Against cooling

Has global cooling begun? | csmonitor.com

Warming up the Arctic

Arctic Lake Sediments Show Warming, Unique Ecological Changes In Recent Decades

I didn't know this:

....recent warming around the Arctic is overriding a cooling trend caused by Earth's periodic wobble. Earth is now about 0.6 million miles further from the sun during the Northern Hemisphere summer solstice than it was in 1 B.C. -- a trend that has caused overall cooling in the Arctic until recently.

The study indicates marked increased warming since 1950. Although, I have to say, didn't we know that already from thermometers?

Real reductions

Club Troppo - It’s not easy being green

Ken Parish makes good points in his post on the uselessness of the Rudd government's ETS (with or without Liberal amendments.)

He also mentions an obvious way to make real CO2 reductions, by a rapid increase in natural gas for electricity generation.

Like Ken, I am not at all sure why this gets so little consideration as a policy measure. Is the ETS meant to make it happen anyway? It doesn't seem so.

Of course, there is also the issue of Labor's ban on nuclear power, which is mentioned in comments.

If Labor wants to be serious about CO2, they have to start debating nuclear. But instead, they'll probably ride the wave of sentiment that "at least they are doing something", which probably means they are actually quite a danger to real progress on the issue.

A good Henderson

Judges and juries called it as they saw it

This is a good Gerard Henderson column today. I wish I could find the Phillip Adams 2006 column he refers to.

Coral confusion

This seems like an important bit of research. Not all corals appear to stop calcifying with lower pH, and it would seem that the precise mechanisms for calcification are not as well understood as you might expect.

This paper reports that it would appear that what is crucial for good coral calcification (at least in one species) is bicarbonate concentration:

The corals responded strongly to variation in bicarbonate concentration, but not consistently to carbonate concentration, aragonite saturation state or pH. Corals calcified at normal or elevated rates under low pH (7.6 to 7.8) when the seawater bicarbonate concentrations were above 1800 μM. Conversely, corals incubated at normal pH had low calcification rates if the bicarbonate concentration was lowered. These results demonstrate that coral responses to ocean acidification are more diverse than currently thought, and question the reliability of using carbonate concentration or aragonite saturation state as the sole predictor of the effects of ocean acidification on coral calcification.

What is not explained is whether lower ocean pH has any consistent effect on bicarbonate concentration in shallow waters. It would appear from here that dissolved CO2 result in increased bicarbonate. However, I'm sure there have been lab based coral studies where they bubbled CO2 through the water and the coral calcified less. So what was the reason for that?

So: this may (or may not) represent relatively good news for the future of coral. But, let's wait for more news and analysis.

Bad algae

Killer algae a key player in mass extinctions

Today, just about anywhere there is water, there can be toxic algae. The microscopic plants usually exist in small concentrations, but a sudden warming in the water or an injection of dust or sediment from land can trigger a bloom that kills thousands of fish, poisons shellfish, or even humans.

James Castle and John Rodgers of Clemson University think the same thing happened during the five largest mass extinctions in Earth's history. Each time a large die off occurred, they found a spike in the number of fossil algae mats called stromatolites strewn around the planet....

"If you go through theories of mass extinctions, there are always some unanswered questions," Castle said. "For example, an impact - how does that cause species to go extinct? Is it climate change, dust in the atmosphere? It's probably not going to kill off all these species on its own."

But as the nutrient-rich fallout from the disaster lands in the water, it becomes food for algae. They explode in population, releasing chemicals that can act as anything from skin irritants to potent neurotoxins. Plants on land can pick up the compounds in their roots, and pass them on to herbivorous animals.

Some CO2 skeptics like to argue that it is a plant food and that a lush world will follow from higher concentrations. But as I have suggested before, if it makes toxic algal more likely, that is not going to be a good thing.

Back to basics

Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming

While my position is to concentrate on ocean acidification as sufficient reason to urgently seek a reduction in CO2, I have been complaining for some time that the popular skeptical pundits against global warming seem to show no interest at all in applying any degree of skepticism to the arguments that they think bolster their position.

So it's worthwhile going back to basics, and the always readable Skeptical Science blog has an excellent post (see above) on why it is known that CO2 is causing warming.

Handy information

Physicists Calculate Number of Parallel Universes

In a new study, Stanford physicists Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin have calculated the number of all possible universes, coming up with an answer of 10^10^16.

"Handy for what?" you might ask. I don't know - I'm working on that.

Pet peeve noted - please ignore if offended by the trivial

As I'm posting on the trivial today, and a blog is the ideal place to get a pet peeve that's bothered you for years off your chest, I note as follows.

For the first time in many years, I just had a strawberry milkshake (with malt.) The malt cost 50 cents extra, which must make it one of the more precious foodstuffs available at a milk bar, but that's not the peeve.

