If God-eh is keeping global warming at bay like Sen. James Inhofe assures us, then perhaps the rustbelt has been forsaken. A new study comparing station data and satellite photos concludes winter ice cover on America’s Great Lakes has plunged by 70 percent since 1973:
On almost every post where conservative denial of science rears its unwelcome head, a fascinating question breaks out in comments: do they really believe it or are they just being cynical assholes? The traditional response is “I can’t read people’s minds …but”. Now, thanks to the rapidly growing field of neurophysiology, we’re starting to get insight into the cerebral activities that rise and fall when someone is confronted by strong counter arguments to their beliefs. Defacto mind reading? It’s a complicated subject, way out of my league as a writer. But luckily, I happen to have in my hot little hands a review copy for a new book due out in April by noted science writer Chris Mooney called The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Don’t Believe in Science. [Read more…]
See that chart up there compiled by NASA of ground and ocean surface temperature readings over the last century? Fear not, for Senator James Inhofe (R-bugfuck) assures us all, every one, that God is on the case, and in fact He has been from the very beginning when the univserse was created lo those few thousand years ago. It says so in Genesis: [Read more…]
A new study finds strong evidence that an asteroid or comet hit the earth about 13,000 years ago and may have played a role in a dramatic climate shift around that time. A 16 member team from UC Santa Barbara has found nanodiamonds and other artifacts of the theoritical impact which fits like a glove with a sudden cold snap at the end of the most recent ice-age called the Younga Dryas: [Read more…]
There it is, first stolen documents were bad and the perps should be punished. But a year later when stolen emails were posted in misleading snippets to falsely portray an international conspiracy among climate researchers the conservative disinformation machine, including the Heartland Institute, was giddy with excitement. Now some docs reportedly indicating the lengths to which that same org will go have been published and they have suddenly rediscovered their moral compass and are back on the fainting couch. [Read more…]
It struck me that a lot of readers may not know the back story on the post about Watts, below, so here’s some context. The Heartland Institute is a right-wing org originally created in 1984, appropriately, to spread lies about issues like the health effects of tobacco use. When that gig started drying up in the 90s they had to find new wealthy benefactors, fast. One of the biggest clients they landed was the fossil fuel energy industry, interested in using similar disinformation tactics to combat pollution regulations and especially the growing scientific consensus on human induced climate change.
Last week internal documents from Heartland came to light reportedly showing the lengths to which the institute would go to further their sponsors’ interests. Via the Wiki: [Read more…]
Speaking on Face the Nation this weekend, GOP front-runner and future guest-in-a sweater vest Romper Room host Rick Santourm decreed that Barack Obama is following a phony, dare we say heretical theology, in which the end goal is to enslave man to that commie bitch mother earth. Or something like that: [Read more…]
A few days ago an insider at the industry friendly Heartland Institute reportedly released some internal emails and other documents. One of them seems to feature Anthony Watts of the climate change denier site WhatsUpWithThat in a very bad light: [Read more…]
The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches From The Front Lines by Dr. Michael Mann, Ph.D
Columbia University Press; Cost $10 to $30
Imagine a place where you and your family are threatened, your employer pressured by the most powerful people on earth to fire you, your email hacked and posted by the usual suspects in accusatory snippets, and where a mysterious letter containing white powder mixed in with tons of traditional hate mail land in your inbox. A suspected communist sympathizer during the McCarthy era, or a Muslim in the wake of 9-11? Nope. All because you helped make one of the most important scientific discoveries in a generation. That’s life in the land of the free and the home of the brave for prominent climate scientists these days, which is why I was personally thrilled to feature one yesterday who not only didn’t shrink an inch, he is fighting back, hard. [Read more…]
Santorum's NASA conspiracy incarnate. Who ya gonna believe?
Mitt Romney may have accepted the role humans are playing in global warming — before he was against it. But Tricky Rick Santorum has been priming the misinformation and character assassination industries consistently from the get go. Santorum, speaking at CPAC, demonstrates that, unlike Mittens, he may be sincerely clueless: [Read more…]