Science – Page 74 – a sibilant intake of breath

Emissions from the Poznan talks

This AFP story strikes me as both misleading and misguided: “UN climate talks to create 13,000 tonnes of carbon.” I suppose that might seem like a lot, if you aren’t used to thinking about tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Firstly, the headline is expressed incorrectly. The real estimate is 13,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, not 13,000 tonnes of carbon, which would mean 47,710 tonnes of carbon dioxide. That is because adding the oxygen molecules increases the mass of a single atom of carbon by a factor of 3.67.

Secondly, 12 kilotonnes is a pretty trifling number, in the grand scheme of things. Canada emits about 1,917,808 tonnes of carbon dioxide per day. The world as a whole emits about fifty times that. If a few fifteen kilotonne meetings can help cut those figures substantially in the near to medium-term, they will have paid for themselves many times over.

There are certainly plenty of valid criticisms of the international efforts to stabilize the climate. The emissions associated with the Conferences of the Parties (COPs) are probably among the weakest.

What Do You Care What Other People Think

This sequel to Richard Feynman’s Surely You’re Joking covers some of the same ground as the prior book, though it is focused on the inquiry conducted after the Challenger space shuttle disaster. The book includes an appendix to that report, written by Feynman exclusively. Apparently, he was going to remove his name from the findings on account of his section being censored. Eventually, they printed something largely identical to his final copy.

As he explains it, the solid rocket booster failure that destroyed Challenger was largely the result of disjointed and poor communication between layers of administration at NASA and its supplier companies. The statistical modeling of the behaviour of the O-rings in the boosters was very poorly done. Information on the vulnerabilities of the shuttle either did not reach the most senior levels or was paid insufficient heed there. In any case, it seems likely that even if cold weather and design problems hadn’t caused this specific failure, something would have eventually gone wrong anyhow. For example, Feynman describes in detail some technical and procedural issues associated with the main engines. Such problems are not really surprising, given the overall complexity of the vehicle, the ‘top-down’ manner in which it was constructed (designing whole systems before testing individual components), and its fundamentally experimental nature. That being said, Feynman’s assessment probably has continuing relevance for other projects with similar associated risks and management structures. In particular, the contrast he draws between the strong protocols used in programming the shuttle’s computer – as compared with the protocols for sensors and engines – demonstrates that it is possible to do things well, provided sufficient attention and resources are devoted to the task.

Overall, the previous book is more entertaining and shows more of Feynman’s character. Aside from a section on Feynman’s first marriage, as well as the illness and death of his first wife, this book focuses on the details of Feynman’s investigation, including his famous demonstration with the O-ring and glass of ice water. All told, I found the earlier book more diverse and interesting. This book may be more useful for those whose professional work involves dangerous machines.

Disorder and bad behaviour

Research conducted by Kees Keizer of the University of Groningen has demonstrated that the willingness of people to litter and steal increases when they are in disorderly surroundings. When experimental subjects were exposed to law- or rule-breaking, they were significantly more willing to litter, trespass, and steal. This is suggestive of how even relatively subtle cues in our surroundings and the behaviour of other people can affect our behaviour, perhaps in ways we aren’t consciously aware of.

One could certainly theorize about the social and evolutionary roles of such behaviour. When an individual is in an orderly situation, the costs associated with rule-breaking may be higher. It is clearer that they are making an individual contribution to the problem, and the absence of other violations suggests that enforcement exists and is effective. Conversely, those surrounded by disorder often have more of a need to fend for themselves, as well as less of a risk of being singled out and punished.

It would be quite interesting to see this kind of research extended, and some of its conclusions used to create new policies. The kind of harmful anti-social activities that could theoretically be combated seem very numerous: from the corruption of government officials to insider theft in the workplace to the dumping of toxic materials in parks or bodies of water. While this study provides no direct evidence that modifying the environments in which people find themselves can alter their behaviour, it does seem plausible and worth looking into.

Junk medicine and Canada’s cabinet

Given the evidence that acupuncture doesn’t work (except possibly for some kinds of pain and nausea) and chiropractic is downright dangerous, it is a bit saddening that Gary Goodyear – Canada’s Minister of State for Science and Technology – has fellowships in both.

