atheism Education environment Politics: denialists scientific literacy scientific method
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Year 3, Month 2, Day 8: What He Was Doing In My Pajamas, I’ll Never Know
The Tuscaloosa News runs an editorial stating that “Climate Change Should Influence Politics”:
Azaleas are budding and daffodils can be found in full bloom along rural roads around West Alabama. Is that proof of global warming?
Hardly, but that doesn’t mean evidence of sustained, rapid climate change isn’t mounting.
Consider this: Nine of the 10 warmest years in the past century have occurred since the year 2000, according to the NASA Earth Observatory. More of the Arctic Sea is melting.
And now the U.S. Department of Agriculture has changed the map that helps gardeners decide when to plant flowers and which will grow well here. Tuscaloosa, which used to be grouped with much of northern Alabama, now falls in the zone with Mobile.
Even all that isn’t conclusive proof of global warming. No, but the case for climate change has convinced more than 97 percent of scientists actively publishing studies in the field of climatology.
They agree that not only is climate change real, but the rapid rise in temperatures around the world over the past few decades is due to human activity.
Yep. Sent Feb 2:
At the moment, it seems as though science is just about the only element in American public discourse that doesn’t influence politics. Presidential candidates vie with one another for the approval of conservative religious groups, not to mention the various deficit-fixated, abortion-fixated, gay-marriage-fixated ideological factions which have dominated the national conversation for years. Meanwhile, Republican legislators are working overtime to reduce the amount of actual science taught in our country’s science classes, and to reduce the government’s funding of actual scientists who are carrying out research projects crucial to our country’s future.
But has there never been a Presidential “science debate” or anything more than the most anodyne public statements from the candidates about the value of science in our lives — and that’s a tragedy, for scientific method is by far the most accurate and comprehensive way to find out what’s actually happening in the real world — and policies that aren’t reality-based are guaranteed to fail.
And nowhere is this more crucial than in the issue of climate change. The scientific ignorance of our political culture is a disaster in the making.
Warren Senders
Education environment Gardening: agriculture Gardening timescales USDA
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Year 3, Month 2, Day 7: Don’t Forget To Mulch
The Albany Times-Union runs another piece on the USDA hardiness zones:
Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture updated its Plant Hardiness Zone Map for the first time since 1990. This is the colorful map that is on the back of most seed packs that helps gardeners match their region’s climate to plants’ climatic tolerances.
The updated map has many new features, including finer-scale resolution and more interactive technology such as the ability to view specific regions by ZIP code. However, the most notable change is a nationwide shift in planting zones to reflect how climate change is altering our climate and plant-growing regions. The vast majority of the country finds itself in a warmer zone, including large areas of the Capital Region and the rest of New York.
This update makes concrete what many researchers have been saying for some time: that climate change is not just the province of the future.
I have a lot to do this evening, so I just re-used another letter on the same subject — rearranged all the words, used synonyms as appropriate, etc., etc., etc. Sent February 1:
The new map of hardiness zones from the USDA will probably make some gardeners very happy. What’s not to like about locally-grown mangos in Minnesota? But as we change our seed orders to reflect these new climatic norms, we need to remember that they’re only temporary benefits — and they aren’t unmixed blessings.
For every new tropical fruit or vegetable we can grow, we’ll lose some of the resilience and interconnectedness of our local and regional ecosystems. Beneficial flora and fauna may suffer from changing weather conditions or the introduction of invasive insects and plants from hotter regions (perhaps the most genuinely dangerous class of illegal immigrant).
The agricultural infrastructure which provides our corn and wheat is extremely vulnerable to the epiphenomena of the rapidly burgeoning greenhouse effect. The USDA’s map makes for pleasant contemplation in the short run — but the longer-term picture is not a pretty one.
Warren Senders
India Indian music music vocalists: genius
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Bhendi Bazaar Gharana…
…the “fourth generation,” as represented here by Pt. Shivkumar Shukla.
Khyal in Raga Shahana Kanada:
The Bhendi Bazar Gharana has a history of over 150 years. It was established around 1870 by the three brothers, Chajju Khan, Nazir Khan and Khadim Hussain Khan who had come to settle in Mumbai from Muradabad in Uttar Pradesh. They had trained under their father, Ustad Dilawar Hussain Khan. In order to expand the field of their knowledge, they took training in Dhrupad from Ustad Inayat Khan of the Dagar Parampara. They settled in a then prosperous area of Mumbai called Bhendi Bazar ( It was located behind the Fort area of Mumbai and was called ‘Behind the Bazar’ which later became Bhendi Bazar).
