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The Environment

Report: 300,000 Die Every Year From Climate Change

By Stuart Fox Posted on 5.29.2009 31 Comments
In anticipation of a new United Nations resolution on climate change and security, two new reports and a statement from twenty Nobel Laureates highlight the direct impact of climate change on the world's most vulnerable populations. And the news is decidedly not good.

6.24.2009 at 08:30am - Comment by spence57

Nice to see that Exxon is finally going to be paying for the Valdez oil spill. With all the oil riches we have I'm surprised that it's taken so long. Maybe they could send me a bit for my kid's asthma too. Oh yeah, unless I saw Exxon do it, it's not their fault. Breathing fumes is perfectly healthy, higher incidences of lung disease don't prove anything. So we should go back to putting lead in gasoline. Just because people's IQ was dropping, hey that was probably just inner city's people's rampant drug use. What the heck, GW won't really bother rich Americans anyhow. They'll just summer somewhere else or buy a desalination plant for their golf course. Oh, that's right, pretty soon Lake Mead will be overflowing with our improved climate.
Gadgets

Pentium Prosecution

By Stuart Fox Posted on 5.13.2009 21 Comments
Since 2001, the European Union's (EU) anti-trust regulators have investigated complaints that chip maker Intel engaged in anti-competitive practices. They accused Intel of of paying retailers not to sell computers with AMD chips, and for using its position as the number-one chip manufacturer to muscle around competition. Today, the EU handed down the decision in the form of a $1.4 billion fine, the largest in European history.

6.17.2009 at 11:27pm - Comment by spence57

It's so true that power corrupts and governments have so much power..., but so do corporations. MS used plagiarism laws to knock down it's small competitors and it's bankroll and lawyers to bleed to death the bigger ones. Intel knows the game just as well and that they've had a free pass from a "see no evil" American government. Just like AT&T a generation ago! Many love America because it's strong and they don't really even want it to be fair, they just want it to come out ahead. They will always deny the bad and trumpet what looks good but they are only talking as a strategy to win and being fair to people doesn't really matter to them. Maybe it's inevitable; like how an immigrant's child just wants the riches and not the hard work and perseverance needed to earn them in a fair society. People loved America because it stood for fairness and an honest break but now in some ways it's become just like old Europe with it's aristocracy and it's titles. Do we want justice to be dependent on whether you're rich?
The Environment

Crocodile-like Reptiles Lived in the Arctic 55 Million Years Ago. Could it Happen Again?

By Posted on 6.11.2009 8 Comments
Yes, but probably not anytime soon. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the planet's average air temperature could warm by as much as 11.5°F by the end of the century. As a result, the world could be warmer than it was 55 million years ago, says Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees, an analysis of hundreds of climate studies that reads like a nonfiction version of The Day after Tomorrow. Back then, the Canadian Arctic was as balmy as Florida and lousy with crocodile-like animals called champsosaurs.

6.16.2009 at 07:54am - Comment by spence57

Nice job EParker! I have a good friend who's a committed skeptic of GW and it's frustrating. There is so much happening with the weather that it's easy to have enough material to support or deny GW. I do think that much of the anti material is bogus but I don't have the time to look up all of it. Attitudes are revealing though. Some people won't accept anything that indicates they might have to change their lifestyle. Change is inevitable though! I see that civilizations have fallen because they didn't change and they feel that civilizations have fallen because they stopped doing what made them powerful. I guess that we have to concentrate on talking about how any one of us can see the world has changed and how old solutions just can't deal with our new problems. It's funny; we have to argue against 3 points of view; that GW isn't happening, that's it's going to be good for us, and that it can't be stopped. It's like being a murder prosecutor. The defense lawyer argues against the case by suggesting totally contradictory scenarios while never having to be settle on any one. The most ridiculous part though, is how they just assume the world will work just fine for a few decades while it's rearranging itself for what's normally an eons long change. I guess its' easier if you don't believe that evolution and a whole lot of time got us where we are.
The Environment

Future Human: Gambling on the Planet

By Posted on 3.5.2008 4 Comments
Welcome to the inaugural post of Future Human: Covering the prospects of Homo sapiens and the future of humanity. You can follow subsequent postings here, where you can also subscribe to an RSS feed. If we were assured that climate change would doom the planets future, we'd all chip in to help stop it, right? Well, maybe not. An interesting forecast from researchers at Germanys Max Planck Institute contends that humans have a fifty-fifty shot of cooperating on climate for the benefit of the common good.

3.18.2008 at 03:41pm - Comment by spence57

Water vapor's contribution is huge, but, but the heat coming from the planet's mantel is even bigger and it doesn't depend on evaporation like water vapor does. Oh right, that's pretty constant. Of course evaporation is lessened by the clouds that water vapor causes so... so maybe water vapor cancels itself out. No, no that can't be, that's just too simple! Try to ignore methane because it's a very potent greenhouse gas and huge amounts of it may just be evaporated by more atmospheric heat and less snow coverage. It's the Omigod, I thought they said this would take decades, scenario!
Cars

GM Vice Chairman Calls Global Warming A "Total Crock of S**t"

By Posted on 2.13.2008 46 Comments
Heres an odd PR move making the blog rounds today: Bob Lutz, the General Motors Vice Chairman whos driving the charge to build the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, was recently quoted in D Magazine calling global warming a crock of s**t.

3.18.2008 at 03:16pm - Comment by spence57

Very few of us actually study global warming phenomena and many of us decide the issue with the attitude of the part of the political spectrum we reside in. It's like the urban legends which continue to circulate because of our feeling of the truth of them. I think that we all ought to try to consider the issue with an open mind, not with the attitude that it's another wacky tree hugger idea or that's it's simply the earth's revenge against the greedy capitalists. Ha, Ha, Ha!! Like anyone will actually do that! We'll all be waiting for greenhouse warming to happen while we starve to death because our fisheries have collapsed and shellfish can't reproduce without a shell dissolved by the acidified ocean. We may not eat all that much fish but we won't be able to afford our own food while China is foreclosing on our houses! Maybe Ireland will send us some potatoes or we can learn to eat cactus and jellyfish!