UnEnglish and Unmanly

That's the title of a .pdf paper  I've stumbled across from 1982 about Anglo-Catholicism in England and its appeal to homosexual men.  It's by Adelaide historian David Hilliard, who (I think) has been on the ABC from time to time.

I vaguely knew about this topic, but didn't realise how "hot" an issue it was at the time of Newman and his followers.  Haven't read all of it yet, but it's an interesting read.   (I also wonder whether this aspect of the Anglican Church put off a figure like CS Lewis from moving towards the Catholic Church.)

Spectre arrives

I see from Rottentomatoes that the first British reviews for Spectre are pretty strong.  (Mind you, they still seem to be classifying one dubious review as a good one.)   That's pleasing.

But of course, all right thinking people will be off to see Bridge of Spies this weekend, to bask in the magnificence of a well made Spielberg. 

Another go at the economics of climate change

Expect to hear a lot about this study just out from some Berkeley researchers.  The headline from the Washington Post:

Sweeping study claims that rising temperatures will sharply cut economic productivity 

The claim is simple, but interesting:

Culling together economic and temperature data for over 100 wealthy
and poorer countries alike over 50 years, the researchers assert that
the optimum temperature for human productivity is seems to be around 13
degrees Celsius or roughly 55 degrees Fahrenheit, as an annual average
for a particular place. Once things get a lot hotter than that, the
researchers add, economic productivity declines “strongly.”

“The relationship is globally generalizable, unchanged since 1960, and
apparent for agricultural and non-agricultural activity in both rich and
poor countries,” write the authors, led by Marshall Burke of Stanford’s
Department of Earth System Science, who call their study “the first
evidence that economic activity in all regions is coupled to the global
climate.” Burke published the study with Solomon Hsiang and Edward
Miguel, economists at the University of California, Berkeley.

If the findings are correct, they add, that means that unmitigated
global warming could lead to a more than 20 percent decline in incomes
around the world, compared with a world that does not feature climate
change. And this would also mean growing global inequality, since poorer
countries will be hit by worse temperature increases — simply because
“hot, poor countries will probably suffer the largest reduction in
growth.” Indeed, some already wealthier countries with cold weather,
like Canada or Sweden, will benefit greatly based on the study, moving
closer to the climatic optimum.

 But things start to sound a bit more shaky here:

Assuming this relationship between temperature and productivity is
correct, that naturally leads to deep questions about its cause. The
researchers locate them in two chief places: agriculture and people. In
relation to rising temperature, Burke says, “We see that agricultural
productivity declines, labor productivity declines, kids do worse on
tests, and we see more violence.”

Yes, not sure I'd be entirely confident of the heat and violence connection, but if we go over to the university press release on this study, there is more reason to question the accuracy of the new study:

Unmitigated climate change is likely to reduce the income of an average
person on Earth by roughly 23 percent in 2100, according to estimates
contained in research published today in the journal Nature that is co-authored by two University of California, Berkeley professors.

 So far, so disastrous.  But look:

The Nature paper focuses on effects of climate change via
temperature, and does not include impacts via other consequences of
climate change such as hurricanes or sea level rise. Detailed results
and figures for each country are available for download online.

Or, I might add, rainfall pattern changes, or ocean acidification and potential large scale changes to the food cycle there.  How the heck can you be confident of projections if you cannot be certain how many poor countries may be destined to longer droughts and/or more frequent ones, followed by larger floods?    And what about poor coastal countries where local fish is an important food source?

So, I think there are grounds to argue that this study is another example that accurate predictions of the economic consequences of global warming decades into the future are pretty much guesswork. But at least it notes that the uncertainty is no grounds for complacency, as techo-optimist libertarian types seem to think.

And it does support one thing that I reckon common sense suggests:     the poor nations will suffer disproportionately from climate change; and even if some pro-development-at-any-climate-cost proponents had their way and we had every poor country building coal burning power plants as fast as they could, they are not going to develop their way economically fast enough to outpace the damage from climate change.   They're not going to be able to aircondition their agricultural sectors, after all; nor are they all going to be manufacturing centres, or financial hubs making a living from mobile money.

