Ancient Hebrew Poetry

Update on global warming: are we headed for a second Maunder Minimum?

    Given the facts that emerge from observation and analysis, it’s right to raise the question. The world’s most qualified solar physicists are posing the question. Go here and here. It is now possible to read this 1998 paper with renewed interest.

Should academics be held to lower standards than politicians?

    Obviously not.

On the difference between teaching and pontificating

Paul Dennis, Head of the Stable Isotope and Noble Gas Geochemistry Laboratories, Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia (UEA), is fed up. After his reputation was tarnished by the guilt-by-association tactics that are the staple of weak-minded individuals (details here), he decided to model his love of science by starting a blog. Dennis is characterized by an unwavering commitment to the scientific method and a transparent love for the nuts and bolts of his discipline (geochemistry). He treats those he writes for as sentient, intelligent beings who are not content with mere assertions. He makes arguments. For a minute I thought arguments had gone out of style. As Dennis notes, post-normal science, as it is now called, is a political philosophy, not science. Here is an example of an argument:

The Global Warming Bandwagon: What Went Wrong

Those of us who read British newspapers and bloggers online have been following the meltdown of the credibility of AGW theory and the policy proposals advanced in light of that theory for quite some time. For example, the center-left Guardian (links and discussion here). Among bloggers, Philip Stott, who has long been a voice howling in the wilderness (go here for a wonderful taste of Stott as a public speaker). The liberal journal of record in the US, the NYT, has not deigned to print the news which mainstream British news outlets have already covered extensively. But a recent NYT thread, with the delightfully in-denial title “The Distracting Debate Over Climate Certainty,” includes a comment by an articulate AGW believer, Walt Bennett of Harrisburg PA. I reproduce it below. It amounts to a sort of requiem for a movement – the AGW bandwagon – that has come screeching to a halt, though the occupants of the bandwagon are as vociferous as ever.