environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots irresponsibility James Hansen scientific consensus
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Year 3, Month 4, Day 23: Houston, You Have A Problem…
The Houston Chronicle reports on the latest cloud of bafflegab from the denialist masterminds:
Four dozen former NASA astronauts, engineers and scientists have written a letter to the space agency decrying its advocacy of “catastrophic” climate change.
“As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate,” states the letter, addressed to administrator Charles Bolden.
“We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject.”
Among the signatories are seven Apollo astronauts, including Harrison “Jack” Schmitt and Walt Cunningham, and two former directors of Johnson Space Center.
Although not explicitly named in their letter, the 49 signatories are unhappy with the outspoken head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen, who is one of the world’s most prominent climate scientists.
Jackasses. Sent April 14:
When a planetary physician of the highest possible stature excoriates those who are hindering meaningful action on climate change, it’s news. “A moral issue comparable with slavery” — strong words from James Hansen, a man with unimpeachable scientific credentials and a self-evident ethical core. How can those poor oppressed conservative think-tanks fight back? It’s a standard move in the climate-change denial business: when something happens that might move public opinion even a little bit toward recognition of a global emergency, they’ll launch a Letter Signed By Many People (LSBMP).
Dr. Hansen is a NASA employee? They’ll counter with an LSBMP signed by forty-nine NASA astronauts and engineers (including a few scientists for good measure). Sounds impressive, but none of the signatories are climate scientists. Their use of the LSBMP to deliver spurious expertise confirms the moral force of Dr. Hansen’s argument. The scientific argument, of course, was settled long ago.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: sustainability technology
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Year 3, Month 4, Day 22: I’m Waiting To Pay Off My Credit Cards Until After I Win A MacArthur. What?
Cute. The Toronto Star looks at direct carbon capture from the atmosphere, leading with a cat:
Sometimes when your cat jumps on a neighbour’s rooftop it can lead to good things.
That’s how it worked for Graciela Chichilnisky, co-founder and managing director of New York City-based Global Thermostat. Chichilnisky’s five-year-old company is one of a handful of start-ups looking for a low-cost way of capturing carbon dioxide directly out of the air.
Such a solution would certainly be welcome in the battle against human-caused climate change, and Global Thermostat thinks it has the right approach. It uses waste heat from fossil-fuelled power plants and industrial facilities – and even thermal energy from concentrated solar power plants—to activate its carbon-capture process.
Its easier said than done, of course. The road from idea to development to demonstration to commercial production is a long and expensive one.
We need resources in these technologies, yes — but we can’t avoid necessary changes in our own ways of life, either. Sent April 12:
The field of direct atmospheric carbon capture holds enormous promise for the long-term prosperity and happiness of our species. But the prospect of a technological fix sometime in the next half-century does not excuse us from the immediate demands made by an imminent planetary crisis. We must begin transforming our energy economy from fossil fuels to renewables, transforming our food economy to reduce the impact of GHG-heavy meat farming, and transforming ourselves into a culture focused on the long-term consequences of our decisions.
Furthermore, if we place our hopes in technological wizardry, we’ve got to put our wallets there too. All the brilliant engineers in the world won’t accomplish a thing if they’re not funded adequately, and when solutions emerge to the ongoing disaster of global climate change, they’ll need economic support on an unprecedented scale.
Yes, it’s going to be expensive — but nowhere near as costly as failure.
Warren Senders
Education music: acoustics physics of sound tone
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Pulse to Pitch, Series Two: Simple Harmonic Intervals
Here is another series of videos demonstrating the transformation of simple rhythmic ratios into pitch relationships.
These show the following ratios:
2:1
3:2
4:3
5:4
5:3
Yielding octaves, fifths, fourths, major thirds and major sixths respectively. The next set of videos will show more of the two voice intervals…stay tuned!
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Rhythmic octaves
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Two against three — turns into a perfect fifth.
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Four against three — turns into a perfect fourth.
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Five against four — turns into a major third.
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Five against three — turns into a major sixth.
environment Politics: agriculture oceanic acidification Oysters
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Year 3, Month 4, Day 21: Shed A Bitter Tear
The Bend Bulleting (Central OR) runs a story from the Seattle Times concerning a little problem they’re having with Oysters. Hint: the phrase “dying by the billions” is not one you want to hear, unless it concerns plague bacteria:
Researchers for the first time have found definitive evidence that changing ocean chemistry from increased carbon-dioxide emissions are at least partially responsible for massive oyster die-offs in the Pacific Northwest.
The research published Wednesday by scientists from Seattle and Oregon State University is the first anywhere to show that increasingly corrosive seas already are killing marine organisms in North America.
“This is the smoking gun for oyster larvae,” said Richard Feely, an oceanographer and leading marine-chemistry researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle and one of the paper’s authors. “This is the clearest experimental evidence yet that lower pH is making oysters die.”
