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Today we celebrate Charles Darwin’s birthday. The great biologist was born 202 years ago, meaning that it has been just over 151 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species. I have written in the past about his ideas, so to avoid repeating myself I would like to…
Read More »Last fall, local environmental attorney Matt Donahue was forced to contemplate (and live) life without a car. He wrote about his experience here and here. As 2010 drew to a close, Matt assessed his experiment and shares his observations below: Well, here is my year-end review (through December 23rd). To…
Read More »Historic New England – formerly known as the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) – is the oldest, largest, and most comprehensive regional heritage organization in the nation. It was founded in 1910 by William Sumner Appleton* to preserve and present the cultural and architectural heritage of…
Read More »Pictures of this morning’s solar eclipse from various parts of the world, taken by Citizen Journalists and brought to us by the BBC.
Read More »This was an interesting year for science. But rather than stretch for a list of the top ten accomplishments or discoveries I would like to focus in on three specific feats of technological achievement that, I think, have broad implications both for the future of science and how humanity views…
Read More »In my last post, I discussed how scientists have been able to prove that the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is due to human activity. It’s now time to discuss why carbon dioxide matters. Below is a chart from the IPCC of radiative forcings, which I explain below.…
Read More »For the past two centuries, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been rising from 280ppm to over 390ppm in 2010. This is an incontrovertible fact. What has been called into question in recent years is the source of this carbon dioxide; it has been asserted by some…
Read More »To understand why climate change is occurring, it is first necessary to understand how carbon dioxide is naturally cycled by the biosphere and ocean. The figure below depicts this process, known as the carbon cycle. The carbon cycle is a relatively simple concept. There are natural processes that release carbon…
Read More »Scene from “Desk Set” – Spencer Tracy/ Katherine Hepburn movie from 1957. As an almost daily viewer of the iconic game show “Jeopardy” – I have mixed feelings about the lastest announcement of upcoming contestants. According to an Associated Press story, two of the best and most successful past champions –…
Read More »The media has been full of stories today about the press conference held by NASA to announce a paper published in Science. They haven’t done a very good job of explaining what scientists have found, so I’d like to try to clear some things up. I’d also like to use…
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