Running Gamak: Warren Senders' Blog

Year 3, Month 2, Day 5: It’s All About The Benjamins

The Bangor Daily News’ Dana Wilde talks about why Climate Change is real:

Several readers, with helpful intentions I’m sure, reassured me earlier this month with a few pats on the head that climate change, if it’s even happening, is a natural occurrence that’s nothing to do with us and moreover, to jog me out of naivete, that global warming is a hoax. Don’t worry, be happy, we were sagely advised in the 1980s.

Here are some of the points I’ve heard that are meant to reassure me there’s no need to worry about climate change or global warming:

• It still gets cold in winter.

• Earth’s climate has always changed and always will change.

• Global warming is just a theory.

• There is no proof the exhaust from my car hurts anything.

• Scientists are often wrong.

• Scientists fake climate research findings.

• Global warming is not mentioned in the Bible.

• There was no Y2K disaster.

The problem I have with these arguments is that I believe in the existence of computers, cellphones, penicillin, bone marrow transplants and internal combustion engines. I also believe in photosynthesis, DNA, infrared light, blood types, viruses, the theory of relativity and the vibration A440, even though I have never seen any of these actual items or processes with my eyes.

What I mean by this is that the same method of study — namely, what we call “the scientific method” — led to microchips, life-saving chemistry, instant communication and so on. So that method has a certain high reliability. It has been applied to Earth’s climate, and so the findings of climatologists are very likely to be in the same range of reliability.

Now, if the climatologists were disagreeing about the findings, then we would have a situation where the research was incomplete, the matter was not fully understood and global warming would be “just a theory.” In other words, the scientists would not yet be sure whether the proposed explanation was completely accurate to reality or not. Scientists are often wrong about their theories. That’s why they keep compiling, analyzing and checking data until they agree on an accurate explanation.

It’s a good piece. And the comments are mostly full of stupid (don’t these trolls have anything better to do? Or would they all fail Turing tests?). I felt the time was ripe for an OWS-style letter. Sent January 30:

Cui bono? Once conservative media outlets and their allies in politics ginned up a “controversy” about the causes and severity of global climate change, it is appropriate to ask: who benefits from increased support of climate science? And, conversely, who benefits from delay and obfuscation?

On the one hand, climatologists in small teams, angling for (at most) a few million dollars to carry out complex research projects. On the other hand, companies like Exxon, which reported profits of 10.6 billion in the first quarter of 2011 — over two thousand times more than a five-million dollar grant for a typical climate study carried out over several years. Rex Tillerson, Exxon’s CEO, received twenty-nine million dollars last year, over three hundred times the average salary of a climate scientist.

Big oil’s obscene profits won’t survive once America changes its energy economy. No wonder they want to confuse the subject as much as possible.

Warren Senders

The Bhendi Bazaar Gharana…

…is rooted in the singing style of Ustad Aman Ali Khan.

Ustad Aman Ali Khan ‘Amar’ (1888–1953) was an Indian classical vocalist and composer from the Bhendibazaar Gharana. He brought many Carnatic ragas into Hindustani classical music.

Aman Ali was the son of Chhajju Khan, one of the founders of the Bhendibazaar Gharana, who came from Uttar Pradesh and settled in the Bhendibazaar area of Bombay. Aman Ali learned Carnatic music under the guidance of Kalanidhi Bidaram Krishnappa, court musician of Mysore state. He introduced rhythmic play (layakari) and style of solfa singing (sargam) to the Bhendibazaar gharana. Aman Ali’s music was especially noted for its rhythmic sargam patterns, for which he derived inspiration from Carnatic music. The great vocalist Amir Khan considered Aman Ali to be a major musical influence in his life.

Aman Ali left Bombay in 1947 and settled in Pune. He contracted pneumonia while visiting Delhi for concerts and died on February 11, 1953.

His style influenced Amir Khan and Vasantrao Deshpande. His disciples include T. D. Janorikar, Muhammed Hussain Khan, playback singers Manna Dey and Lata Mangeshkar, music director Nisar Bazmi, Wali Ahmed Khan, B. Chaitanya Dev and harmonium player Shantilal.

