A reasonable fear of lightning

People who know me well know that I am, to say the least, a touch on the sensitive side when it comes to storms and the danger of lightning. A brother says I am completely unreasonable about this; I argue that it is completely justified, and based on my broader than average reading of the strange ways lightning has killed or injured people.

For example, I know that is not a good idea to be near open windows during lightning storms. Yet people complain when I immediately start shutting windows as soon as I judge the storm is close enough. (Sometimes I can justify it because of the rain, but often I am shutting them before it starts.) The fact is that lightning has been known to come inside houses via open windows. For example, in New South Wales today, lightning through open windows struck not once but twice:

The Ambulance Service of NSW said a 37-year-old man was hit by lightning while doing the washing up near a window at a YMCA camp in Yarramundi at about 7.30pm (AEDT) on Thursday.

Paramedics were treating the man, who was suffering neck and shoulder pain, and planned to take him to hospital.

Emergency services were also called to a house on Macquarie Road, in Springwood, in the NSW Blue Mountains, after it was struck by lightning at about 5pm.

"It's come through the window, it hit the curtains and ignited them," a firefighter at the scene told media at the scene.

Two people, including a man suffering smoke inhalation, were taken to Blue Mountains Hospital.

Basically, I know from first hand experience, (there are two separate stories I can tell) that otherwise intelligent people are, as a rule, still pretty much completely ignorant of, or too silly to take reasonable precautions against, the danger of lightning, even when they are in situations where the danger is absolutely as high as it could possibly be. (Well, short of doing a Benjamin Franklin and flying a kite up into it.)

But as I say, those stories are for another day.

Money and influence

How Davos makes incredibly rich people seem smarter than they actually are. - Slate Magazine

Daniel Gross notes:

It struck me that the difference between banality and profundity is generally a few billion dollars: The real alchemy of finance is to endow those skilled at finance to wield authority in adjacent or even unrelated areas. That's the general theory of Davos, bankers sharing their theories about nonbanking subjects. Stick around and you'll hear a lot of conventional wisdom on globalization, climate change, poverty reduction, financial crisis, but it somehow sounds deeper and more weighty because it's delivered by an extraordinarily wealthy CEO, a private equity executive, or hedge fund manager rather than by a journalist.

Some observations about Monckton down under

I have seen bits of Monckton on Sunrise, heard him on Alan Jones, read about his having lunch with Miranda Devine, and heard a bit of him on Radio National breakfast this morning. There are several points I want to make:

1. He is being given far too easy a ride even by those journalists who do not trust him. On Sunrise, where there was a young scientist in opposition, he was allowed to get away with the broad statement that there are many (hundreds?) of peer reviewed papers showing that climate sensitivity is low. (That is, increasing CO2 will not lead to much of an increase in temperatures.) He has continually repeated his discredited maths in his letter to Kevin Rudd. There was no real response to this alone the simple lines "the climate scientists who hold this view are in a very, very minority. There is no doubt at all that the overwhelming majority of climate scientists believe in levels of climate sensitivity which are of great concern to them and which should be acted upon now." How hard is it to say that?

People like John Quiggin argue that engaging with skeptics on science in a debate forum is often counterproductive, and I understand the point. But what is happening now is just as bad.

Sure, people who read widely on the topic know the answers to Monckton's claims already; but the average audience member who is neutral or disinterested in the topic are being done a disservice by what seems to be a non-response to Monckton's direct claims.

If scientists want the science out there, they have to get more aggressive in answering the likes of Monckton.

I haven't had time yet to watch the embedded video interview by Ben Cubby that heads the Miranda Devine article: I hope it's better, but we need more than journalists challenging him.

2. As for those who do already sympathise with him; well what do you expect. I would be interested to know, however, on what basis (according to Devine) Monckton is said to be a mathematician.

Yes I know, he came up with a puzzle that presumably shows he has an interest in mathematics. But why doesn't anyone point out that the last time he took this gamble on his expertise, he lost. (His puzzle was solved within a year, not his estimate of three.)

3. Why does anyone keep calling him "Lord", or even "Viscount" Monckton?. As David Koch noted, Monckton had invited him to call him Christopher, yet people keep insisting on referring to his completely irrelevant title. Did Jeffrey Archer keep getting this from Australian and American interviewers? Not to the same degree, as far as I can recall. I can understand why grovellers to his views like Alan Jones will use the title over and over, but those who don't believe his message, just drop it.


In short, this is no time to be taking a back step in the PR wars over AGW. Scientists need to step up to the plate in defending their work, clearly point out the errors in Monckton's claims, and the reasons he should not be believed.

UPDATE: I've now watched the Ben Cubby interview of Monckton, and it wasn't too bad. Cubby manages to get Monckton annoyed by pressing him on the meaning of "peer reviewed", and Monckton waffles on and on in his pathetically self serving way. It's like that old Keating crack about Bronwyn Bishop: he's a mile wide but an inch deep.

