The Blame Game
The fact that I experienced physical and verbal abuse at the hands of my teachers during my Catholic education probably has a lot to do with my visceral response to…
Political Spin
Political Spin: This Story Isn’t True, But It Is Gratifying
My friend Gary sent me this yesterday, an apocryphal story that nonetheless offers certain pleasures. Enjoy! Remus Rudd Stephen Harper’s great-great uncle. Remus Rudd No matter what side of the…
Keystone XL Pipeline To Take Center Stage At Republican National Convention
money-pipeline.jpg Over the next few days, Republican lawmakers, Party officials, delegates, and supporters will gather in Tampa, Florida for the Republican National Convention. During their weeklong convention, we can expect…
Republican Ohio Governor Kasich’s Trillion Dollar Shale Gas Lie
kasichshrug2.jpg About the only positive thing you can say about industry-funded astroturf groups is that they at least base their misinformation campaigns on phony “studies” and “reports.” Their lies are…
Are Conservatives Inherently More Biased than Liberals? The Scientific Debate Rages On
Republican Brain.jpg In the first round of critical reactions to my book The Republican Brain, there wasn’t much to impress. As I related at AlterNet, the general conservative response to…
Conversion Fever! Why The Media Adores Former Climate Skeptics
Muller001.jpg If you’ve been following the science of global warming for over a decade—as I have—you might find the recent conversion of Berkeley physicist Richard Muller into a climate believer…
Latest Pro-Keystone XL Website Backed by GOP Special Interest Group
kerpin.jpeg This morning, the latest in pro-tar sands spin went live. KeystoneXLNow.com takes aim at President Obama for failing to approve the Keystone XL project (even though the White House…
If Conservatives Were Really “Conservative,” They Would Want to Do Something About Global Warming
kerry-emanuel.jpg Originally, when I asked MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel to be a guest on the Point of Inquiry podcast, my goal was simple. I wanted someone who could give…
It’s the Weather, Stupid: Slowly Re-Awakening the Public About Climate Change
drought monitor.gif The Yale and George Mason Centers on Climate Change Communication, collaborators on the well-known “Six Americas” studies of how the public views global warming, are out with their…
After All That, The Himalayan Glaciers are Indeed Shrinking
800px-Everest_North_Face_toward_Base_Camp_Tibet_Luca_Galuzzi_2006_edit_1.jpg Remember the Himalayan glaciers? They were at the root of the most deserved black-eye to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change during the intensely politicized period of 2009-2010.…
Republican Senator Scott Brown Suffering From "Subsidy Amnesia"
Scott-Brown-Campaign-SMS-Marketing1.jpeg With a straight face, Republican Senator Scott Brown told a crowd in Massachusetts this week that “oil companies don’t get subsidies” from the federal government. Brown tells us that,…
More Evidence That Republicans Are More Factually Challenged Than Democrats
pinocchio.jpg In writing The Republican Brain, I had a problem to solve. You see, it was one thing to cite all the psychological research suggesting that liberals and conservatives just…
FreedomWorks Fails Basic Math And Economics To Smear Renewable Energy Investments
Freedom_Works_Logo.gif The corporate funded, Libertarian/Conservative “think tank” FreedomWorks is doing their best to convince Americans that taxpayer-funded energy subsidies and loans are a waste of our resources. Of course, that…
The Politics of Ice and Fire
High_Park_Wildfire_Arapaho_and_Roosevelt_National_Forests_June_10,_2012.jpg In late June of 1988, just under 24 years ago, NASA’s James Hansen testified before the U.S. Congress about global warming. He noted that the Earth had been remarkably…
Chief Blair’s Poodle Speaks
First, bullets flew through the Eaton Centre food court. Then, two weeks later, on a sun-filled patio in Little Italy. On Sunday, a man was shot while hundreds watched a…
New Study: Climate Deniers Are Emoting–Especially the Conspiracy Theorists
Im-as-mad-as-Hell.jpg Anyone paying attention these last few years will have noticed that global warming denial simply isn’t a rational phenomenon. And it’s not just that if there were any reason…