Quark Soup

Louis CK

2009-07-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

Louis CK: "We live in an amazing, amazing world, and it's wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots."

via: Terry Gold

The World's Happiest Man

2009-07-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

The New York Times has an article about the man who is purportedly the "world's happiest":

Daniel Goleman wonders if science can explain the good cheer of the “world's happiest man.”

These kind of article are really annoying. Of course science can't explain this man's good cheer. "Cheer" is a human, value-laden term that is completely subjective, not to mention exceedingly vague, and can't be scientifically defined.

So is the claim of "happiest."

Science is good with electrons and cells and even neutron stars. It's not applicable to made-up, undefined terms like "cheer." Can we stop this silliness?

Chris Mooney's latest bad idea

2009-07-17T13:47:00.001-07:00

Chris Mooney continues to put forth bad ideas in the name of what he thinks is needed to solve the climate change problem, ideas that are actually dangerous. He (again) just doesn't understand what science is or how it works.

In an interview in Discover magazine blog hawking his book, Mooney says:

Q: Chris pointed out here that climate change denier extraordinaire Marc Morano may be dead wrong, but he’s articulate, well funded, and there’s no one on the science side that competes with him. What specifically can be done to change that?

A: It’s simple: Things won’t change until the world of science invests in creating counter-Moranos. There are many talented and extremely young intelligent people in science today who could fill that role, but there is little training available for them, and even less of a career trajectory for them to get there.

Note what he's suggesting: that the climate change community should emulate somehow who is "dead wrong."

This is so misguided it's hard to believe anyone would suggest it. It's also untrue, as things have "changed" in Europe and elsewhere without Morano-like spinning.

Look: science has one thing going for it -- just one thing. But it is everything. And that is intellectual integrity. That is its only strength, in this crappy world of hype and spin and media manipulation. But it is everything.

As soon as you abandon intellectual integrity, as Marc Morano has done, as Drudge has done, s soon are you start listing how cold it was in Timber Falls, Idaho or northeastern India yesterday, and all of that crap... you give away the whole game. You stoop to their level. You lose the only thing that science really has -- honestly.

Science has nothing else going for it. It isn't easy to understand. It takes a long time. It can be expensive.

But in the end it is always right.

Science has never lost one, not even one, intellectual argument, ever. Science always finds the answer, without spin, without hype, in any controversial subject: lead in gasoline, the ozone hole, the structure of the solar system, DDT, mercury in vaccinations, the purported ether, quantum mechanics, you name it.

Science always wins. Always.

Read you history and see how the scientists who called out the deleterious effects of lead in gasoline where treated by the industry. Or how Rachel Carson was harrassed by the chemical industry. What's happening now isn't anything different.

Rachel Carson didn't win by playing their game. Nor did Galileo. They won by sticking to science.

Yes, good science and its communication takes time. But it's not that slow, really. Look at where the world is today, compared to 10 years ago. Yes, that 10 years is a dangerous delay, but it's inevitable, and necessary, even in countries where scientific literacy is purportedly high. Europe hasn't exactly set any standards with how to deal with the climate problem.

The absolute worst thing science could do would be to emulate its opponents and submit to spin and hype and "reframing." These are terrible ideas, thought up by the unscientific. Reframing is just another word for spin, dolled-up.

The moment you abandon real science and resort to spinning and Morano-like tactics, you have admitted to losing the game. You might get a bill passed in the next Congress, but nothing permanent will come of it and the cause of science will be lost.

Scientists know this, which is why they stick to science. Activists don't know it, which is why they look foolish and no one listens to them except the choir.

Warmest Day Ever?

2009-07-16T10:21:00.000-07:00

Roger Pielke Jr. presents the UAH chart showing that this past Tuesday was, globally, the warmest day since at least 1998. In fact, it was warmer than even that monster year.

But global temperatures declined on Wednesday, signifying the start of yet another global cooling phase.

