1–6 of 705 entries categorized:

Geek stuff

Latent heat and storms

February 8, 2010

in Geek stuff, Science, The environment

When energy is used to heat something up, the temperature does not increase smoothly as the energy is put in. Most significantly, this is because causing matter to change states takes energy in itself, above and beyond the energy that goes into warming. Imagine a big block of ice at 0°C. A lot of energy [...]

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What Republicans believe

February 5, 2010

in Geek stuff, Politics

The Daily Kos has an interesting post up, with results from a survey of 2,000 self-identified Republicans in the United States.
Many of the statistics are depressing. Only 42% of those surveyed are confident that Barack Obama was born in the US. 24% think he “wants the terrorists to win.” 53% think Sarah Palin is more [...]

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Storms of My Grandchildren

February 5, 2010

in Books and literature, Economics, Geek stuff, Politics, Science, The environment, Writing

Writer Robert Pool has defined a ‘witness’ as “someone who believes he has information so important that he cannot keep silent.” In the preface to his book, Storms of My Grandchildren, climatologist James Hansen identifies himself using the term. It is truly worrisome to be living in an age when such a prominent climate scientist [...]

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Is runaway climate change possible? Hansen’s take

February 4, 2010

in Canada, Economics, Geek stuff, Politics, Science, The environment

Back in 2008, I wrote about whether ‘runaway’ climate change might be possible on Earth. At one point, Venus had liquid water on its surface. Then, the sun grew brighter and Venus warmed. Its oceans evaporated and huge amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) got baked out of the crust. The heat made the water break [...]

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Climate change: the solar hypothesis

February 3, 2010

in Geek stuff, Politics, Science, The environment

There are some who assert that the global warming that has been observed on all continents is caused by changes in the output of the sun. This hypothesis does not stand up to scrutiny in either the short or the long-term, as made clear in James Hansen’s Storms of My Grandchildren as well as published [...]

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Why we cannot wait for climate science to be completely settled

February 2, 2010

in Geek stuff, Politics, Science, The environment

To those who say that we should just wait and see how the climate changes, without taking action to reduce our emissions, I offer the following analogy:

To assume the best possible outcome, and to make plans only on that basis, is akin to the United States assuming they would be ‘greeted as liberators’ in Iraq. [...]

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