Wiki

Pt. Devasthali had a long association with Mohammad Hussain Khan, and learned quite a few things from him. Guruji’s intricate sargam work was clearly influenced by the Bhendi Bazaar approach.

Bhendi Bazaar, Gayaki includes the following prominent characteristics :

1. Akar sung in open voice
2. Improvisation of the raga (alap, taan and sargam) based on Khandmer principle, i.e. various combinations of a given set of notes to bring
out beauty and melody of the Raga.
3. Presentation in Madhya laya (medium tempo), and madhyadrut laya (medium fast tempo),
4. Melodious smooth meends with breath control,
5. Forceful Gamak taans, sapat taans and satta taans,
6. Presentation of Bandishes having delightful mixture of shabda, soor and laya (words, notes and tempo)
7. Dance oriented structure of singing of sargams (singing complex combinations of solfa syllables in harmony with their designated pitches)
8. Individualistic and beautiful rhythm play.
9. Inclusion of some melodious ragas of Karnatak Music, such as Hansdhwani, Nag swaravali, Pratapvarali.

Ustad Aman Ali Khan shunned publicity and preferred to lead a secluded, spiritual life. He rarely sang in public performances. He followed a simple life style and he was free from any bad habits. He left Mumbai in 1947 and settled in Pune. He liked reading of books on the science of music (Sangeet Shashtra) and writing on music. He had written in Urdu a volume on music, comprising of detailed description of subtleties that human voice can produce, nuances of Gayaki, different raga swaroops and notation of 200-300 Bandishes. However, the manuscript got burnt in a fire erupted at his house. When living in Pune, Pt. T.D. Janorikar and Ustad Muhammed Hussain Khan became his disciples and learnt under him for about 5 years.

Link to Swaramandakini.com

The only recording of Aman Ali I have in my collection is this lovely tarana in raga Kedar:

A recording of Aman Ali Khan singing “Jai mata tej vilambh” in Hamsdhwani (the same khyal popularized by Amir Khan’s lp recording) is available here:

THIS is the blues, okay?

Howlin’ Wolf:

from 1966, here’s How Many More Years?

Smokestack Lightnin’ :

At the end of his career, with failing kidneys, singing “Evil”:

Year 3, Month 2, Day 4: Nattering Nitwits of Know-Nothingism

The Daily Advertiser (Lafayette, LA) runs another in a series of rueful analyses from former Republicans who’ve broken with the batshit crazies now running their party:

The abuse directed at climate researchers sheds light on a tragic political truth — a cancer is consuming the soul of American conservatism. Conservatism is taking on many of the hallmarks of a cult — one in which information and doctrine are received, without question, from recognized authority figures or sources, and in which dissent cannot be tolerated. The conservative cult views the political process in apocalyptic terms, and sees its opponents as demonically evil. Sadly, climate denial is a key pillar in this cult’s ideology.

Under these circumstances, conservative scientists like Hayhoe and Emanuel are particularly dangerous. They demonstrate that there isn’t a fundamental incongruity between religious faith, or conservatism, and accepting the science behind AGW. They are heretics, calling to other conservatives from beyond the walls of the cult compound. And that’s a mortal threat to the climate deniers, and perhaps to the very existence of the cult itself.

In the end, the bullying and abuse of scientists is a sign of growing desperation. The cult must be defended, by any means. Dissenters must be intimidated into silence. With everything else against them, conservative climate deniers have only one option left – it’s time to get personal, and pound.

So the GOP’s full of crazy, huh? Gosh! Wouldn’t have expected that. Wonder why? Sent January 29:

Michael Stafford’s analysis of Republican cultishness (with particular reference to climate change denial) is exactly accurate. The exclusive reliance on received knowledge, the glib dismissal of ideologically inconvenient facts, the Manichaean mindset in which subtlety is inconceivable and compromise impossible — behold the public face of American conservatism today!

But how did the GOP turn into an apocalyptic, willfully ignorant mob? Mr. Stafford, a former party official, is readier to deplore his erstwhile compatriots’ behavior than to acknowledge the party’s complicity in its own degradation.