What is up with this?

2009-07-15T07:27:00.001-07:00

True to form, WUWT questions the June GISS temperature data because it's too high for their liking. When it's low, they accept the data without question. But when it's high, the data are wrong.

Meanwhile, ClimateDepot doesn't even mention the GISS data. But it was colder than usual in New York recently....

Palin's Op-Ed Against Cap-and-Trade

2009-07-14T19:47:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin's op-ed in the Washington Post is truly remarkable -- in an entire piece on cap-and-trade, she does not address at all the reason why cap-and-trade is being considered, let alone provide any alternatives. Not once does she admit that carbon buildup in a danger, or that global warming exists, or that there are costs to not restricting carbon buildup in the atmosphere and oceans. Not once.

The closest she comes is this sentence:

Just as important, we have more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign nation from which we purchase energy today.

That's it, a statement that is so general as to be useless, and probably not even true.

Wow.

P.S.: Basic economics -- If we don't make carbon-based energy more expensive, people won't use less of it, and there will be no incentive for anyone to invest in noncarbon sources. The price of carbon-based energy must increase.

2nd Warmest June

2009-07-14T15:43:00.000-07:00

NASA GISS says that last month was the second-warmest June in their records (after only 1998), +0.63°C above the baseline.

Arctic Sea Ice decreasing in Volume

2009-07-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

Here's a paper people have been anticipating: the decrease in Arctic sea ice volume, and not just the 2-dimensional extent.

Kwok, R., G. F. Cunningham, M. Wensnahan, I. Rigor, H. J. Zwally, and D. Yi (2009), Thinning and volume loss of the Arctic Ocean sea ice cover: 2003–2008, J. Geophys. Res., 114, C07005, doi:10.1029/2009JC005312.

There's a lot of methodology and crosschecks to wade through in the paper, but basically they find that is getting thinner due to warmer temperatures. -- and, of course, volume is a better indicator than mere extent. They find the older ice has thinned by about 0.6 m over the last five years (the ice is about 2-3 m thick, depending on the time of year).

Along with a more than 42% decrease in multiyear (MY) ice coverage since 2005, there was a remarkable thinning of ~0.6 m in MY ice thickness over 4 years. In contrast, the average thickness of the seasonal ice in midwinter (~2 m), which covered more than two-thirds of the Arctic Ocean in 2007, exhibited a negligible trend. Average winter sea ice volume over the period, weighted by a loss of ~3000 km^3 between 2007 and 2008, was ~14,000 km^3. The total MY ice volume in the winter has experienced a net loss of 6300 km^3 (>40%) in the 4 years since 2005, while the first-year ice cover gained volume owing to increased overall area coverage. The overall decline in volume and thickness are explained almost entirely by changes in the MY ice cover. Combined with a large decline in MY ice coverage over this short record, there is a reversal in the volumetric and areal contributions of the two ice types to the total volume and area of the Arctic Ocean ice cover. Seasonal ice, having surpassed that of MY ice in winter area coverage and volume, became the dominant ice type. It seems that the near-zero replenishment of the MY ice cover after the summers of 2005 and 2007, an imbalance in the cycle of replenishment and ice export, has played a significant role in the loss of Arctic sea ice volume over the ICESat record.

From an AGU press release:

"Even in years when the overall extent of sea ice remains stable or grows slightly, the thickness and volume of the ice cover is continuing to decline, making the ice more vulnerable to continued shrinkage," says Ron Kwok, senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and leader of the study.

It will be interesting to see how this gets spun (around).

