Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
This year’s Ig Nobel awards have been announced. No, not Nobel, but Ig Nobel, because these are spoof awards, but the research that gets an Ig Nobel is wholly real. The fact that the scientific community is prepared to both mock and laugh at itself is indeed both praiseworthy and truly entertaining as well. To qualify … Read more
Last Wednesday, 21st Sept, the ratification of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change leapt boldly towards coming into force. We are not quite there yet, but it is a lot closer. I was blogging about this a few days ago, and so this was something I did anticipate. At the time the expectation was that another 20 … Read more
Within the UK there is a political party known as UKIP (or UK Independence Party). It has developed a bit of a reputation over the years as a bastion of some rather odd ideas and so this is all about the latest example of such weirdness. A previous and rather famous example was David Silvester, a Ukip councillor for … Read more
The above diagram says it all really, 2016 was the second lowest on record. It was not and is not a typical year by any measure because globally each and every single month has broken all previous records for that month and so it comes as no great surprise to observe that the Arctic ice … Read more
About ten years ago back in 2006 the state of California took the very bold step of passing legislation that was designed to slash their greenhouse emissions. This was Assembly Bill (AB) 32- California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 and was passed with the aim of establishing a comprehensive program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all sources throughout the state. It … Read more
This is a story from last June, so it is not a new event. I would however like to highlight it because it is an important issue, and I’m also prompted to write about it because right now the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly is taking place. Back last June Ban Ki-Moon stood up … Read more