Back to how bad some of the study's projections are (from the University link above):

They find climate change is likely to have global costs generally
2.5-100 times larger than predicted by current leading models. The
team’s best estimate is that climate change will reduce global economic
production by 23 percent in 2100.

“Historically, people have considered a 20 percent decline in global
Gross Domestic Product to be a black swan: a low-probability
catastrophe,” Hsiang warned. “We’re finding it’s more like the
middle-of-the-road forecast.”

Half of the simulation projections suggest larger losses. The hottest
countries in the world are hardest hit: in less optimistic scenarios,
the authors estimate that 43 percent of countries are likely to be
poorer in 2100 than today due to climate change, despite incorporating
standard projections of technological progress and other advances.

 Richard Tol is already bleating about this, I see.  Given that I consider him a discredited jerk, I'm not surprised, but it will still be interesting to read more coverage about this.

Update:  here's the abstract from Nature in full:

Growing evidence demonstrates that climatic conditions can have a profound impact on the functioning of modern human societies^{1, 2}, but effects on economic activity appear inconsistent. Fundamental productive elements of modern economies, such as workers and crops, exhibit highly non-linear responses to local temperature even in wealthy countries^{3, 4}. In contrast, aggregate macroeconomic productivity of entire wealthy countries is reported not to respond to temperature⁵, while poor countries respond only linearly^{5, 6}. Resolving this conflict between micro and macro observations is critical to understanding the role of wealth in coupled human–natural systems^{7, 8} and to anticipating the global impact of climate change^{9, 10}. Here we unify these seemingly contradictory results by accounting for non-linearity at the macro scale. We show that overall economic productivity is non-linear in temperature for all countries, with productivity peaking at an annual average temperature of 13 °C and declining strongly at higher temperatures. The relationship is globally generalizable, unchanged since 1960, and apparent for agricultural and non-agricultural activity in both rich and poor countries. These results provide the first evidence that economic activity in all regions is coupled to the global climate and establish a new empirical foundation for modelling economic loss in response to climate change^{11, 12}, with important implications. If future adaptation mimics past adaptation, unmitigated warming is expected to reshape the global economy by reducing average global incomes roughly 23% by 2100 and widening global income inequality, relative to scenarios without climate change. In contrast to prior estimates, expected global losses are approximately linear in global mean temperature, with median losses many times larger than leading models indicate.

Paranoia, probably

The average gun owner now owns 8 guns — double what it used to be - The Washington Post

The Right wing paranoia that's been on the rise in the US would have to play a significant part in this, surely.

Well, he does appear a lot on Fox News, so what do you expect?

Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu stirs trouble by linking Muslim leader to Holocaust

I can't even see any Right wing blog cite defending Netanyahu's history claims.  Not yet, anyway.

Something Back to the Future missed

Westmead Hospital to offer life-saving, stomach-churning, poo transplant cure

Yes, poo transplants are going mainstream.

It's pretty amazing, really, how no one seemed to see the importance of our gut microbiota until recently.

And for all you fans of a what's basically a new field of medicine, I see there is a website up with the great name Gut Microbiota Worldwatch, run by a bunch of European gastroenterologists, it seems.  (Which, come to think of it, is probably appropriate, since I think Germans have been a bit ahead of the field in having a keen interest in observing poop for health reasons.  Whether they truly have a national interest in all things poop related seems up for debate, however.)

Are you in a superposition?

Hey, I didn't know that we had a "Department of Quantum Science" in ANU.  But I do now, after reading this paper (.pdf link) from last month which deals with the following:

In this paper we address the question of whether it is possible to obtain evidence that we are in a superposition of different ‘worlds’, as suggested by the relative state interpretation of quantum mechanics. We find that it is impossible to find definitive proof, and that if one wishes to retain reliable memories of which ‘world’ one was in, no evidence at all can be found. We then show that even for completely linear quantum state evolution, there is a test that can be done to tell if you can be placed in a superposition.

Ok, so I don't quite understand their test, even if it sounds pretty simple.  I'm surprised Googling the author's names doesn't bring up any media press release from the university.

