Episode #934

News Items

    Question #1: Which Attenborough?

    • Correction of Richard Attenborough vs David Attenborough
    • Hi, I’m a recent listener to your podcast and I have a question for your panel. In the 5/29 issue of the New Yorker Magazine, an article on trees questions the wisdom of mass tree plantings as away to combat global warming. Specifically, it says that although the world’s forests absorb around 16 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide every year, they also emit 8 billion tons. I know that some carbon dioxide is emitted due to respiration at night, but these numbers still seem way off. Can this be true? The online version of the story is dated 5/22. WHAT WE OWE OUR TREES Forests fed us, housed us, and made our way of life possible. But they can’t save us if we can’t save them. By Jill Lepore

    Science or Fiction

    Skeptical Quote of the Week.

    “The plural of anecdote is not data” attributed to Erika Engelhaupt