It's the fact that, after whisking the shake, the guy looked at the level in the container, and then topped it up with a bit more, unshaken, plain milk. Then it was served it to me.

I had forgotten about this fairly widespread and (to my mind) very irritating practice that I used to note when I was a more regular milkshake consumer. (We're talking university days now.)

I don't want my strawberry flavoured milk diluted at the last minute by the addition of more plain milk. It also doesn't do much for the frothy head either. If it is to be done at all (and it should not need to be if the original estimate was better) it should at the very least be put it back on the machine. But those who top up in this way never do.

I'm already planning my cranky old man tactic of just walking away when I see this done. (Unless, of course, I have already paid for it.)

A manly question

Nothing much to note in this interview with actor Robert Carlyle, except for the fact that he swears a lot and makes this observation about filming in deserts:

We were shooting in New Mexico in 117-degree heat for a week. You'd have to put sunblock up your nose and your ears because of the bounce. Transformers shot there before us, and one of the crew guys was going commando in shorts. He burnt his tackle badly. So we were very aware.

Which brings me to the point of this post. I have often wondered about how, since it made its appearance in Seinfeld (and, I think, Friends,) this "going commando" joke would appear to mean that some men actually do this as an occasional option.

Yet, it has never, in my entire life, occurred to me that not wearing underwear for the day would somehow make sense. Boxers instead of a more snug fit: well, I can see the point of that. I'll even allow for the logic of beach nudists who don't like sand in their swimsuit. But to wear your normal clothes without underpants? Why would any man since the invention of smooth woven cloth ever think that was a good idea?

Weekend report

This weekend:

* Friday night: while channel surfing, I once again came in late to watching Love Actually. (I have never seen the movie in one sitting; I've watched bits and pieces over the years and figure I must have seen about 90% of it by now.)

I am curious to see it all because, based on partial viewings, it has always seemed an awful, awful film, displaying less emotional realism about love and romance than the first Shrek movie. Yet, it has its defenders, including friend and regular reader here Geoff.

Well, sorry Geoff, but after my longest stretch of viewing in one sitting, my opinion against it has well and truly solidified. I accept it may not be appropriate to judge it as a realistic film (apart from the ludicrous Hugh Grant as British PM, he appears to do the job from home in his spare time with a staff of about 3.) But, even allowing for 2 minutes of convincing crying from Emma Thompson, it just doesn't even ring true emotionally (for me, of course.) I actually find some of the plotlines rather creepy (oh, sorry, I have accidentally slipped into Hugh Grant talk), the use of the swelling orchestral score to make some scenes more "important" to be really irritating, and nothing in the film (unless it is in the 10% I still haven't seen) makes me laugh.

But don't worry, when appointed benevolent dictator, I will add aversion therapy to adjust errant opinions of this film to Medicare coverage. It is, after all, important that all people think like me.

* Sunday night: Speaking of partially watched movies, I saw some of Speed Racer. What an obvious dud of a film. How on earth was Lego ever convinced that there would be a market for a line of sets built around this film? (They were all heavily discounted after the box office failure.)

As many critics correctly noted, it is not possible to make car racing exciting when there are no laws of physics involved. Its directorial tricks were repeated endlessly, and it contains as much tension as watching an electric car racing set being played by a couple of kids for 100 minutes. Less, possibly.

* Sunday: Completing a movie theme post, the family went to Warner Brother's Movieworld for the first time yesterday.

It was an good enough day that the kids enjoyed, but two rides showed technical faults, and one needed some general cleaning up. One comedy routine was clearly in need of a re-write (no one watching laughed at any of the jokes), and the "character street parade" is embarrassingly short. (There are more characters from the Warner world than this, surely.)

As I suspected, if you have spent time in Disney theme parks, and seen the extraordinary commitment to perfection that they show, other theme parks suffer in comparison. It makes them just seem to not be trying hard enough.

Further proof of no credibility in Nobel Peace prize

A-ha to break up after 25 years

So, a band you assumed had broken up about 20 years ago was still around.

But what about this:

...after the commercial failure of 1993's Memorial Beach, the band went on hiatus, only reforming after being invited to play the Nobel Peace Prize concert in 1998.

Who's playing the 2009 concert...Cheap Trick?

Useful

Just How Sensitive Is Earth's Climate to Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide?: Scientific American

This article gives a good explanation of a couple of recent studies relevant to the issue of climate sensitivity to CO2.

It is not encouraging.

Feed the boy sheep

Meat and milk stop anaemia

Oddly, it would appear that in New Zealand at least, it is not uncommon for toddlers to be deficient in iron:

A survey carried out by Dr Elaine Ferguson at the University of Otago showed that up to 1 in 3 toddlers have low iron levels. Although severe iron deficiency is rare, these high levels of iron depletion are a concern because they increase a child’s risk of developing iron deficiency anaemia which can have serious consequences.

