The Questioning Librarian

I freely admit a very great and growing disillusionment with Michael Shermer. While previously I had immense respect for him and what he had to say, I've been disappointed with some of his recent columns in Scientific American, and freely criticized his post dismissing the problem of income inequality in the United States when it was posted a few weeks ago. His libertarian flag is flying high again in his August column for the magazine in which he appears to side with known climate change denier Bjorn Lomborg in asserting that climate change is just one of many problems we face, and by no means the most important. The article is somewhat muddled, making it difficult to determine just what, exactly, Shermer is calling for.  He agrees that climate change is real, and a threat, and that something should be done, but he attempts to cast a lot of doubt on how severe the effects of climate change will be. Shermer writes that while global warming is real, "predicting how mu...

A few weeks ago in a nearby Barnes & Noble, I intended to be conservative in my spending. After all, I have plenty of books I already own and haven't read, and working in a library means I have access to hundreds more I might want to read. Seeing Donald Prothero's new book Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten Our Future immediately overcame my resistance. Prothero, a geologist by training, has written a range of books, including a number that are highly regarded, including his 2007 book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, a thorough debunking of creationist arguments about geology and fossils. Reality Check  touches again on creationism, but the larger thrust of the work is an attack on a variety of un-scientific rubbish that has a stranglehold on the minds of many and threatens our very future. From climate change denial and creationism to anti-vaccine activists and those who deny the reality of the finite nature of fossils fuels, Prothero tackl...

It's no great secret that I used to vote straight-Republican in nearly every election. I was proud to vote for the party of individual responsibility and small government, as I saw it then, as opposed to what I viewed as the party of dependency and the nanny state. But the GOP I used to vote for isn't the same one, and I've changed myself. We parted ways several elections ago, and at this point I cannot bring myself to vote for a single Republican in any election, from the local representatives all the way up through to the Presidency. The Republican Party is, to put it at its mildest, a party driven by greed and by hostility to all those who are unlike themselves. They are the party of Avarice and the party of Cruelty, and they show this in their every word and their every action. The singular accomplishment of the modern GOP is the fusion of pro-corporate economics with radical religious fundamentalism. Both are toxic to the freedoms and liberties of the citizens of ...

When watching creationists, one is struck by the unintentional irony of so much of what passes for discourse among them. In the first place, many who speak for young-earth creationism clearly do not have the first clue about what evolution really is, its importance in biology, or how it developed as an idea, to say nothing of their lack of understanding of geology, fossils, and chemistry (truly, I think that so many of them don't actually know what carbon-dating is, or that there are other dating methods that are used). I've recently experienced this irony on a creationist internet group, where people who are even more out of touch with reality than the typical young-earth creationist routinely accuse the defenders of evolution of lying and quote-mining...when the only people who are quoting at all are the creationists! But for true irony, we have to turn to Answers in Genesis and our old friend Ken Ham. The irony is rich when it comes from them, an organization that prete...

What might this man mean in "taking back" Earth Day? Who is he taking it back from? Well, I guess it must be all of those godless environmentalists who have the silly idea that we should protect the planet for its own sake, and that taking a single day, just one day, out of the year to remind everyone that Earth is something worth preserving, worth not trashing and worth at least planting a tree for is a good idea. Well, I guess bearing his father's torch of stupidity didn't end with his championing of Young-Earth Creationism. Eric Hovind wants to "take back" Earth Day for God, by making it into "God Created Earth Day." http://www.godcreatedearthday.com/sign-up/ And how is one doing this? By "planting seeds of truth" about God having created Earth, by wearing a t-shirt that says "God Created Earth Day" that one purchases from, you guessed it, Eric Hovind! We are assured that 100% of the proceeds will go right back into his ...

It's no great secret that I consider myself to be a center-right kind of guy. But frankly, people like James Inhofe make me ashamed to label myself as such. I try to base my opinions on facts and sound reason to the extent possible, but I don't think the good Senator from Oklahoma would know facts or reason if they stood and danced in front of him. Here's the full article:  http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/inhofe-obama-oil-gas/2011/03/08/id/388782?s=al&promo_code=BD37-1 Inhofe claims that the administration has admitted, specifically Energy Secretary Steven Chu, that they wish to drive up gas prices to the level of Europe in order to make alternative fuels competitive. What planet did this man arrive from? I have very serious doubts that any administration figure would seriously assert the notion that gas prices should rise to the level of Europe (about 7-8 dollars per gallon). The Administration's credibility depends upon an economic recovery before 2012, and...