Oh yes, this makes me feel good about the modern world

World's Second Pregnant Man Ready to Give Birth - latimes.com

Have a look at the photo.

Something new for the home based mad scientist

The Radiation Boom - As Technology Surges, Radiation Safeguards Lag - Series - NYTimes.com

A somewhat worrying report about cases of mistakes when hospitals use new cancer treating radiation machines in the States.

According to the article, they are sold with little in the way of regulation:

In this largely unregulated marketplace, manufacturers compete by offering the latest in technology, with only a cursory review by the government, and hospitals buy the equipment to lure patients and treat them more quickly. Radiation-generating machines are so ubiquitous that used ones are even sold on eBay.

“Vendors are selling to anyone,” said Eric E. Klein, a medical physicist and professor of radiation oncology at Washington University in St. Louis. “New technologies were coming into the clinics without people thinking through from Step 1 to Step 112 to make sure everything is going to be done right.”

Surprising.

That's the second biggest book etc..

Largest book in the world goes on show for the first time

It would take quite a while to read on a Kindle.

Podding in the garden

OfficePOD. Changing the way people work. Welcome to the next generation of workplace

Hmm. Don't be put off by the fact that it looks like it would be hotter than hell sitting inside one of these in your garden in Brisbane if there was any part of it in the sun.

Instead, just think of the pleasure you could get from saying to your wife: "I'll be in my pod, dear."

Yes, I'll take one thanks. (Found by the always witty Red Ferret Journal.)

The pants police

Hundreds dressed down by sharia officers during raid on clothing | The Jakarta Post

I mentioned recently that the Sharia police in Aceh in Indonesia seemed to be quite unpopular (since the little matter of an alleged rape by 3 of them). Yet they are still keen on not taking a backwards step:

Hundreds of residents considered to be wearing unacceptable clothing according to sharia regulations, were temporarily detained during an operation at the busy Mesra Darussalam traffic crossing in Banda Aceh, Aceh Nanggroe Darussalam, on Tuesday afternoon.

The residents, including around 100 women wearing pants and tight shirts and a number of men wearing shorts, were pulled aside, lectured and then released by sharia (Wilayatul Hisbah) officers, who had been standing by in the area, which is a main thoroughfare for university students.

The women targeted by the officers were allegedly wearing un-Islamic clothing and several of them did not wear headscarves, now compulsory in Aceh.

The operation, aimed at upholding sharia law, was led by Banda Aceh Law and Order Agency and Wilayatul Hisbah chairman Iskandar, with support from the Military Police and members of the local Indonesian Muslim Student Action Union.

And here you thought the Australian university Student Unions were annoying.

Ocean acidification and iron: bad for phytoplankton

Acidifying Ocean May Stifle Phytoplankton - Science News

Some people argue that increased CO2 will result in more phytoplankton blooms, which will help sink more CO2 to the bottom of the sea.

One study that appeared a couple of weeks ago in Science suggests that this may not happen due to the lower water pH that the increased CO2 is definitely already causing:

Research by oceanographer Dalin Shi and his colleagues at Princeton University hints that rising CO₂, instead of providing extra nutrients for phytoplankton, may actually curb the growth of these organisms, which form the base of the ocean’s food chain. The team reports these findings online January 14 and in an upcoming Science.

In their tests, the researchers studied how acidification, a decline in ocean pH, affects the ability of phytoplankton to take up dissolved iron, another nutrient required for growth. The scientists measured growth rates of four species of the marine microorganisms — including two that Shi described as “the lab rats of phytoplankton” — in ocean water with pH values that ranged from 8.8 to 7.7. On average, the pH of ocean surface waters today is about 8.08, says Shi.

Across large swaths of the ocean, phytoplankton are already starved for iron, Shi says. And the team’s research suggests that acidification will make things worse: If ocean pH drops by about 0.3 units over the next century — the acidification expected if CO₂ emission trends continue — iron uptake by phytoplankton could drop by between 10 and 20 percent, the data suggest. Ironically, even though more-acidic waters are able to hold increased amounts of dissolved iron, a larger percentage of that nutrient would be chemically bound to organic matter dissolved in the water and therefore unavailable to nourish phytoplankton, Shi says.

Earth defence underfunded

Detecting and countering near-Earth objects that could threaten Earth underfunded, according to report

We need a nice, smallish asteroid hit somewhere relatively harmless and leave a gigantic smoldering hole in the ground to focus the minds of government into properly funding this useful activity.

Sensible one day, idiot the next

Wanted: Tony Blair for war crimes. Arrest him and claim your reward | George Monbiot

George Monbiot provides a spectacular example of how you never trust a pundit on absolutely everything.

