"Thirty million tons -- or 36 per cent -- of the world's total fisheries catch each year is currently ground up into fishmeal and oil to feed farmed fish, chickens and pigs," says UBC fisheries researcher Daniel Pauly...Kind of surprising.
"Globally, pigs and chickens alone consume six times the amount of seafood as US consumers and twice that of Japan," says lead author Jennifer Jacquet, a post-doctoral fellow at UBC's Fisheries Centre. "Ultimately these farm animals have a greater impact on our seafood supplies than the most successful seafood certification program."
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Using the world's fish more sensibly
Alternative animal feed part of global fisheries crisis fix
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
More on cat germs and schizophrenia
Scientists Find Unusual Immune System Activity in Brains of Schizophrenics
....researchers in Sweden and Germany found that recent-onset schizophrenics-- those first showing symptoms, usually young adults-- had elevated amounts of interleukin-1beta in their spinal fluid. In normal controls, IL-1beta levels were nearly undetectable.
The researchers looked at around 10 common cytokines, proteins used by the body's defenses to communicate with immune cells, but only IL-1beta was unusually expressed in the mentally ill patients. ...
As early as the 1970s, some scientists have suggested that schizophrenia, which afflicts about 1 percent of the U.S. population, could be triggered by an infection.
A popular candidate has been the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, transmitted from cat feces or uncooked meats. Engberg says infection from the toxoplasma parasite more than doubles one's risk for schizophrenia. "Toxoplasma gondii appears to be one of several micro-organisms that can trigger [the] brain immune system," he says.
Andrew Bolt: smear merchant
I like the way Andrew Bolt posts about a Watts Up With That item which quotes some programmer's comments found amongst code that skeptics thinks sounds like more "tricks".
Andrew quotes with approval Watts saying that they (the climate scientists) can't "spin" this, yet at the end of this long post, Bolt says:
And in fact, quite a large number of software people in comments at WUWT are saying that it means precisely nothing. Gavin Schmidt says it is completely uncontroversial. But conspiracy skeptics will seize on anything, whether they understand it or not, and crap on about "conspiracy proved".
It's Watts and Bolt who are engaging in spin, in fact the only word for their posts is smear.
The more I read the way skeptics are crowing that they have proved a global conspiracy as a result of these emails, the more I understand why climate scientists on the AGW side simply can't stand the time wasting, muddy-the-water, fingers-in-the-ear tactics of the great bulk of skeptics.
And Bolt has no common sense when it comes to seeing how his own promotion of skepticism has virtually made it politically impossible for Turnbull to credibly delay the Coalition dealing with the government's ETS legislation. (If Turnbull wants to position the Liberals as not being dominated by do-nothing conspiracy mongers, he has to force a decision now.)
UPDATE: Andrew Bolt and his minions are now all very excited about a George Monbiott column which, I have to admit, is pretty strange.
Monbiott, who showed some smarts in setting rules before he would debate Ian Plimer, seems to have throw all PR knowledge to the wind by writing a column that both involves wringing of hands about how "bad" the CRU emails are, and insisting that this goes absolutely no where near disproving global warming.
Surely he realised that conspiracy-skeptics would dance around the first two paragraphs, claim victory and ignore the bulk of his column?
Andrew quotes with approval Watts saying that they (the climate scientists) can't "spin" this, yet at the end of this long post, Bolt says:
This is not proof of malpractice or anything untoward. But it does require explanation.Oh I see then.
And in fact, quite a large number of software people in comments at WUWT are saying that it means precisely nothing. Gavin Schmidt says it is completely uncontroversial. But conspiracy skeptics will seize on anything, whether they understand it or not, and crap on about "conspiracy proved".
It's Watts and Bolt who are engaging in spin, in fact the only word for their posts is smear.
The more I read the way skeptics are crowing that they have proved a global conspiracy as a result of these emails, the more I understand why climate scientists on the AGW side simply can't stand the time wasting, muddy-the-water, fingers-in-the-ear tactics of the great bulk of skeptics.
And Bolt has no common sense when it comes to seeing how his own promotion of skepticism has virtually made it politically impossible for Turnbull to credibly delay the Coalition dealing with the government's ETS legislation. (If Turnbull wants to position the Liberals as not being dominated by do-nothing conspiracy mongers, he has to force a decision now.)
UPDATE: Andrew Bolt and his minions are now all very excited about a George Monbiott column which, I have to admit, is pretty strange.
Monbiott, who showed some smarts in setting rules before he would debate Ian Plimer, seems to have throw all PR knowledge to the wind by writing a column that both involves wringing of hands about how "bad" the CRU emails are, and insisting that this goes absolutely no where near disproving global warming.
