Science Vs Bullshit

TENNESSEE: senate Passes Bill That Allows Schools To Teach Creationism

With the misleading wording of the bill of “protecting the right to an open discussion”, schools are now allowed to oppose evolution and climate change. I just can’t help but wonder about the future of the education system in America. All I know is that it ain’t pretty.

NBC’s WBIR reports:

Senators voted 24-8 to pass a bill that says schoolteachers cannot be punished for “helping students to understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories” taught in public schools. The measure has drawn strong opposition from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Center for Science Education and the American Civil Liberties Union, which said it is cover for teachers who want to teach creationism or intelligent design. Supporters said the measure would give teachers more guidance to answer students’ questions about science topics. “The idea behind this bill is that students should be encouraged to challenge current scientific thought and theory,” said state Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson.

Canada Withdraws From Kyoto Protocol

In another blow to the fight against Climate Change, yesterday Canada has formally withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol. Of course you can imagine how delighted are the Climate Change deniers, speeding their stupidity on social networks.

The Washington Post reports:

Environment Minister Peter Kent said that Canada is invoking its legal right to withdraw and said Kyoto doesn’t represent the way forward for Canada or the world.“The Kyoto Protocol does not cover the world’s largest two emitters, United States and China, and therefore cannot work,” Kent said. “It’s now clear that Kyoto is not the path forward to a global solution to climate change. If anything it’s an impediment.” Kent’s announcement comes a day after marathon climate talks wrapped up in the South African port city of Durban. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries agreed on a deal that sets the world on a path to sign a new climate treaty by 2015 to replace the first Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of next year.

The two countries that pollute the most, the USA & China, are exempt from the Protocol’s rules. The USA given that although it signed the treaty back in 1998, the Republican Party successfully has cockblocked its ratification since then. China is exempt form the rules because of its highly controversial denomination of “Developing Country”.

Michele “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann: As Your President I Will Abolish The EPA & Destroy Environment

Joe.My.God. reports:

Speaking to an audience of wealthy retirees at an “upscale Florida retirement community,” Michele Bachmann yesterday vowed to dismantle the “jobs killing” EPA and allow energy companies to ravage pristine federally-protected lands.

• With untapped oil reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off the nation’s coasts, shale oil in Western states, and rich natural gas and coal deposits, she said the U.S. “is sitting on a mother lode of treasure.” “The United States is the number one country in the world for energy resources,” the Minnesota congresswoman told a central Florida town hall meeting, arguing that in shale deposits alone the U.S. easily outstrips the total oil supply of Saudi Arabia. “That doesn’t even include all the oil in Alaska.” But Bachmann said environmentalists were preventing resources from being exploited, leaving the U.S. dependent on energy imports. “Instead of thinking we are beggars out here begging for oil and for energy, we are the king daddy dogs when it comes to energy,” she said. “The radical environmentalists have demanded that we lock up all our energy resources,” she added. “President Bachmann will take that key out of the door. I will unlock it.” 

“Moron Of The Week” Inductee Rick Perry: Climate Change Is A Scam To Make Money For Scientists

Ok, this almost made my head explode. It’s unbelievable that the (former) most powerful nation of the world has this kind of people as their Presidential Candidates.

“Moron Of The Week” Inductee Michele “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann Denies Climate Change

Warming Ocean Could Melt Ice Faster Than Thought

The Huffington Post reports:

Warming air from climate change isn’t the only thing that will speed ice melting near the poles – so will the warming water beneath the ice, a new study points out.
Increased melting of ice in Greenland and parts of Antarctica has been reported as a consequence of global warming, potentially raising sea levels. But little attention has been paid to the impact of warmer water beneath the ice.
Now, Jianjun Yin of the University of Arizona and colleagues report the warming water could mean polar ice melting faster than had been expected. Their report was published Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
While melting floating ice won’t raise sea level, ice flowing into the sea from glaciers often reaches the bottom, and grounded ice melted by warm water around it can produce added water to the sea.
“Ocean warming is very important compared to atmospheric warming because water has a much larger heat capacity than air,” Yin explained. “If you put an ice cube in a warm room, it will melt in several hours. But if you put an ice cube in a cup of warm water, it will disappear in just minutes.”
In addition, Yin explained, if floating ice along the coastal areas melts it will allow the flow of glaciers to accelerate, bringing more ice into the seas.
“This mean that both Greenland and Antarctica are probably going to melt faster than the scientific community previously thought,” co-author Jonathan T. Overpeck said in a statement.
Overpeck, co-director of the University of Arizona’s Institute of the Environment, said: “This paper adds to the evidence that we could have sea level rise by the end of this century of around 1 meter and a good deal more in succeeding centuries.”
The subsurface ocean along the Greenland coast could warm as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 Celsius) by 2100, the researchers reported. The warming along the coast of Antarctica would be somewhat less, they calculated, at 0.9 degree F (0.5 C).

defeatist:

abcsoupdot:

From The Sixth Estate:

Harper’s position on climate change is much more moderate than certain Conservative politicians, but it’s worth noting that he does believe we are causing permanent global warming. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be massively boosting military assets for the eventually ice-free North (which, left ice-free, wouldn’t need these assets in the first place). His real feelings on the subject came out in a 2002 letter to Canadian Alliance supporters, around the time that Canada was ratifying the Kyoto Accord, in which he described the Kyoto Accord as merely a “socialist scheme to suck money out of” capitalist countries to China using the climate change myth as a pretext.

[.pdf link above,  full text also available here]

Oh. Okay. Well, sorry Vancouver and everyone north of 60 and everyone else whose way of life is going to become totally unfeasible thanks to climate change! Socialism and all. You know how it is.

Oh gosh, I’m in Vancouver. 

Bill Maher & Former Canadian PM Kim Campbell Grill 

 GOP Rep. Jack Kingston On Climate Change & Evolution

LOVED PM Kim Campbell’s participation. Rep. Jack Kingston’s point of view reflects America’s exceptionalism & stupidity on Science. 

But as I’ve said before, it’s not really crazy people like Rep. Jack Kingston exist, but rather that they’re elected into office and are followed by similar “narrow-minded/religious-fanatics/evolution & climate change- deniers/history-ignorants/uneducated/brain-washed/Glenn Beck-lovers”.

Incoming House GOP Head Of Climate Change Committee Paid By Big Oil Not To Do Anything About Climage Change

Via Joe.My.God.

GOP Lawmaker: God will Deal with Climate Change

This what Christopher Hitchens means when says that bigotry & religion will kill us all eventually. 

AS THE WORLD BURNS: How The White House

Missed Its Best Chance To Deal

With Climate Change