There they formed their own singing style which came to be widely appreciated and acclaimed. They were called ‘’Bhendi Bazarwalle’’ and the Gharana or Gayaki became the Bhendi Bazar Gharana. This Gharana has many an illustrious name to its credit. Anjani Bai Malpekar, Ustad Aman Ali Khan, Pt Shiv Kumar Shukla, Pt T. D Janorikar to name but a few. This Gharana has flourished and enriched our music over time with its unique features and specialties alongside the other well-known Gharanas of Khayal music.
Sargam composition Raga Kafi:
Though not the most popular or widely-known of gharanas, the Bhendi Bazaar style make a conspicuous impact on North Indian classical music during the first half of the 20th century through the efforts of its most gifted exponent, Ustad Aman Ali Khan. His ancestors, Chhaju and Nazir Khan, originally trained in the Rampur-Sahaswan style, migrated from Uttar Pradesh in the turn of the 19th century and settled down in the Bhendi Bazaar area in Bombay. A modest and reticent man, Aman Ali was not only a fine singer, but also a composer par excellence. One of his best-loved compositions is the swingy bandish Laagi lagan pati sajan sangh (structured along the lines of Dikshitar`s kriti, Vatapi ganapathim bhaje) in Hamsadhvani, later popularised by Ustad Amir Khan. His popularity in Western India was so vast that Lata Mangeshkar had learnt under him for a while. Ustad Amir Khan picked up the subtleties of this gayaki from his father, Shamir Khan, who had learnt under Chhaju Khan and Nazir Khan, and later from Aman Ali himself.
Aman Ali was strongly influenced by certain aspects of Karnatic music, especially the rendering of complex note patterns (swaraprasthas) in aesthetically agreeable ways. He, along with Abdul Karim Khan, was largely responsible for popularising the use of sargams during raaga elaboration. During the time of Partition, he migrated to Pakistan leaving behind a few dedicated disciples like Anjanibai Malpekar, Shivkumar Shukla, Ramesh Nadkarni and T.D. Janorikar to continue his legacy. Suhasini Koratkar is a well-known contemporary exponent of this style.
Some of the identifiable aspects of this gharana are:
Use of merukhand method of singing notes and note combinations. The singers incorporate the complex merukhand permutations into their raaga elaboration.
Use of aesthetic ornaments imported from the Karnatic system like brukas (short, swift and razor-sharp executions of melodic ideas during raaga elaboration) and sargams with great aesthetic feeling and finesse.
Particular stress on the proper articulation and enunciation of the words of the bandish. Many of Aman Ali’s compositions possess much literary quality, demanding a great deal of vocal dexterity and sensitivity to bring forth their beauty.
Preference for singing in the medium tempo.
Raga Motaki:
environment: assholes capitalism climate science denialists idiots Wall Street Journal
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Year 3, Month 2, Day 6: Hats Back On, Gentlemen.
Behold! An idiot. Meet James “Smokey” Shott:
— — More bad news for environmental alarmists came last week when 16 more well-known and well-respected scientists signed on to a Wall Street Journal article titled “No Need to Panic About Global Warming: There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy,” adding their names to a large and growing list of scientists opposing manmade climate change dogma.
This one was fun. Sent January 31:
“Smokey” Shott tells us that the established scientific foundation of global climate change has been dealt a terrible blow — a double blow, at that. How? First, he notes a piece just published in the Wall Street Journal criticizing the broad scientific consensus on climate change — and written by 16 (sixteen! count ’em!) scientists and engineers (almost none with actual climate science backgrounds). Omitted from his report is the fact that six of the Journal’s signatories have been linked to fossil-fuel interests, or that when 225 (two hundred and twenty-five! count ’em!) genuine climatologists submitted a paper providing scientific facts and analysis of the question, they were rejected out of hand by the WSJ (the paper was eventually published in Science Magazine).
And then Mr. Shott delivers what he clearly believes to be the coup de grace: an article from the UK’s Daily Mail, a paper notorious for its sensationalist, factually-challenged journalism. Quoting “fringe” scientists propounding a thoroughly-debunked “global cooling” hypothesis, the article has already attracted widespread derision in scientific circles.
Getting science from the WSJ is as silly as getting investment advice from a climatology journal. Getting science from the Daily Mail, on the other hand, is as silly as looking for celebrity gossip in the pages of “Global Biogeochemical Cycles.”
Warren Senders
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility economic inequities economic justice greed scientific consensus
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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
music vocalists: blues genius
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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”:
environment Politics: assholes hippie-punching idiots Republican obstructionism Republicans
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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
environment Politics: denialists media irresponsibility sapir-whorf hypothesis
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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
environment Gardening: agriculture Gardening USDA
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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
environment Politics: Frank Luntz idiots media irresponsibility scientific consensus
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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