Science – Page 82 – a sibilant intake of breath

Long-term natural climatic variation

One thing that only seems to be understood to a limited extent in most quarters is the degree to which humanity faces very serious long-term climatic challenges, even in the absence of human greenhouse gas emissions. This is simply because there is no reason to believe that the kind of climate that has existed for most of human history is one that is uniquely probable and likely to persist. Ongoing forces like plate tectonics, the development of carbon-rich rock through the weathering of mountains, and orbital variations (Milankovitch cycles) all have marked and overlapping effects in the long term. Paleoclimatological evidence shows a world that has differed considerably in temperatures, weather patterns, and continental layouts. Oxygen only emerged in the atmosphere 1.7 billion years after the Earth formed (though because of biological developments, rather than climatic ones). During the late Precambrian period, Earth was essentially a giant snowball. At times, evidence suggests that Antarctica hosted deciduous forests rather than an ice sheet. It seems that sometimes the forces that caused transitions from one state to another were relatively minor in and of themselves: they just pushed the overall climate system in a self-sustaining direction.

Of course, long-term natural climatic variation on the scale of hundreds of thousands or millions of years is a much less immediate concern than the consequences of humanity’s continued use of the atmosphere as a carbon dioxide dump. The latter is a real and massive immediate threat, while the latter is more of an academic consideration for the moment. That being said, it does seem important to understand that our present conditions are not some robust preference emergent from the fundamentals of the climate system; rather, it is one equilibrium among many. In a manner somewhat akin to learning that our planet/solar system/galaxy is just one of a vast multitude, this should prompt humanity to re-examine some of our beliefs about our own importance and about the stability and habitability of the planet we inhabit.

McKinsey ranks mitigation technologies

In the past, I have mentioned both marginal abatement cost curves for greenhouse gasses (curves that describe the cost of eliminating each successive tonne of greenhouse gas) and the economic analyses done by McKinsey. Recently, a friend reminded me of an informative graphic from one of their reports:

The whole report is available online. All the options listed on the left hand side, below the horizontal line, are actually projected to save money as well as reduce greenhouse emissions. Those to the right are progressively more expensive, up to about 50 Euros a tonne.

The graphic is quite interesting because it shows a ranking of the cost at which different technologies can achieve emission reductions. It’s also interesting that they projected how many technologies need to be implemented – and to what degree – to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas levels at 550, 450, and 400 parts per million of CO2 equivalent.

Put on a graphic like this, it all looks very achievable.

Shifting baselines, oil and ice

One of the more interesting environmental blogs I read is Shifting Baselines: a fisheries focused site that concentrates on how our changing expectations about life in the sea conceal from us the gradual emergence of long-term changes. A couple of other shifting baselines have caught my attention recently. They have to do with the long term trends of Arctic sea ice depletion and increasing oil scarcity. In both cases, exceptional shifts in the recent past have given way to what look like temporary reprieves.

Last summer’s Arctic sea ice minimum was a major record-breaker. It sparked serious thinking about whether the Arctic summer could be ice-free within a decade. This summer’s melt now seems likely to be less severe. Does this mean our level of worry should diminish, or is this simply oscillation around a worrying downward trend? It certainly gives ammunition to those who would like to deny that there is a trend at all. In the long run, it probably doesn’t matter enormously whether the Arctic melts in ten years or thirty. Where it may matter considerably is insofar as awareness of Arctic melting either prompts the emergence of strong climatic policies or provides fodder for those who want to continue to delay.

The same might be said about the recent slip in the price of gasoline. That being said, the nature of the causal factors at work there seems more straightforward. Prices do not seem to be falling because supply constraints have been lifted. Rather, they are falling because people are cutting back on usage: both as a result of general economic weakness and as a result of high energy prices themselves. High gasoline prices are something of a double-edged sword for environmentalists. On the one hand, they do help to encourage investments in efficiency. On the other, they encourage the development of truly filthy alternative sources of fuel (like the oil sands), encourage the development of false solutions (like corn ethanol), as well as making it more challenging politically to support sound environmental policies.

