Sinned Again
Forgive me, Dano, for again have I sinned.
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
Sen. Wonk, D-N.M.
I say this with the greatest affection. Jeff Bingaman is a wonk. From Cornelia Dean’s story in yesterday’s New York Times on a briefing on Capitol Hill attempting to explain what science is: (T)he briefing’s subject apparently struck a chord. More than 100 committee staff members, Congressional aides and at least one senator, Jeff Bingaman, …
Voodoo Science
Well down in a tortuous thread, a commenter asks why a new and different explanation for surface warming of our planet is not being considered in our ongoing global discussion of climate change. I won’t begin to try to detail the explanation, but at the risk of being unfairly pejorative in my description of it, …
Schwarzenegger, California and Climate
There’s an op-ed in the 21 January New Scientist from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger laying out his case for action on greenhouse gas reductions: In California, we are already seeing potentially severe impacts: shrinking of our snow pack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which reduces our annual water supplies; erosion of our coastline; flooding of …
Othello
Playing Othello with Nora is pretty much a win-win for me. If I win, I get the visceral pleasure of victory. If she wins, I get the pride that comes with watching your child succeed. To be honest, I much prefer kicking her ass. She played white this evening, and of course I’m a very …
Drought Numbers
Not much chance of rain over the next week, which means we’ll end the month with 0.04 inch in Albuquerque for January. With 0.10 in December, that puts us (by my quick back of the envelope calculation) at the fifth-driest Dec.-Jan. in history. 1966-67 was the worst, with 0.02 inch. The Palmer Drought Index says …
More on 2005
Good discussion on Island of Doubt about the significance of the 2005 temperatures.
Peak Oil
I had a dream the other night about a shortage of jet fuel. Someone handed me a piece of paper with a list showing which flights were allowed to go, and which were grounded. I couldn’t figure out how they’d decided which was which.
Trying to Shut up Hansen
Andrew Revkin has a story on the New York Times web site about restrictions NASA is trying to place on outspoken climate scientist James Hansen: The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff …
Daybook
reading 1: Donald Wilhite’s “Drought: A Global Assessment”. Wilhite, in his introduction, clearly lays out the climate-societal vulnerability link: “Thus the incidence of drought could increase because of a change in the frequency of the physical event, a change in societal vulnerability to water shortages, or both.” reading 2: Via Roger Pielke the Younger, a …