It’s undeniable: conservative politicians have long cultivated a virulent strain of electorally useful anti-intellectualism. Demagogues have been elected all over America by railing against “pointy-headed professors”, and “so-called experts.”

Who’d have thought that fifty years spent attacking intelligence, reason and scientific expertise would build an ignorant, unreasonable, and scientifically incompetent constituency? A few liberal intellectuals, perhaps — but their opinions didn’t count. Buncha damned hippies!

Warren Senders

Year 3, Month 2, Day 3: Take That, You Bow-Tied Carp-Faced Twerp.

The Washington Post wonders why people don’t use the words they used to use:

What happened to “climate change” and “global warming”?

The Earth is still getting hotter, but those terms have nearly disappeared from political vocabulary. Instead, they have been replaced by less charged and more consumer-friendly expressions for the warming planet.

President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday was a prime example of this shift. The president said “climate change” just once — compared with zero mentions in the 2011 address and two in 2010. When he did utter the phrase, it was merely to acknowledge the polarized atmosphere in Washington, saying, “The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change.” By contrast, Obama used the terms “energy” and “clean energy” nearly two dozen times.

It’s pretty rich, coming from the paper that’s given George Will a podium for fatuous bloviation for decades. Sent January 28:

“Climate change” was a fortuitous choice of words for Republican strategist Frank Luntz. While he was primarily attempting to dilute public concern about global warming (and the concomitant policy changes that would have endangered the profit margins of Big Oil and Big Coal), his term’s a better descriptor. In the face of mountains of evidence, the reality of climate change is irrefutable. Even “denialists” have shifted their arguments; they now assert that while the climate is indeed changing, human beings have nothing to do with it.

It’s obvious: our politicians and media outlets have failed to address a long-term existential threat. After exploiting virulent American anti-intellectualism for years, there is now no way Republican lawmakers can engage in science-based policy-making without risking electoral reprisals. But in the face of the planetary transformations wrought by the burgeoning greenhouse effect, ignorance is a costly and immoral luxury we can no longer afford.

Warren Senders

Year 3, Month 2, Day 2: By The Time The Jackfruit Trees Are Fully Grown, It’ll Be Too Hot

The Chicago Sun-Times is one of many papers noting the USDA’s new map of hardiness zones:

WASHINGTON — Global warming is hitting not just home, but garden. The color-coded map of planting zones often seen on the back of seed packets is being updated by the government, illustrating a hotter 21st century.

It’s the first time since 1990 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has revised the official guide for the nation’s 80 million gardeners, and much has changed. Nearly entire states, such as Ohio, Nebraska and Texas, are in warmer zones.

The new guide, unveiled Wednesday at the National Arboretum, arrives just as many home gardeners are receiving their seed catalogs and dreaming of lush flower beds in the spring.

It reflects a new reality: The coldest day of the year isn’t as cold as it used to be, so some plants and trees can now survive farther north.

Short-term and long-term. Long-term and short-term. Yick. Sent January 27:

While gardeners in Northern parts of the country will welcome the USDA’ revised map of hardiness zones, the fact remains that any benefits from a changing climate are temporary. As the Earth’s atmosphere absorbs gigatonnes of carbon dioxide from our civilization’s consumption of fossil-fuel, the greenhouse effect will intensify, with potentially catastrophic effects for all of us.

Sure, growing figs in Boston will be fun (and tasty!). But as we smack our lips over the new local availability of produce that formerly traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to reach our stores, let’s remember: a rapidly warming planet is going to wreak havoc on our agricultural infrastructure; the monocropped farms providing much of America’s corn and wheat are vulnerable to the rapid temperature shifts and anomalous storms which global climate change will bring. The USDA map confirms that in the long run, we’re likely to reap a harvest of disaster.

Warren Senders

Year 3, Month 2, Day 1: Time For Our Three Minutes Dumb

The Tribune-Chronicle (Warren, OH) responds to the new USDA map of hardiness zones with a marvelous piece of stupid:

Whether or not you believe global warming is caused by human activities or if you think it’s a natural effect of climate change, there is no doubt things are changing.

