science

Assuring Obama’s Commitment to Science

By [node:field_contributor] / On February 21st, 2011

This post was contributed to Eco-Compass by Emily Davis, development editor at Island Press. On Friday, John Holdren, advisor for Science and Technology to President Obama and former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), sought to assure AAAS members that the President is committed to their cause.

Randy Olson on the Christianized Darwin Crusaders.

By Admin / On October 30th, 2009

Last year comic actor Ben Stein bamboozled evolutionists with his anti-evolution movie "Expelled!". He hoodwinked evolutionists, even Richard Dawkins, into appearing in a movie that attacked them. Now Kirk Cameron -- Mike Seaver in the 80s sitcom Growing Pains -- is lending some star power to the vocally anti-evolution ranks with a plan to distribute 50,000 copies [on Nov. 22] of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" modified to fit his Christian beliefs and subvert the 150th anniversary of its publication.

The Battle Over the New Climate Bill

By Jonathan Isham / On June 29th, 2009

Today, hundreds of citizens are on the forefront of the climate movement; 20 years ago, in the summer of 1989, the fight against global warming had only two well-known spokespeople: Senator Al Gore and NASA Scientist Jim Hansen. (Bill McKibben, now at the helm of the indispensable 350.org, joined this august roster with the publication of The End of Nature). Recently, I was lucky enough to hear each of them share their strong opinions about American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), the House’s energy and climate bill that

Hoping for the Best

By Anthony Barnosky / On April 3rd, 2009

I admit it. In my heart of hearts, I'm hoping for the best. Those scenarios of climate change we see splashed across the newspapers and magazines include a wide range of possibilities, and I keep my fingers crossed that we'll end up closer to the best case. But just three weeks ago the best case got a lot worse. A group of climate scientists meeting in Copenhagen announced that sea level very likely is going to rise almost twice as much as we thought.

After the Storm

By Anthony Barnosky / On March 18th, 2009

When you’re in the middle of a forest fire, trees exploding all around you, smoke burning your lungs, and fireballs dropping from the sky, it’s hard to think about much except getting out of there alive. That’s kind of where we are with thinking about global warming nowadays—the direct impacts on people. How many lose their homes when sea level rises? What new diseases are going to make their way out of the tropics? How many dollars will it take to cut carbon emissions?

Sea Levels Rise and Scientists Wade In

By Elizabeth Grossman / On February 19th, 2009

If anyone doubts that the world's environment is in a state - if not of crisis then of grave concern - I suggest attending a major scientific conference. Among the sobering assessments offered at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held this past weekend in Chicago, came from climate scientist Chris Field, director of the department of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science.

Doom-mongering

By [node:field_contributor] / On August 12th, 2008

Well, I'm a "doom-monger" - that's the opinion of Mary Eberstadt, conservative Catholic pundit based at Stanford's neighbor, a frequently-thoughtless tank, the Hoover Institution. The news came to me this week from the editors of First Things, a journal dedicated to advancing "a religiously-informed public philosophy for the ordering of society" - translation, turning the United States into a theocracy.