In the House yesterday, the vote to strip oil companies of the subsidies that they've so enjoyed in the past years (from 2005-2009, worth $485 billion) failed, the GOP voting as a block, with several Democrats, to keep the unnecessary subsidies for Big Oil going. This from the same party that sees any aid to alternative energy as creeping socialism, from the same people who voted to cut heating subsidies for the poor and want to use this budget debate to zero out funding for NPR and PBS, just to get back at them for perceived "liberal" bias. What's worse than this is that I had to find out from a friend's post on Facebook. That's right, as yet no media coverage on this from the main media channels. An internet search found just three stories, all based off the original from ThinkProgress (DailyKos and ClimateProgress were the others). They link to the original House vote in the story. http://climateprogress.org/2011/03/01/house-gop-big-oil-subsidies/ We ...

Good for this young man for standing up in the face of blind, willful ignorance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs5QdwSvhnM Unfortunately, wherever we find someone standing up for science and reason, in this case a sensible position on the environment and global warming in the church, there are plenty of those willing to push back for irrationality. Armed with straw man arguments, Tony Perkins takes aim at Johnathan Meritt for petitioning to have a greater acknowledgement about global warming within the faith. Signed by several prominent Southern Baptist leaders, the petition condemns the church as having been "too timid" on the issue. Perkins refuses to look seriously at the issue, throwing up the straw man that, concerned with population, environmentalism promotes abortion and homosexuality. Oh yes, I remember the last time I heard Al Gore or Bill McKibbon encourage their audiences to go have an abortion and become homosexuals; wasn't it just last week? They must ...

At least that's what RightWingNews.com would have you think. The story, emailed to me as a link, purports that the famed Mongol conqueror is being "rehabilitated" as an environmental hero by the left, an assertion without evidence that is certainly not true. Full story here: http://rightwingnews.com/2011/01/genghis-khan-eco-warrior/ Of course, they selectively quote from the article to try and make it seem that the authors were acting to advocate rather than simply report. In short, the original piece notes that, in a study of climate fluctuations in human history, by far the largest fluctuation before the current era was a period of cooling following the conquests of Genghis Khan, cooling that can be directly related to his actions. Because of the estimated 40 million casualties caused by the Mongol's conquests, the earth cooled measurably as forests grew in abandoned fields. But, wait, before you say that no sane environmentalist would advocate killing million...

Once more, dear readers, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review proves itself no friend of the environment, nor a help in finding solutions to America's coming energy crisis. No, instead, they remain stuck in the past, helplessly, willingly, in thrall to the gas, oil and coal companies that once powered our country but whose time has now come. The good editors at the Trib decided to take aim at solar power in their editorial "More 'green' folly." The occasion? The shutdown of Evergreen Solar, Inc. in Massachusetts after two years there and $30 million in state subsidies. This serves as an excuse for the attack against green technology that follows. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_719316.html The editors claim that alternative fuels are a white elephant, the only thing green about them their "insatiable appetite for the public's green." They "remain affixed to the public dime. And that's neither palatable nor sustainable...

I have email! In my inbox yesterday, I had been forwarded an email by a friend purportedly telling about the exciting new discovery of the Bakken Formation in the Dakotas and Montana where, this email claimed, the United States had more oil than "the entire Middle East!" Further, it made the astonishing claim, allegedly backed up by the US Geological Survey, that this formation contains 500 billion barrels of oil, which would not only end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and give Americans their light sweet crude at "just $16 PER BARREL!" But wait, there's more! The deposit will fuel the economy "for 2041 years." Here I can only assume that the unknown author meant we would have enough until  2041. Sounds good, doesn't it? Smells like snake oil to me. The fact-checking website Snopes.com kicks this one to the curve. The Bakken Formation is, in fact, real, but the projections given are, naturally, vastly inflated. Given that, according to Snopes, ...

In their long-running vendetta against any measure of environmental protection, the editorial columnists at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review took aim yesterday at Virginia's proposal to place a twenty-cent tax on plastic bags in a well-meaning effort to both tamp down on the use of plastic bags and raise money. Here's the full editorial: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_718253.html In "Bagged", the Trib first takes issue with the fact that the tax is based on Ireland's similar tax of 20 pence, faulting them for not taking exchange rates into account in determining the 20-cent tax (irrelevant). The author calls this proposed tax "long on liberal rhetoric but precariously short on any discernible public benefit," claiming that, according to a study of the Wall Street Journal  plastic bags "take up a minuscule portion of landfill waste" and are thus handily defeating any claim that plastic bags in any way are detrimental t...