By Dr. Robert Thorson This is a cautionary tale from climatology. Beware of simplistic explanations, especially when they involve clouds, the most challenging part of climate modeling. A good example of the so-called cloud problem is associated with the bunny fence in the Australian outback. The rabbit fence is continent-dividing barrier built in 1907 to […]
Blog
Unwrapping a Gift From the Heavens
By Dr. Robert Thorson The best things in life aren’t things at all. They are ideas, feelings and perceptions that can change our lives for the better. Today, I offer a simple gift. It’s a Christmas story for people of all faiths that’s every bit as homemade as a holiday cookie, and every bit as […]
Disrespecting Walden
By Dr. Robert Thorson I saw some graffiti yesterday that nearly took my breath away. Gravity-defying stacks of stone are desecrating the memorial cairn that marks the site of Henry David Thoreau’s house at Walden Pond. They rise like slender mushrooms more than 3 feet high from this otherwise broad mound of glacier-tumbled stones. Why? […]
Nothing Liberal About Conservation
By Dr. Robert Thorson Tropical rainforest deforestation in Africa: This will be my ticket to proving I’m a conservative columnist. Let’s start the easy part. For over three years, I’ve met weekly deadlines and have provoked enough criticism to fill gigabytes on my hard drive. That makes me a columnist. For 30 years, I’ve been […]
Dust from the Beginning
By Robert Thorson NASA just swept up some pretty expensive dust. The broom they used was a spacecraft aptly named Stardust, which returned to Earth on Jan. 15 after a seven-year journey. One side of the scientists’ broom contains interstellar dust streaming in from the emptiness of space. The other side holds dust from the […]
Ice Getting Thinner
By Dr. Robert Thorson New England is on thin ice getting thinner. Our lakes and ponds are freezing later, thawing earlier and getting more dangerous. This aspect of climate change hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. Why write about winter ice during back-to-school days? For academics like me, spring cleaning comes in early fall, when […]
The Power to Reshape Earth
By Dr. Robert Thorson Let’s revise the geological time scale and create a new epoch called the Anthropocene. This would help spare us from the self-flagellation and negativity about how bad we humans are for the environment. We’re not ruining the environment. We’re reshaping it so rapidly that we’ve created a new geological epoch, even […]
‘Origins’ Review- The Earth and Us; Geology is Destiny- Humans’ Flexible Intelligence Emerged as a Response to a Rapidly Changing Landscape
By Dr. Robert Thorson Curving across America’s Deep South is a “Black Belt” that runs from western Tennessee down to Montgomery, Ala., then back northeast through the Carolinas. During the 2016 presidential election, this swath was an anomaly of Clinton Democrats surrounded by a sea of Trump Republicans. It coincides with a demographic belt dominated […]
Diamonds Are Forever — Unfortunately
By Dr. Robert Thorson “A company based in suburban Elk Grove Village, Ill., has accepted its first deposit for manufactured diamonds made from carbon captured during the cremation process so that loved ones — family members, or even pets — could be mounted into a ring, pendant or other jewelry.” — The Chicago Tribune, Aug. […]
Warming May Take Us Far Back Into the Past
By Dr. Robert Thorson Meet the Pliocene. Getting to know this recent warm geological epoch would be a giant step forward in the politics of climate change because it would decouple the certain reality of a warmer world from the finger-pointing about who is responsible for causing it. The Pliocene contained a protracted interval of […]