Blaming Hurricane Sandy on the greedy and industrious is just as mad as blaming it on gays – Telegraph Blogs

After every natural disaster that occurs these days, we do two things. First, we guffaw or shake our heads in stern disapproval at those religious freaks who blame said disaster on mankind’s sin. And second, we nod in vigorous agreement with those eco-experts who blame said disaster on man-made climate change. And yet, the impulse behind both forms of finger-pointing, behind both the Bible basher’s harebrained claims that deviant people brought this disaster upon mankind and the environmentalist’s insistence that the disaster is actually the fault of industry and pollution, is the same – it’s about doing that very Medieval thing of finding someone or something to blame for scary natural occurrences. Only where Christian zealots blame sinning mankind, green zealots blame industrious mankind.

The ‘Screw Science’ Media and Super Storm Sandy « NoFrakkingConsensus

...In other words, when science tells us scary stories, journalists have no end of enthusiasm for science. It’s a great thing – to be celebrated and respected.

But what happens when science departs from the scary-story script? Here are two examples from yesterday’s coverage of Hurricane, err, Tropical Storm Sandy.

LIA In Iceland Coldest Period For 8000 Years « NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

Research from Larsen and colleagues suggest that the Little Ice Age in Iceland marked the “most extensive glacial advance of the neoglacial interval” and that “the LIA was the coldest period of the last 8 thousand years."

Twitter / bryanrwalsh: #Sandy kills at least 16 people ...

#Sandy kills at least 16 people in the U.S. so far. For comparison, 117 Americans killed every day in cars.