Seasonal Outliers

A recent poll conducted by the Gallup organization found that 48% of respondents felt the consequences of global warming are “exaggerated.”

Alan Greenblatt discusses why republicans reject climate change climate change.

The IMF proposes “green fund” to deal with climate change.

Ambreen Ali notes environmental groups are taking on diverging strategies in dealing with climate change legislation.

The internationally contested island known as New Moore Island recently disappeared as a result of rising sea levels that some experts attribute to climate change.

Climategate: The Scientist Speaks

Testimony from Dr. Phil Jones (the former Director of the CRU) before Members of the British Parliament earlier this week, illustrates the limits of science in politics. Thus the limitation can best be summarized by the following relationship: The scientific process requires uncertainty in deriving outcomes about the natural world while politics demands certainty in its conclusions before taking action on a particular problem.

From watching his statements one thing is clear. Even though Dr. Jones may be right about climate change, one would hope that policymakers do seek out multiple perspectives on the issue before accepting his theories and weigh the consequences associated with them before taking action on climate change.

Is Global Warming a Big Deal?

David Ropeik provides an interesting argument about the link between how we perceive risk and how it relates to our perceptions of global warming. As I wrote in earlier posts, we tend to use information shortcuts and running tallies of how well the political parties have met our needs on environmental issues which in turn help define how we perceive the problem of global warming. The article provides a nice summary of the current state of polling on perceptions of global warming.

The Stony-Brook-Millstone Watershed: Too much pollution

The Stony-Brook-Millstone Watershed has recently released a sobering report on water quality within the watershed basin area which covers a substantial portion of the waterways in central New Jersey. The report points out that high levels of bacteria are being absorbed in the water ways. Nevertheless some simple things can be done by individuals to help fix this problem. Namely pick up after your pets, avoid using fertilizers, and if you have a septic system make sure there is no leakage coming from your tank.

You can read the full report here.