Is it too much to ask that the cabinet minister in charge of science actually have scientific training or, at the very least, not be personally invested in demonstrated forms of pseudo-science? The chiropractic connection is especially worrisome, given the kooky beliefs espoused by practitioners (such as that all illness is caused by ‘subluxations’ of the spine) and the evidence that chiropractic treatments cause vascular damage, especially when necks are manipulated or it is practiced on adolescents or children.

Climate change mitigation cost-benefit analysis on different timescales

Peter Lilley, a British Member of Parliament, seems to have rather missed the point of climate change legislation. He is kicking up a fuss about how the UK’s Climate Change Bill might have costs larger than benefits in the period between now and 2050. Of course, the whole point of climate change mitigation is to avoid the worst effects of climate change and not leave future generations with a severely damaged planet. Almost by definition, the majority of the benefits associated with such an approach will accrue in the distant future.

Even if mitigating climate change has serious net costs between now and 2050, we still need to do it, at least if we care at all about the welfare of future generations and the integrity of the planet. That being said, we can certainly hope to mitigate effectively at a relatively low cost (taking advantage of mechanisms like carbon pricing to secure the lowest cost emission reductions first). We can also work to maximize the co-benefits of climate change mitigation, such an enhancing energy security and reducing other types of air pollution.

It is also entirely possible that we will end up spending more money on climate change than we should have, or than would have been possible if we had taken the best possible approach from the outset. To use an analogy, it is possible for a speeding car to brake too sharply to avoid hitting a pedestrian. Doing so jostles the driver and may damage the car, but it is a less undesirable outcome than braking too hesitantly and ploughing right into the person. When you are making a decision with important consequences and lots of uncertainty, erring on the side of caution and expense is the prudent and ethical approach.

Modes of transport and distances travelled

Adding once again to our ever-present debate about the ethics of air travel, a study from the University of California, Berkeley concludes that the major reason planes are more problematic than trains or buses is that people simply travel farther in them. This has two major implications.

For one, it suggests that efforts to curtain short-haul air travel may have limited benefits. If a high-speed rail corridor between Toronto and Montreal would only lead to incremental improvements in emissions reductions, the better course may be to try to discourage as much travel as possible. This may be especially true given another major conclusion of the study: that a very significant share of the environmental impacts of travel arises from the infrastructure (roads, rails, airports), rather than the emissions of vehicles themselves.

For another, it suggests that investing the time and money to travel by bus or train may likewise be less green than would be ideal. The problem may not be choosing to go from Ottawa to Vancouver by air; it may be an inescapable problem of making the trip in the first place.

It is well worth having a look at the webpage for the study, as it contains a lot of additional information. The study’s conclusions were also described on Slate.

The atmospheric longevity of carbon dioxide

How long does carbon dioxide emitted by human beings remain in the atmosphere? It turns out, it is a tricky question. Different mechanisms remove carbon at different rates, and the responses of each system to higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere differ.

Probably the most important distinction is between sinks that have a capacity that can be exhausted and those that are effectively limitless. Oceans the biosphere are of the first kind, and they respond to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere relatively quickly. That being said, there is a limit to how much carbon dioxide the ocean can absorb (and the fact that it becomes more acidic while doing so is problematic) and there is only so much biomass the planet can sustain. Weathering rock that absorbs carbon and then subducts below the seafloor is an example of the second type of sink: though it operates very slowly and volcanic eruptions can return carbon that has been locked into the lithosphere back to the atmosphere. Even without such eruptions to worry about, natural weathering is not the route to a stable climate on a human timescale. As the Nature article linked above explains: “it would take hundreds of thousands of years for these processes to bring CO2 levels back to pre-industrial values.”

The article also comments on how long the temperature anomaly from anthropogenic emissions will persist: “whether we emit a lot or a little bit of CO2, temperatures will quickly rise and plateau, dropping by only about 1°C over 12,000 years.” We should make no mistake in understanding that our choices about how much carbon dioxide we emit will have a big impact on a huge number of future generations.

