported by several government's including that of the US, the Global Carbon Project, put the numbers in the journal Nature Climate Change. 2010 had set a different sort of bad-news record, up by 5.9 percent over 2009 and reflecting in part the global economic recovery. 2011 did not keep that pace but the absolute number kept growing, up another 3 percent or a total 38.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide form burning of fossil fuels. China and India are leading the charge into a high carbon world.
A good place to start is with the AP...
Kalmbach Publishing Company, the owner of Discover magazine, has hired an editor-in-chief to take over when the magazine moves from New York City to Waukesha, Wisconsin at the end of the year.
The new editor, Stephen C. George, is currently an executive editor at the Reader’s Digest...
Kalmbach Publishing Company, the owner of Discover magazine, has hired an editor-in-chief to take over when the magazine moves from New York City to Waukesha, Wisconsin at the end of the year.
The new editor, Stephen C. George, is currently an executive editor at the Reader’s Digest Association Inc. in Greendale, Wis., according to Kalmbach's press release.
Here's more from the press release:
George is the former editor of The Saturday Evening Post. His career includes senior editorial positions at Meredith Corp.’s Better Homes and Gardens and Rodale’s Prevention. George is an experienced health and medicine editor. He oversaw coverage of the topic at Prevention and, earlier in his career, was an associate editor at The New Physician. From 1999 to 2002, he was USA Today’s health/science columnist for its USA Weekend newspaper...
While politicians in Washington are squabbling over who-knew-what-when with regard to UN Ambassador Susan Rice and Benghazi, an environmental reporter has revealed important information about her finances.
The woman who could become the next Secretary of State "holds significant investments in more...
While politicians in Washington are squabbling over who-knew-what-when with regard to UN Ambassador Susan Rice and Benghazi, an environmental reporter has revealed important information about her finances.
The woman who could become the next Secretary of State "holds significant investments in more than a dozen Canadian oil companies and banks that would stand to benefit from expansion of the North American tar sands industry and construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline," writes Scott Dodd on the website of the Natural Resources Defense Council's OnEarth magazine.
If she is nominated by President Obama and confirmed, one of her likely duties would be "consideration, and potentially approval, of the controversial mega-project," writes Dodd, the editor of OnEarth.org...
Stephen Leahy is a crusading science journalist, which has to be frustrating as his crusade is to write stories that convince policy makers and regular people to do something serious about climate change. I've mentioned him before in post, largely because he manages to get around the world reporting on...
Stephen Leahy is a crusading science journalist, which has to be frustrating as his crusade is to write stories that convince policy makers and regular people to do something serious about climate change. I've mentioned him before in post, largely because he manages to get around the world reporting on the topic while scrimping and wheedling constantly to fit it into his freelancer- and small-commission budget. For one thing, he simply asks his readers to send him money if they like what he writes, much of it for the small IPS news outlet (His website spells out that tactic).
He's now in Doha, Qatar, for the latest round of IPCC climate talks. His consternation with lack of progress is evident in an email he sent to many of his readers, including this passage:
Hello from Doha, Qatar and the UN climate...
26Nov 2012
Friday's links today:
--I don't have any bromide for Thanksgiving overeating, but I can pass along the interesting history of the word "bromide" from ...
Friday's links today:
--I don't have any bromide for Thanksgiving overeating, but I can pass along the interesting history of the word "bromide" from drrubidium.
--Some science writers are auto and tech enthusiasts, and others are not. Popular Science has always tried to interest both, and it does so once again in its 25th annual Best of What's New yearend story. You'll find the Tesla Model S and the 2013 Ferrari F12 Berlinetta here, along with the MIT Solarclave, which sterilizes medical instruments off the grid. You can also see PS's Innovation of the Year, which Apple will not be happy about, and a lot of things you might not have read about elsewhere.
--Joan Lowy of the...
For about the last ten years, and peaking a few years back, many of us in the climate and science reporting biz met with and got a little bit tired of getting upbraided by a certain stripe of climate change activist, science or otherwise. Some of them said, again and again, that mainstream media's...