Surely he realised that conspiracy-skeptics would dance around the first two paragraphs, claim victory and ignore the bulk of his column?
Monday, November 23, 2009
"Miracles," "anti-miracles," the LHC and underpants
Holger Nielsen of the Neils Bohr Institute, whose idea that the future may prevent the LHC from ever working properly was noted on this blog last year (way ahead of the world's media noticing, by the way) has been busy writing more articles about his surprising theories. Now he uses the terms "miracle", "anti-miracle" and even "miraculocity", so naturally I am interested.
This article from October seemingly argues that letting the decision to start up the LHC (or restrict its power) according to a card drawing/random number process is still a good idea, as if it works, it will prove backwards causation. If the random draw says everything is OK to proceed, then nothing has been lost. (Look, I think that is what he is saying, but this is not so easy to follow.)
As CERN is not about to let its multi billion dollar investment be held up by bad luck in a card draw, I guess we aren't going to see this experiment happen.
However, Nielsen is not giving up. In another article out last week, he talks about the black hole information loss problem, and how one particular solution for this can be fitted in with their "imaginary action model" and provide further reason why the LHC may never operate properly because the universe just might never let it happen. (Yes, it has just got a beam going again, but I think it is many months away from building up to high energy collisions beyond those other accelerators have already achieved.)
Nielsen's article is also, incidentally, almost certainly the only physics paper to ever refer to both high energy physics and champignon growing.
Here's what the abstract says:
Ever since the baguette episode, I have been thinking about what it would take (in terms of unusual objects turning up within the LHC) to count as a miracle, and not just an unusual event. I think Tim Train's missing underpants being found as a blockage in the coolant system would count. In fact, nearly any Australian non-physicist's pair of underpants appearing up in a sensitive spot in the LHC tunnel might count. But we have to be able to identify where they came from.
For this reason, I propose that all Australians who have never been to Europe should immediately start writing their name and the date of purchase in large indelible marker pen on their underpants, in the interests of science. Men, your wives and girlfriends will understand: just refer them to this blog. Women: well, I somehow doubt you will follow my underwear writing directions anyway. Speculative physics is probably more of a male interest, after all.
A pair of Bonds briefs that appear within the LHC bearing a future date would be particularly convincing.
I joke, but I shouldn't. I would quite like backwards causation to be proved. It would give me hope of receiving Lotto numbers from the future one day.
This article from October seemingly argues that letting the decision to start up the LHC (or restrict its power) according to a card drawing/random number process is still a good idea, as if it works, it will prove backwards causation. If the random draw says everything is OK to proceed, then nothing has been lost. (Look, I think that is what he is saying, but this is not so easy to follow.)
As CERN is not about to let its multi billion dollar investment be held up by bad luck in a card draw, I guess we aren't going to see this experiment happen.
However, Nielsen is not giving up. In another article out last week, he talks about the black hole information loss problem, and how one particular solution for this can be fitted in with their "imaginary action model" and provide further reason why the LHC may never operate properly because the universe just might never let it happen. (Yes, it has just got a beam going again, but I think it is many months away from building up to high energy collisions beyond those other accelerators have already achieved.)
Nielsen's article is also, incidentally, almost certainly the only physics paper to ever refer to both high energy physics and champignon growing.
Here's what the abstract says:
This model naturally begins effectively to set up boundaries - whether it be in future or past! - especially strongly whenever we reach to high energy physics regimes, such as near the black hole singularity, or in Higgs producing machines as LHC or SSC. In such cases one can say our model predicts miracles. The point is that you may say that the information loss problem, unless you solve it in other ways, call for such a violation of time causality as in our imaginary action model!And from the paper's conclusion, tortured English and all:
For phenomenological reasons it is of course needed that under “normal” conditions the amount of backward causation - or as we also refered to cases of backward causation, miracles or anti miracles - should be seldom. This is indeed the case both by thinking of Hartle Hawking no-boundary (mainly showing up in black holes, which are phenomenologically badly known) and in our “imaginary part of action model”, in which it is though needed a somewhat speculative argumentation to argue that the cases of backward causation get so seldom as needed for agreement with dayly life experience. We think, however, that there is a good chanse that the restriction from the history of the universe having to obey the (classical) equations of motion (at least approximately) could impose so strong restrictions on the amount of backward causation or miracles or anti miracles that it would not disagree with present knowledge. In this way we want to claim that our model is viable so far.He does not address the issue of whether or not the baguette that nearly caused a problem recently was a "miracle". I suppose it was a pretty ineffective one, which perhaps makes it self disqualifying as a miracle anyway. A bit like Jesus curing an ingrown toenail for a day.
