January 27, 2012 | 12:25 PM | By

Full STEAM ahead: when science and art connect

I’m very excited. This Sunday, I’m headed up to M.I.T. for ClimateArtPizza night. Eli Kintisch, a science writer/blogger for the journal Science and author of Hack the Planet, started hosting these fascinating evenings last fall but this is the first time I’ve been able to make it. The idea is to get climate scientists and artists (and others, otherwise I wouldn’t be on the invite list) in a room together for a couple of hours for some informal brainstorming of ways to accurately – and creatively – convey climate science to a broader audience.

This weekend, the theme is oceans and climate which, of course, is right up my alley. But, more than that, I’ve become completely intrigued by interactions between science and art. Here on Cape Cod, scientists and artists are both in abundant supply. Occasionally, their paths cross and something fabulous happens – pottery glazed with deep-sea sediments, or gorgeous photos of the really rather ugly process of taking apart a large dead whale (Yes, I’ve seen such photos. They were hanging in the stairwell at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies), to name a couple of examples.

I recently learned a great acronym for such things: STEAM. That’s STEM, the acronym for Science Technology Engineering and Math, with an A for Art in the middle. Since I first heard it at the Science Online conference last week, I’ve been finding it hard to resist the urge to shout “Full STEAM ahead!”

But back to ClimateArtPizza night … Coincidentally, The Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media today has a whole piece on Eli’s various projects delving into the realm of creative climate communication. It’s highly recommended reading, or perhaps I should say “viewing” as it’s full of great graphics and videos. This one taking on the complex and frought issue of our planet’s sensitivity to rising carbon dioxide by comparing it to people’s differing sensitivities to caffeine has to be my hands-down favorite. Enjoy!

FILED UNDER: Straight talk
January 27, 2012 | 10:09 AM | By

Why the National Center for Science Education has taken on climate change

“Peer-reviewed science is the Kool-Aid of the left-wing liberal conspiracy.” A parent actually said that at a PTA meeting. Wow.


A few years ago, Cheryl Manning assigned a research project on climate change to her high school environmental science class in Evergreen, Colo. She presented the basic facts and data from peer-reviewed studies, then asked the students to look into the issue themselves and report back on what they learned.

Read more at: www.climatecentral.org

January 27, 2012 | 9:53 AM | By

“Cape Cod water cleanup politicized”

Apparently the Cape’s wastewater woes have become the latest target for certain Republican lawmakers’ anti-EPA efforts.

Cape Cod’s wastewater worries have garnered national attention from agricultural interests and lawmakers from as far away as Florida and Oklahoma, dragging local planning efforts into an ongoing political fight over regulation by the federal government.

Read more at: m.capecodonline.com

January 25, 2012 | 11:04 AM | By

“Cleaner oceans would boost world economy”

It’s hard to put a financial figure on the value of a health ocean. But a new U.N. report says reduced pollution, rebuilt fish stocks, and ocean energy could be worth billions.


Cleaner and better-managed seas and coasts would help boost economic growth and reduce poverty and pollution, a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report said on Wednesday. The report, produced with several other UN organisations, highlights the huge potential of a marine-based economy some five months before world governments meet to discuss pathways to more sustainable development at a UN conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Read more at: www.stuff.co.nz

January 25, 2012 | 11:00 AM | By

“Fairhaven Wind explains controversial project to attentive crowd”

Apparently this Fairhaven Wind forum didn’t devolve into a shouting match. But the “Stop the Turbines Now” signs that dotted Falmouth lawns last fall did make an appearance.


Aside from occasional snickers and a few shout-outs, the approximately 250 people who attended a wind energy forum Tuesday were both orderly and civil, listening intently to information presented.

Read more at: m.southcoasttoday.com

January 24, 2012 | 10:38 PM | By

A quick look at the State of (climate and energy in) the Union


A simple word cloud gives a good overview of President Obama’s third State of the Union address (and, no, I didn’t tell Wordle to make “energy” stick out the top of the graphic). “Job” or “jobs” clocked 40 mentions, while “energy” appeared 23 times … that captures the biggest themes of the speech. “Clean” came up 11 times. But a call to end subsidies for oil and extend tax breaks for renewables was set against an endorsement of an “all of the above” energy strategy, including expanded domestic oil drilling and natural gas fracking.
Notable, if not frequent, mentions include “climate change” (once, which is once more than last year) and “environment” (also just one utterance). Of course, any excitement over the fact that Pres. Obama actually managed to spit out the words “climate change” (there was some uncharacteristic stumbling involved) is tempered by the fact that it came in the context of admitting the divide in Congress is too deep to allow any action on the issue.
A mixed bag, to be sure.
What did you think of President Obama’s speech? If you missed it, you can find the full text here.