In a country full of delicious lamb, which most children seem to like a lot, this should not be happening.

Boat problems

Ken Parish from the far from right wing Club Troppo writes well about the problem of unauthorised immigrants arriving by boat. Welcome to the real world of hard decisions, Kevin Rudd.

The power of TV

The grisly truth about CSI degrees | Education | The Guardian

I knew lots of people want to work in forensics now, but this is ridiculous:

Let's call it the CSI Effect: thanks to the uncontrolled proliferation of cop shows focusing on forensic investigation, including Bones, Silent Witness, CSI and its Miami and New York spin-offs, the number of degree courses in forensic science being offered in the UK has rocketed, from just two in 1990 to 285 this year.

I like the last line in this final paragraph of the report:

The biggest problem, however, is that crime has not kept pace with the explosion in TV detective shows. The government-owned Forensic Science Service currently finds 1,300 scientists sufficient for its crime-solving needs. The UK's largest private provider, LGC Forensics, employs 500 people. In 2008 alone, 1,667 students embarked on forensic science degree courses. In order to ensure there are enough jobs to go round, more than half of them will have to retrain as serial killers.

I must admit, I saw the "classic" version of CSI recently and was sufficiently amused that I might start watching it again, but only if the station doesn't stuff around with the timeslot, as is their wont.

And when will there be the long awaited episode in which the architects who built the Las Vegas CSI lab are sued for negligence for failing to provide adequate ceiling lights. It must be the only workplace in the world where they have to use torches inside every day.

Important robot news

Astro Boy Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes

Early reviews for Astro Boy are largely positive.

But why on earth is it being released outside of school holidays in Australia?

Vaccination silliness

Slate runs a useful article on how the far Left and far Right both circle around and bump into each other when it comes to silly reasons to distrust vaccination. Some of the history is interesting:

Indeed, there's nothing more universal than fear of shots. "I just think there are people wired that way," says Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic. "They operate on the basis of emotion and anecdote—what they read at the University of Google—rather than a fact-based or data-driven point of view." In the 19^th century, people thought the cowpox vaccine would cause pieces of cow to grow out of their arms. Canadian medical giant William Osler was widely mocked when he urged British troops at the beginning of World War I to get inoculated against typhoid fever. The French government stopped offering vaccinations for hepatitis B in schools in 1998 while it investigated the relationship between shots and multiple sclerosis. (Subsequent studies found no causation.)

As for some of the loopier bits of paranoia about the swine flu:

Several Web sites have suggested that H1N1 is a vehicle for the government to implant microchips in our bodies to detect "bio-threats." At least one site posits that the vaccine contains a "Bible Code" connecting swine flu to prophesies in the Book of Revelation.

It's all clear to me now.

UPDATE: Well, well. One of the vaccination doubters is none other than smug know-it-all atheist and alleged comedian Bill Maher. What a maroon.

It's gold, gold, gold for Australia

Mungo MacCallum: Four decades in the fourth estate | The Jakarta Post

Mungo was in Bali recently, sharing this with out Indonesian neighbours:

I’ve known, personally, 12 Australian prime ministers and I can only say that three of them were chaste. The rest were adulterers of Olympic standards.

Of course, I assume John Howard was amongst the chaste, although there were scurrilous rumours put around about him at one time. Who would the other two be (especially if he is not counting Rudd as "personally known")?

Drinking the English way

Binge drinking spreads to Italy | csmonitor.com

It's interesting to note how the Italians are blaming British and American tourists for spreading the contagion of youthful drinking to excess.

The Italian drinking age is, according the article, currently 16 (as it is in several European countries, although it seems there is a widespread movement to increase it). European countries have managed to live with that for some years. In Japan, the drinking age is 20, and although they are not everywhere, beer vending machines can be found in some places which anyone can access. Teenage drinking does not seem to be a significant problem.

In Australia, I've noticed the TV advertising against parents allowing their teenagers to start having a drink at home, on the basis that the gradual introduction of alcohol to immature teenage brains is now believed to be dangerous, according to recent research.

It's all a pretty fascinating area, this issue of drinking and culture.

UPDATE: By the way, that link to the Wikipedia entry on drinking ages around the world contains lots of interesting bits. In Denmark, for example, it says "There is no drinking age, only a purchase age, and an adult can buy alcohol for a minor. By tradition youths are privately allowed to drink alcohol after their confirmation" (That's one way to increase youth participation in church: put on a keg after the confirmation ceremony.)

Even more fun is the detail about UK drinking laws (assuming it is correct):

Children under 5 must not be given alcohol unless under medical supervision or in an emergency (Children and Young Persons Act 1933, Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937).^[50][51]. However, children aged 5 and over may legally consume alcohol in their own home or someone else's as long as they are under the supervision of an adult.

Well it's good to know that the fine olde English tradition of giving children gin in the home can continue to this day!