Editor’s note: Any article by scientist Billy Mason is worth reading, but this blog is particularly timely. Over Memorial weekend, starting Friday, May 24, Mountainfilm in Telluride will focus on Climate Solutions,” starting with Friday’s Moving Mountains Symposium: “We are assembling an all-star lineup of scientists, authors and activists who are leading the way on…
As self-serving politicians funded by the fossil fuel industry inhibit progress in America, Asian countries are quickly moving towards reducing risk, building resilience, and creating new economic opportunities by abandoning the business-as-usual approach in favor of going green. By 2020, China, India, and Japan will be three of the five largest economies in the world…
I routinely hear the public at large interchange the terms “weather” and “climate” when discussing topics related to Earth’s atmosphere. Alas, this fundamental misinterpretation leads to a plethora of false ideas about climate change modeling. In simple terms, weather is what you see outside your window at the moment; climate refers to the trend of…
In the 1960’s, the Green Revolution transformed the landscape of large-scale agriculture by increasing production around the world. Armed with technology transfer initiatives, the Green Revolution marked the roots of a “neo-colonial” system of commercial agriculture and a decline of subsistence agriculture. The goal of the Green Revolution was to save billions of people from…
Recently, teams of scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have confirmed the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle. The elusive Higgs particle, sensationalized by mainstream media as the “God particle,” briefly revealed itself in 2012 to the delight of physicists around the world. Although the Holy Higgs particle has long been theorized, proving its existence has…
Time travel, a popular topic of science fiction, has taken one step closer to reality. I am not talking about humans traveling “Back to the Future” as depicted by Hollywood, but rather the use of cutting edge scientific research in the present to reveal the mysteries of the past. As the majority of our global…
On June 22 of 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Northeast Ohio caught fire due to the indiscriminate dumping of industrial chemicals and sewage into the river. Sadly, this event was not unique during the early- and mid-20th century industrialization of the Great Lakes region. Chicago, Buffalo, and Rouge rivers all repeatedly caught fire too. Outraged…
The rise of the Tea Party Republicans has propagated a twisted version of the 13th century philosophy that science should be ignored if it does not support their narrow ideology. The majority of the Republican Party refutes the 99.8% of climate scientists worldwide over the last decade who have determined that the modern era of…
Fox News, my personal favorite for misinformation, recently claimed without a wisp of evidence that “all climate scientists that claim climate change is real are corrupt.” If that were true, it would mean that 13,926 out of 13,950 peer-reviewed articles written by climate scientists between 1991 and 2010 who concluded anthropogenic actions have induced global…
The city of Boulder, Colorado, has long been a vibrant community that understands the symbiotic relationship between quality of life and health of the natural environment. Since at least the 1960s, “Boulderites” have perceived themselves as environmental conservation trendsetters. When most cities in America were accommodating growth at any cost, Boulder voted to limit growth…