Category Archives: environment

Sustainable forest certified beer

The Italian micro-brewery Foglie d’Erba (Leaves of Grass) earned first prize in the category “Anglo-American origin hoppy beers” with their PEFC certified beer at the recent Sapore Beer Festival, held in Rimini, Italy in February. PEFC is the world’s largest forest certification system. “Certification is often only associated with wood-based products,” explained Dr. Antonio Brunori,Continue reading “Sustainable forest certified beer”

Are the data clear and incontrovertible?

University of California at Berkeley Professor of Physics Dr. Richard Muller asks if the climate data are clear and incontrovertible? Answer: no, because they were very much tinkered with. You can’t say that the climate operated one way before 1960 and another way after 1960. Data are data. What should Mann, et. al. have done?Continue reading “Are the data clear and incontrovertible?”

As we gallop toward 7 billion people, what can yeast teach us about population?

Love in the key of fermentation This was written during February, the month with Valentine’s Day, which leads our thoughts to yeasts. Okay well, love. But love can lead to sex, and that leads to reproduction. Yeasts may not know about love, but they do know reproduction. So do we humans: our population here onContinue reading “As we gallop toward 7 billion people, what can yeast teach us about population?”

Trees ain’t thermometers

I used to work on Mountain Home State Forest in the southern Sierra. MHSF has about 3000 specimen-sized sequoia within its boundaries. Dendrochronolgists often visited to see the stumps from logging in the mid to late 1800s. These were often over 2000 years old when they had been cut. The Dendrochronolgists were interested in theContinue reading “Trees ain’t thermometers”

Mark Bittman asks, “What Do You Think About Genetically Engineered Food?”

Mark Bittman is asking, “What Do You Think About Genetically Engineered Food?” Specifically, he wants you to answer four questions for a non-scientific poll: 1. Does it bother you that there are genetically engineered ingredients in most of the foods sold in American supermarkets? 2. Do you want the products that contain genetically engineered ingredientsContinue reading “Mark Bittman asks, “What Do You Think About Genetically Engineered Food?””

A warmer and wetter world

I found a link the other day to a government website with global mean precipitation data from 1900 to 2000. Of course, I can’t find the link now (please comment if you have the link, but first see the note at the end of the post). Anyway, I put the numbers into an Excel spreadsheetContinue reading “A warmer and wetter world”

Plants moving to lower and warmer elevations in a warming world

A news release out of the University of California at Davis says, “study shows plants moved downhill, not up, in warming world.” In a paper published last month in the journal Science, a UC Davis researcher and his co-authors challenge a widely held assumption that plants will move uphill in response to warmer temperatures. ItContinue reading “Plants moving to lower and warmer elevations in a warming world”

Undercover cop goes native

Mick Hume over at Spiked-online has a thoughtful post on the “shocking” revelations that a British undercover cop, Police Constable (PC) Mark Kennedy has gone native and offered to give evidence for the defense. Which aspect are we supposed to be most shocked by? The fact that the police are so paranoid they have spentContinue reading “Undercover cop goes native”

Can anything go right this year?

Haiti still reels from its earthquake from one year ago, Darfur and Somalia fester, the Korean peninsula appears to be close to war, unemployment near 10% has become endemic. Problems, crises, tragedies. Can 2011 be anything but a repeat of 2010? Over at the Rational Optimist Blog, Matt Ridley reminds us of the accomplishments ofContinue reading “Can anything go right this year?”