Global Warming - It's Here With a Force

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be releasing it's 5th report on Monday, September 30th, but the Summary for Policymakers is out already.

For those who follow the climate change "controversy" for the last 20 years, there are no surprises: the climate is getting hotter and it is happening faster than previously expected. Despite some temperature fluctuations and other small factors changing from year to year (regression to the mean, anyone?), the world is getting hotter, and while it might be just mildly "inconvenient" for our generation (I'm not sure if you can say that to the victims of the last year's hurricane Sandy), it'll be disastrous for our children, grandchildren and beyond.

There are things that can't be changed anymore, and we'll have to live with the consequences of our stupidity and excess, but there is still plenty that can be done to lessen the impacts on various parts of the world and to make sure that we don't hit the extremes predicted by the report. Those things will depend on us, the way we vote in the future and the politicians we elect as our representatives. We can keep voting for the deniers, who accept only science that fits their ideology, or we can start picking people who are smart and who understand what science is. Otherwise, we'll see what it means when reality just does not care and goes over us like a steamroller.

In the meantime, since we are going to hear all kinds of denial in the coming weeks and months, here is a great primer, from Mother Jones, on the most important points:

4 Climate Myths You'll Hear This Week

Getting Hot and Uncomfortable

So, this is nothing new in my opinion, but the recent study on the quick and accelerating rise in global temperature is simply stunning:

Early Holocene (10,000 to 5000 years ago) warmth is followed by ~0.7°C cooling through the middle to late Holocene (<5000 years ago), culminating in the coolest temperatures of the Holocene during the Little Ice Age, about 200 years ago. This cooling is largely associated with ~2°C change in the North Atlantic. Current global temperatures of the past decade have not yet exceeded peak interglacial values but are warmer than during ~75% of the Holocene temperature history.

It's very bad news, especially for our kids, who will suffer most of the consequences of this global temperature rise, in the next hundred, or so, years. Check out this projection, from ThinkProgress:

Looks pretty ominous, especially because more and more scientists agree that the past projections were vastly underestimating the rate of temperature change, and now, it looks like we are in for a much bumpier ride.

Now, if you think all this has no immediate effects on your life, think again. If you complain of allergies, and most of the people I know do, you should thank our insatiable thirst for fossil fuels. A recent study (here is the CNN article about it, and the study itself - paid access required) showed that the amount of allergens in the air between the years 2000 and 2040 will increase dramatically. This will make us and our children feel more and more miserable.

So, the next time you'll vote for someone who's not willing to do something about global warming, or just flatly denies it, think back to the last allergy season, and realize that in less than 30 years it could get three times as bad if we don't come up with some solutions.

Finally, the 2012 Election is Over

I'm very glad the crazy political season in America is over. This time around it was especially annoying, with all the adds and calls and e-mails, and just plain insanity of pushing one candidate over the other (and that's not to mention all the local political ads that were equally bad, if not worse).

I'm also very happy with local Florida voters overwhelmingly rejecting a few constitutional amendments, including misguided Amendment 8, which, despite its name (Florida Religious Freedom Amendment), was not about religious freedom, but rather about tax dollars funding religious activities. Amendment 6 also went down in flames and for good reasons, as it was injecting politics into personal health care issues.

Generally speaking, while it's good to see reason and critical thinking winning (I'm glad our president will not be making important decisions peering into a magic hat), it's still pretty scary to see that "unreason" can be sold to almost 50% of the nation, hook, line and sinker.

I also hope that, after highly political campaign, when some issues could not be mentioned, out of fear of loosing precious votes, we might finally deal with problems like global warming, especially since the Hurricane Sandy clearly showed us what direction our planet is heading.

Now, it's time to move on to more important things, like everyday skepticism and fighting lack of critical thinking in our lives.

Science Debate 2012

I think we can safely bet that we are not likely to see a live, televised science debate between Obama and Romney on CNN (or, even less likely Fox News) this year. The candidates would expose themselves and their agendas, to a field in which real facts and established theories cannot be spun into a political "newspeak", in which all political figures are so well versed.

