Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #595

“Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.” — James Wilson (1790)

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #593

“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star.…

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #592

“A coincidence of interests is always more powerful than a conspiracy.”

Counting:  Exactly What and Exactly How

If we want any number to be considered scientific, the rules for this specification [“describing or identifying something precisely”] become stronger and stronger – we should consider this requirement paramount. 

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #591

“My interest in science was always essentially limited to the study of principles … That I have published so little is due to this same circumstance, as the great need…

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #591

“The cavemen had the same natural resources at their disposal as we have today, and the difference between their standard of living and ours is a difference between the knowledge…

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #590

If there is something very slightly wrong in our definition of the theories, then the full mathematical rigor may convert these errors into ridiculous conclusions.”

New York State Sea Level Rise:  Fantasy as Law

The NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) proposes a common source of Sea Level Rise Projections to be used statewide for program planning and decisions making.  This sounds…

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #589

The Week That Was: 2024-02-24 (February 24, 2024)Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)The Science and Environmental Policy Project Quote of the Week: “The care of human life and happiness, and…

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #587

Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.” — Benjamin Franklin (1722)

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #586

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” – Archimedes

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #585

’The exception proves that the rule is wrong.’ That is the principle of science. If there is an exception to any rule, and if it can be proved by observation,…

Select Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #584

“Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.” – Will Durant  

What is Landification?

The other side of the coin is “land emergence”  — or the gaining of dry land.  How does this happen?  Ask a geologist.  Continental masses rise up, coral islands and…

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #582

“No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.” –Robert A. Heinlein

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #580

“I apologize for writing such a long letter, but I didn’t have time to write a short one.” – Mark Twain

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #579

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so” – Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #578

“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” – Bertrand Russell

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #577

Nobody’s honest. Scientists are not honest. And people usually believe that they are. That makes it worse. By honest I don’t mean that you only tell what’s true. But you…

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #576

Doubt is clearly a value in the sciences. Whether it is in other fields is an open question and an uncertain matter.” “…it is very important to doubt and that…

Select Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #568

I fully agree with you concerning the pseudo-science of astrology. The interesting point is that this kind of superstition is so tenacious that it could persist through so many centuries.

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #566

Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #565

In plain words, Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.”

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #564

Mathematics may be defined as the subject where we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true