Later On

Climate Progress:

You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels on Earth as high as they are today, a UCLA scientist and colleagues report Oct. 8 in the online edition of the journal Science.

“The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland,” said the paper’s lead author, Aradhna Tripati, a UCLA assistant professor in the department of Earth and space sciences and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.

“Carbon dioxide is a potent greenhouse gas, and geological observations that we now have for the last 20 million years lend strong support to the idea that carbon dioxide is an important agent for driving climate change throughout Earth’s history,” she said.

Yes, pumping more and more CO2 into the air is a very bad idea, as this news release from UCLA on a major new study makes clear.  The study itself, “Coupling of CO2 and Ice Sheet Stability Over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years,” (subs. req’d) was released by Science earlier this month.

The study notes importantly, “This work may support a relatively high climate sensitivity to pCO2” [the partial pressure of CO2], which is the same conclusion that a number of major studies looking at paleoclimate data have come to:

Scientists analyzed data from a major expedition to retrieve deep marine sediments beneath the Arctic to understand the Paleocene Eocene thermal maximum, a brief period some 55 million years ago of “widespread, extreme climatic warming that was associated with massive atmospheric greenhouse gas input.” This 2006 study, published in Nature (subs. req’d), found Arctic temperatures almost beyond imagination–above 23°C (74°F)–temperatures more than 18°F warmer than current climate models had predicted when applied to this period. The three dozen authors conclude that existing climate models are missing crucial feedbacks that can significantly amplify polar warming.

A second study, published in Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req’d), looked at temperature and atmospheric changes during the Middle Ages. This 2006 study found that the effect of amplifying feedbacks in the climate system–where global warming boosts atmospheric CO2 levels–”will promote warming by an extra 15 percent to 78 percent on a century-scale” compared to typical estimates by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The study notes these results may even be “conservative” because they ignore other greenhouse gases such as methane, whose levels will likely be boosted as temperatures warm.

The third study, published in Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req’d), looked at temperature and atmospheric changes during the past 400,000 years. This study found evidence for significant increases in both CO2 and methane (CH4) levels as temperatures rise. The conclusion: If our current climate models correctly accounted for such “missing feedbacks,” then “we would be predicting a significantly greater increase in global warming than is currently forecast over the next century and beyond”–as much as 1.5°C warmer this century alone.

So we need to keep atmospheric concentrations of CO2 as low as possible — and if we do go above 450 ppm, we need to get back to under 350 ppm as rapidly as possible, preferably by century’s end, though that would be no easy feat.

Here’s more on this important study: …

Continue reading.

And it makes sense. In it he discusses the complete irresponsibility of Leavitt and Dubner in their new book.

Very interesting news story by Helena Smith in the Guardian:

The secrets of a lost city that may have inspired one of the world’s most enduring myths – the fable of Atlantis – have been brought to light from beneath the waters off southern Greece.

Explored by an Anglo-Greek team of archaeologists and marine geologists and known as Pavlopetri, the sunken settlement dates back some 5,000 years to the time of Homer’s heroes and in terms of size and wealth of detail is unprecedented, experts say.

"There is now no doubt that this is the oldest submerged town in the world," said Dr Jon Henderson, associate professor of underwater archaeology at the University of Nottingham. "It has remains dating from 2800 to 1200 BC, long before the glory days of classical Greece. There are older sunken sites in the world but none can be considered to be planned towns such as this, which is why it is unique."

The site, which straddles 30,000 square meters of ocean floor off the southern Peloponnese, is believed to have been consumed by the sea around 1000 BC. Although discovered by a British oceanographer some 40 years ago, it was only this year that marine archaeologists, aided by digital technology, were able to properly survey the ruins.

What they found surpassed all expectations. Thanks to shifting sands and the settlement’s enclosure in a protected bay, …

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I certainly don’t think so. Strong criticism might make him think a little harder before making a promise. Jon Walker at Firedoglake:

Gerry McEntee is president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). He leads the largest union in America and has been one of the most vocal advocates for progressive health care reform. He is one of the few establishment figures willing to openly challenge Obama for repeatedly breaking his word in regards to health care reform.

Apparently, demanding that someone at least attempts to keep his promises is an unacceptable slight, according to a cowardly anonymous “senior White House 0fficial.”

We have had just about enough of his gratuitous slaps,” said a senior White House official Friday, calling the politically charged language “outrageous and unacceptable” from an ally — even from one that had, the official noted, devoted substantial resources to health care efforts.