There is a report about the paper here, which also has a link to a rather odd website where people swear they are remembering alternative histories, rather than just having bad, malleable memories.

All rather odd.

Oh, diddums

Funny how the IPA thinks that governments shouldn't be funding research, but are convinced it's a matter of "censorship" when it backs out of funding research on which research should be funded.  (Well, that's how I interpret some of Lomborg's "consensus" wonkery.)

Anyway, it's obviously all because they see a useful delaying tactic ally in the 'Borg, as far as climate change is concerned. 

Krugman considers Denmark

Something Not Rotten in Denmark - The New York Times

As Krugman writes:

Describe these policies to any American conservative, and he would predict ruin.  Surely those generous benefits must destroy the incentive to work, while those high taxes drive job creators into hiding or exile.

Strange to say, however, Denmark doesn’t look like a set from “Mad Max.” On the
contrary, it’s a prosperous nation that does quite well on job creation. In fact, adults in their prime working years are substantially more likely to be employed in Denmark than they are in America. Labor productivity in Denmark is roughly the same as it is here, although G.D.P. per capita is lower, mainly because the Danes take a lot more vacation.

Nor are the Danes melancholy: Denmark ranks at or near the top on international comparisons of “life satisfaction.”

It’s hard to imagine a better refutation of anti-tax, anti-government economic doctrine, which insists that a system like Denmark’s would be completely unworkable.

It does make you wonder how some economists and politicians become obsessed with the idea that "anti-tax, anti-government" is the only  possible way to run a successful modern nation.

Early life, mistreated coral, the unhealthy rich, and the dubious figures of climate change damage

Phys.org is full of interesting stories today.  Here's one, saying that the start of life on Earth can (perhaps) be pushed back to 4.1 billion years ago. 

Given that the planet only formed at about the 4.5 billion mark, that's pretty quick.

And here's another, this one about how humans, with their use of sunscreens, may be loving some coral reefs to death. 

Then what about this - rich, urban medieval folk were arguably less healthy than those slaving away on farms, all because of lead glazing (and lead roof tiles.)

Finally:  the dubious methods of "normalising" economic damage from climate change (that is, the long running shtick of Roger Pielke Jnr) is probably a crock.   I always suspected that, and I think the lesson is: don't let economists get too involved in climate change policy - they can be a menace to good policy.

Lots of universe left to run

Most earth-like worlds have yet to be born, according to theoretical study

Earth came early to the party in the evolving universe. According to a new theoretical study,
when our solar system was born 4.6 billion years ago only eight percent of the potentially habitable planets that will ever form in the universe existed. And, the party won't be over when the sun burns out in another 6 billion years. The bulk of those planets—92 percent—have yet to be born.

The same story claims this:

The data show that the universe was making stars at a fast rate 10 billion years ago, but
the fraction of the universe's hydrogen and helium gas that was involved was very low. Today, star birth is happening at a much slower rate than long ago, but there is so much leftover gas available that the universe will keep cooking up stars and planets for a very long time to come.

"There is enough remaining material [after the big bang] to produce even more planets in the future, in the Milky Way and beyond," added co-investigator Molly Peeples of STScI.

Kepler's planet survey indicates that Earth-sized planets in a star's habitable zone, the perfect distance that could allow water to pool on the surface, are ubiquitous in our galaxy. Based on the survey, scientists predict that there should be 1 billion Earth-sized worlds in the Milky Way galaxy at present, a good portion of them presumed to be rocky. That estimate skyrockets when you include the other 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.

This leaves plenty of opportunity for untold more Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone to arise in the future. The last star isn't expected to burn out until 100 trillion years from now. That's plenty of time for literally anything to happen on the planet landscape.

Yes, Happy Back to the Future Day

The Back to the Future trilogy serves the surprising function of providing something upon which Sinclair Davidson, long term stuck-in-the-1950's-and-he-wasn't-even-born-then uber Catholic and Catallaxy fixture CL, and I, can agree.

