http://cspo.org/cspawn Spawn of CSPO Mon, 24 May 2010 07:19:02 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [Cross posted from Adapt Already] In 2006 I wrote a short article about the danger of making climate change the center of every problem (I sometimes call this behavior 'climate blinkers'). The basic argument: just because climate change can be related to anything, does not mean that is important to everything. A ... http://cspo.org/cspawn/?p=307 [Another cross post from Adapt Already] John Tierney, of the New York Times, finds himself "in the unfamiliar position of defending Al Gore and his fellow Nobel laureate, Rajendra K. Pachauri." He's calling out what he sees as a cheap way of scoring points in climate change arguments: Conflict-of-interest accusations have become ... http://cspo.org/cspawn/?p=305 [Here's a cross-post from Adapt-Already and Facebook] Is anyone not on Facebook? Well, just in case, I thought I'd re-post a discussion I and some friends have been having about our impressions of the roles of science and technology in the movie Avatar. I feel a little silly adding to all ... http://cspo.org/cspawn/?p=303 [Another cross-post from Adapt Already] One way to deal with uncertainty is brute force engineering. See, for example, the canal that brings 1.5 million acre feet (1850 gigalitres according to Google) of Colorado River water into Arizona each year (the Central Arizona Project or CAP). Or, here in Victoria, there's the massive ... http://cspo.org/cspawn/?p=300 [This is a cross-post from Adapt Already] Here's a headline that caught my eye today: Climate Deal Backers 'like Nazi appeasers.' This genre of accusation is nothing new in the polarized world of climate politics, but it struck me that we may be witnessing a sort of Nazi accusation creep. In August Roger Pielke ... http://cspo.org/cspawn/?p=297 [This is a cross-post from Adapt Already] Under the amusing headline, "Politics Ruins Everything," Andrew Sullivan has posted two quotations that form an interesting dialog about the political viability of cap and trade policies vs. a carbon tax. Yglesias makes a fair point: Their basic point, that the kind of carbon tax proposal ... http://cspo.org/cspawn/?p=290 This was first posted at Crowdshift. If you haven't heard yet, you should get out of your finals cave and update yourself on ClimateGate. In brief, e-mails at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) a the University of East Anglia were hacked. The e-mails show climate scientists discussing their data, how to ... http://cspo.org/cspawn/?p=288 Coal is big news in Australia these days. According to a recently leaked report, the Victoria state government sees clean coal as a major part of its energy portfolio going forward, (though it acknowledges the technology may not work). The plan includes a major "public education campaign." And while the role ... http://cspo.org/cspawn/?p=282 Lexulous is the only thing that prevents me from committing Facebook suicide. I have never thought about joining Twitter or Second Life.  I don't have a Blackberry or iPhone, let alone an iPod.  I own a laptop by virtue that my sister bought it for me.  I really hate ... http://cspo.org/cspawn/?p=261 I had never calculated my carbon footprint before. I expected that calculating my carbon footprint would shock me into making at least one change to my current lifestyle – shorter showers? Stop eating certain foods? I’m somewhat disappointed that after this exercise, I don’t plan on changing anything, but it ... http://cspo.org/cspawn/?p=272