“He’s doing his members a real disservice,” said the official, who said that while all other labor leaders had been careful to keep their opposition to elements of health care proposals modulated and largely inside the tent, McEntee was “beyond the pale.”

That’s interesting because the progressive community thinks Obama’s broken promises and secret deals are the real gratuitous slaps. Having a top progressive reform priority, allowing Medicare to save billions by directly negotiating drug prices, sacrificed in a backroom deal for campaign ads from PhRMA is beyond the pale.

Looking back at Obama’s campaign health care plan, it is shocking how many promises he broke without a fight. Obama promised:

• A new national health exchange open to all Americans
• A new public plan available to all Americans to compete with private insurance
• An employer mandate to provide health insurance
• A minimum medical loss ratio for insurance companies
• To allow people to import cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe
• To repeal the ban that prevents the government from directly negotiating with drug companies

Note none of these promise are part of the Senate Finance Committee bill. Obama has made no effort to fight for the inclusion of some of these (public option, employer mandate, minimum medical loss ratio) and months ago even made secret deals vowing to actively work to kill drug re-importation and direct drug price negotiation.

During the election Obama actively campaigned against two policies. One was …

Continue reading. Obama is breaking too many promises without a fight.

Interesting graph from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Click to enlarge.

Over the past week or so, this post has gotten an incredible number of hits—from where, I have no idea. But it’s quite popular these days.

This post explains and accounts for global warming in historical times—since 1850, roughly—based solely on CO2 buildup in the atmosphere from human activity. Indeed, we now have actual measurements of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases, and human-created CO2 is clearly the culprit, based on direct observations. But one final objection has been raised: if CO2 in the atmosphere traps heat, then high CO2 levels should create high global temperatures—so how does one explain this graph (click graph to enlarge):

I actually don’t know enough to explain it myself, so I’ve asked for help. John Cook of Skeptical Science says that he plans to write a post dealing directly with that graph, but did point me to two posts that help explain what happened.

First is this post in Skeptical Science:

The skeptic argument…

“The killer proof that CO2 does not drive climate is to be found during the Ordovician- Silurian (450-420 Ma) and the Jurassic-Cretaceous periods (151-132 Ma), when CO2 levels were greater than 4000 ppmv (parts per million by volume) and about 2000 ppmv respectively. If the IPCC theory is correct there should have been runaway greenhouse induced global warming during these periods, but instead there was glaciation.”
(source: The Lavoisier Group)

What the science says…

At the time of the Ordovician, the Earth’s climate was very different. Solar output was 4-5% lower than present day levels. Rather than separate continents, the single landmass of Gondwanaland, moving southward into higher southern latitudes, allowed ice sheets to grow.

With less heat from the Sun, there was less heat to trap—and one single landmass on earth, located near the South Pole, would have created a unique climate, unlike that of today.

Next, with more detail, this post from Scholars and Rogues contains a whole list of skeptic arguments with responses. Specifically, take a look at:

Myth #6: CO₂ concentrations are not correlated with global temperature due to periods in the geologic history when CO₂ was higher and the planet was in an ice age.

The answer:

450 million years ago was the coldest in 0.5 billion years and also had the highest CO₂ concentrations. Because of this, CO₂ is not actually correlated global temperature (Source: distillation of multiple people’s claims at Wikipedia.org).

Debunking: Scientists aren’t sure what happened in the late Ordovecian period, when the world plunged into an ice age while CO₂ levels were still very high (8-20x current levels). There are some ideas about what happened, however. A 1995 paper titled Reconciling Late Ordovician (440 Ma) glaciation with very high (14X) CO₂ levels suggests that the physical location of the megacontinent Gondwanaland may have had something to do with it, and later papers suggest that the problem could be one of resolution of the data – if we can’t tell what the CO₂ levels were at the moment of glaciation, then we can’t say whether CO₂ being removed from the atmosphere was the cause or not. And if the high CO₂ levels plunged due to geologic processes (namely the rise of the Appalachian Mountains and a subsequent carbon sequestration due to the weathering of the mountains), then there would be a mechanism to explain how the CO₂ was high while the temperature was also high – the data isn’t detailed enough to know better, so it was actually a lot lower than 8x-20x present day when Gondwanaland froze up. In fact, this identical process is proposed as the cause for the most recent spate of ice ages, with the Himalaya Mountains being the cause. However, ultimately we just don’t know enough about this particular instance to say for sure.