I have a Coen brothers style fantasy vision of meeting them in a bar, and all nodding in agreement about the worthiness of the Future trilogy (yes, even the second one); then simultaneously saying  "But, jeez you're an idiot on every other topic" and a fistfight breaks out.   Jason Soon then makes an appearance, utilizing his boxing skills to stage an intervention.

Philippa Martyr can make a late entry, doing her Julia Flyte redeemed impersonation, tending to our wounds in her volunteer nurses uniform...

He's already on the backbench, but now it's time to....

Harsh, but it's the best "m" word I could come up with in the circumstances...

Not the sort of surprise I'm keen on...

From the report Asteroid making surprise flyby at an 'unusually high' velocity (my bold):

 A newly discovered asteroid (not pictured) will make Halloween more thrilling by passing within 1.3 lunar distances (310,000 miles) of Earth. The object, which measures between 300 and 600 meters (1,000 and 2,000 feet) across, was discovered last week by the asteroid-hunting Pan-STARRS observatory in Hawaii, according to NASA. It'll streak by on October 31st at an "unusually" high encounter velocity of 35 km/s, or around 78,000 mph. By contrast, the Russian meteorite caught by vehicle cameras in 2013 was 17 meters (55 feet) across and traveled at a top speed of 19 km/s, while the one that flattened a Russian forest in 1908 measured 40 meters (130 feet).

There's no danger of a collision, but the asteroid would pack an enormous punch if it did hit the Earth, given its size and especially its velocity. It's also a bit alarming that astronomers only found it nine days ago, considering how close it already is to our planet.

Well, this would suggest that it's still quite on the cards that one day, NASA will announce that a substantial disaster will be taking place somewhere on the Earth with (perhaps) all of 10 days notice for people to head for the hills, or dig a bunker, or whatever.

All a bit of a worry....

Dealing with the big issues

When is it socially acceptable to wear black tights? | Fashion | The Guardian

One of the best things about The Guardian is that when you see an article that is surely just a bit of space filling, inconsequential fluff,  the comments thread following is full of amusingly rabid attack on just those grounds. 

No wonder I'm confused

Backreaction: Book review: Spooky Action at a Distance by George Musser

Very careful readers of this most excellent blog (I'm craving appreciation again) may recall that I recently noted in a comment that I wasn't really sure what nonlocality in physics meant.

Seems I'm not alone, as my favourite blogging physicist Sabine H writes in this post reviewing a book on the topic:

 Locality and non-locality are topics as confusing as controversial, both
in- and outside the community, and George’s book is a great
introduction to an intriguing development in contemporary physics. It’s a
courageous book. I can only imagine how much headache writing it must
have been, after I once organized a workshop on nonlocality and realized
that no two people could agree on what they even meant with the word.

My confusion is therefore excused...

Yay! Some dissing of 1984

Goodbye to all that: Orwell's 1984 is a boot stamping on a human face no more

I've written before how much I disliked 1984 as a high school student, and yet felt compelled to write about it somewhat positively because of its near universal critical acclaim.

I think this academic's take on its mere transitory relevance as parable is just about right.  Why wasn't he around when I needed him in 1975?   

The Martian, spoiled

Went to see The Martian this evening.

Now, let me be clear: I deliberately did not want to be affected by the articles on the web with titles like "Just how accurate is the science in The Martian?"; so I didn't look at them, til now.  Nor did I read any reviews:  I just saw from Rottentomatoes and Metacritic that it had been generally well received.   So I didn't really go into it with any particular expectation as to why it was meant to be good.

And my verdict:  a mediocre, surprisingly scientifically inaccurate, film.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER ALERT

Look, I had my doubts about the strength of the dust storm at the start of the film, being aware that the atmosphere is incredibly thin, even though there are big, planet covering, dust storms from time to time.

But, yeah, turns out that this, a key element of the plot, is ludicrously overblown.  (Pun alert too.)  Here's long time Mar mission enthusiast Robert Zubrin's comment:

This is the only thing I noticed that was completely impossible, as opposed to improbable or sub-optimal. The Martian atmosphere is only 1% as thick as Earth’s, so a Mars wind of 100mph, which is possible although quite rare on the surface, would only have the same dynamic force as a 10mph wind on Earth. You could fly a kite in it, but it wouldn’t knock you down.

