Kevin Vranes on the reality of Kyoto and Montreal: The real consensus we need to reach here is whether slowing GHG increases is worth it or not. Kyoto has always been close to irrelevant climatologically and while I feel the pain of those making the “it’s a start, a necessary first step” argument, I have …
I did not know that the bottle gourd was the first domesticated plant in the Americas, 10,000 years ago. (If you’d asked me, I would have guessed maize. Wrong.) It’s what archaeologists call a “utility species” – domesticated not for food but for non-edible usefulness. (Dogs also qualify as a “utility species.”) Bottle gourd was …
Reading John Houghton’s Global Warming: The Complete Briefing this evening, I was reminded of one of my favorite episodes in the history of science: Lewis Fry Richardson and the first numerical weather forecast. Richardson was of that era that ended with the burst of modernism in the early 20th century – a generalist, dabbler in …
Forests are a good thing, right? And reversing deforestation is a smart approach to climate change – locking all that carbon back up in trees, right? A new paper out of Lawrence Livermore throws an odd monkey wrench into the conventional wisdom, using model simulations to conclude that grassland cools while forest warms: We find …
Via the comments at ScienceGate, a good science blog I’d not read before: James Hrynyshyn’s Island of Doubt.
Interesting work presented at AGU by a University of Alabama/NASA/etc. group suggesting the the possibility that Mayan deforestation may have brought on the drought conditions that some blame for the collapse of classic Maya culture. I have thought that the Maya might make a good case study for a society done in by drought, expanding …
Jeff Bingaman, fresh from Montreal, talks about U.S. greenhouse gas policies: Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., thinks now is the time for the United States to act on climate change. But Bingaman, who has emerged as a congressional leader on the issue, acknowledges he has his work cut out for him in persuading the Bush administration. …
Cycling News has a picture of New Mexico rider Tove Shere, national Masters 50-54 champion. Check out the snow. That’s serious bike riding.
Monahan on crime stats
John Keller, in the comments below, notes that he lives in what by my measure is clearly not a world-class city: No Taco Bells here, but 5 in the equivalent Zip code. The place? Paris, France. Guess we’re not world-class yet… Though I hope we’re never as “world-class” as NYC by this metric.