FILED UNDER: Energy, Straight talk
January 24, 2012 | 11:06 AM | By

Does the world need more Mr. Spocks?

The Gulf oil spill is back in headlines this week. Yesterday, Kate Sheppard broke the news that the watchdog group PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) has uncovered emails that suggest White House communications officials and one of the lead scientists on the government-appointed science panel deliberately low-balled estimates of the spill’s size. As Sheppard tells Countdown guest host David Shuster in the video below, getting that number right is important because it determines how much BP might be fined for the spill.

But there are also broader ramifications for the communication and public understanding of science. The underestimates repeatedly put forward by government officials undermined public trust and prompted a number of scientists to become vocal about their dissenting science, often using non-traditional outlets – blogs and self-published reports, rather than peer-reviewed journals – to get the word out. Disagreements about the actual numbers were accompanied by heated debates over the validity of unreviewed results and the appropriate way to disseminate scientific information. The public bickering between different research groups dismayed many scientists, who felt it misrepresented to the world the way the scientific community usually works.

Star Trek

Sadly, Kate Sheppard says she doesn’t get the impression many lessons were learned from the whole debacle. But that may be a touch overly pessimistic. In a complete coincidence, Wired.com ran an op-ed late last week by Dr. Chris Reddy, a chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who studies oil spills and was intimately involved in both academic and government responses to the Gulf oil spill. Reddy is the ultimate media-savvy scientist, but he says that he has learned some tough lessons from his experiences trying to communicate oil spill science. In the end, Reddy has found a mentor in perhaps one of the best-known scientists of all time – Star Trek’s Dr. Mr. Spock. (An astute commenter pointed out that I mistakenly ascribed a Ph.D. to Spock.)

while Spock is mocked for his cool, dispassionate presentation of his thoughts, I’ve come to realize that this attitude is exactly what you want from a scientist during a crisis, whether it’s a massive oil spill or a long-term threat like climate change.

What people miss even more about Spock is that, beneath it all, he is one of the most emotional and passionate characters on the program.

Not buying it? Here’s Reddy’s argument:

Spock is more passionate about science than Dr. McCoy is about medicine or Mr. Scott is about the Enterprise. Watch any episode and you can see Spock’s intensity when he investigates whether there is life on a planet or if the Enterprise will explode. The deal is: Spock is passionate about doing science, but — and perhaps this is where the disconnect occurs — dispassionate about presenting what the data tell him.

Keeping one’s cool, regardless of impending doom and panicked questioners, is a skill that Reddy says he wishes could have mustered more of when talking to reporters about his work on the Gulf oil spill.

FILED UNDER: Straight talk, Gulf oil spill
January 24, 2012 | 10:12 AM | By

WHOI research ship gets second career in Oregon

Back in November, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution threw a great party to say farewell to the R/V Oceanus. But it turns out the ‘workhorse of the Atlantic’ won’t be retiring, she’ll just be working in a different ocean.


The R/V Wecoma made its last official voyage in November, taking a research team off the Northwest coast to map the Cascadia Subduction Zone. And now the venerable vessel is heading into retirement.

In its place, another ship in the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System fleet, the 35-year-old Oceanus, will support scientific research in the northeast Pacific Ocean. Operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Oceanus was also scheduled to be retired but will arrive in Newport in February after making the long trek from the East Coast.

Read more at: www.gazettetimes.com

January 23, 2012 | 3:38 PM | By

“NCSE’s climate change initiative launched”

Climate change now joins evolution on the rolls of widely accepted scientific ideas whose teaching requires full-time professional defense.


NCSE is proud to announce the launch of its new initiative aimed at defending the teaching of climate change. Like evolution, climate change is accepted by the scientific community but controversial among the public. As a result, educators trying to teach climate change, like their counterparts trying to teach evolution, are often likewise pressured to compromise the scientific and pedagogical integrity of their instruction.

Read more at: ncse.com

January 23, 2012 | 2:37 PM | By

Ocean acidification and the explosion of hockey sticks

flyzipper / flickr

You’ve heard about hockey sticks, right? No, not the actual wood and carbon-fiber things you use to push a puck around on the ice, although those are perfectly nice. What I’m referring to are graphs of the history of various climate factors that are shaped roughly like a hockey stick – a long, relatively flat line that suddenly takes a sharp upward turn around the turn of the 20th century.

The original hockey stick graph was one of global average temperatures over the past 1,000 years. The graph was popularized by Al Gore in his film An Inconvenient Truth, then demonized – along with one of its primary creators, Dr. Michael Mann – by the 2009 ClimateGate email affair. Since then, the hockey stick meme has stayed pretty dormant … until now.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Ocean Change, ocean acidification