Life in NYC, from the great Overheard in New York: Hispanic guy, noting hot chick passerby: Hey, baby.Hot chick: (rolls eyes)Hispanic guy: (takes off shirt and puts it on the ground for her to walk over)Hot chick, stopping: I'll give you some credit for that one…but fuck off. (continues walking)
Monthly Archives: May 2009
SciGuy and “No Warming Since l998” Debunked in GRL
For science reporters, it has to be tempting to throw a curve ball at the climate consensus. Especially in red states, it's what a lot of readers want to hear. Could this be what led Eric Berger, the SciGuy for the Houston Chronicle, to claim that these are "good times to be a climate skeptic?"Continue reading “SciGuy and “No Warming Since l998” Debunked in GRL”
“The Great Recession?” Really?
From The Big Picture, via Andrew Sullivan: Hard to know if the worst is over, but this chart strongly suggests that comparisons between whatever it is that we're going through and The Great Depression are simply wrong. Even the phrase The Great Recession (from a New York Times headline) is sounding overblown.
End of the “Cold Road”: 18,000 Year-Old Glacier Vanishes
From the Miami Herald: CHACALTAYA, Bolivia — — If anyone needs a reminder of the on-the-ground impacts of global climate change, come to the Andes mountains in Bolivia. At 17,388 feet above sea level, Chacaltaya, an 18,000 year-old glacier that delighted thousands of visitors for decades, is gone, completely melted away as of some sad,Continue reading “End of the “Cold Road”: 18,000 Year-Old Glacier Vanishes”
The Upside of the Economic Downslide
Less traffic. According to the WSJ: Rush-hour congestion — defined as moving slower than free-flowing traffic — in the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan markets fell 29% in 2008 versus 2007, said Rick Schuman, a vice president at Inrix, a Washington company that measures traffic patterns. It fell an additional 7% in this year's first quarter.…TheContinue reading “The Upside of the Economic Downslide”
Dr. Jeff Masters on the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
Dr. Jeff Masters, best known as a hurricane watcher for Wunderblog, is respected enough across the political spectrum such that it is possible — not likely, but possible — that his warning about the dangers of replicating the PETM will be taken seriously. So it's worth a look. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution,Continue reading “Dr. Jeff Masters on the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum”
The Options Society vs. The Decisions Society, or Endless Search for the Right College
Yet another hilariously true essay/piece by the great Joel Achenbach, perfect for parents with kids about to enter college, called Endless Search for the Right College.
We don't take family vacations anymore, we just make college tours.
Over the past couple of years, my wife and three daughters and I have
mined a thick seam of colleges in the bedrock of the Eastern seaboard,
including William & Mary, Penn, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, U-Mass,
Amherst, U-Vermont, Skidmore, Bard, Cornell, Hamilton, McGill,
Dartmouth, Bates, Bowdoin and SUNY Geneseo. We've also been interested
in Wesleyan, Lafayette, Bucknell, Penn State, Colgate and Hartwick.
Also Oberlin, Ohio Wesleyan and Wisconsin. And Colorado, UCSD, UC Santa
Barbara, Reed and Whitman.
And the University of Guam.
And the College of Antarctica.
And Venus A&M (scorching, but a great environmental science program!).
Why, you may ask, did we narrow our list to just 750 colleges and
limit our search to the inner solar system? Because we're Americans,
and more than anything else, Americans like to have a lot of options.
Climate Scientists See a Different Planet On the Way
According to a poll of top climate scientists attending a conference last month in Copenhagen, the world will not succeed in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in what James Hansen likes to call "A Different Planet." According to The Guardian: Of more than 250 experts surveyed, more than half said the 2C target could stillContinue reading “Climate Scientists See a Different Planet On the Way”
Kit Stolz 