Category Archives: Philosophy for Bloggers

Bring back blogging

Posted on January 5, 2023 by ...and Then There's Physics

I came across a short article arguing that we should bring back personal blogging. The basic suggestion is that, for example, Twitter is failing and that personal blogs allow us to have more control over the platforms that we’re using. … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy for Bloggers, Photography | Tagged , , | 42 Comments

Longtermism

Posted on December 27, 2022 by ...and Then There's Physics

I’ve been doing some reading, and listening to podcasts, to try and better understand longtermism. It’s currently topical because of its association with effective altruism (EA) and the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange. Some have been very critical of … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy for Bloggers | Tagged , , , , , | 119 Comments

Responses to Considering Catastrophe

Posted on October 23, 2022 by ...and Then There's Physics

A while ago I wrote a post about a paper by Luke Kemp, and colleagues, suggesting that we should put more effort into exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios. There’s now been a response by Burgess et al. suggesting that Catastrophic … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Environmental change, Philosophy for Bloggers, Severe Events | Tagged , , , , , | 62 Comments

The importance of science communication

Posted on August 27, 2022 by ...and Then There's Physics

I’m just back from teaching at a summer school on the Dynamics of Exoplanetary and Solar System Bodies. It started in Inverness and then moved to Skye, which was a lovely place to visit. I gave a couple of lectures … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy for Bloggers, Research, Scientists | Tagged , , , | 251 Comments

Limits to Growth?

Posted on July 23, 2022 by ...and Then There's Physics

Tom Murphy, who is a physics professor at UC San Diego, runs a blog called Do the Math. Just over 10 years ago, he had a popular blog post asking can economic growth can last?, which I discussed in one … Continue reading →

Posted in economics, GRRRRROWTH, Philosophy for Bloggers, physicists, Scientists | Tagged , , , | 199 Comments

FLICC

Posted on July 20, 2022 by ...and Then There's Physics

I should probably be writing about the UK recording temperatures above 40oC for the first time, but it’s been covered pretty extensively elsewhere. Instead I thought I might briefly mention something that I’ve become more interested in and have been … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Philosophy for Bloggers | Tagged , , , , | 153 Comments

A bit of a holiday

Posted on July 10, 2022 by ...and Then There's Physics

You may have noticed that it’s been a little quiet here lately. That’s partly because I’ve had little to say, but also because I’ve been away on holiday with the family. We rented a cottage and spent a week on … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal, Philosophy for Bloggers, Policy | Tagged , , | 27 Comments

Climate change and social justice

Posted on June 19, 2022 by ...and Then There's Physics

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) recently released a called Deny, Deceive, Delay: Documenting and responding to climate disinformation at COP26 and beyond. It highlighted a number of people who will be familiar to those who have followed the public … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Philosophy for Bloggers, Policy | Tagged , , , | 93 Comments

The science-society interface

Posted on May 8, 2022 by ...and Then There's Physics

I came across an interesting paper by Dietram Scheufele on Thirty Years of science-society interfaces: What’s next, which focusses mostly on science communication. Although – as the article mentions – this isn’t the only possible science-society interface. Since I have … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Philosophy for Bloggers, Scientists, The philosophy of science, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 121 Comments

Scenarios

Posted on April 9, 2022 by ...and Then There's Physics

Just before the release of the IPCC’s AR6 WGIII report (Mitigation of Climate Change) Joeri Rogelj had a Carbon Brief guest post on how not to interpret the emission scenarios in the IPCC report. It might have been to try … Continue reading →

Posted in ClimateBall, Philosophy for Bloggers, Policy, The philosophy of science | Tagged , , , , | 39 Comments