Whether it is ice or energy under consideration, the general lesson of shifting baselines is pertinent. We need to see past short term trends and our focus on how the recent past and the present compare, looking onwards to fundamental forces and long-term developments. Of course, when it comes to systems as massive and complex as the global climatic and economic systems, doing so is enormously difficult.

Manifestos on the Future of Food & Seed

This collection of essays, edited by Vandana Shiva, varies considerably in tone and degree of novelty. The manifestos themselves seem ham-fisted and loaded with unsupported assertions. It is not that no convincing case can be made for many of the arguments raised; rather, the authors simply choose not to do so. It is an approach that will win them few converts. In general, the book contains a number of positions towards which I am sympathetic: that patents on living things are highly dubious, that the present food system is unsustainable, that the agricultural policies of most states are inappropriate and often immoral. It simply manages to convey most of these points in a shrill and off-putting manner: the kind of voice that makes you take an opposing stand almost by reflex.

Most of the authors seem to profoundly misunderstand the nature of the global trade system. As with so many other blanket anti-globalization activists, they seem to think the WTO is some kind of wicked and powerful entity, enforcing its will against states. It is more accurate to say that it is an imperfect vehicle for trying to create some trade rules formulated on something other than economic and geopolitical power. It is a goal rarely achieved – how could it be? – but a worthy one nonetheless. Similarly, the WTO does not impose outside restrictions on the kind of food safety laws states can adopt. It simply requires that the same standard be applied to domestic producers as importers. You cannot reject beef produced using recombinant bovine growth hormone abroad while allowing domestic industrial agribusinesses to use the same substance. Naturally, if you are big and economically powerful, you can more or less do as you like (witness WTO rulings against American maize subsidies, for instance).

The book also seems to be a bit short of real content where genetically modified organisms and antibiotic resistance are concerned. Both naturally raise important questions of health, safety, and ethics. The nuances of the discussion, however, are poorly served by a book that asserts that the Green Revolution was actually harmful to the world’s poor. Genetically modified organisms could certainly produce adverse outcomes. At the same time, they might be able to help us reduce our dependence on toxic pesticides, reduce the carbon emissions associated with shipping and refrigeration, and deal with the consequences of climate change. Similarly, while there is much to lament about current global trade practices, the kind of protectionism advocated by most of the authors is unlikely to help either the poor or the sustainability of agriculture. What is necessary is that the total social and environmental costs of economic activities be borne by the relevant parties: not that food is grown in a particular place, domestic producers receive preferential treatment, or that the world re-fragments into disparate economies.

While the book doesn’t really make it, there is an excellent case for a global transition to new forms of agriculture. Important elements include replacing vulnerable monocultures with resilient polycultures, sharply restricting the use of antibiotics, reducing the intensity of fossil fuel use, and otherwise taking into account the many social and environmental costs of agriculture that are ignored when it is undertaken in an industrial manner. There is likewise a very strong case to be made about reforming the global intellectual property regime. It is extremely dubious to be able to patent a gene that you have moved from one creature to another. It is similarly dubious to sell seeds on a ‘licensed’ basis, where they can only be legally used for one crop.

In the end, it is hard to see who this book is for. It doesn’t contain enough substantive argumentation to convert anyone – though there is one good essay written by a local foods grocer, railing against both Walmart and Whole Foods. It likewise does not contain a viable plan for changing the nature of the global food system. Here, Michael Pollan seems to adopt the most reasonable position: accepting the popularization of organic and local food as progress, while others angrily reject them as insufficient. A book that helped to enlarge that beachhead, while providing some strategic direction towards a genuinely sustainable global food system, would have a lot more value than this short, flawed text.

Big Bang

In the past, I have praised Simon Singh for the clarity and quality of his explanations, when it comes to matters scientific and mathematical. That capacity is on display once more in Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe. The book provides a good introduction to the history of cosmology, from the ancient world to the recent past. The book covers the contributions of figures like Keppler, Copernicus, Galileo , Newton, and Einstein. It also provides good information and anecdotes on those who actually provided the data that validated the theories. The book provides a good basic description of relativity (both special and general), though those seeking a better understanding would be better served by the first half of Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe, which contains the best explanations of relativity and quantum mechanics I have encountered.

