At Boing Boing, Maggie Koerth-Baker does an excellent job of retelling the myth that global climate change deniers adore. That's the myth that scientists widely feared global cooling in the l970's. According to the standard version of this story, everybody in the 1970s thought that the Earth was actually getting colder, and that we were inContinue reading “Why deniers cling to the “global cooling” myth: a theory”
Monthly Archives: July 2011
The older you get, the more unemployed you are likely to be
Or, as Matty Iglesias puts it, perhaps (we can hope) overstating it: "There will be no recovery." The Pew Center, graphing census data for the visually oriented, appears to have the stats to back him up, at least for the long-term unemployed: In short — the older you get, the more unemployed you are likelyContinue reading “The older you get, the more unemployed you are likely to be”
Socrates, Environmental Working Group: Eat Less Meat!
The Environmental Working Group brought out a report recently that definitively showed the high cost of meat. Not the cost in the store, but to the planet, and to our health. (Indeed, the one statistic I wish the report had that it didn't would be the full calf-to-plate cost of meat.) Much remarked was theContinue reading “Socrates, Environmental Working Group: Eat Less Meat!”
It’s not the heat, it’s…
From Rob Rogers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: In some cases of denial, it's stupidity. In some cases, it's insanity. But as Rogers said: The heat dome that has been gripping the nation has been unbearable. It is almost as unbearable as people who still refuse to believe in climate change. While one hot summer isContinue reading “It’s not the heat, it’s…”
Television and the weather: some good news
Television for decades has been considered a vast wasteland, as public television advocate Newton Minnow famous characterized it in the early l960's, but these days television is, well, cliche defying. It's often surprisingly good. This is true both for dramatic mini-series such as the much-lauded Glee and Mad Men (which are far more ambitious andContinue reading “Television and the weather: some good news”
The master of raw life: Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud, the greatest painter of our times, has passed on. In a profile of him in The Guardian a few years back, a writer compared him to the old masters, the likes of Titian or Velázquez, and noted: The sensuality of Freud is of chilly underheated studios, dirty rags, London. Exactly so. And thatContinue reading “The master of raw life: Lucian Freud”
Ghost forests of the 21st century
Some have wanted to label the pika, a charming little mountain creature, as the first species likely to be driven to extinction by climate change, but a typically excellent story by Elizabeth Shogren of National Public Radio lays out a much more horrifying possibility: the whitebark pine. SHOGREN: Do you think it's a forgone conclusionContinue reading “Ghost forests of the 21st century”
If Murdoch is disgusting, what is the NSA?
Ted Rall points out that when it comes to spying, Rupert Murdoch is a piker: Not much of an exaggeration, unfortunately. It's old news that the NSA is monitoring your email. Heck at a recent launch of a satellite from Vandenberg AFB this year, I asked a public information officer how many satellites this yearContinue reading “If Murdoch is disgusting, what is the NSA?”
Harry Potter: the early Isherwood version
Back in the l930's, Christopher Isherwood published a fascinating quasi-memoir about his years at university called Lions and Shadows. Isherwood was a brilliant student, but — surprise, surprise — an outsider. With a fellow student named Chalmers he formed a sort of secret literary society opposed to what they called "the poshocracy." Isherwood and ChalmersContinue reading “Harry Potter: the early Isherwood version”
Americans increasingly doubt global warming: Harris Poll
A Harris poll on disasters released yesterday shows that fewer Americans than ever believe in global warming: just 44%, down from 75% ten years ago. Harris tries to see the positive in this, pointing out that: These numbers do not suggest, however, that a majority now do not believe in global warming—just over one-quarter say theyContinue reading “Americans increasingly doubt global warming: Harris Poll”
Kit Stolz 