Said Alan Barton, another of the paper’s authors, “It’s now an incontrovertible fact that ocean chemistry is affecting our larvae.”
Since 2005, wild oysters along the Washington coast and oysters at a commercial shellfish hatchery in Oregon have been dying by the billions. Leading scientists long have suspected that one of the causes is the increasing corrosiveness of ocean waters that frequently rise up from the deep during high winds to lap against the shore.
How much more will it take? Sent April 12:
Sigh. Let’s put the news about oyster colony die-offs and ocean acidification on the pile, shall we? On the pile with fruit farmers in New England worrying about crop losses in the aftermath of a winter that wasn’t. On the pile with the projections of shrinking acreage available for chocolate cultivation in Africa. Put it on the pile with drastically reduced coffee yields, grain crops impacted by increasingly severe and unpredictable weather, trees infested by pine-borer beetles, and all the other ways in which climate change is affecting humanity’s prospects for the future.
And perhaps when the pile is big enough, our politicians will finally offer meaningful policy instead of empty theatrics. Perhaps the professional denialists in the media will stop trying to hinder America’s ability to respond to a clear and present danger. How much more evidence do they need?
Oysters, grain, fruit, coffee, and chocolate are local manifestations of a planetary emergency. Failure to recognize it as such is an error with grave implications — not just for our descendants, but for all life on Earth.
Warren Senders
atheism Education environment Politics: assholes denialists evolution idiots Republicans theocracy
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Year 3, Month 4, Day 20: He That Troubleth His Own House…
This is entirely expected — but it still sucks:
NASHVILLE — Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam today allowed a controversial bill allowing teachers to discuss the “weaknesses” of evolution and other scientific theories to become law without his signature.
It is the first time Haslam, a Republican, has refused to sign a bill passed by the GOP-led General Assembly.
The legislation has been derided by critics nationwide as a modern-day “monkey bill,” a reference to a 1920s Tennessee law that outlawed the teaching of evolution and spurred the arrest and trial of Dayton, Tenn., teacher John Scopes in the infamous 1925 “Monkey Trial.”
“I have reviewed the final language of HB 368/SB 893 and assessed the legislation’s impact,” Haslam said in a statement. “I have also evaluated the concerns that have been raised by the bill. I do not believe that this legislation changes the scientific standards that are taught in our schools or the curriculum that is used by our teachers.
“However,” Haslam added, “I also don’t believe that it accomplishes anything that isn’t already acceptable in our schools.”
I wish they’d never been allowed to rejoin the Union. Sent April 11:
Although he’s allowing HB 368/SB 893 to become law without his signature, Governor Haslam cannot avoid soiling his fingers on a dirty piece of legislation. The bill’s language is entirely disingenuous. It is absolutely obvious that this is an attempt to undermine a genuine and robust scientific consensus under the guise of “discussing the weaknesses” in scientific opinion on evolution and climate change.
Will Tennessee’s teachers really explore the relationship between feedback and forcing in climate models — or will they promulgate attractive and convenient pseudo-facts (“carbon dioxide is our friend!”) offered by well-funded denialist groups? Will they explore the relationship between punctuated equilibrium and phyletic gradualism in our understanding of evolution — or will they offer attractive and convenient pseudo-facts from well-funded creationist groups?
When the world’s climate is perilously close to spinning entirely out of equilibrium, we can no longer afford the luxury of substituting ignorance for knowledge under the guise of “teaching the controversy.” This will not end well — for Tennessee, for America, or for the world.
Warren Senders
Education environment: agriculture monocropping sustainability timescale
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Year 3, Month 4, Day 19: Too Soon Old And Too Late Smart
The Peoria (IL) Journal-Star discusses a recent study by scientists from Arizona, on the impact of climate change on the “corn belt.” Hmmm…not so encouraging:
PEORIA —
The Corn Belt may be in trouble as the planet gets warmer, according to a decadelong research effort on climate change.
The study, published this week by a team at Northern Arizona University, shows that plants may thrive in the early stages of a warming environment but begin to deteriorate quickly.
Researchers found that long-term warming resulted in the loss of native species and encroachment of species typical of warmer environments, pushing the plant community toward less productive species, said Bruce Hungate, a Northern Arizona professor and a senior author of the study.
“Ecosystems have feedbacks. The initial response might not be the long term one,” he said.
Squirrel! Sent April 10:
The key word in any discussion of the Northern Arizona University study of plant survival in a transformed climate is “long-term.” For the past century, our civilization has steadily lost the ability to imagine a future more than a few years away. With the support of a complaisant media, our civilization has built a 24-hour news cycle and a fashion-driven consumer economy that is entirely dependent on the predictability and dependability of our food supply. Since scientists’ predictions have consistently underestimated the severity of climate change, it’s a fair bet that our agricultural infrastructure is far more vulnerable than any of us ever believed.