However, it's still great to see that both of this years presidential candidates have answered questions posed by an independent, on-line initiative started four years ago, called ScienceDebate.org

While, getting answers in a written form is not as revealing as a candidate's live "performance", the answers from both Obama and Romney, do give us a general feel of where they come from and where they want to lead us in the future.

Not surprisingly, at first glance, Obama wins over Romney in this field. I say "not surprisingly", because for many, many years, the Republican Party and most of its candidates at all political levels, have presented an incredible ineptitude for science, reason and critical thinking. They are known for embracing all kinds of unscientific thinking from promoting creationism and intelligent design in our schools, to fighting and denying every environmental issue, including, most recently, global warming.

And, Mitt Romney does not disappoint again... While his running mate, Paul Ryan, is a known global warming denialist, Romney articulates the same view (granted, he does some dancing around, to make himself look a bit less dumb):

I am not a scientist myself, but my best assessment of the data is that the world is getting warmer, that human activity contributes to that warming, and that policymakers should therefore consider the risk of negative consequences. However, there remains a lack of scientific consensus on the issue — on the extent of the warming, the extent of the human contribution, and the severity of the risk — and I believe we must support continued debate and investigation within the scientific community.

"Lack of scientific consensus?", yes, if you count some loony scientists, mostly not even in the field of climate research. That debate has been closed, at least in the scientific circles and the time is to look for solutions.

In general, the answers from the Obama campaign seem to be a bit more focused and to the point. Romney, on the other hand, has a lot of lofty ideas, with very little essence (create a "Reagan Economic Zone"? Who will join?).

However, it's still good to see those two sets of answers side by side, compare them and analyze them, which, at the end, helps all of us in making our minds in November.

As Thomas Jefferson said (which is wisely pointed by the ScienceDebate.org):

"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government."

UPDATE 09/06/2012:
A summary from Slate: Romney Out-Debates Obama

Yes, out-debates... true, but is there a real essence there? I'm not so sure.

Book Review: The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines

I have been following the climate change "controversy" for some time now. I've known for many years that the science behind it is sound and solid. However, the amount of vicious and coordinated attacks on the whole concept surprised me, even though I still remember attacks on the research into the ozone hole in the 80s.

As in the 80s, I could not understand why anyone with vested interests in our future (and by "interests" I mean our children, who will reap the "rewards" of our stupidity) would deny the facts and research with such viciousness.

So, I was happy when one of the most famous scientists involved in the climate research, Dr. Michael E. Mann, wrote a book, "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines", detailing the last 20 years of his struggle with the climate change denial industry.  

I wanted to see the details of this fight. I wanted to understand the possible reasons behind the people responsible for the attacks not only on science and research itself, but on individuals who dedicated their lives in pursuit of truths that benefit the entire human kind.

This book gave me not only a glimpse into the people who would not stop at anything to get their agenda ahead, no matter how disconnected from reality it was, like Senator James Inhofe, or Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. It also showed me how personal those attacks were and how they affected people whose only fault was being scientists.

However, the greatest benefit of this book is its amazing explanation of science and research behind our current understanding of the anthropomorphic global warming. Dr. Mann explains details with eloquence that makes those, sometimes difficult concepts, easy to grasp. Climate science is hard. It requires a firm understanding of many other disciplines. It requires statistical methods that are so far away from our daily routines, that their comprehension (and basic comprehension at best) needs an excellent teacher, who can bring them down to a level of a lay person.

I have to say, Dr. Mann does the job perfectly!

It's almost comical that I finished this book on the same day that July of 2012 was announced to be the hottest month on record in the US.

That's just one more reason to read Dr. Mann's book, especially if you are still sitting on a fence, not sure about the science of global warming. If you keep your political mind away, this book will change your mind.

Real Estate in Florida: Invest Wisely

If you are thinking about buying a beachfront property in Florida (or anywhere else for that matter), think twice and choose wisely, as many places known for their beauty today, will become underwater habitats pretty soon.

A climate experts' summit took place recently in Florida, and The Gainesville Sun has the story: Karl Havens: Florida's warm future

The bad news:

The picture painted by the experts was bleak. Discussions included how to abandon areas of the Keys, lose large portions of the Everglades, and how to completely reconfigure Miami into a series of islands on historical ridges along the coast.