However, the correlation of CO₂ and global temperature is well established over the last 650,000 years using ice core data. The image (click for a larger version) is a composite created by the IPCC from multiple different sources for the WG1 AR4 chapter 6 on Paleoclimate, Figure 6.3, page 444. The black line shows a proxy for local temperature (deuterium), the green line is nitrous oxide, the red line is CO₂, the blue line is methane, and the gray line is a proxy for land ice (low=more glaciers/larger ice caps). Notice that not only is CO₂ concentration correlated with temperature, but so is methane concentration.But the most interesting part of this graph is the three stars in the upper right corner of the image. They are to scale with the associated lines and represent the 2000 concentrations of nitrous oxide (green star), CO₂ (red star), and methane (blue star).

Another look at the opponents of Franken’s amendment. (They are not only all Republicans, they are all male and almost all of them have one or more dauthers.)

Another odd-couple cop buddy movie, but extremely inventive and well done. Truly worth watching, and even better if you understand French as well as English. (The French is subtitled in the Watch Instantly version.)

Bon Cop, Bad Cop

Glenn Greenwald:

There is a vital development — a new ruling from the British High Court — in a story about which I’ve written many times before:  the extraordinary joint British/U.S. effort to cover up the brutal torture which Binyam Mohamed suffered at the hands of the CIA while in Pakistan and while he was "rendered" by the U.S. to various countries.  While Mohamed, a British resident, was in American custody, the CIA told British intelligence agents exactly what was done to him, and those British agents recorded what they were told in various memos.  Last year, the British High Court ruled that Mohamed — who was then at Guantanamo — had the right to obtain those documents from the British intelligence service in order to prove that statements he made to the CIA were the by-product of coercion.

The High Court’s original ruling in Mohamed’s favor contained seven paragraphs which described the torture to which Mohamed was subjected.  It has been previously reported that those paragraphs contain descriptions of abuse so brutal that not even our own American media could dispute that it constitutes "torture":

The 25 lines edited out of the court papers contained details of how Mr Mohamed’s genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, "is very far down the list of things they did," the official said.

But before the decision was released, the Court decided to redact those seven paragraphs.  And in February, 2009, it issued a new ruling explaining its reason to conceal those paragraphs:  the Bush administration had issued what the Court called a "threat" that the U.S. would reduce or even eliminate intelligence-sharing with the British if those paragraphs were made public.  In other words, British officials needed a reason to tell the High Court that British national security would be jeopardized if those paragraphs were made public, and Bush officials obliged by threatening that the U.S. would withhold information about terrorist plots aimed at British citizens in the future if this information were disclosed.  As the High Court summarized in its new ruling issued yesterday (click images to enlarge): …

Continue reading.

It was exceptionally good, so I’m going into a bit of detail.

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I had used File Hippo for a while to check for upgrades to my installed programs, but I grew to like it less and less and finally uninstalled it. I found that CNET has a much better checker along the same lines: Tech Tracker. You install it, and it scans you files and notifies you of any updates available, which you can (safely) download directly from CNET. Very useful. I have some programs on automatic update, of course, but they don’t always tell you right away, whereas with the Tech Tracker you find out immediately.

After reading this post on Cool Tools, I was all hot to get one of the clocks. I actually got this one, in blue. I never had a projection clock before, and I love it: the red display, projected on the ceiling, is clear and readable even without my glasses. Having the indoor temperature shown on the clock is a nice touch as well. And, of course, it’s an alarm clock and sets itself nightly according to the NIST atomic clock. Terrific little device.

Today I tried the combination blend in Almond—great fragrance, fine lather, thanks to the Rooney Style 1 Size 1 Super. And the Gillette Toggle with a much-used Iridium Super blade did a very nice job indeed, with Speick as a fine finish. So now to try the Hemp blend with, say, the Rooney Style 2.

I just finished rewatching Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, a wonderful science-fantasy. Indeed, it would be perfect (in my mind) save for Gary Oldman in his role. I don’t know whether it was bad direction, bad interpretation by the actor, or simply bad performance, but I find that particular character a blot on the movie. So: a poll—

As I’ve said, I have LOTS of movies going at once on my Roku, and I go from one to another through the evening. So I haven’t seen the end of this German comedy yet, but so far it’s a real winner. It was made in East Germany in 1963, which is pretty much the height of the Cold War, but the movie is set immediately after WW II, so some sentiments can be expressed that would not be politic were it set in its present day. Moreover, the plot—really, the plot device—is simplicity itself, yet it allows for engaging a sequence of anecdotes and actors. And, of course, comedies blossom during hard times (cf. Hollywood’s output in the 1930′s, and also Preston Sturges’s Sullivan’s Travels).