So much so that for the first time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has updated the growing regions in its Plant Hardiness Zone Map. This is the guide that gardeners, growers and just about everyone in the plant industry uses to determine which plants will survive the coldest temperatures in various regions of the country.

The map was upgraded in 2003, but rather than a zone change, it was a more detailed map that narrowed down the previous existing zones into sub-categories.

This time, however, the map has changed to reflect changes in climate and it tells the story that here in northeast Ohio, we are getting warmer.

Dingleberries. Sent January 26:

In a fine example of the the kind of journalistically, logically, and scientifically sloppy reportage that has kept Americans from fully understanding the magnitude of the climate crisis, Kathleen Evanoff’s January 26 article on the revised USDA Map of hardiness zones begins, “Whether or not you believe global warming is caused by human activities or if you think it’s a natural effect of climate change….”

Global warming isn’t a “natural effect of climate change,” but the other way around. The climate’s transformation in new and inhospitable directions is exacerbated by the rising atmospheric temperatures brought by the greenhouse effect, a phenomenon first discovered almost two hundred years ago and experimentally confirmed multiple times since then. And there is not one iota of controversy in the scientific community about the causes of the greenhouse effect: us.

The phrase “climate change” was originally proposed to the Bush Administration by the Republican pollster and political strategist Frank Luntz, as a way of neutralizing public response to the phrase “global warming.” The substitute term offered by the mastermind of Orwellian conservative NewSpeak was actually a more accurate description.

The USDA Map offers yet more evidence to add to the pile, but until science and environmental journalists learn to do their jobs, the public discussion will remain confused, and precious time will have been squandered in delay.

Warren Senders

Year 3, Month 1, Day 31: Just The Facts, Ma’am.

The Milford-Orange Bulletin (CT) runs an article detailing the work of a new group, http://forecastthefacts.org/ , which has called out a local TV weatherdude on his denialist stance:

As if broadcast meteorologists didn’t have enough pressure to get their forecasts right during the season of ice and snow, an advocacy group is slamming them for denying climate change. And one of the perceived offenders is Connecticut’s Geoff Fox of WTIC (Fox Connecticut), who in turn calls the people behind the group “zealots.”

{snip}

The group says that’s because the majority of meteorologists don’t believe in it. The online group (forecastthefacts.org) asks the public to sign on to the campaign to hold weathercasters accountable. It has a petition urging the American Meteorological Society to take a position on the facts of climate change and make it known to members.

Fox, a longtime forecaster in the Hartford-New Haven market who also does a science segment for WTIC, said Wednesday, “I’m not a denier, I’m a skeptic. The people who are advocating for global warming treat it like it’s a religion. So it’s like blasphemy (to question it).”

Good for forecastthefacts.org. This one was fun and easy to write. Sent January 25:

When it comes to climate change, there’s one absolutely sure bet: when someone says, “I’m not a denier, I’m a skeptic,” it means he’s a denier. Skepticism is a philosophical stance in which claims without verifiable evidence are rejected in favor of those which can be confirmed. Genuine climate skeptics are extremely rare, because the plethora of available evidence has convinced almost all of them that rising atmospheric CO2 levels are triggering a greenhouse effect, with potentially catastrophic consequences for human civilization. Climate deniers, by contrast, are a dime a dozen. They can be identified by their fondness for unsupported categorical statements, such as Geoff Fox’s, “the people who are advocating for global warming treat it like it’s a religion.”

The comparison is upside-down. Those who ignore the sound science of climate change are rejecting robust but disturbing evidence, in favor of debunked but comforting platitudes. In other words, deniers.

Warren Senders

Year 3, Month 1, Day 30: Ooooh, Tell It! Tell It!

This article by Naomi Oreskes (originally in the LA Times, I gather) is absolutely brilliant. Go read it. Here’s the opening to whet your appetite:

Recently I had jury duty, and during jury selection something remarkable occurred. Early in the proceedings, the judge posed a hypothetical question to the 60 or so potential jurors in the room: “If I were to send you out now and ask you to render a verdict, what would it be? How many of you would vote not guilty?” A few raised their hands. “How many would vote guilty?” A few more raised their hands. “And how many would say you didn’t know enough to decide?” Every remaining hand – about 50 people – went up immediately.

