When we think of climate change deniers, tea partiers and republicans often come to mind. But some of the most troubling stumbling blocks to reducing greenhouse gases come from urban liberals and left-leaning environmental groups who oppose burning municipal solid waste to produce energy.

In California, when new...

On Thursday morning I moderated my first presidential debate, on Capitol Hill. The topic was climate change, science and the next four years. I was there representing ScienceDebate.org, the online website that gets the candidates for president to debate the big science questions the country is facing. My...

President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney have answered 14 of the nation's top science questions, but of the many committee leaders in Congress who deal with the nation's science policy, just two--Reps Henry Waxman and Chris Van Hollen--have responded to the ScienceDebate questions for Congress. And two...

A remarkable guide to maximizing the power of words

Bill Clinton's masterful speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention had pundits marveling at his ability to convey complicated facts and ideas in such a clear, powerful and compelling manner. Really good political speech is like that--it is an almost...

President Barack Obama and his challenger, Governor Mitt Romney, have answered 14 Top American Science Questions put to them by the grassroots nonprofit I lead, ScienceDebate.org. The candidates' answers provide valuable insight into their positions on issues that, while among the most important facing the country,...

Over the weekend, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) ignited a firestorm of criticism when he said that in cases of "legitimate rape" women's bodies can naturally prevent pregnancy. If the rape is legitimate, he said, " the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," and therefore...

I recently returned from

In an age of growing antiscience politics, fifteen US science and engineering organizations take a stand.

I have been working with fifteen of the top U.S. science and engineering organizations who today released a list of the most important science...

Book Review: Cures for Hunger by Deni Béchard

In men there is something that is not well understood or accepted by the more gentle aspects of modern society.  You can see it when young...

The Guardian has unearthed a shocking new propaganda plan intended to turn the American public against wind energy in the 2012 election cycle. The plan is to be deployed by a shadowy network of propaganda contractors like the disgraced Heartland Institute, who recently compared...

UPDATE: At 6:30 CT on May 7, State Farm announced on their Facebook page that they were severing all ties with the Heartland Institute. "State Farm is ending its association with the Heartland Institute," the insurance company stated. "This is because of a recent billboard campaign launched by...

In February, leaked internal budget (PDF) and fundraising (PDF) documents from the Chicago-based propaganda contractor The Heartland Institute exposed the group's plans to spend $100,000 to create a 20-unit national school science curriculum falsely teaching that there is a scientific controversy over climate change. At the...

In an important departure from his recent administration-wide silence on climate change, President Obama announced in a Rolling Stone interview published today that he considers climate change and the money being thrown into the denial of science as one of the most important issues in the coming campaign...

Timing is Everything

When I was a boy, I loved NASA. So imagine how pleased I was to be invited to speak at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center this week...

A really intriguing question came up in an internal discussion at ScienceDebate.org this week: In a nationally televised presidential science debate, who would be the best moderator? Who has the media presence, debate chops, policy understanding and science literacy...

Every major policy challenge the nation is facing is either wholly or partly driven by science, and yet this year in particular we have seen every mainstream candidate for president in 2012 adopt one or more positions that run contrary to the best available evidence science has to offer.

This...

Travelers to Washington, D.C.'s famous National Cherry Blossom Festival may be disappointed this year due to the exceedingly warm climate in the D.C. area and across most of the continental United States, in which late winter temperatures have been running 20 to more than 40 degrees F above normal. 

In a big win for academic freedom over the forces of creeping authoritarianism, the Virginia Supreme Court today sided with the University of Virginia in its fight against Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's investigation of former University of Virginia climate scientist Michael Mann.

Mann, who now works at Penn State,...