Between now and 2100, floods that happen every 100 years will start to happen every 50, then every 20, then every 5 — until large areas of coastal Florida are under the sea.

The good news:

The news is not all bad. Although there probably is enough excess CO2 in the atmosphere to drive some additional rise in sea level, scientists conclude that we can prevent devastating impacts of global warming on places like Miami and the Keys — if there is a concerted effort to reduce CO2 emissions in the next one to two decades. The costs of doing this will end up being much less than such unimaginable things as moving entire cities away from an advancing coastline.

However, the time is running out fast...

Don't Mess With Texas...

... or you might get schooled! Not!
This nugget of wisdom is making its way around the Interwebs, and it really is priceless and funny (even if we are laughing through tears).
It's the official Republican Part of Texas platform document.

Some of my favorite pieces:

1. Environment:

We strongly oppose all efforts of the extreme environmental groups that stymie legitimate business interests. We strongly oppose those efforts that attempt to use the environmental causes to purposefully disrupt and stop those interests within the oil and gas industry. We strongly support the immediate repeal of the Endangered Species Act.

At least, we clearly see who's paying the Republicans of Texas.

2. No taxes for religious organizations, but hey, let them get into politics all they want:

We urge amendment of the Internal Revenue Code to allow a religious organization to address issues without fear of losing its tax-exempt status. We call for repeal of requirements that religious organizations send the government any personal information about their contributors.

3. Health. There is so much here, I don't know where to start...
The first one is the "Conscience Clause":

We believe that doctors, nurses, pharmacists, any employees of hospitals and insurance companies, health care organizations, medical and scientific research students, and any employee should be protected by Texas law if they conscientiously object to participate in practices that conflict with their moral or religious beliefs, including but not limited to abortion, the prescription for and dispensing of drugs with abortifacient potential, human cloning, embryonic stem cell research, eugenic screenings, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration.

That's right; don't provide modern, scientific, medical procedures, just because you don't like them. Maybe you should not have gotten into the medical profession in the first place.

Vaccinations:

All adult citizens should have the legal right to conscientiously choose which vaccines are administered to themselves or their minor children without penalty for refusing a vaccine. We oppose any effort by any authority to mandate such vaccines or any medical database that would contain personal records of citizens without their consent.

I agree... if you don't want to get vaccinated, that's your choice, just make sure you lock yourself in a bubble and don't get anywhere close to me and my family.

4. Finally, there is "Education", which must mean something slightly different to Texas' Republicans than to the rest of us:

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

Yes, that's right... they oppose the teaching of critical thinking skills, and they make it clear why... because when you teach someone some critical thinking, he or she might question you, or your beliefs. Good grief!!! A child who actually thinks for himself or herself!!! God, no! Well, if you ever have to deal with a child like that, this might help:

We recommend that local school boards and classroom teachers be given more authority to deal with disciplinary problems. Corporal punishment is effective and legal in Texas.

Beat them into submission, so they don't dare to question anything you say... nice.
Oh, and while we making sure that our kids don't learn to think for themselves, let's make sure we also teach them that the world is 6000 years old (whatever the official date is):

We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.

Priceless!

Summer Slump and Book Recommendations

Summer is here and the slump has begun. Not really... overwhelmed by work in various forms, I completely lack time for writing anything coherent about multitudes of stupidity and gullibility we face daily in our lives.

I would like to write excessively about an ad I saw in a local Polish cultural center about a person, who claims, can "read God", tell you how to reconnect with your loved ones in heaven and extend your life in some magical way. To top it off, that person, in his ad, written in extremely bad English, boasts that he does it all for only 40% of profits, sending the other 60% as a spiritual gift to some mistical place. No kidding! What a bargain!
Or, along the same lines (different name, same BS), I would love to write about the complete nonsense of Reiki, and its scamming ways, making people pay for something that does not exist. Reiki, being an eastern version of therapeutic touch (TT) has no scientific background behind its claims, as famously demonstrated by Emily Rosa in 1998. Yet, right next to the guy who can "read God", I saw an ad from a Reiki master, claiming all kinds of benefits, for a price, of course.

