In a worrisome development in the combat against climate change, renewables are helping to push nuclear power, the main source of zero-carbon electricity in the United States, into bankruptcy, writes Eduardo Porter in the New York Times [more]
Perhaps “scicomm” people need to get in touch with people actually in the business of changing people’s minds.
Compare studies like Boomerangs vs Javelins with The Flip is Elusive, an observation from well-known professional marketer Seth Godin.
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There’s no Supreme Court of Truth, no supreme authority that affixes an imprimatur of “scientific fact”.
Yet we believe many things to be true which we could not have known about without science. It’s obvious that science can draw conclusions which are effectively certain, but it’s less than obvious how this happens. How does speculation turn into hypothesis, then established theory, then fact? It’s a social process more than a formal one. [more]
Because of its isolation, the isolated city of Fort McMurray faces a fire crisis the likes of which have not been seen before. [more]
Projecting a persuasive image of a desirable and practical future is extremely important to high morale, to dynamism, to consensus, and in general to help the wheels of society turn smoothly.
– Herman Kahn
When overused roads interfere with a city’s ambitions, well-meaning suggestions for more types of traffic that ride on those roads only make matters worse. We need new transit networks separate from the road system. [more]
Somebody oversimplifies the Tobis Diagram:
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/02/climate-change-deniers-getting-angrier-heres/ …
Compare:
Thanks
“Few progressives have turned around to face the future. And one can see why.”
It’s almost enjoyable to watch the “no warming for 17 years” crowd predictably fail to update their priors.
Meanwhile let’s hope that “no global warming since 2016” will hold for a while.
I’ve been invited to participate in a new Bray and von Storch survey of climate scientists. The questions seem structured to de-authenticate climate models. [more]
I know, you’ve seen it already, but, wow…
mt writes on Only In It for the Gold
The new “ecomodernist” push implicitly restates the BTI position that getting to carbon zero follows from technological innovation alone. … to the extent that the ecomodernist manifesto does not take account of the real-world obstacles to that goal, it ducks the very question it claims to be addressing.
Curry in over her depth without going in very deep at all. See the fireworks on the revived Only In It for the Gold blog. [more]