I think it’s well worth a watch, especially with Watch Instantly.

Carbide & Sorrel.

We live about two hours south of San Francisco—maybe two and a half, depending on traffic. So San Francisco is a day trip, but with enough driving that you don’t do it casually.

The Wife went up to San Francisco yesterday and was doing a little shopping, when she heard that Obama was due in town for a fund-raiser and would be arriving in an hour.

Both she and I had the same reaction: get out of town, fast, before traffic clogs to a standstill. Another option, of course, would be to say and try to see Obama, though there would be crowds and he might be whisked into the event with no public appearance at all.

So, a poll. Given the situation—you’re in San Francisco from a town 2.5 hours away, and you’re just there for the day, and you suddenly hear that the President of the United States is due to arrive downtown in an hour. What would you do?

Should be an interesting report. From the link:

The World Health Organization has carried out the first ever analysis of the world’s health systems. Using five performance indicators to measure health systems in 191 member states, it finds that France provides the best overall health care followed among major countries by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan.

The findings are published today, 21 June, in The World Health Report 2000 – Health systems: Improving performance. (Copies of the Report can be ordered from bookorders@who.ch.)

The U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of GDP on health services, ranks 18th . Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy.

… Other findings in the annual WHO report include:

• In Europe, health systems in Mediterranean countries such as France, Italy and Spain are rated higher than others in the continent. Norway is the highest Scandinavian nation, at 11th .
• Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica and Cuba are rated highest among the Latin American nations – 22nd, 33rd, 36th and 39th in the world, respectively.
• Singapore is ranked 6th , the only Asian country apart from Japan in the top 10 countries.
• In the Pacific, Australia ranks 32nd overall, while New Zealand is 41st .
• In the Middle East and North Africa, many countries rank highly: Oman is in 8th place overall, Saudi Arabia is ranked 26th , United Arab Emirates 27th and Morocco, 29th.

In 1970, Oman’s health care system was not performing well. The child mortality rate was high. But major government investments have proved to be successful in improving system performance. “Oman’s success shows that tremendous strides can be accomplished in a relatively short period of time,” says Dr Murray.

Apparently Oman was not satisfied with saying, “Child mortality rates mean nothing about the healthcare system.” Instead, they took it seriously and made changes that drastically reduced child mortality. The US seems happy to have higher infant mortality rates and shorter life expectancies than countries with advanced healthcare systems.

Interesting review:

Why Poetry Matters (Why X Matters)
by Jay Parini

A review by Denis Donoghue

If you were to write a book called Why Poetry Matters, you would be wise to concede, as Jay Parini does, that "to most people" it doesn’t. "That is, most people don’t write it, don’t read it, and don’t have any idea why anybody would spend valuable time doing such a thing." Especially if, again like Parini, you have also written poetry, fiction, literary criticism, biography, a textbook called An Invitation to Poetry (1987), and a book of essays on poetry and politics called Some Necessary Angels (1997). You might reasonably ask: Has my invitation been accepted? Have readers acknowledged my necessary angels?

The issue is not the dearth of poets or poems. By Dana Gioia’s reckoning in Can Poetry Matter? (1992), nearly a thousand books of poetry are published in the United States every year. I haven’t even counted the number of magazines dedicated to poetry. The current issue of Parnassus runs to 676 pages of new poems, foreign poems in translation, and essays on poetry. Not to mention poetry groups, readings, tapes, blogs, PennSound and other websites, and the incalculable number of poems written for courses in creative writing and MFA programs. There are more poems out there than anyone could read in a lifetime of doing nothing else. Yet Parini refers to "the still, small voice of poetry" drowned out by MTV, CNN, Fox, and other noises, and "earphones downloading a great deal of garbage into the heads of millions on the subways and byways of the world." It is a familiar complaint: poems cannot be heard where they should be heard, in the hubbub of the general culture. Despite Robert Pinsky’s best efforts, the practice of poetry is still a subculture; it does not matter in any public sense.

The status of poetry was not an issue, according to my reading, until quite late in the nineteenth century. Matthew Arnold’s The Study of Poetry (1880) makes a large claim for poetry, but it leaves one wondering why he needed to make it at all:

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From Open Culture:

Dan Colman notes:

Another video brought to you by cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch, who previously brought you Information R/evolution and The Machine is Us/ing Us. You may also want to see his talk, An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube.