Category Archives: Philosophy for Bloggers

How we frame extreme weather events

To maybe move the discussion on from the origins of Covid, I thought I’d write a post about detection and attribution. It is somewhat motivated by a brief dicsussion withTed Nordhaus, from the Breakthrough Institute, who suggested that a good … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Gavin Schmidt, Global warming, Philosophy for Bloggers | Tagged , , , , , | 162 Comments

Conflicts of Interest

Since I have little (no?) self-control, I sometimes find myself checking what RPJ is up to. I mostly find it worth ignoring, but I found myself considering one of his recent posts on [w]hen scientific integrity is undermined in pursuit … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Philosophy for Bloggers | Tagged , , , | 22 Comments

The PoNo Principle

In a previous post AT asked for a response to Hans’ piece. The gist dates from six years ago: besides the branding effort, the point behind these typologies is moot at best. Let’s be more specific. First, it is not … Continue reading

Posted in Contrarian Matrix, Philosophy for Bloggers, We Are Science | Tagged , , , , , | 103 Comments

Bring back blogging

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 , , | 43 Comments

Longtermism

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

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

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?

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

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

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