With enormous industrialized monocropping, we have accomplished prodigies of predictability and productivity — but lost our ability to think in the long temporal cycles that governed agriculture until the advent of chemical fertilizers and giant factory farms. To survive and prosper in the coming centuries, our species must reclaim this wisdom before it’s too late.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots media irresponsibility timescale
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Year 3, Month 4, Day 18: More Pathetic Whining From Aggrieved Hippies
The Lincoln, NE Journal-Star has an editorial. It’s shrill:
Temperatures have retreated to levels closer to the norm in Lincoln, but the heavy green foliage of trees and the profusion of blooming flowers bear witness that March 2012 was the warmest on record in the Capital City.
Pleasant as it was, the numbers represent an extreme.
The average high was 69.5 degrees, 17.2 degrees above normal. The temperature soared to 91 degrees March 31, setting a record for that day and tying the all-time high for March. It was the second record daily high set during the month. A high of 83 degrees on March 13 topped the previous record of 80 degrees.
Still fresh in memory is the weather extreme of 2011, when snow and rain created record runoff of more than 60 million acre-feet of water in the Missouri River basin. The usual runoff is 24.8 million acre-feet. The previous record was 49 million acre-feet.
Such weather extremes should be expected more frequently as global warming continues, according to a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2010, Russia recorded its hottest summer in 500 years. Last year, rainfall in Thailand was 80 percent more than average.
“It’s very clear that heat waves are on the increase both in terms of numbers and duration,” said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the panel. “Another important finding is the fact that extreme precipitation events are on the increase.”
It’s often been said during the debate on global warming that “weather is not climate.” Weather is short-term. Climate is long-term.
Still, it’s worth remembering that in January the USDA released a new plant hardiness zone map that showed most of Nebraska is in a warmer zone than it was in 1990, the last time the map was updated.
The USDA cautioned that the change was based on only 30 years of weather data gathered from 1976 to 2005, and should not be considered evidence of global warming. The trend would have to persist for 50 or 100 years to be considered climate change, the USDA said.
So, in a long-term sense, the warmest March on record for Lincoln is just another dot that must be connected to many others to be considered a trend. Nonetheless, on a 91-degree March afternoon, it was difficult to believe that some still deny that global warming is real.
I haven’t checked the comments yet. I’m sure they’re full of denialist drivel. Sent April 9:
Yes, the unseasonably warm temperatures are a troubling omen of a future in which climatic extremes become the new norm — but they’re unlikely to change the mind of the climate change denialists who long ago decided global warming is a hoax/conspiracy/liberal plot. A mere plenitude of evidence would hardly be enough to convince people who have repeatedly shown their contempt for scientific truth, and indeed for science itself. The multi-decade effort by the Republican party to base policy on ideology rather than facts has been assisted by a complaisant media establishment that for years has abdicated journalistic responsibility in favor of a specious false equivalency between opposing viewpoints; the result may well be toxic to the survival of our civilization and our species. We — all of us — need to be thinking about the long term; if humanity is to succeed, both our politics and media must be transformed. Ideologically motivated ignorance is a luxury our species can no longer afford.
Warren Senders
Education music: acoustics physics physics of sound pulse sound tone vibration
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Pulse to Pitch, Chapter 1
I’m teaching a class for my daughter’s homeschool community in which we explore some of the relationships between music and math. As part of that process, I began making these videos. This set of five “movies” shows the transformation of pulsing single sounds into pitches through the process of repeated acceleration.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting as complete a set of the harmonic intervals as I can manage, all derived from polymetric superimpositions of click tracks in various tempi.
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This video starts with a 60 mm click track and accelerates it repeatedly by a factor of 4: 1 beat per second / 4 bps / 16 bps / 64 bps / 256 bps / 1024 bps. The transformation of pulse to pitch is very clear.
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Instead of a click track, this video uses a bilabial fricative to provide a more timbrally complex starting sound. It’s moving at approximately mm60, and I accelerate it repeatedly by a factor of 4: 1 beat per second / 4 bps / 16 bps / 64 bps / 256 bps / 1024 bps. The transformation of pulse to pitch is clear, but the complexity of the original sound makes for a somewhat “fuzzier” pitch identity.
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Instead of a click track, this video uses handclaps to provide a more “organic” starting sound. The claps move at approximately mm60, and I accelerate them repeatedly by a factor of 4, from roughly 1 beat per second to 4 bps, 16 bps, 64 bps, 256 bps, 1024 bps. The transformation of pulse to pitch is clear.
