Another stupid climate change denialist troll trick is to point out that volcanos also emit carbon dioxide and therefore volcanos, not human activity, are the cause of the current climate change crisis. While vulcanism has shaped the climate during earth’s history, it is not a significant contributor today. Human activity-associated CO2 generation dwarfs volcanos. Again, […]
A favorite canard of climate change denialist trolls is to trivialize the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; how could something that is only 0.04% of the atmosphere drive global warming? Well, Google is your friend: “About 99 percent of the atmosphere is made of oxygen and nitrogen, which cannot absorb the infrared radiation […]
In a rebuke to the standard economic model that demand drives supply, housing prices in the US these days continue to rise. How much of this is due to local regulation vs cost of new home construction is above my pay grade. But the claim is that 3D printed homes can mitigate shortages in affordable […]
When I started attending departmental faculty meetings in 1987, there was an emeritus faculty, Harold Katzman, who went to most of the meetings. He rarely said anything, but he did make the effort to show up, perhaps out of personal loyalty. Dr. Katzman was the first graduate student of our department’s founding chair, Dr. Edward […]
We’re seriously considering a hybrid for our next car. One species of the hybrid genus is the “plug-in hybrid,” which seemed appealing to me, both from the standpoint of gas economy and to reduce our carbon footprint. Caveat emptor: “In one study from the ICCT published in 2022, researchers examined real-world driving habits of people […]
If you or your loved one had successful brain surgery, you can probably thank my colleague, Dr. Richard Bucholz, Professor of Neurosurgery at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Dr. Bucholz pioneered and invented the image-guided surgery navigational system marketed by Medtronic as the “Stealth Station.” It is standard equipment in nearly every neurosurgical suite […]
Kevin Drum has a post up showing that EV sales have plateaued recently in the US. It’s not clear to me whether that’s all EVs or just Teslas, but since Teslas remain the dominant EVs in the US, that’s a distinction without a difference. I’d be happy to see more EVs on the road. But […]
Our first car was a Mazda GLC. We bought it new in 1981, after living without a car for four years. It was a stick shift, front wheel drive ICE car. It got about 32 mpg in town and about 38 mpg on the highway, driving at 55 mph. Since then, we’ve owned four other […]
When I was in high school and college in the 1970s, marijuana was (a) illegal and (b) plentiful. I may or may not have inhaled, but people I knew were certainly growing, drying, selling and buying dope at the time. From a public health standpoint, marijuana is more benign than alcohol and tobacco. I’m happy […]
I seldom eat at chain restaurants, and I’ve never set foot in a Red Lobster. So the latest bankruptcy of Red Lobster doesn’t affect me personally, but it does serve as yet another illustration of pernicious consequences of vulture capitalism. When the private equity firm Golden Gate Capital bought Red Lobster, the chain was already […]