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Tag: nuclear

An octopus’s garden in the sea, the world’s densest island, dangers of deep-sea fishing, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: April 23, 2018

Posted on April 23, 2018 By Andrew Thaler
Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

  • The journey is over but the expedition continues. Follow us on Open Explorer for our ongoing adventures in the Mariana Islands.
  • WHOI is looking for some science communication superstars: Science Writer & Multimedia Producer and Social Media Specialist.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

  • The Okeanos Foundation for the Sea.
  • Nuclear Legacy Voyage with Okeanos Marshall Islands.
  • Why We Created This First-of-Its-Kind Digital Field Journal.

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

  • What’s with the egret and Terrebonne Parish in this month’s newsletter?
  • A great thread on the pop-up Sketching for Scientists event.

Read More “An octopus’s garden in the sea, the world’s densest island, dangers of deep-sea fishing, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: April 23, 2018” »

28 fallacies about the Fukushima nuclear disaster’s effect on the US West Coast

Posted on October 29, 2013November 4, 2013 By Andrew Thaler 51 Comments on 28 fallacies about the Fukushima nuclear disaster’s effect on the US West Coast
Conservation, Science

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is back in the news, with recent reports of continued leaks. Coming on the heels of these new reports is a viral blog post entitled 28 Signs That The West Coast Is Being Absolutely Fried With Nuclear Radiation From Fukushima. The article is a paranoid, poorly reasoned attempt to link the tragedy of the Fukushima disaster to just about every environmental issue facing the US west coast in the last few months. At its best, it’s an illogical piece of post-modern absurdism. At its worst, its empirically false and intentionally misleading, rife with out-of-context quotes and cherry-picked data. The author had 28 chances to make a single reasonable point, and every single one rang hollow.

Of course it went viral.

Read More “28 fallacies about the Fukushima nuclear disaster’s effect on the US West Coast” »

Climate Change Anecdotes Volume 1: Sea Ice and Nuclear Reactors

Posted on August 28, 2012August 29, 2012 By Andrew Thaler 6 Comments on Climate Change Anecdotes Volume 1: Sea Ice and Nuclear Reactors
Science

anecdote 

noun.

1. a short account of a particular incident or event, especiallyof an interesting or amusing nature.

2. a short, obscure historical or biographical account.

Dictionary.com

Climate Change

noun.

A change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Climate change is real and human activity is the cause. The theory that we are fundamentally altering our planet’s climate is supported by overwhelming evidence. Prominent global warming skeptics have, in the face of such evidence, acknowledged that climate change is happening, and that humans are the cause.

And still climate change denial continues to persist.

In the last decade, we have passed a threshold where the reality of climate change is no longer a hypothesis buried in bar graphs or something to be assessed by minute changes in careful measurements, but an observable phenomenon. Rather than anticipating the effects of human impacts on the climate, we must now live them. Thanks to a well-organized and well-funded climate denial industry, we missed our chance to change course. If the last decade was the hurricane warning, than this decade is landfall.

Read More “Climate Change Anecdotes Volume 1: Sea Ice and Nuclear Reactors” »

What the hell happened to the environmental movement?

Posted on April 22, 2010April 21, 2010 By Andrew Thaler
Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

This post was originally published on Earth Day, 2009. The responses I received from it were tremendous, both positive and negative. Were I to write it again today, I would include a discussion of Carbon Offsets and Eco-Guilt.

There is a real challenge in the environmental movement. On one hand, the science is on our side, but on the other hand, there is a growing group within the movement committed to dogma and willing to sacrifice facts for pseudoscience. So, this Earth day, we once again bring you “What the hell happened to the environmental movement?”


473px-rachel-carsonForty-seven years ago, a brilliant, passionate scientist who understood the power of public outreach, noticed a decline in songbird populations, discovered a trend of decreasing egg shell thickness, and correlated this effect with the increase in the use of DDT as a pesticide. After thoroughly and rigorously verifying her results and conclusions, she did something revolutionary; she wrote a book. The publication of Silent Spring in 1962 marks the beginning of the modern environmental movement in America. Its simple, elegant prose made the complex interaction between humankind and the environment accessible to a public that had limited exposure to scientific writing. Like other works of literary science, Silent Spring, wove the scientific method into a narrative; observations, questions, conflicts, discoveries, joy and sorrow. To struggle and to understand, never the last without the first. The beauty of her words still echo with that same power today.

Read More “What the hell happened to the environmental movement?” »

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