Ever since the baguette episode, I have been thinking about what it would take (in terms of unusual objects turning up within the LHC) to count as a miracle, and not just an unusual event. I think Tim Train's missing underpants being found as a blockage in the coolant system would count. In fact, nearly any Australian non-physicist's pair of underpants appearing up in a sensitive spot in the LHC tunnel might count. But we have to be able to identify where they came from.
For this reason, I propose that all Australians who have never been to Europe should immediately start writing their name and the date of purchase in large indelible marker pen on their underpants, in the interests of science. Men, your wives and girlfriends will understand: just refer them to this blog. Women: well, I somehow doubt you will follow my underwear writing directions anyway. Speculative physics is probably more of a male interest, after all.
A pair of Bonds briefs that appear within the LHC bearing a future date would be particularly convincing.
I joke, but I shouldn't. I would quite like backwards causation to be proved. It would give me hope of receiving Lotto numbers from the future one day.
Dubious prescriptions
Medical Marijuana - No Longer Just for Adults - NYTimes.com
The New York Times reports that:
In the weird world of marijuana promoting doctors, we get comments like this:
The New York Times reports that:
Several Bay Area doctors who recommend medical marijuana for their patients said in recent interviews that their client base had expanded to include teenagers with psychiatric conditions including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.I like this response:
“How many ways can one say ‘one of the worst ideas of all time?’ ” asked Stephen Hinshaw, the chairman of the psychology department at the University of California, Berkeley. He cited studies showing that tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, disrupts attention, memory and concentration — functions already compromised in people with the attention-deficit disorder.The problem is that only California allows medical marijuana not only for cancer and AIDS, but “for any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.”
In the weird world of marijuana promoting doctors, we get comments like this:
Marijuana is “a godsend” for some people with A.D.H.D., said Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, a psychiatrist who has written several books on the disorder. However, Dr. Hallowell said he discourages his patients from using it, both because it is — mostly — illegal, and because his observations show that “it can lead to a syndrome in which all the person wants to do all day is get stoned, and they do nothing else.”What I don't understand is why, if a government is convinced that THC might work for some illnesses, can't they insist that the it be delivered in a more reliably measured way other than by smoking it. Can't it be taken in carefully measured dose via a medicine to be swallowed, for example?
Anti-CPRS from the left side
This ETS-lite deserves to be rejected
Kenneth Davidson has been reading the Friends of the Earth anti ETS report I mentioned here recently.
This part I hadn't heard before:
Kenneth Davidson has been reading the Friends of the Earth anti ETS report I mentioned here recently.
This part I hadn't heard before:
Offsets are an imaginary commodity created by deducing what you hope happens from what you guess would have happened.
It should be self-evident: a ton of carbon in wood is not going to be ''sequestered'' from the atmosphere as safely, or as long, as a ton of carbon in an unmined underground coal deposit.
But Australia tried to introduce a refinement to make rorting of the scheme even easier. According to Spash, during negotiations in Bonn before the 2009 Copenhagen summit on new Kyoto targets, Australia argued for excluding natural disasters, which basically means if, say, forests planted as offsets burnt down they would be treated as still existing.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
So, that was it
I finally caught up with the much acclaimed (by everyone other than Tim Train) film Samson & Delilah on TV tonight.
Tim, I'm pretty much with you on this one. It reminded me of European films I have watched on SBS from the (perhaps less popular now than it used to be) "social-realism-at-the-expense-of-a- story-arc-or-dramatic-interest" school of film making. This involves competently filmed and acted movies about people leading hopeless and depressing lives at both the start and end of the film, regardless of what has happened in a more or less plausible way in the middle, thereby raising the question "what exactly was the point of that?"
But I have some specific, slightly narky, comments too:
1. While I don't have first hand experience to draw on, my impression was that "Samson" did not seem zonked out enough after sniffing petrol. Also, his whole body looked unrealistically healthy for someone who seemed to not have eaten properly for years.
2. "Delilah's" hair looked unusually good in the township after cutting it herself with a knife. Who knew hairdressing was so easy?
3. Andrew Bolt liked it because it showed a remote aboriginal community as a terrible, hopeless place to live full of social problems. (It even showed the old style "someone must be blamed for a death" thinking.) And indeed, I thought while watching the first 45 minutes that it was a wonder that the left wing world of movie critics didn't feel a bit insulted on behalf of aborigines for their being painted in such a hopeless light.
