Courts are not well-suited to deal with scientific questions. There is a judge: an appointed or elected lawyer who interprets the law. And there is a jury: randomly selected citizens who interpret the facts. On July 24, a six-person jury in a federal courtroom in Austin arrived at a decision that will find its way […]

Read more

(Source: WAFB) What connects all of these events—the 1984 pesticide plant disaster at Bhopal, India; the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks in the U.S.; and the recent deadly chemical plant explosions in West, Texas, and Geismar, Louisiana? What connects these events is the looming danger of a terrorist assault or accident at a U.S. […]

Read more

(Illustration: Edel Rodriguez) By the metrics of modern industrial catastrophes, the June 13 explosion at the Williams Olefins vinyl plant in Geismar, Louisiana, was a minor affair. Two men were killed. And 77 were injured. All the casualties were plant workers, no civilians killed or injured. Governor Bobby Jindal arrived while the fire was still […]

Read more

Maybe you should look at (in “Silencing Science,” June 1, 2013) the pharmacokinetic data from the National Center for Toxicological Analysis, which appears to have convinced the Silent Spring Institute that BPA does not present an estrogenic threat to mothers or infants. Or the EPA’s “state of the science” report on non-monotonic dose responses in […]

Read more

(Source: Wikipedia/Creative Commons) When it comes to energy and economics in the climate-change era, nothing is what it seems. Most of us believe (or want to believe) that the second carbon era, the Age of Oil, will soon be superseded by the Age of Renewables, just as oil had long since superseded the Age of […]

Read more