For about the last ten years, and peaking a few years back, many of us in the climate and science reporting biz met with and got a little bit tired of getting upbraided by a certain stripe of climate change activist, science or otherwise. Some of them said, again and again, that mainstream media's misrepresentation of the science and policy debates on global warming are a big reason the public and many politicians, especially in the US, haven't done much of anything that might cost more than a nickel in GNP to slow or stop the rate of greenhouse emissions we make. Namely, we gave the doubters equal footing in the quote department with actual climate authorities. That made for false balance and a lot of bad journalism. So they said.
I always denied that false media balance much existed, not in the big outlets anyway, and that to think it would matter much in any case is to way overestimate the power of the press. Oh, sure, some contrarians get a bit...
Maybe it's because I'm the daughter of an entomologist, but when I start reading a story that begins - Crickets that live near highways change their tune to overcome roadside...
Maybe it's because I'm the daughter of an entomologist, but when I start reading a story that begins - Crickets that live near highways change their tune to overcome roadside noise, a new study reports - I do not expect the very next sentence to be: Male bow-winged grasshoppers produce their song, which serves as a mating call, by rubbing a toothed file on their hind legs against a protruding vein on their front wings.
For a moment, I thought - or even hoped for the newspaper's sake - that I'd missed a startling new reclassification of grasshoppers in which they were now considered chirpy little crickets. But no. When I typed a search question - "Are grasshoppers crickets?" even Ask.com was quick to tell me that, no, they weren't. Ask.com titles its entry "...
20Nov 2012
After decrying the failure yesterday of Matter, the new long-form science journalism site, to deliver a story to my Kindle or to give me any help, I found a place at...
After decrying the failure yesterday of Matter, the new long-form science journalism site, to deliver a story to my Kindle or to give me any help, I found a place at a different website--Matter's blog--where I could leave a comment. (I could find no place to contact Matter on its main website.) I left a comment complaining about my Kindle problem and my inability to find help files or contact Matter.
I got a response to the comment last night from Matter's Bobbie Johnson. He pointed out that there is a help file. It's just not part of the site's main navigation bar, which contains the following:
about / articles / blog / account / sign...
15Nov 2012
The idea of taxing carbon emissions to address climate change is once again in the air in Washington. But it could prove no more popular this time than it did in 2009 when President Obama tried to get a climate-change bill through Congress, and failed.
Seth Borenstein at The AP...
The idea of taxing carbon emissions to address climate change is once again in the air in Washington. But it could prove no more popular this time than it did in 2009 when President Obama tried to get a climate-change bill through Congress, and failed.
Seth Borenstein at The AP has written a nice scene-setter, which refers to recent reports on the subject (but doesn't link to them!) and surveys the political landscape. (Ouch; the mixed metaphors are mine, not Borenstein's.) To get a sense of the depth of feeling on this issue, note that Borenstein reports that the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking access to Treasury Department emails on the subject.
Before you place your bets for or against a carbon tax, read Borenstein.
...
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, I'm wondering how long it will be before those of us who ramble (or run) along the Hudson River will lose the dreamy view of the Emerald Cities of New Jersey, to be replaced by megalithic walls of concrete holding back the sea.
Jeff Tollefson has...
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, I'm wondering how long it will be before those of us who ramble (or run) along the Hudson River will lose the dreamy view of the Emerald Cities of New Jersey, to be replaced by megalithic walls of concrete holding back the sea.
Jeff Tollefson has a nice piece in this week's Nature exploring the possibility of a massive engineering project to protect New York from hurricanes "that are demonstrably increasing in power," he reports. He begins with a disturbing accounting of whether the disaster predictions of Malcolm Bowman of Stony Brook University came true with Sandy:
As Hurricane Sandy drove a 4.2-metre-high wall of salt water into the heart of New York city and the surrounding coast late on the evening of 29 October, scientists and engineers ticked through a nightmare...