Interesting Stuff

2009-07-07T07:21:00.001-07:00

Some interesting stuff (to me, at least) that I've come across lately:

UAH temperature anomaly for June: +0.01°C. It's up (0.12°C from last June)! It's down! There's something in it for everyone.
Could there be any relation between the relative flattening of methane concentrations in the atmosphere over the last several years and the relative flattening of global temperatures? Methane levels: ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/figures/ch4_tr_global.png For example, the A1B economic scenario assumes methane levels go from 1760 ppb in 2000 to 1845 ppb in 2008, whereas methane levels only made it to about 1780 ppb. Is that a significant difference?
A perfect example of how regulation spurs innovation.
Are we entering a new Little Ice Age? This whole mirrored climate science thing is getting weird. Each side has their own papers, their own conferences, their own (N)IPCC reports....
Everett Ruess tramped alone around the west when it was still wild, then disappeared at the age of 20. He has since become a legend... and now his skeleton has been found (after being murdered).
Great line: I watched The Long Riders over the weekend, and there's a great scene where, during a train robbery by the James/Younger gang, the outlaw Bob Younger runs atop a moving train and, with a pistol in each hand, leaps down into the locomotive. The engineers back looks at him kind of annoyingly and says, "What are you aimin' to do?" and Younger says "I ain't aimin' to do nothin' -- I'm doin' it!"

Palin in 2012

2009-07-03T15:06:00.000-07:00

Ordinarily I might despair about the prospect of another ~~dumb~~ anti-intellectual, anti-science candidate running for President...but in any 2012 campaign, I'm quite sure Barack Obama will not only clean Sarah Palin's clock, he will rewire it, put on a fresh coat of paint, and promptly set it to back to the correct time.

Nothing to worry about here.

About Copenhagen

2009-07-01T22:14:00.000-07:00

"No one I talk to thinks there is going to be anything significant to come out of Copenhagen. We are going to come out and recover the deckchairs in preparation for moving them as the Titanic sinks. We're not even at the stage of rearranging them."

--Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre, The Guardian, 23 June 2009

via: Benny Peiser (email)

Mary Oliver poem

2009-07-01T21:49:00.001-07:00

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-- Mary Oliver

Cost of Waxman/Markey

2009-07-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

There have been so many purported cost analyses of Waxman/Markey that any sane person has to be confused, suspect, and pissed off. I have seen numbers from $129/household/yr to $3900/household/yr.

As must be obvious from any analysis that gives numbers differing by a factor of 25, they are all probably bullshit. No one knows within a factor of N, where N ~2-5.

The bill itself is so fucking complicated that it's almost impossible to know what it means. Of course, we couldn't have just imposed a straight tax of X% on emitted carbon.

The argument was that a percentage carbon tax doesn't allow control of the maximum level of carbon emissions. But we calculate (via models) carbon emissions every year, to about four or five significant places, and so we must know, within 12-24 months, if a particular Y% carbon tax is working to reduce emissions by Z%. If not, adjust it.

And why in the hell are we giving away emission credits for free? That's my atmosphere, and yours, and the citizens in Uganda and France and Japan and Brazil. I have a right to an unpolluted atmosphere. If you want to pollute it, then reimburse me. The federal government shouldn't be handing out emission permits like candy, but instead charging for every ton, the revenue of which will go right back to every American, just like Alaskans receive a yearly payment for Alaskan oil. (Who said it's their oil anyway? Aren't we one country here?)

This is reminiscent of the giveaway of the digital spectrum about a decade ago -- a direct transfer of wealth from the public to corporate America worth hundreds of billions of dollars. And Republicans have the nerve to talk about "class warfare" against the rich.

But here's the question: you're driving in a car towards a cliff (think young James Kirk in the new Star Trek movie). Should you apply the breaks and pay the cost of losing a bit of your brake drum, or should you ignore it and drive over the cliff?

No analysis I've seen has yet considered the cost of not addressing climate change. And not addressing climate change means carbon dioxide keeps exponentially increasing at about 0.7% a year from now to...when?

And does that mean a 2°C increase in global temperatures? Almost all scientists now say, yes. They are now saying it's probably too late to prevent a warming of at least 2°C.

American's aren't up on metric units, so let's just note that that's 4°F. That's 2/3rds of an Ice Age.

So if we can't stop at 4°F, where can we stop? The frank truth is that we're doing essentially nothing to curtail worldwide increases in CO2, and Waxman/Markey will not have much effect on this trend, if any. It will get us in the habit of thinking about carbon, which is its best attribute, but if there has been this much fight about merely passing this bill, can you imagine the hallabaloo if Obama and Congress really tried to address climate change, i.e. get us off carbon completely?

It is politically impossible. And, with current technologies, technologically impossible.

The American public just doesn't realize this. They think if they buy a hybrid car and buy Energy Star appliances the climate change problem will go away. When in truth is will hardly even begin to be addressed at that point, as civilization is currently configured.

We are in for a world of hurt. I hope James Inhofe and Marc Morano are around in the year 2030. I'd really, really like to know what they have to say then. 'Course, Inhofe, Singer, Avery, D'Aleo, Michaels, McIntyre... will all be dead. Perhaps they could at least leave us a statement titled: "In Case I Was Wrong...."

Bawitdaba

2009-07-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry, but I love everything about this song:

If I were choosing songs to go on a golden record on a space probe to the outer reaches of the galaxy, this would be my second song (right after Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto).

Sacha Baron Cohen

2009-07-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or does anyone else find Sacha Baron Cohen wholly unfunny and already a tiresome bore? As Ali G his mock interviews were very clever, and he was funny for maybe about 10 minutes as "Borat," and I even liked him when he portrayed an angel in Heaven in Curb Your Enthusiasm, but by now his whole shtick is worn and, worse, obviously calculated, and his movie hasn't even come out yet. Everything he does exudes a tincture of of insincerity, and he's just playing off offensive stereotypes anyway.

Maybe he is funny in Europe. Maybe he is funny if you're younger. I don't think he's funny at all.

Are the Oceans Warming?

2009-07-01T08:14:00.000-07:00

On his blog yesterday Roger Pielke Sr. wrote that "Their has been no statistically significant warming of the upper ocean since 2003."

ClimateDepot picked that up, of course (strangely calling it an "article). In any case, I don't think it's true. Here's the most recent data I was able to find (click to enlarge):

Source: Levitus, S., J. I. Antonov, T. P. Boyer, R. A. Locarnini, H. E. Garcia, and A. V. Mishonov (2009), Global ocean heat content 1955–2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L07608, doi:10.1029/2008GL037155.

On Climate Politics

2009-07-01T06:11:00.000-07:00

Thomas Friedman on climate politics:

"Play hardball or don’t play at all."

Source: NY Times, July 1

2009-06-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

Timothy Egan makes a very insightful point in the NY Times, about automated cameras and remote surveillance:

There is something cynical, and certainly calculating in a bottom-line way, about city governments that ask all of us to be more involved with one another, our garbage, our plot of dirt, our newly demolished, formerly blighted communities, and then turn a cold eye to us.
My city has just joined others in unleashing software-and-camera laden vehicles that will prowl the streets, taking pictures of license plates and tire position to catch those who dare try to get another 15 minutes out of a parking meter. This is City Hall without a face. Lovely Rita, Meter Maid – I miss you.

NASA Stays with Imperial Units

2009-06-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

Somehow this seems to succinctly sum up everything that is lacking with the NASA space program over the last several decades: they've decided to engineer the replacement for the space shuttle (Project Constellation) using imperial measurement units rather than metric units.

"The Shuttle and US segments of the ISS were built using the English system of measurements," says NASA spokesman Grey Hautaluoma. "And much of the Ares launch vehicle and Kennedy Space Center ground systems are legacy hardware built in the English system, too."

It's too costly to join the rest of the world:

NASA recently calculated that converting the relevant drawings, software and documentation to the "International System" of units (SI) would cost a total of $370 million – almost half the cost of a 2009 shuttle launch, which costs a total of $759 million. "We found the cost of converting to SI would exceed what we can afford," says Hautaluoma.

That's even though there have been two spacecraft disasters due to a mix-up of metric and imperial units (the Mars Climate Orbiter Probe in 1999 and the DART spacecraft in 2006.

Can you imagine having to ever again calculate something in foot-pounds?

Krugman on Climate Change

2009-06-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

You need to be sure to read Paul Krugman's column today.

Here's an excerpt:

Well, sometimes even the most authoritative analyses get things wrong. And if dissenting opinion-makers and politicians based their dissent on hard work and hard thinking — if they had carefully studied the issue, consulted with experts and concluded that the overwhelming scientific consensus was misguided — they could at least claim to be acting responsibly.

But if you watched the debate on Friday, you didn’t see people who’ve thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don’t like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they’ve decided not to believe in it — and they’ll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.

Indeed, if there was a defining moment in Friday’s debate, it was the declaration by Representative Paul Broun of Georgia that climate change is nothing but a “hoax” that has been “perpetrated out of the scientific community.” I’d call this a crazy conspiracy theory, but doing so would actually be unfair to crazy conspiracy theorists. After all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists — a cabal so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice.

Yet Mr. Broun’s declaration was met with applause.

Quote

2009-06-28T07:15:00.001-07:00

"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean."

-- Arthur C. Clarke

What We Get With Cap and Trade

2009-06-26T11:24:00.001-07:00

Andrew Sullivan presents a telling graph about the effect of the Waxman-Markey bill on the US GDP: hardly anything in the long run. And that's assuming a cost of $1100/family/yr, which it way too high[*see below]. And It also completely ignores the cost of global climate change.

But then he writes:

This does put things in perspective, but what are we getting for that 1% decrease? By Manzi's estimate: "If the law works precisely as intended, in about one hundred years we should expect surface temperatures to be a about one-tenth of one degree Celsius lower than they otherwise would be." Small benefit; trivial cost. And that's the problem.

Actually, we get much, much more with this bill. The largest benefit is that it signals to the world we (the US) are finally starting to do something (however modest) to address climate change, and so they are now expected to do it too -- China (especially), Japan, the EU (who are already doing something, though not enough), and future US Congresses. And then together, each of us doing our part, we can solve this problem.

That's the benefit. It gives us leverage. It creates a coattail for others to grab on to. It puts our peg in the ground, allowing us to say, "match that," and to future Congresses, "surpass that."

This parsing out of individual climate actions -- the "this action will only lower temperatures by 0.000007°C" type of thing skeptics are fond of -- is extremely silly, because it completely mischaracterizes the problem, which is, of course, a global one.

There's also some hypocrisy involved, as these numbers come from climate models and their calculations of climate sensitivity. Of course, skeptics deny the accuracy of such models -- except, it seems, when it gives them the result they can use.

[*] According to the CBO, the cost of this bill is $175/household/yr, far less than what Manzi reports. It would cost low-income households nothing.

Taco Bell's Grand Army Plaza

2009-06-23T22:15:00.000-07:00

How far is society sinking? New York City has just sold the naming rights to some subway stops to Barclay's bank. $4M.

Hopefully subway riders will ignore it and just call the stop ... whatever they are calling it now, some nexus of the subway stops at Atlantic Avenue, Pacific Street and Flatbush Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn.

American don't care that their heritage is being sold out from underneath them.

Straphangers at the Atlantic Avenue station like Nick Desio, 53, a Citigroup employee who commutes from Long Island, said names were beside the point. “They can call it anything they want, as long as my train’s on time,” he said.

Warmest May in Four Years

2009-06-22T07:04:00.000-07:00

Last month was the warmest May since 2005, according to the Hadley Centre: +0.394°C above the long-term average for the global average.

2009-06-21T15:59:00.001-07:00

The upcoming sci-fi movie District 9 has a very interesting Web site....

The movie premiers August 14th, I think.