But, when the kids hit town, all of this is righted when the story threads go on to include white people engaging in aboriginal economic exploitation, rape and battery, and callous disregard even by the church. (Although by the end there seemed to some partial acknowledgement that the church helps some aborigines, occasionally.)
Ah, I thought, this is why it was OK for white movie critics to like it after all.
That and the fact that by the end of the film the suggested answer to the social isolation, boredom and poverty of our heroes was to move to a place where they were even more isolated, poor, and (at least for Samson) bored. But giving Samson a bath and putting a clean shirt on him was meant to make us feel they had a future. Presumably, the idea was that the girl would make a living by her painting.
Of course, David Strattan saw this as an wildly optimistic finish. Probably because of the dubious idea that they were now connecting more with their land and everything would naturally then be much better. Not very likely, in my books. It also seems odd that a film which seemingly carries the message (with apologies to Sartre) "Hell is other aborigines" is cast as optimistic.
4. Big, big spoiler warning: I have a confession to make. Things were going so badly for this pair when they were in town that I was expecting some disaster: perhaps spontaneous human combustion by Samson after sniffing so much petrol, or the bridge collapsing on them. So when Delilah suddenly got hit by a car, in a pretty convincing looking fashion too, I might add, I laughed. (A laugh at both my foresight and surprise, I suppose.) Good thing I didn't do that in a cinema.
Tim, I'm pretty much with you on this one. It reminded me of European films I have watched on SBS from the (perhaps less popular now than it used to be) "social-realism-at-the-expense-of-a- story-arc-or-dramatic-interest" school of film making. This involves competently filmed and acted movies about people leading hopeless and depressing lives at both the start and end of the film, regardless of what has happened in a more or less plausible way in the middle, thereby raising the question "what exactly was the point of that?"
But I have some specific, slightly narky, comments too:
1. While I don't have first hand experience to draw on, my impression was that "Samson" did not seem zonked out enough after sniffing petrol. Also, his whole body looked unrealistically healthy for someone who seemed to not have eaten properly for years.
2. "Delilah's" hair looked unusually good in the township after cutting it herself with a knife. Who knew hairdressing was so easy?
3. Andrew Bolt liked it because it showed a remote aboriginal community as a terrible, hopeless place to live full of social problems. (It even showed the old style "someone must be blamed for a death" thinking.) And indeed, I thought while watching the first 45 minutes that it was a wonder that the left wing world of movie critics didn't feel a bit insulted on behalf of aborigines for their being painted in such a hopeless light.
But, when the kids hit town, all of this is righted when the story threads go on to include white people engaging in aboriginal economic exploitation, rape and battery, and callous disregard even by the church. (Although by the end there seemed to some partial acknowledgement that the church helps some aborigines, occasionally.)
Ah, I thought, this is why it was OK for white movie critics to like it after all.
That and the fact that by the end of the film the suggested answer to the social isolation, boredom and poverty of our heroes was to move to a place where they were even more isolated, poor, and (at least for Samson) bored. But giving Samson a bath and putting a clean shirt on him was meant to make us feel they had a future. Presumably, the idea was that the girl would make a living by her painting.
Of course, David Strattan saw this as an wildly optimistic finish. Probably because of the dubious idea that they were now connecting more with their land and everything would naturally then be much better. Not very likely, in my books. It also seems odd that a film which seemingly carries the message (with apologies to Sartre) "Hell is other aborigines" is cast as optimistic.
4. Big, big spoiler warning: I have a confession to make. Things were going so badly for this pair when they were in town that I was expecting some disaster: perhaps spontaneous human combustion by Samson after sniffing so much petrol, or the bridge collapsing on them. So when Delilah suddenly got hit by a car, in a pretty convincing looking fashion too, I might add, I laughed. (A laugh at both my foresight and surprise, I suppose.) Good thing I didn't do that in a cinema.
All about those emails
What do I think about those leaked CRU emails? Take a shower, a very cold one, excitable skeptics.
This summary of the emails (from skeptical site Watts Up With That, so you can trust it) indicates that most of them are about fighting skeptical views in various ways, but very few are even suggestive of doing it by actually manipulating data or how it is presented.
As I am sure everyone reading this knows, the most "famous" email (referencing a "trick" to "hide the decline") is said by Real Climate to not actually hide anything. It would seem that McIntyre disagrees, but honestly, his obsession with hockey stick graphs gets into so much detail I cannot follow most of his arguments. I doubt that 90% of skeptics who follow him understand much of his statistics talk either.
I should add, as that email is about the hockey stick controversy, that I still don't really understand why skeptics seemingly think this is "be all and end all" of AGW science. I have never taken that big an interest in the graph, because I always suspected that the hockey stick shape might be a little too dramatic to be true. But, as we also have actual thermometers to tell the temperature over the last century or so, I assumed the graph was not actually critical to proving AGW anyway.
My hunch appears basically correct. Bob Ward summarises the hockey stick controversy this way:
As many have said, the emails show that scientists are human and really resent being accused of dishonesty, fraud and being part of a nefarious global conspiracy. They also think it is important that people (and governments) believe them.
Ideally science should not get so personal. But it does, and skeptics can hardly claim the high moral ground when it comes to accusations, name calling and spiteful comments about the other side.
I would bet money that these emails make next to no difference in the short or long run.
I would also like to point out that they do not comment at all on ocean acidification, the other reason CO2 needs to be curbed quickly.
This summary of the emails (from skeptical site Watts Up With That, so you can trust it) indicates that most of them are about fighting skeptical views in various ways, but very few are even suggestive of doing it by actually manipulating data or how it is presented.
As I am sure everyone reading this knows, the most "famous" email (referencing a "trick" to "hide the decline") is said by Real Climate to not actually hide anything. It would seem that McIntyre disagrees, but honestly, his obsession with hockey stick graphs gets into so much detail I cannot follow most of his arguments. I doubt that 90% of skeptics who follow him understand much of his statistics talk either.
I should add, as that email is about the hockey stick controversy, that I still don't really understand why skeptics seemingly think this is "be all and end all" of AGW science. I have never taken that big an interest in the graph, because I always suspected that the hockey stick shape might be a little too dramatic to be true. But, as we also have actual thermometers to tell the temperature over the last century or so, I assumed the graph was not actually critical to proving AGW anyway.
My hunch appears basically correct. Bob Ward summarises the hockey stick controversy this way:
The attacks on the hockey stick graph led the United States National Academy of Sciences to carry out an investigation, concluding in 2006 that although there had been no improper conduct by the researchers, they may have expressed higher levels of confidence in their main conclusions than was warranted by the evidence.And Skeptical Science writes:The 'sceptics' believe they have been vindicated and have presented the hockey stick graph as proof that global warming is not occurring. In doing so, they have ignored the academy's other conclusion that "surface temperature reconstructions for periods prior to the industrial era are only one of multiple lines of evidence supporting the conclusion that climatic warming is occurring in response to human activities, and they are not the primary evidence".
The emails do suggest that at least one scientist is very concerned about explaining the plateau-ing of global temperatures in the last 10 years, but this tells us nothing as to how many really think like him.In the skeptic blogosphere, there is a disproportionate preoccupation with one small aspect of climate science - proxy record reconstructions of past climate (or even worse, ad hominem attacks on the scientists who perform these proxy reconstructions). This serves to distract from the physical realities currently being observed...
When you read through the many global warming skeptic arguments, a pattern emerges. Each skeptic argument misleads by focusing on one small piece of the puzzle while ignoring the broader picture. To focus on a few suggestive emails while ignoring the wealth of empirical evidence for manmade global warming is yet another repeat of this tactic.
As many have said, the emails show that scientists are human and really resent being accused of dishonesty, fraud and being part of a nefarious global conspiracy. They also think it is important that people (and governments) believe them.
Ideally science should not get so personal. But it does, and skeptics can hardly claim the high moral ground when it comes to accusations, name calling and spiteful comments about the other side.
I would bet money that these emails make next to no difference in the short or long run.
I would also like to point out that they do not comment at all on ocean acidification, the other reason CO2 needs to be curbed quickly.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Cool sub
Britain's got a new type of attack nuclear submarine, and the best video of it is available via The Independent, but I can't see a way to link directly to the video or to embed it. (The link is currently in the "Latest News" column on the front page.)
The BBC video is much shorter, and barely shows the submarine, but it is notable for the odd way the Admiral says at the end that being a submariner "is about having fun"(!). (I also note that, as a continuing sympton of my advancing age, even Admirals and Rear Admirals are starting to look just too young for the job.)
There must be video from somewhere I can embed. Nope, I can't, just yet.
Anyway, The Telegraph explains what this new class of new attack submarine is supposedly capable of doing:
The BBC video is much shorter, and barely shows the submarine, but it is notable for the odd way the Admiral says at the end that being a submariner "is about having fun"(!). (I also note that, as a continuing sympton of my advancing age, even Admirals and Rear Admirals are starting to look just too young for the job.)
There must be video from somewhere I can embed. Nope, I can't, just yet.
Anyway, The Telegraph explains what this new class of new attack submarine is supposedly capable of doing:
The Astute, the first attack submarine to be built in Britain almost two decades, has a listening system that can detect the QE2 cruise liner leaving New York harbour from the Channel.(I find that hard to believe, but it is matter just slightly out of my field of knowledge.)
The submarine will be able to sit off coasts undetected listening in to mobile phone conversations and has the ability to insert Special Forces by mini submersibles into enemy territory where they can direct the boat's Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of 1,400 miles.Sounds very James Bond. I like this bit:
The Astute is the first submarine not to have a conventional periscope. Instead a fibre optic tube - equipped with infra red and thermal imaging - pops above the surface for three seconds, does one rotation and then feeds an image in colour that can be studied at leisure. The nuclear power plant has is the size of a family car.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Don't let her breed
Meet Hobbie-J, the smartest rat in the world - Science, News - The Independent
I can see a new rat horror film in the making:
I can see a new rat horror film in the making:
A rat is impressing American scientists with her extraordinary intellect.
Hobbie-J has been dubbed the smartest rat in the world after its NR2B gene, which controls memory, was boosted as an embryo. The rodent can remember objects three times as long as its smartest peers and can better solve complicated puzzles like mazes.
Andrew's (and other skeptic's) problem
Poor old Nick Minchin, and any other skeptical mates from South Australia.
It is, shall we say, not a good look to be jumping up and down about the "craziness" of any type of global warming action when your own State is undergoing a record breaking heat wave in a season not previously recognized as usually being exceptionally hot at all. Minchin has shot himself in the foot in the most spectacular way possible. His criticism yesterday seemed to be against any CPRS legislation going through before Copenhagen, which of itself is not an unreasonable point. But he can't expect to be taken seriously on any point about global warming now due to his self-outing as one who believes it's all a socialist conspiracy. (That and the fact his State is melting in spring, let alone summer.)
And poor old Andrew Bolt. He's getting upset that the Liberals like Tony Abbott, who seems to want to be a skeptic but can't quite bring himself up to the level of Minchin paranoia, just aren't studying his column enough to be able to use dubious skeptical arguments against Tony Jones.
I stick to my belief that Bolt has boxed himself in on this issue years ago, finding a contrarian approach successful in terms of drawing ardent followers to his blog, but now to admit he might be wrong would just cause too much loss of face.
It has long been hard to believe that he genuinely thinks that some of the graphs he posts again and again (most notably, the UAH monthly temperature anomaly graph since 1979) convinces your average punter that there isn't a long term trend to be seen. (Even ignoring 1998, run a line across the peaks over that period.)
His favourite skeptic blog - Watts up With That - does (occasionally) run posts which indicate AGW modelling is right, or indicating a skeptical argument might be wrong, but Andrew rarely (never?) mentions those posts. But he will mention posts such as the one about the degree of skepticism amongst TV weather presenters, as if it matters. Or posts claiming to cite hundreds of "skeptical" peer reviewed papers, when many of them are not skeptical at all, and a large chunk are from a publication (Energy and Environment) that no one with science credibility takes seriously.
No, if this summer goes as bad as this spring is indicating, Andrew will just start have to consider admitting that he might just be wrong, loss of face or not.
UPDATE: this appears to confirm my strong suspicion that for the Coalition to follow Bolt's urgings and embrace AGW skepticism would be electoral suicide.
Again, that's not to say that they could not have made out a good case for not passing the CPRS at the moment, but they can't credibly do it when they have a divided house over the grounds upon which they may wish to do it.
Thus, by gee-ing on the AGW skeptics, Andrew Bolt has inadvertently hurt his own cause.
But to be fair - by convincing some that the CPRS will actually work anywhere near fast enough, and by their evident complete lack of interest in taking nuclear power for Australia seriously, there is a strong argument that Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party is the more dangerous enemy of effective CO2 action.
It's a case of virtually everyone being wrong, for a kaleidoscope of reasons.
It is, shall we say, not a good look to be jumping up and down about the "craziness" of any type of global warming action when your own State is undergoing a record breaking heat wave in a season not previously recognized as usually being exceptionally hot at all. Minchin has shot himself in the foot in the most spectacular way possible. His criticism yesterday seemed to be against any CPRS legislation going through before Copenhagen, which of itself is not an unreasonable point. But he can't expect to be taken seriously on any point about global warming now due to his self-outing as one who believes it's all a socialist conspiracy. (That and the fact his State is melting in spring, let alone summer.)
And poor old Andrew Bolt. He's getting upset that the Liberals like Tony Abbott, who seems to want to be a skeptic but can't quite bring himself up to the level of Minchin paranoia, just aren't studying his column enough to be able to use dubious skeptical arguments against Tony Jones.
I stick to my belief that Bolt has boxed himself in on this issue years ago, finding a contrarian approach successful in terms of drawing ardent followers to his blog, but now to admit he might be wrong would just cause too much loss of face.
It has long been hard to believe that he genuinely thinks that some of the graphs he posts again and again (most notably, the UAH monthly temperature anomaly graph since 1979) convinces your average punter that there isn't a long term trend to be seen. (Even ignoring 1998, run a line across the peaks over that period.)
His favourite skeptic blog - Watts up With That - does (occasionally) run posts which indicate AGW modelling is right, or indicating a skeptical argument might be wrong, but Andrew rarely (never?) mentions those posts. But he will mention posts such as the one about the degree of skepticism amongst TV weather presenters, as if it matters. Or posts claiming to cite hundreds of "skeptical" peer reviewed papers, when many of them are not skeptical at all, and a large chunk are from a publication (Energy and Environment) that no one with science credibility takes seriously.
No, if this summer goes as bad as this spring is indicating, Andrew will just start have to consider admitting that he might just be wrong, loss of face or not.
UPDATE: this appears to confirm my strong suspicion that for the Coalition to follow Bolt's urgings and embrace AGW skepticism would be electoral suicide.
Again, that's not to say that they could not have made out a good case for not passing the CPRS at the moment, but they can't credibly do it when they have a divided house over the grounds upon which they may wish to do it.
Thus, by gee-ing on the AGW skeptics, Andrew Bolt has inadvertently hurt his own cause.
But to be fair - by convincing some that the CPRS will actually work anywhere near fast enough, and by their evident complete lack of interest in taking nuclear power for Australia seriously, there is a strong argument that Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party is the more dangerous enemy of effective CO2 action.
It's a case of virtually everyone being wrong, for a kaleidoscope of reasons.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Don't forget to "celebrate"...
World Toilet Day | November 19, 2009
(Sounds funny, but actually quite a worthy subject. I kind of wish that their big demonstration was something other than "The Big Squat" though.)
(Sounds funny, but actually quite a worthy subject. I kind of wish that their big demonstration was something other than "The Big Squat" though.)
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Darwinian thoughts
Charles Darwin and the children of the evolution - Times Online
This article is a pretty interesting discussion of the use/abuse of Darwinian ideas by people like teenage psychopaths, eugenics advocates and others. (Did you know know that the Columbine school murderers thought they were engaged in the Darwinian process of natural selection, as did a Finnish teenage killer and some wannabe killers? No, nor did I.)
The writer also notes that Darwin himself wrote in terms that would, today, be seen (at least) as politically incorrect:
This article is a pretty interesting discussion of the use/abuse of Darwinian ideas by people like teenage psychopaths, eugenics advocates and others. (Did you know know that the Columbine school murderers thought they were engaged in the Darwinian process of natural selection, as did a Finnish teenage killer and some wannabe killers? No, nor did I.)
The writer also notes that Darwin himself wrote in terms that would, today, be seen (at least) as politically incorrect:
Darwin looked forward to a time when Europeans and Americans would exterminate those he termed “savages”. Many of the anthropomorphous apes would also be wiped out, he predicted, and the break between man and beast would then occur “between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon; instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla”. He took a sanguine view of genocide, believing it to be imminent and inevitable. “Looking to the world at no very distant date,” he wrote to a friend in 1881, “what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.”All very interesting, and (I assume) kind of annoying to Richard Dawkins.
Pebble bed reactors not dead yet
Idaho National Lab Achieves 19% Burn for Nuclear Pebbles
This post talks about the work on nuclear fuel pebbles which would be used in pebble bed reactors. China is ploughing ahead with the development of modular pebble bed reactors, apparently. (I wonder if South Africa will miss out on the market if they can't get their act together.)
Of course, I have been arguing for ages that this is exactly the type of technology that it would seem needs direct, Western government support to develop, and monies raised by a carbon tax would seem an ideal way to do that. Instead, we'll stuff around paying other countries for dubious offsets, establish a new way for suits to make money by trading mere bits of paper, and set targets regardless of lack of plausible ways to reach them without heavy government investment in new technology.
Hmph.