In comments Tuesday, while discussing the high-powered destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo went into territory mostly avoided by U.S. politicians these days. To quote: "There has been a...
In comments Tuesday, while discussing the high-powered destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo went into territory mostly avoided by U.S. politicians these days. To quote: "There has been a series of extreme weather incidents. That is not a political statement, that is a factual statement ... Anyone who says there's not a dramatic change in weather patterns, I think is denying reality."
Okay, he said "dramatic change" rather than "climate change" but there's no missing the point. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg raised the possibility a little more directly: "the storms we've experienced in the last year or so around this country and around the world are much more severe than before. Whether...
30Oct 2012
While some people are arguing about the role of anthropogenic climate change in this freak storm, author Paul Greenberg points out a clearer, more straightforward connection between human activity and the devastation that blew through last night and left much of the New Jersey coast in ruins.
On today’...
While some people are arguing about the role of anthropogenic climate change in this freak storm, author Paul Greenberg points out a clearer, more straightforward connection between human activity and the devastation that blew through last night and left much of the New Jersey coast in ruins.
On today’s New York Times editorial page, his essay, “An Oyster in the Storm” reminds us that Manhattan and other parts of the Eastern Seaboard used to be protected by oyster reefs, and these lessened the damage from storm surges past.
Just as corals protect tropical islands, these oyster beds created undulation and contour on the harbor bottom that broke up wave action before it could pound the shore with its full force. Beds closer to shore clarified the water through their assiduous filtration (a single oyster can filter as much as 50 gallons of water a...
I expected Climate Depot to be slicker. It’s a site run by Mark Morano, a former reporter for the Rush Limbaugh show and a spokesman for Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee. It...
I expected Climate Depot to be slicker. It’s a site run by Mark Morano, a former reporter for the Rush Limbaugh show and a spokesman for Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee. It’s clear that he doesn’t know anything about science but I thought a character like that would have a nicer looking website.
Today the site has fixed its crosshairs on AP science reporter Seth Borenstein, who has offended them yet again but writing about climate change as if it’s a problem. I’ve run afoul of climate skeptic bloggers before, and so I may be biased in saying they can be childish and vindictive and lack any sense of logic. When I covered the “climategate” affair, a similar denier site called Watts Up With That accused me of being a porn writer...
I've been laying doggo for a week or two, recovering from a vacation (that included so much loose time I tracked a bit), but a short but snappy story on climate change and the peculiar reticence of either the US President or his would-be successor to mention it prompts a return to duty. I have more too:...
I've been laying doggo for a week or two, recovering from a vacation (that included so much loose time I tracked a bit), but a short but snappy story on climate change and the peculiar reticence of either the US President or his would-be successor to mention it prompts a return to duty. I have more too: competing tales of Earth's polar ice packs plus a recent, disappointing PBS interview.
1) The election season...
The AP this week is circulating a story as part of an election issues project at the service. Except this one is about a campaign non-issue that, some (me, me...but more important, the majority of scientists on this beat) say is an immense, active threat to planet Earth as we know it.
- Seth Borenstein: WHY IT MATTERS: Global Warming....
New York Times reporter Elizabeth Rosenthal wrote this fascinating enterprise piece on the worldwide grab for the oil, gas and minerals exposed by melting...
New York Times reporter Elizabeth Rosenthal wrote this fascinating enterprise piece on the worldwide grab for the oil, gas and minerals exposed by melting arctic ice. Yes, climate change will make accessible more fossil fuel so we can burn even more of it in the future. And some rich people stand to get a lot richer off the consequences of climate change.
There is also a potential payoff for the Inuit – the native people who survived while the Greenland Vikings perished and now make up the majority of Greenland’s population:
In the past 18 months, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea have made debut visits here, and Greenland’s prime minister, Kuupik Kleist, was welcomed by President José Manuel Barroso of the European...
©2010 Knight Science Journalism at MIT. All Rights Reserved.