Climate change

and others of note Further to: Is there a sixth great extinction in progress? (It would help if a key exponent was anyone but Paul “Population Bomb” Ehrlich, a contender for the heavyweight champ of wrong-headed predictions), at Evolution News & Views, Rob Sheldon offers While the criteria may sound quantitative, and the increase in extinction rate qualitatively higher, there is a missing factor in this calculation. First, the extinction rate in the past is determined from fossils. Since almost by definition, fossil animals are nearly all extinct today, the extinction rate is close to 100 percent. But the key thing is that not all species are represented in the fossil record. Second, the present extinction rate is determined from Read More ›

Here: (10) The Church does not presume to settle scientific questions, and we need an honest and open debate: (60) Finally, we need to acknowledge that different approaches and lines of thought have emerged regarding this situation and its possible solutions. At one extreme, we find those who doggedly uphold the myth of progress and tell us that ecological problems will solve themselves simply with the application of new technology and without any need for ethical considerations or deep change. At the other extreme are those who view men and women and all their interventions as no more than a threat, jeopardizing the global ecosystem, and consequently the presence of human beings on the planet should be reduced and all Read More ›

Is this a fair assessment? From City Journal: Shortly after the Argentinian cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was consecrated Pope Francis in 2013, news stories reported that the new pontiff wanted to build a stronger relationship between the Catholic Church and science—one that saw science not in opposition to, but compatible with, religious belief. Some months later, the pope declared that evolution and the Big Bang theory of creation are real and don’t conflict with belief in God. Now, in the wake of the pope’s encyclical on climate change and the environment, Laudato Si (or, Be Praised), the press has exulted in the pope’s apparent effort to find even more “common ground” with science. Nothing could be further from the truth. Read More ›

Chicken Little must be on vacay. From New Scientist: While greater bleaching is undoubtedly on the list of things that are threatening coral reefs (see “Reefs at risk”), this is a rare instance of where the climate pudding may have been over-egged. New research is painting a very different portrait of corals, one that casts them in the light … [of buy a subscription] Over-egging the pudding is not rare, it is the usual practice in Acrockalypse Kitchens, Inc. Indeed, if there is truly a worldwide shortage of eggs, consider that source of overeggage first. Life forms that have lasted as long as corals (500 mya) probably have many built-in mechanisms for resisting unfavourable changes, as they must surely have Read More ›

Further to: Slate has discovered why you shouldn’t use Wikipedia as a source (In other breaking news, pigs don’t really fly faster than light), we now read, once again, a story like: The sad tales of the Wikipedia gang war regarding WUWT This illustrates the most basic problem with the reliability of Wikipedia in any entry where human opinion is involved. There are roving gangs (and sometimes individuals who appear gang-like due to their output level, such as disgraced Wikipedia editor William Connolley, who will no doubt wail about this note, and then proceed to post the usual denigrating things on his “Stoat, taking science by the throat” blog) and individuals who act as gatekeepers of their own vision of “truth”, Read More ›

Yeah, from Newsweek (still exists): To those who grew up in the 1990s, Bill Nye the Science Guy was a television staple and its star a fount of scientific discovery. Today, Nye continues working in a similar vein, albeit offscreen, as CEO of the Planetary Society, a nonprofit that … What’s the one thing you thought scientists would have figured out by now that hasn’t been yet? I certainly thought we would make a lot more progress with respect to climate change. I wrote about climate change in 1993 in a book for kids and hardly anything’s been done about it. And I’m also surprised that we still have such a large population of science deniers in the United States. Read More ›

Wave enough hands (and pom poms) and Air TV thinks you are only a step from a major discovery. This from commentator Steven Hayward: Ironically the best evidence for the abuse of climate science by the political class comes from a very sober commentary in Nature magazine this week about how climate scientists are concerned that the upcoming UN climate summit in Paris next December won’t reach a serious agreement (they’re right about this), but especially how the politicians are ignoring what scientists are telling them and the dilemma this supposedly causes climate scientists: Climate science advisers should use the time before Paris to reassess their role. Do they want to inform policy-makers or support the political process? The climate Read More ›

In breaking news, Climate Audit has obtained exclusive information on output from the first runs of Weaver’s “next generation” climate model. These are the first known climate model predictions of the future of human evolution. The results are worrying: Take a look. Serves us all right, presumably. 😉 If you are interested in climate change issues, you might want to note this new book. Note: No more news posting till later this evening. Follow UD News at Twitter!

I was reading an exchange of emails that took place between noted physcist (and skeptical warmer) Freeman Dyson and his interlocutor, Steve Conner, of the Independent of London. To my eye, Dyson is spot on in his critical thinking. But what most caught my eye was his analysis between the ‘experts’ and the general public that seems to have occurred. I think it serves as a good understanding of where Darwinism/neo-Darwinism now stands in academia. When I was in high-school in England in the 1930s, we learned that continents had been drifting according to the evidence collected by Wegener. It was a great mystery to understand how this happened, but not much doubt that it happened. So it came as Read More ›