Scorched

R16,20…

Sunday, July 19th, 2009 | for Stephen Fry | No Comments

 … or, about the price of a half-way decent cup of coffee. Although I prefer tea, myself.

A reflection on our molecular origins

Saturday, July 18th, 2009 | cosmology, history | No Comments

[IN AUGUST 2008, I was asked to give a talk on climate change in the Rhodes University History Department. This, the department that turned my world view upside down, over a decade ago. Some say science shows us we don't need god. I'd say history did that for me. I grew up believing that god was the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega, that human beings were just a small blip on the longer timeline of god. Then I studied history, and discovered that the human timeline was a lot longer than Sunday School lead me to believe… suddenly I realised that god was just a small blip on the much longer and more impressive timeline that is the history of this universe.

Some people figure this out right from the start. I’m a late starter, I’ll admit to that. But at least I get there in the end. So this, a little reflection on why history matters, and why science and history and natural history are inseparable disciplines. An extract from my own little gospel of rational thought.]

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The big carbon conundrum (M&G)

Friday, July 10th, 2009 | uncategorized | No Comments

There’s something incongruous about the fact that Denmark is hosting this year’s United Nations Climate Summit in December.

Denmark gets 20% of its electricity from wind and, until recently, was the world’s biggest exporter of wind power technology. But its other “big export” is political scientist Bjorn Lomborg, one of the most prominent climate “sceptics”, who claims that global warming isn’t nearly as bad as some would have us believe.

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