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Judge rules "An Inconvenient Truth" has "factual errors," but the Nobel Committee seems to like it!
A British court recently ruled that Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, contained "nine factual errors" when deciding whether it should be allowed to be shown in public schools. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, given that I've seen the film, taught it as part of a physical geography course, and never heard my graduate advisor (a ( Read more... ) -
Global Warming Guide to the 2008 Presidential Candidates
Today is Independence Day in the United States, and as Americans celebrate the 232nd birthday of the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the Climate Blog would like to honor the occasion by thinking forward to the 2008 election, which could potentially be a turning point in American energy and climate policy. To that end, I bring you the ( Read more... ) -
Carbon footprints: keeping up with the Joneses.
Yesterday was a Clean Air Action Day here in Madison, which means that conditions were favorable for the formation of ground-level ozone in high enough volumes to cause a health risk for children, the elderly, adults active outside, and people with asthma or other respiratory ailments. The city of Madison asks residents to minimize their use of ( Read more... ) -
Debunking skeptics: pulling threads out of blanet statements.
I got into an argument in the blogosphere yesterday about the climate change consensus, and the skeptic finally conceded that even if there was agreement, the scientists themselves are just doing bad science. One particular argument that really floored me was the assertion that climate scientists "ignore geology and orbital changes." Once I got ( Read more... ) -
2006 sees lower emissions.
According to preliminary data from the Energy Department, carbon dioxide emissions in the United States were down 1.3 percent in 2006, following an all-time high in 2005.
The good news: Less carbon dioxide emissions is always good news. The cock-eyed optimist in me would like to think that popular outreach media like An Inconvenient Truth, Field ( Read more... ) -
Plows, Plagues, & Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate
When we talk about anthropogenic global warming, we tend to be referring to the dramatic rise in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide since the beginning of the Industrial era, some two hundred years ago. Scientists often refer to this apparent change in the atmosphere as the "Anthropocene," the beginning of significant human impact on the earth.
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The day the question mark was removed?
Wisconsin is in the eye of what has been a bitterly cold US this week, and I've been hearing quite a few "so much for global warming, eh?" comments in the last few days. I'm sure the people in Seattle and Georgia are saying the same thing. My landscape ecology professor, David Mladenoff, summed it up quite nicely last Wednesday- what we've been ( Read more... )