One thing it should lay to rest is the false and pernicious belief that it was only the European crossing of the Atlantic that led to the general belief that the Earth is spherical. Not only did the ancient Greeks know this by 300 BCE, they knew the size of the planet, the size of the moon and the distance to it, and the size of the sun and distance to it. All this from trigonometry and logical reasoning, starting with Eratosthenes. It also does a good job of explaining the ways in which now discredited theories stood up to scientific scrutiny at the time. It was only with refinement that the heliocentric view of the solar system had more predictive power than Ptolemy’s geocentric model, for instance. Similarly, the debate between Big Bang and Steady State theorists could only be resolved through the improvement of both theoretical positions and empirical measurements. The book touches upon some of the key ideas of Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which could be an excellent thing to read as a more technical follow-up.

For me, this book lacked some of the excitement of The Code Book and Fermat’s Last Theorem, but I think this was almost entirely because I already knew most of what is in it: from Grecian planet measurement to the detection of cosmic microwave background radiation. For those less familiar with our evolving knowledge about the origin of our universe, this is an extremely clear and accessible introduction. To those unfamiliar with the origin of the stars, galaxies, and elements that make up our universe, this book is a great place to start.

Scarce resource conservation optimization

There is a catch-22 involved in some forms of resource planning. Take, for example, helium (as discussed recently). As of now, we only know of one place from which to get it – certain natural gas deposits. We have no idea where, or if, it might be found elsewhere.

One perspective is to say: “For all we know, this is all the helium we will ever be able to access on Earth. We should avoid excessive (airships) and frivolous (party balloons) uses, and save the stuff for cooling sophisticated electronic equipment and so forth.” One could add to this: “If we ever come across a big new source, or an unlimited source, we can reevaluate the prohibition.”

The trouble here is the reduced incentive to find new supplies. There have surely been countless historical cases where scarcity has generated rising prices which has in turn (a) led to the discovery of new sources of raw material (b) led to new techniques of production and (c) led to less intensive patterns of usage. The conservation mindset could impede these. Our solution may be akin to a policeman adrift on a lifeboat with a highly trained and valuable bloodhound. Every day, he is presented with a choice to either use the dog now as a collection of calories, or save it for a more valuable use in a future that may never come. Of course, the situation with any particular resource is far more complex. Our present needs are less acute and singular, the uses of the thing are broader, and our opportunities for near-term and (likely) long-term substitution are usually higher.

At issue are factors including (1) the most critical use of the resource (2) the probability of a, b, or c taking place over any time period (3) the urgency of the present uses, etc. A rational calculation taking into account all these factors (and necessarily making educated guesses about future trends) is a daunting prospect. To what extent does the usefulness of helium in medical imaging affect how we should manage supplies? Will we soon develop technologies that require more or less of the stuff? Is there any entity that is actually capable of managing helium use?

Of course, such choices are rarely made explicitly. Typically, nobody has the power to control the allocation of a global resource. As such, they are used up heedlessly in response to the economic imperatives of the moment- ignoring the fact that the same material might have a far more valuable purpose down the road.

Consider helium conservation

All the helium on Earth arose from natural fission of uranium and thorium in the planet’s crust and mantle. We can access it only through certain natural gas deposits – many of them in Texas – which contain enough of the gas to make it possible to isolate. This is the helium of every high-voiced balloon prank, as well as of every MRI scanner and high temperature superconductor. About 1/4 of helium use is in cryogenic applications. Helium is ideal for such purposes, as it has the lowest boiling point of any known element.

What is not commonly appreciated is that, once these particular gas reserves are depleted, we will know of nowhere from which to get helium. Whatever helium is released into the atmosphere gradually rises through it, eventually drifting into interplanetary space. Despite all the helium being released by human beings, atmospheric concentrations have remained constant at around 5.2 parts per million.

We can produce minute quantities of helium through hydrogen fusion, of the kind that will eventually take place in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, but it will not be even close to the quantity that will be required to cool the superconducting magnets that will keep the plasma inside that device contained.

It would be particularly ironic if a long-hoped-for source of renewable energy (nuclear fusion) proved impractical not because of issues associated with energy levels of plasma containment, but because we had squandered the planet’s accessible supplies of coolant.