He's been reasonably impressive on climate change, and came across on the Lateline "debate" last year with Ian Plimer as rational and calm.  Yet when it comes to the Iraq War, he's idiotic enough to do this:

So today I am launching a website – www.arrestblair.org – whose purpose is to raise money as a reward for people attempting a peaceful citizen's arrest of the former prime minister. I have put up the first £100, and I encourage you to match it. Anyone meeting the rules I've laid down will be entitled to one quarter of the total pot: the bounties will remain available until Blair faces a court of law. The higher the ­reward, the greater the number of ­people who are likely to try.

At this stage the arrests will be largely symbolic, though they are likely to have great political resonance. But I hope that as pressure builds up and the crime of aggression is adopted by the courts, these attempts will help to press ­governments to prosecute. There must be no hiding place for those who have committed crimes against peace. No ­civilised country can allow mass ­murderers to move on.

Increasing global temperatures must be affecting his judgement.

Garnaut on "where to now"?

Better an imperfect scheme than delay

In a very long speech, Ross Garnaut talks about the options available for an ETS or carbon tax.

If you skip the irrelevant cricket analogy, it's quite interesting.

He still supports an ETS, but it would seem he has warmed more towards a carbon tax.

The first Australians: bad environmentalists

Early humans wiped out Australia's giants : Nature News

Heh heh heh. According to Nature, the evidence that the first humans here killed off Australian mega fauna (either by huntingg, or by changing the environment by burning, or both) has been getting stronger over the last decade:

Richard Roberts, a geochronologist at the University of Wollongong, Australia, and biologist Barry Brook, of the University of Adelaide, Australia, say in a commentary⁴ in Science that "human impact was likely the decisive factor", possibly through hunting of young megafauna. Increased aridity during the last Ice Age might have reinforced this effect, but Australian megafauna were well adapted to dry conditions because they had survived repeated droughts in the past, they say.

Chris Johnson, an ecologist at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, says the direct dates from Cuddie Springs mean the site now "falls in line with a mass of other evidence" for the rapid extinction of the Australian megafauna between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago.

I also note that Nature also uses this term:

Some have proposed that the ancestors of Australian Aborigines, who reached the continent between 60,000 and 45,000 years ago, rapidly hunted the animals to extinction.

Will modern day aborigines use this to distinguish themselves from those who did the killing 40,000 years ago? It would be interesting if they did, given that they like to claim a culture going back that far, when it suits them.

Ocean acidification continues

USF Study Shows First Direct Evidence of Ocean Acidification

Actually, that headline is misleading, in that studies off Hawaii and Iceland have already shown acidification at the rate predicted. The new point about this study is that it covered a wide area of ocean instead of looking at just one spot.

The abstract of the paper is not too long, and I may as well repeat it here:

Global ocean acidification is a prominent, inexorable change associated with rising levels of atmospheric CO₂. Here we present the first basin-wide direct observations of recently declining pH, along with estimates of anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic contributions to that signal. Along 152°W in the North Pacific Ocean (22–56°N), pH changes between 1991 and 2006 were essentially zero below about 800 m depth. However, in the upper 500 m, significant pH changes, as large as −0.06, were observed. Anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic contributions over the upper 800 m are estimated to be of similar magnitude. In the surface mixed layer (depths to ∼100 m), the extent of pH change is consistent with that expected under conditions of seawater/atmosphere equilibration, with an average rate of change of −0.0017/yr. Future mixed layer changes can be expected to closely mirror changes in atmospheric CO₂, with surface seawater pH continuing to fall as atmospheric CO₂ rises.

Yay for hand-drawn

Leap of faith: The Princess and the Frog - Features, Films - The Independent

Yesterday the family saw The Princess and the Frog, and it's great.

As the above article notes, it's clear that the animators, being given this opportunity to revive the art, really went out of their way to make an absolutely georgeous looking film. I can't remember any of the big hits of the Disney 1980's period being so impressive simply as art.

The story is just pitch perfect too. It updates old Disney themes in a way that is not too pandering to modern culture, and although it is again a female protagonist (it nearly always is in Disney musicals) it's not really as "girly" a film in its romantic themes as I recall, say, Beauty and the Beast or The Little Mermaid.

The songs are by Randy Newman, and some reviews complain they are, at best, only serviceable, but I found it something of a relief not to have the old style gush suddenly surfacing (again, think of some of the songs from the two movies I just mentioned.) They all seemed pleasant songs to me.

Go see it. (It's an excellent date movie even if you don't have kids.)

Widely ignored advice

Dealing with ear wax - Health & Wellbeing

I have always found it hard to credit doctors' advice (repeated in the story linked above) that using cotton buds to clean out ear wax is not a good idea. The rate at which people's ears make the stuff seems to vary widely, and I suppose if your ears don't get itchy and feeling sticky at the entrance within a few of days of the last cleaning, you may not have a problem.