Unfortunately, no time for all this due to work engagements. Luckily, Kindle does wonders, and I was able to read two excellent books that I would like to recommend to everyone:

1. "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming" - Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway
What an excellent overview of the last 50 years of anti-science propaganda, from tobacco industry, acid rain effects, ozone hole and the Star Wars program of the 80s, to the global warming denial, all courtesy of the same people and the same special interests. This book is extremely well written and can hold your interest for hours, presenting facts and connections you would not suspect existed. It is interesting and frightening at the same time, to remember the 80s, when we first started hearing about the ozone hole and how we were damaging it. It felt like the doomsday was upon us, that soon, we would not be able to leave the confines of our homes on a sunny day. When solutions were proposed, I remember various companies and whole industries crying how it'll kill the economy and bring another doomsday on us: the economic one. Yet, after an unprecedented international cooperation, we were able to come up with solutions, ban a few dangerous substances, replace them with better and safer ones and avert the disaster.
Today, we face similar problems with anthropogenic global warming and yet the same people create distractions and false "skepticism" to stall any solutions. Without those solutions, not us, but our kids will face a very bleak future, a future to which they will no doubt adopt, but at what costs? And, they will have only a handful of people to blame, with general public and some media following bad science, propaganda and distortion of facts.

2. "A Universe from Nothing" - Lawrence Krauss
If reading about "long, long time ago, far, far away" is your thing, I highly recommend this book. Lawrence Krauss, a leading cosmologist and theoretical physicist of our times, explains how our Universe (along with possibly, billions of others) came to be, literally out of Nothing. The real Nothing, as it is explained in the book, much better than I could ever do. Where we come from and where we are heading are also topics of discussion, and while it is good to know that we possibly live in the best times (give or take a few billion years), the end for us does not look great, so enjoy your time here. This book is maybe a bit less accessible that some other popular science books ("A Brief History of Time" comes to my mind), as it does include some math and physics, but Krauss makes it rather easy to digest and his style is very engaging and entertaining, given the subject that ends with (spoiler alert!) doom and gloom...

Great Words from Michael Mann

Michael Mann, one of the leading climate scientists, and a real expert on the topic, has published a great article on the CNN's portal, in which he discusses a terrible political climate (pun intended) he and his peers in the field face in the United States and around the world:

Imagine you are sitting in your office simply doing your job and a nasty e-mail pops into your inbox accusing you of being a fraud. You go online and find that some bloggers have written virulent posts about you. That night, you're at home with your family watching the news and a talking head is lambasting you by name. Later, a powerful politician demands all your e-mails from your former employer.

I'm glad he presses on, despite the dishonest, personal attacks on him and the science of climate research, because, as he points out:

[...] as the father of a 6-year-old girl, I want to make sure the planet we leave her is at least as beautiful and healthy as the one we grew up on. At the very least, our nation's political and business leaders deserve to have a debate about her future that is grounded in reality.

My daughter, and all of our children, deserve no less.

Yes, our children deserve a planet at least as good as we've had, if not better.

Read the whole article: Climate scientists and smear campaigns

It's Getting Hot In Here...

I do not think you could find a sane person at this point, who would question some of the largest environmental disasters our species brought upon this fragile planet: DDT in the 60s, acid rain in the 70s, ozone depletion in the 80s and finally anthropomorphic global warming in the late 90s and 2000s. All of them except the last one (as of today) were averted to some extend by a joint cooperation of many nations and all of as together.

The crazy thing is that while all of those issues had gone through a period of scientific uncertainty (as they should, given the proper scientific process), they also encountered a stiff opposition from denialists, usually associated with some political option. This denial went on for years, against well established scientific facts, studies and despite an overwhelming consensus from the experts in each field of study.
The methods and strategies used by such denialists have not changed for years and can be clearly seen in today's debate on the anthropomorphic global warming.

There is a number of reasons why I'm writing about this topic:

1. Wall Street Journal had a terrible article called "No Need to Panic About Global Warming", which, instead of using science to back up its claims (true or not), used a version of Godwin's Law, and invoked discredited Stalin's scientist Lysenko to drive its point, which can be otherwise refuted in a few easy steps (and, as a matter of fact has been: here, here, and here, to link to just a few of them, not to mention the letter signed by 255 National Academy of Science members).