Mnemonics for Pi

The people who memorize thousands of digits of pi generally strike me as more inhuman than impressive – not at such tasks does the normal human mind excel. Nonetheless, being able to recall ten digits or so might allow you to win bets at geekier parties and, if that can be achieved painlessly, it may be worth doing.

Probably the best way to do so is with mnemonic techniques. You can get fifteen digits by using the number of letters in each word of the following phrase:

How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics!

Many other examples, including an entire sonnet, are on the Wikipedia page for Piphilology.

Al Gore’s solutions

Al Gore recently gave a highly interesting speech on the future of energy in the United States. None of the points made in it are especially new, but he does a good job of tying together a great many important themes.

Here are some key points:

Because of climate change, “the future of human civilization is at stake.”
“[T]here is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire [Arctic] ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months. This will further increase the melting pressure on Greenland.”
“We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change… The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.”
Solar, wind, and geothermal are large and critical future energy sources.
“I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.”
“[S]harp cost reductions now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal power — coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal — have radically changed the economics of energy.”
The national grid must be updated to link areas rich in renewable energy to areas with high energy demand.
Plug-in electric cars will play an important role in balancing the load on the electrical grid.
“[W]e need to greatly improve our commitment to efficiency and conservation. That’s the best investment we can make.”
“I have long supported a sharp reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. We should tax what we burn, not what we earn.”
“[I]t is also essential that the United States rejoin the global community and lead efforts to secure an international treaty at Copenhagen in December of next year that includes a cap on CO2 emissions.”
“[W]e must move first, because that is the key to getting others to follow; and because moving first is in our own national interest.”

The 100% target is probably not going to happen – it would require scrapping every coal, gas, and oil power plant – but it is a worthwhile aspiration nonetheless. Even getting a significant portion of the way towards that goal in the timeframe mentioned would be a huge advance.

It would be very interesting to see what role he would personally play in advancing this sort of agenda within an Obama administration. An administration that made a determined effort to implement this sort of agenda would be transformative, and could do a great deal to spur global transformation.

Is it ethical to fly?

Continuing our long debate, here is another entry.

It seems to me that there are four possible long-term outcomes of the conflict between preventing climate change and travelling long distances quickly:

We come up with a way to keep flying without doing too much climatic harm. This could be sequestration of carbon from biomass, it could be carbon neutral fuels, it could be something unanticipated.
We come up with another transport technology that is carbon neutral and just as good or almost as good as flying, such as very high speed trains.
We cannot reconcile long-distance high-speed travel with the need to mitigate, so we essentially stop doing it. A few people are still able to get from New York to London in a day, but it becomes out of almost everyone’s reach.
We cannot reconcile long-distance high-speed travel with the need to mitigate, so we choose not to mitigate and wreck the planet.

How does the choice to fly look, in relation to each possibility?

It’s not your fault you lived in the era before green flying was possible. That said, it may have been immoral to choose a mode of transport you knew to be (a) unsustainable and (b) harmful to others. It may be laudable or morally necessary to minimize flying and/or compensate for your impact by purchasing offsets.
It’s not your fault you lived in the era before non-flight green travel was possible. That said, it may have been immoral to choose a mode of transport you knew to be (a) unsustainable and (b) harmful to others. It may be laudable or morally necessary to minimize flying and/or compensate for your impact by purchasing offsets.
Again, you are on the hook for choosing an unsustainable option – specifically, one that had to be harshly curtailed in the future. Of course, if you are (a) selfish and (b) desirous of seeing the world, the danger that flying will be either restricted or far more expensive in the future creates an incentive to do a lot of it now.
Flying was hardly a laudable thing to do, but it probably didn’t affect the outcome. Once we get into a runway climate change situation, it doesn’t matter much whether emissions in year X were Y megatonnes or 1.5Y megatonnes.

The larger question of whether future outcomes affects the morality of present decisions must also be contemplated. It does seem a bit odd to say that an action in 2007 was right or wrong as a consequence of technologies developed later. This post really cannot provide any answers to these questions – though my position remains that virtually all flying taking place at present is immoral – but perhaps it will provide a new way to consider things.