That, of course, was the wrong answer, and the judge proceeded to explain why. In the American system of justice, there is a presumption of innocence. Because no evidence had been presented, the state had not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and we would have to render a verdict of not guilty. After her explanation, she posed the question again, and (except for a few who clung to guilty and were sent home) we all raised our hands for not guilty.

Jury duty was in some ways difficult, but in one respect, it was easy: We were given clear instructions by a recognized authority and we followed them. No one argued about who had the burden of proof. No one suggested that the judge was not an appropriate authority, or that we should reject her instructions. On the contrary, when the time came to deliberate, we referred on more than one occasion to her instructions, and when the time came to vote, we had little trouble reaching a unanimous verdict. Driving home, I found myself contrasting this with the issue on which I work in my professional life: climate change.

I study the history of climate science, and my research has shown that the think tanks and institutes that deny the reality or severity of climate change, or promote distrust of climate science, do so out of self-interest, ideological conviction or both. Some groups, like the fossil fuel industry, have an obvious self-interest in the continued use of fossil fuels. Others fear that if we accept the reality of climate change, we will be forced to acknowledge the failures of free-market capitalism. Still others worry that if we allow the government to intervene in the marketplace to stop climate change, it will lead to further expansion of government power that will threaten our broader freedoms.

What she said. The piece provided me with a truly excellent analogy, too! Sent January 24:

There’s a good reason jurors are told to avoid media coverage of cases they’re involved in deciding. Much so-called “news reportage” is irresponsible sensationalism built around the easiest and most convenient framing of the facts.

So it is with global climate change, which long ago was turned by media and opinion outlets into a politicized clash of personalities instead of a careful examination of scientific findings.

To anyone who’s been paying attention to the expert witnesses in the case — i.e., the climatologists who’ve spent their careers studying the phenomena of atmospheric warming — the evidence is conclusive and unambiguous. The crime? Climaticide. The weapon? Greenhouse gas emissions. The culprits? All who burn fossil fuels to support a lifestyle of consumption — but especially those who’ve knowingly spread disinformation in order to hinder necessary changes in our ways of living.

What’s the word for lying in court? Oh, yes. Perjury.

Warren Senders

Year 3, Month 1, Day 29: Bad Cop. No Donut.

The Washington Post runs an article purporting to demonstrate strategic vision for the long term. It’s called “Global warming would harm the Earth, but some areas might find it beneficial.”

When you talk to climate scientists about winners and losers, a few words come up over and over again: could, might, maybe. According to University of Arizona environmental economist Derek Lemoine, local climate-change patterns are difficult to predict because uncertainties in the global model “are compounded when considering smaller scales.”

For this reason, it’s very hard to pin down climate scientists on local effects. Klaus Keller, an associate professor of geosciences at the Pennsylvania State University, is working to develop strategies to manage the effects of climate change. I posed a simple question to him: If the leaders of Russia or Norway asked whether their countries would be better off in 50 years if the temperature increased by a few degrees, what would you say?

Jeepers. I’m going to get out a package of “Seventh Generation” toilet paper and drown my sorrows. Sent January 23 (it’s a three-letter day for me!):

It’s hard to imagine positing winners and losers from a burgeoning greenhouse effect over a five-decade time scale, as suggested by Brian Palmer’s question to Professor Keller: “If the leaders of Russia or Norway asked whether their countries would be better off in 50 years if the temperature increased by a few degrees, what would you say?”

Fifty years is an infinitesimal span of geological time. In the context of global climate change, changes in national well-being after such an interval are analogous to the health impact of a cup of coffee and a cigarette in the next two minutes; the brief stimulation offered by these fast-acting drugs doesn’t translate into benefits in the long run.

Humanity’s near-universal incompetence at long term thinking will have catastrophic consequences for our survival. A climate-changed 2060 may well see some nations temporarily ascendant, but having the best seat on a sinking boat is no consolation.

Warren Senders