COVID-19 has been worse than the coronavirus pandemics of 2012 and 2003 yet the air is cleaner than ever, so a new op-ed claiming that 'virtual' pollution - so small you can't see it without an electron microscope - is the reason SARS-CoV-2 has been so bad comes across as silly, and bordering on deceptive.Even sillier, they claim that 91 percent of planet earth lives in unsafe air.read...
read moreIt's become increasingly hypocritical for wealthy countries to declare a hard stop on CO2 emissions before poor countries even have centralized energy for cooking and water, but a new simulation finds that Draconian caps on quality of life in developing nations may not be needed.read...
read moreDid you read a paper saying we can prevent ocean damage under climate change scenarios by dumping iron into water to spur phytoplankton growth? Germans did, and were so convinced they began doing illegal live experiments. The model used a best-case scenario, which any entry-level chess player knows is a bad idea - they forgot to falsify their own hypothesis in their zeal to do something. A...
read moreA study has taken a look at the radii of homes with measured data near natural gas wells and statistically linked that to higher radon.While some in media will use that to sound this week's 'science is killing us' alarm, the reality is that something that is not a concern is being linked to something else not a concern. read...
read moreIndustrial processes in the United States produce 8 gigagrams of methane emissions per year, according to experts. But Environmental Defense Fund, using a sensor on a Google street view car, is claiming otherwise in a recent article they paid to publish in a small Berkeley-based journal (Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene) that promotes stories about how humans are killing the planet.read...
read moreAs I write this, our local school is closed due to concern about smoke inhalation. Other parts of the nation may not realize it but two severe wildfires broke out recently, in northern and southern California. If this had happened anywhere near New York City or Washington, D.C. it would be called Smokemageddon, or a Particulate Vortex, or something else clever, but because it's California we...
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