OK, but this was just a hunch on my part while watching the film.

No, the bit where the movie lost me on the science cred front was the ridiculous size of the main Ares Hermes spacecraft; and the spacious, apartment like setting of the living quarters in the rotating ring.

Come on Hollywood:  movies that are trying to be realistic about planetary missions need to be so  about the scale of spaceships likely within the next 50 years.  It perhaps wasn't as bad as the enormous spaceship out to re-light the sun (or whatever it was doing) in that horrible Sunshine movie, but that one wasn't really going for accuracy in the way The Martian was.

So why make living quarters with enormous, Star Wars battlecruiser-like windows?  It made the Jupiter bound spaceship in 2001: A Space Odyssey look hokey in comparison.  The movie never recovered for me after that.

And as for silly physics:  how have science types watching not have been upset by the "use the air in my spacesuit as a rocket" tactic at what is meant to be the dramatic climax of the film?   This was worse than anything in Gravity, if you ask me: far worse.

OK - so you get the message that the film lost me on the scientific plausibility front.

But it didn't grab me on the psychological front, either.  I don't really care for Matt Damon as an actor, but I would have thought the story should spend some time on the psychological strain of isolation on his character.  Instead, he's just relentlessly upbeat, pretty much.

In fact, people left in isolation often have hallucinations of someone (or something) unseen being present with them.  You would have thought there should be some incident of creepiness in the film, even if only in a scary dream sequence in which his fears are displayed.  But nope.   The film is too damn cheery to be effective.

I can understand why NASA scientists may like the film, for showing the organisation as comprising caring, "can-do" type people.  And the habitat on Mars setting looked pretty realistic.

But overall, it's not a great or memorable film. 

Update:  I've been reading up on Reddit some very nerd-centric comments about the film.  (They are mostly ecstatic about it, incidentally.)  But here are a few updates to my commentary in light of that:

* yes, I should have mentioned last night the use of an explosion on the Hermes to get its speed close enough to that of the just-launched Matt Damon.  Improbable, especially when the bomb is rigged up in (I think) about 30 minutes, but I'm not sure if it was in the book or not.  Certainly, the "Ironman" sequence is not:  it's apparently suggested, and rejected.  How un-wise of the film to make it happen.

* the author of the book freely admits that the opening, and critical, sandstorm is artistic licence, in that it could not topple the lander or hurl rocks and metal around.   Why use it, then?  It would be more impressive to come with a reason to abandon a crew member that was actually possible.

* a more minor but related point:  after Damon rigs up a plastic cover for the blown airlock, there's one scene where he is inside at night with the sounds of another fierce, pebble hurling, sandstorm outside.  Would the plastic really be capable of withstanding that?

* Yes, the explanation of the gravity assist slingshot to get the Hermes back to Mars was really poorly handled in the film.  Instead of treating the head of NASA as a dumbo who would never have heard of a gravity slingshot before, why not have it shown by him explaining to the a dumbo media person how it would work?

*  a very detailed and informed look at the trajectories used in the book and film are at this link.  Apparently, the book is based on a 2035 mission, making the size and sophistication of the Hermes spacecraft in the movie even more ridiculous!   And as someone in comments following it says:

However, forgiving all of those previous errors, the ones that I find utterly unforgivable are in the climax (spoilers!) where Watley is shot into space to rendezvous with the Hermes (slowed down by a jury-rigged explosion!???, oh please!!!) in a stripped down capsule with no windows and ultimately no steerable spacecraft, then using a self-made hole in the glove of his spacesuit to propel himself towards the awaiting MMU of his rescuers! Rendezvous is very, very, very, very, very, very difficult! It's not just hard, it's really, really, really hard. The relative velocities, the trajectories, the math! You don't just point two guns at each other and pull the triggers! Hollywood has a penchant for such shenanigans (Gravity, Mission to Mars, now The Martian).

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the movie, but the rescue process in the 2nd half nearly ruined it. Just once, I'd like to see a scifi movie where they get the science right all the way through!