2. National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a long time defender of quality evolution science education in the US schools, branched out and decided to use its resources on climate science as well. This move comes as no surprise, as both "controversies" keep showing up in our school systems and are driven by mostly beliefs and not real science, which is pretty much settled in both cases.

3. By pure coincidence I just finished reading "Merchants of Doubt", which connects the dots and shows pretty clearly how science has been covered up and muddled for political and financial reasons for many years, starting in the early 1950s with the tobacco industry's fight to cover up effects of smoking, to the present day with a fight to ensure that people are kept in the dark about the anthropomorphic global warming.

The science is in, the verdict has been reached, multiple studies and 99% of scientist around the world have said the same thing: our planet will be a very different place to live for our children, if we don't take action now. There is nobody else, who can fix it for us.

Pasco School Board Elections - My Gripes

A few weeks ago, I’d mentioned our local Pasco County School Board campaign in one of my posts, and I received a comment to which I feel I should respond.

I reserve judgment on Mr. Stephenson’s campaign and his views when more info is available from his web site. However there are a few things that I have an issue with at this time:

1.      Taxes, fees, and fiscal matters. In my mind, a school board member should be primarily concerned with schools and education. To say point blank that raising taxes and fees for education is unacceptable makes me worried about our children, and their future education.

2.      Curriculum. Not much there when it comes to solid ideas, but here we go again… no taxes, no money from federal government, even if it means taking it away from valuable education programs and our kids. Leaving to the states to decide what are the standards and what is taught in our schools is dangerous. All it takes is a single generation of bad, irrational politicians (and we have plenty of those) to set bad standards and it’ll be very hard for any state to dig itself out of that hole (as the next generation, being poorly educated, would continue to dig the hole even deeper). US can be competitive in a global economy only if our children are educated to the highest standards. This also applies to Mr. Stephenson’s comments on International Baccalaureate (which he would like to remove completely): “the curriculum for the IB program is written with an emphasis on ideals of global citizenry rather than emphasizing ideals of American citizenship.” I’m not even sure what that means, except that it sounds like a sound bite taken from Fox News? We live in a global marketplace and global, interconnected economy. Pretending that we can disconnect our children from other cultures and points of view, just because we don’t like them (or we think that our point of view is the only one worth teaching) will only make them less competitive in that global market. Even if we think that some of our ways are better than the ways of others, it’ll take broad knowledge of other cultures to have any impact. I’m also not impressed by a blank opposition to a so called “radical environmentalism”, supposedly contained in the IB program. I think we are on a very well-defined path to destroying our planet and to say that we should not be teaching our children how to better care for it is irresponsible. If our children don’t who will? Maybe Mr. Stephenson should define what ideas he considers “radical” to make the discussion more concrete. To sum up, I would like to see more of his ideas on curriculum: social studies, science and other topics, with some details and not just general, ideological talking points.

3.      Vouchers and charter schools. I’m a bit split on this one. While I like the idea of charter schools, I’m concerned that they can lead to a lack of control over their curriculum and standards. There needs to be a firm control over them to ensure they don’t become ideological (I agree with Mr. Stephenson that ideology of any kind has no place in our schools). However, I do not agree with Amendment 7 proposal, as I think that no tax funds should go to any religious organizations. Period.

As I live in Pasco County and have my son in a public school here, I want to ensure the best possible education for him and others, who will live in a much more demanding, global world from the one we grew up in. This can only be achieved with an education system that’s placed on the top of our priority list, that’s well funded and that teaches children critical thinking, math, science and openness to the world outside of our own. Let’s hope our next local School Board members understand and implement just that.

Quote of the Day

I could not help myself:

As I watch the Republican debates, I realize that we are on the brink of a crazy person running our nation. I sit in front of the television and shudder at the thought of one of these creationism-loving, global-warming-denying, immigration-bashing, Social-Security-cutting, clean-air-hating, mortality-fascinated, Wall-Street-protecting Republicans running my country.

By James Carville

Tagged as "funny", but I'm not so sure about that.

Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day to all... enjoy it while it's still here:



Connerton Preserve - Florida





















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