iPhone App Challenges Skeptics

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Ever wished you had a snazzy way to silence climate change skeptics? If you have an iPhone, you’re in luck: A recently launched app called Skeptical Science provides a list of common skeptic arguments—and the science to refute each claim.

So if someone says “Climate’s changed before,” you can whip out your iPhone and retort, “Natural climate change in the past proves that climate is sensitive to an energy imbalance. If the planet accumulates heat, global temperatures will go up.” Scientific arguments are sourced to reputable studies from organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

A handy tool for heated debates.

Click here for a list of other green-friendly iPhone apps.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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