 Quite right, although I didn't exactly enjoy the movie the way that person did...

Update 2:   I can't stop thinking of things in the movie that didn't quite make sense.   Here's another:   Watney is a botanist?   Why take a botanist to Mars?   There's no sign of a plant anywhere on the spaceship or habitat.  Apparently, in the book he is an engineer (although perhaps also a botanist?)  In any event, noting him as having engineering qualifications of some sort in the movie would have helped understand his abilities at constructing stuff.

Two articles for weekend worrying

The AGU website, which I should probably visit more often, has two climate change articles of concern:

1.  Diatoms are not doing well:

The world’s oceans have seen significant declines in certain types of microscopic plant-life at the base of the marine food chain, according to a new study. The research, accepted for publication in Global Biogeochemical Cycles, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, is the first to look at global, long-term phytoplankton community trends based on a model driven by NASA satellite data.

Diatoms, the largest type of phytoplankton algae, have declined more than 1 percent per year from 1998 to 2012 globally, with significant losses occurring in the North Pacific, North Indian and Equatorial Indian oceans. The reduction in population may reduce the amount of carbon dioxide drawn out of the atmosphere and transferred to the deep ocean for long-term storage.

2. Methane blooms off the coast of Washington and Oregon seem to be related to warming waters:

Warming ocean temperatures a third of a mile below the surface, in a dark ocean in areas with little marine life, might attract scant attention. But this is precisely the depth where frozen pockets of methane ‘ice’ transition from a dormant solid to a powerful greenhouse gas.  New research suggests that subsurface warming could be causing more methane gas to bubble up off the Washington and Oregon coast.

The study shows that of 168 bubble plumes observed within the past decade, a disproportionate number were seen at a critical depth for the stability of methane hydrates. The study has been accepted for publication in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, a journal of the American Geophysical Union

Most of this methane is not making the surface, but it's increasing the acidity of the oceans anyway:

 If methane bubbles rise all the way to the surface, they enter the atmosphere and act as a powerful greenhouse gas. But most of the deep-sea methane seems to get consumed during the journey up. Marine microbes convert the methane into carbon dioxide, producing lower-oxygen, more-acidic conditions in the deeper offshore water, which eventually wells up along the coast and surges into coastal waterways.

Not very encouraging...

Climate whiplash

Why Winning the War on Climate Change Will Require a Technocratic Revolution - The Atlantic

If you ask me, there is a bit of a problem going on with "climate whiplash" at the moment.

On the one hand, you have a series of relatively optimist papers and reports about the rapid drop in price of renewables and the great potential for affordable battery storage to make it even more attractive; on the other hand you have stories like this one about how really, really hard the problem of a rapid reduction in global CO2 is.

Apart from the story linked above, here's Kevin Anderson being a pessimist, too:

The world’s top climate scientists are deliberately downplaying the challenge of avoiding warming above the 2C danger zone because of pressure from funders and politicians.

That’s the view of Kevin Anderson, professor of climate change at University of Manchester, in an article published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Wednesday.

He argues the rapid level of greenhouse gas cuts required to ensure the world does not blow what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) termed a “carbon budget” would mean a radical shift in consumption and energy use in rich countries.

“Delivering on such a 2C emission pathway cannot be reconciled with the repeated and
high-level claims that in transitioning to a low-carbon energy system global economic growth would not be strongly affected,” he says.

But instead of warning governments that they need to implement an energy revolution, Anderson argues many influential scientists continue to suggest warming above 2C can be avoided through a steady transition away from fossil fuels.

“We simply are not prepared to accept the revolutionary implications of our own findings, and even when we do we are reluctant to voice such thoughts openly,” he writes.

While Anderson may have a point to a degree, the real problem with too much pessimism is that it encourages the fools who have never wanted to do anything anyway, and may increase the political power they already richly do not deserve.

And I also suspect that the pessimists underestimate the power of  markets to make rapid changes if they have the right combination of market signals and regulation.   By being too pessimistic, they are not encouraging  the badly needed price signal.