Garnaut on managing risk

One of the better aspects of the Australian Garnaut Review of the economics of climate change is the straightforward language in which it is written. That particularly applies to the introductory and concluding chapters (PDF), the latter of which is entitled “Fateful choices.” Perhaps the finest passages in the whole work concern how we ought to respond to the uncertainty that remains in projecting future climatic change as a function of human emissions:

[T]he Review accepts the views of mainstream science ‘on a balance of probabilities’. That formulation allows the possibility that the views on climate change of the IPCC and the learned academies in all of the main countries of scientific achievement are wrong.

There is a chance that they are wrong. Just a chance. But to heed instead the views of the minority of genuine sceptics in the relevant scientific communities would be to hide from reality. It would be imprudent beyond the normal limits of human irrationality…

The mitigation process can be cut short, with due notice to those who have committed their capital to a new economy of low emissions, if at any time the international community comes to the view that new scientific knowledge establishes that the concerns of 2008 were erroneous to the extent that mitigation judgments based on them have become obsolete.

In this case, Australia would have paid 2 per cent of GNP as insurance against what would otherwise have been a high risk of immense damage. It would be a high price, but one that was reasonable on the basis of the evidence available at the time when decisions had to be made.

The consequences of inaction now are not similarly reversible. The arithmetic of Chapter 3 (PDF) about the new patterns of global growth takes away the time we may once have thought we had for experiment, talk, and leisurely decision making. It tells us that business as usual is taking us quickly towards what the science tells us are high risks of highly disruptive climate change…

On a balance of probabilities, the failure of our generation would lead to
consequences that would haunt humanity until the end of time.

The report concludes that an international agreement is vital. It needs to include a global goal for the concentration of carbon dioxide at the moment of stabilization (550 parts per million, perhaps, for an initial agreement – refined to 450 ppm in a subsequent iteration). The agreement needs to incorporate equity concerns, especially through the principle of contraction and convergence, and national commitments must add up to the global target.

It must be very much hoped that the UNFCCC Conference of Parties in Copenhagen next year will at least begin the process towards those outcomes. Barack Obama’s apparent seriousness about making climate change a priority is cause for optimism. If the US, China, India, Japan, and Europe can reach an accord, it seems likely that enough others will be drawn in to make the thing really work.

Head injuries and homelessness

A study recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal examined the correlation between traumatic head injuries and homelessness. 601 men and 303 women were surveyed, among whom 53% had experienced such injuries: 70% of those prior to their becoming homeless. Their overall rate for such injuries is five times higher than that of the population as a whole.

While the study does not seek to establish a causal link, the data is certainly suggestive. While it might be relatively rare for a head injury to be the exclusive cause of becoming homeless, it is certainly plausible that those who already lacked a social safety net could find themselves homeless as the eventual consequence of one.

It’s just another acute demonstration of how acutely unfair life really is. Providing long-term aid to those who require it is an onerous burden, and one that is perhaps borne poorly by impersonal governmental structures. That being said, the study does provide support for the ethical claim that society as a whole owes moral duties to the homeless, who may be in their present circumstance far more as the consequence of ill-fortune than as a consequence of any choices that we might feel make them undeserving of substantial assistance.

I learned about the study from The McGill Daily – a campus newspaper I picked up when I was visiting my brother in Montreal. Their story is available here.

ExRo promises more efficient wind turbines

A new type of generator for wind turbines promises to increase the range of wind speeds across which they generate electricity efficiently. The system, developed by ExRo Technologies of Vancouver, uses stacks of copper coils that can be activated and deactivated individually. That means the generator is capable of deriving small amounts of power from slow winds and larger amounts from faster winds. Crucially, the system also allows that to occur without the use of any moving parts: decreasing the cost and increasing the reliability.

For now, the company has only tested a laboratory-scale prototype. They are now aiming to scale up the technology for use in large multi-megawatt wind turbines. In some cases, it may even be economically efficient to install the new generators in existing wind turbines.

One reason for which the technology looks promising is that it could decrease the variance in power output from wind farms, decreasing the need to balance times of low output using energy storage or alternative forms of generation.