This post talks about the work on nuclear fuel pebbles which would be used in pebble bed reactors. China is ploughing ahead with the development of modular pebble bed reactors, apparently. (I wonder if South Africa will miss out on the market if they can't get their act together.)
Of course, I have been arguing for ages that this is exactly the type of technology that it would seem needs direct, Western government support to develop, and monies raised by a carbon tax would seem an ideal way to do that. Instead, we'll stuff around paying other countries for dubious offsets, establish a new way for suits to make money by trading mere bits of paper, and set targets regardless of lack of plausible ways to reach them without heavy government investment in new technology.
Hmph.
McKee reviewed
Jason Zinoman on Robert Mckee | vanityfair.com
Jason Zinoman, who has a particular interest in horror films, reports on his attendance at a screenwriters seminar held by the famous screenwriting teacher Robert McKee.
McKee comes across as a bit of a jerk who wings it on browbeating self-confidence. Here's Jason's summary of how to replicate McKee's technique:
Jason Zinoman, who has a particular interest in horror films, reports on his attendance at a screenwriters seminar held by the famous screenwriting teacher Robert McKee.
McKee comes across as a bit of a jerk who wings it on browbeating self-confidence. Here's Jason's summary of how to replicate McKee's technique:
I wonder if McKee can explain the relative dearth of good movie ideas coming out of Hollywood for the last 5 to 10 years.Rule One: Drop names shamelessly. McKee tells us that he once received a doctor recommendation from his friend John Cleese, bummed a cigarette from Toni Morrison, and corrected his pal Paul Haggis when he confused two genres over lunch. But my favorite is his anecdote about telling Stephen Hawking (whom he calls “Hawkings”) that he has never read a book by the scientist but is fascinated by the Big Bang. I imagine Hawking rolling quickly away.
Rule Two: Never express a scintilla of doubt. McKee is insightful about some things, especially with regard to structure, but his relative knowledge or ignorance of a subject in no way affects the manner in which he discusses it. He holds forth on politics (“Terrorism is a police problem and that’s all it is”) and the theater (“there is very little crime drama onstage”) as confidently as he does on the Incitement Incident.
Rule Three: Start in a rage and end with poetry. In Adaptation, a wildly imaginative movie that first sends up, then celebrates, and ultimately condescends to McKee, the teacher advises the screenwriter that any flawed movie can be saved with a “big finish.”
The calming light
More Tokyo train stations start using lights to stem suicides
This sounds very improbable:
This sounds very improbable:
Alarmed by a rise in people jumping to their deaths in front of trains, some Japanese railway operators are installing special blue lights above station platforms they hope will have a soothing effect and reduce suicides.Sadly, suicide is still a popular response to difficult times in Japan, although I bet everyone wishes people would choose a less public method:
As of November, East Japan Railway Co has put blue light-emitting diode, or LED, lights in all 29 stations on Tokyo’s central train loop, the Yamanote Line, used by 8 million passengers each day.
There’s no scientific proof that the lights actually reduce suicides, and some experts are skeptical it will have any effect. But others say blue does have a calming effect on people.
Suicide rates in Japan have risen this year amid economic woes, and could surpass the record 34,427 deaths in 2003.
Last year, nearly 2,000 people committed suicide in Japan by jumping in front of a train, about 6 percent of such deaths nationwide.
Watching the sun
It was the Sun wot done it. Or was it? | Stuart Clark - Times Online
This reads as a reasonable summary on the controversy over the possible role of the sun on earth's temperature (via cosmic rays and the sun's magnetic cycle.)
The last paragraphs are important:
This reads as a reasonable summary on the controversy over the possible role of the sun on earth's temperature (via cosmic rays and the sun's magnetic cycle.)
The last paragraphs are important:
The smart money is on the level of solar contribution being somewhere between the two extremes. In other words, both solar activity and industrial gases play a role. There is credible scientific work that ascribes up to a third of current warming to solar influence. Studies show that the Earth’s temperature mirrored solar activity until the 1980s. Then the number of sunspots stabilised but the temperature continued to rise. In other words, something overtook the Sun as the primary driver of the Earth’s temperature. That is generally thought to be industrial gases.
Now the test can be made. It is time for all sides to put away the rivalry and begin to work together. Observations must be made, experiments performed and all data must be published, not cherry-picked. This golden opportunity to reach consensus must not be squandered.
Above all, we must not let any downturn in temperatures be used as an excuse by reluctant nations to wriggle out of pollution controls. Just as certainly as the solar activity has gone away, so it will return. If we have done nothing in the interim to curb man-made global warming, we will be in worse trouble than ever.
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