But for me, it is pretty much unimaginable that I wouldn't get in there with a cotton bud at least every few days. In summer, they seem to need it more often. And surely that purpose is behind about 90% of cotton bud sales, so I am sure I am not on my own.

Maybe the doctors' advice is based on them all investing in companies that make wax softening products, as well as the "money for nothing" consultation fees for syringing out the ears of those patients who do take their advice.

There should be an enquiry into this scandal.

Serves them right

Mercury levels of whale-eating town's residents 10 times average

Japan Times has run stories about the high level of mercury in Japanese whale meat for years, but it's never been especially clear to me as to how much attention it has received in the Japanese press.  But this is surely important news that should get their attention:

Levels of mercury in hair samples of residents of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, which is known for customarily eating small whales caught by coastal whaling, are about 10 times the average in Japan, possibly due to consumption of whale meat with high concentration of mercury, one of researchers who conducted the survey said Thursday.... 
 
The survey showed the average total mercury levels in the men’s and women’s hair samples were 21.6 parts per million and 11.9 ppm, respectively, while the levels of average Japanese men and women are 2.55 ppm and 1.43 ppm, he said...

Endo expressed alarm that contamination levels among some of the residents appeared to be high enough to develop health problems according to oversea standards.
   
‘‘It’s necessary to conduct more detailed research on their health conditions and the current status of contamination,’’ he said. ‘‘We should also make efforts to curb consumption of whale meat which is highly contaminated with mercury.’‘

But women priests will keep it so relevant

Church of England attendance falls for fifth year in row | World news | guardian.co.uk

As reported above:

The average weekly attendance in 2008 fell to 1.145 million from 1.16 million in 2007, while the average Sunday attendance fell from 978,000 in 2007 to 960,000 in 2008.

This is despite attempts to be relevant such as:

...allowing children to be baptised at the same time as their parents' marriage.

It would be a fair bet that the parents who lived together, had kids and then decided to get the all-in-one special of marriage and baptism will next only next be a church for a funeral.

Blockage

Overweight? Then you’ll have to buy two seats - News & Advice, Travel - The Independent

Have a look at the photo that accompanies this article. It is claimed to be genuine, and it if is, it surely highlights the fact that the morbidly obese on aircraft is a safety issue if they are not able to take up two seats.

Interestingly, Australian airlines claim it is not necessary to have a policy on it:

A spokeswoman for Virgin Blue said most overweight people who did not fit into one seat were aware of the problem, and many bought two seats for their own comfort.

''There is no formal policy'', the spokeswoman said.

''However, if a guest does not fit into a seat on a full flight they will be moved to the next available flight, and we have no plans to follow the example of Air France-KLM,'' she said.

A spokeswoman for Qantas said the airline did everything it could to meet the needs of customers.

''Should a customer require extra space on a flight, we seat them next to an empty seat where possible,'' she said.

''However, the only way for a customer to guarantee extra space is to either purchase two economy seats or fly business or first class.

Those who think they don't have a problem fitting into a seat must cause some problems from time to time, though.

Uncertainties detailed

The real holes in climate science : Nature News

It would appear that "climategate" (and perhaps now the Himalaya glacier mistake in the IPCC report) has led to some prominent climate scientists sounding humbler. Gavin Schmidt at Real Climate has been sounding more modest lately, and he features prominently in the above article, which I hope Nature keeps available for some time.

It's a very good explanation of those areas of climate science which are still poorly understand and/or subject to very uncertain predictions. In short, they are:

1. regional climate predictions,
2. the effect on precipitation,
3. the role of aerosols, and
4. use of proxies for past climate reconstructions.

The short story is: the atmosphere is really, really complicated, and building accurate models of its behaviour on the scale needed for good regional predictions is very, very hard.

I think this probably goes against the modern intuition, at least of younger people who use computers all the time. I suspect that even the use of sophisticated games software, which deal with thousand of options and combinations and seem to create incredibly detailed "worlds" inside a mere household computer, gives the false impression that modelling a column of air (and extending it globally) could not be so hard.

So it is good now and again to be reminded that big uncertainties remain.

But: the big danger of articles like this is that, as we all know, AGW deniers will use absolutely any mistake (no matter how minor) or admission of lack of knowledge to claim that it is totally rubbish and unreliable.

The Nature article does have short "box" on enduring climate change myths, but it just deals with them briefly.

Of course, what deniers also miss is that there is (as far as I know) no particular reason to assume that the areas in which knowledge are still lacking are all matters which will eventually be resolved in a way relatively harmless for humanity. They could all be matters which end up worse than current predictions.

The other issue that people always forget is ocean acidification, about which I have not posted for a while, but there is plenty of new material out there. I remain strongly of the view that it alone is reason to stop CO2 as soon as possible, as it is extremely difficult to tell where the ecological changes that will bring will take us.