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Instead of a click track, this video uses a low-register piano tone (C#) to provide a tonally complex starting sound. The impulses move at approximately mm60, and I accelerate them repeatedly by a factor of 4, from roughly 1 beat per second to 4 bps, 16 bps, 64 bps, 256 bps, 1024 bps. The transformation of pulsed pitch to pure pitch is clear (by the time the signal is accelerated 3 or 4 times, the relevant portion of the sound is no longer the original pitch, but the “attack” of the piano note).
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Instead of a click track, this video uses a low-register piano tone (C#) to provide a tonally complex starting sound. The impulses come more slowly than the previous default tempo of mm 60. As I accelerate them repeatedly by a factor of 4, the transformation of pulsed pitch to pure pitch is clear. By the time the signal is accelerated 3 or 4 times, the relevant portion of the sound is no longer the original pitch, but the “attack” of the piano note — note that the final pitch at the end of the movie is quite different from that at the end of the previous video!
environment Politics: assholes denialists hockey stick Michael Mann
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Year 3, Month 4, Day 17: Hockey Fights
Looks like Asheville, North Carolina had a visit from Dr. Michael Mann, and Katie Rose-Anderson writes it up for the Mountain Express:
If you chart global temperature changes in last 1,000 years or so, the resulting graph looks like a hockey stick.
Climatologist Michael Mann published that conclusion in 1998, and he’s still explaining what the data means and how a simple graph became a controversial icon in the debate over whether human-caused climate change is happening.
On April 3, he spoke at Warren Wilson College, offering about 60 attendees a glimpse into his new book, The Hockey Stick and The Climate Wars. “I thought if I could write the book, I could explain why people discredit science,” said Mann. “We have to be more effective in presenting scientific truth.”
Since publishing the Hockey Stick in 1998, he has had his email hacked and picked apart for the purpose of incriminating and discrediting his studies; his family has received death threats, which was apparent at the presentation: A small security team escorted Mann.
Nobody should have to undergo what Mann’s had to undergo. Sent April 8:
Modern conservatism is nothing but a framework for rejecting inconvenient facts and the people who deliver them. Just ask Dr. Michael Mann, whose work has been attacked for years by powerful corporate interests. Over and over they’ve claimed that that his results are falsified, that he is guilty of academic malfeasance, that he has manipulated his results — and over and over Mann has been vindicated.
And has it made a bit of difference? Nope; the petrol-funded denialist industry cares more about its short-term bottom line than either the ethics of their egregious misrepresentations or the long-term survival of our species. For make no mistake, Mann’s research will be foundational for humanity’s struggle over the coming centuries, as we try to make sense of a world drastically transformed by a rapidly and chaotically changing climate. Conservatism’s anti-science stance must disqualify it from any status as a legitimate political philosophy.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republicans
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Year 3, Month 4, Day 16: My Ding-A-Ling?
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a columnist named Reg Henry, who takes on a certain frothy former Senator in a meticulous piece of dissection:
While nobody can be certain that the early spring here in the East is a manifestation of global warming, you know the old saying: Something that looks like a groundhog, walks like a groundhog and makes weather forecasts like a groundhog is probably a groundhog that gets his information from talk radio, as filtered through men in top hats.
Indeed, the party that looks out for the interests of men in top hats is pretty much united in the belief that global warming is a hoax — in particular, man’s alleged role in it.
Pennsylvania’s own Rick Santorum has been in the forefront of such remarks, in the belief that the Republican primaries are a competition to say the stupidest things. This strategy has been quite successful for him. While he won’t win, he hopes to parlay his victories into an appointment as Grand Inquisitor in the Romney administration.
Unfortunately, the climate — not knowing concepts such as conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat — just goes on getting weirder and weirder, pretty much as climate change theory predicts. Tragically, this erratic weather is also becoming more deadly each passing year, with hurricanes, tornadoes and floods of growing ferocity.
Of course, in bursts of sanity, some conservative politicians admit that perhaps the world’s scientists have a point, but the perpetrators are soon forced to recant lest they be considered elitist — which these days, as you know, means anyone who thinks.
This was enjoyable. Sent April 8:
Rick Santorum’s massive ignorance would be a lot funnier if he didn’t represent a worldview shared by millions of Americans. While Pennsylvania’s embarrassment of an ex-senator embodies resurgent American anti-intellectualism, there’s no doubt he’s happy to use the products of the past few centuries’ worth of scientific progress (confining ourselves to the letter “A,” these might include antibiotics, automobiles, airplanes, anesthesia, and antiseptics, without which Mr. Santorum’s life would probably have been very different).
Apparently, science is invalid only when it contradicts the senator’s ideology. Nowhere is this more problematic than in his position on global climate change, which he believes is a worldwide scientific conspiracy (one which, curiously, includes the Pope, whose infallibility doesn’t seem to extend that far).
Deliberate ignorance of the facts is both intellectually and morally irresponsible; for human civilization to survive the burgeoning climate crisis, denialists like Rick Santorum must remove their mental chastity belts.
Warren Senders