Science – Page 91 – a sibilant intake of breath

Cooperation tipping points?

All regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the idea that there are physical tipping points in the climate system: places where one additional unit of warming produces much more harm to people and natural ecosystems than the previous units did. Politically, it is worth considering the possibility that another kind of tipping point exists, namely one beyond which the willingness of various actors to cooperate on climate change alters dramatically on the basis of some critical increment of climate change effects.

It’s possible that the effect could be one of rallying – the world suddenly realizing the seriousness of the issue and thus taking immediate action. States previously obsessed with exactly who should pay how much and exactly what timeline should be followed might just buckle down and do what needs to be done. A fair number of people seem to think that only a pretty substantial disaster will make the threat of climate change sufficiently concrete for enough people for the hard work of stabilization to begin.

The other possibility (mentioned here) is that the world will pass from hesitation and avoidance of the issue directly into conflict, accusation, and counter-productive action. Severe climatic impacts could drive states and individuals to focus on their own short term internal and external security, rather than making serious efforts to address the root of the problem. This is a classical prisoner’s dilemma scenario and, unless it flips to a state of desperate cooperation once things got really bad, it could push the world across the physical thresholds that are so worrisome.

In any case, it is as necessary to be aware of the existence of hidden feedbacks within public sentiment and government planning as within ecosystems or patterns in air and water currents. Of course, that just adds additional uncertainty to a very threatening brew.

More evidence from the cryosphere

A new study of 100 glaciers has shown that ice loss in 2006 was unprecedented. Between 1980 and 1999, average rates of loss were 30cm per year. In 2006, 1.5 metres were lost.

Overall, the data is not encouraging:

During 1980-1999, average loss rates had been 0.3 metres per year. Since the turn of the millennium, this rate had increased to about half a metre per year.

The record annual loss during these two decades – 0.7 metres in 1998 – has now been exceeded by three out of the past six year (2003, 2004 and 2006).

On average, one metre water equivalent corresponds to 1.1 metres in ice thickness. That suggests a further shrinking in 2006 of 1.5 actual metres and since 1980 a total reduction in thickness of ice of just over 11.5 metres or almost 38 feet.

Glaciers play a critical role in the fresh water cycle. They help to conserve winter snowfall, contributing to river flow in summer. They also affect patterns of downwind precipitation, especially past the Himalayas.

In his infamous address to the White House Press Corps, Stephen Colbert joked about how “your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.” If these trends persist, that might be an accurate prediction.

Space-related fatalities

I never appreciated just how hazardous spaceflight really was. Everyone knows about the Challenger, Columbia, and Apollo 13 disasters. Many people know about Apollo 1. I doubt anyone reading this is aware of all of these. Soyuz 23, for instance, crashed through the ice of Lake Tengiz and had the crew saved only through an elaborate underwater rescue. Apollo 12 was struck by lightning during launch and would have been destroyed if disabled computers in the crew compartment hadn’t had backups in the rocket itself.

Of the 439 people who have been strapped into a vehicle intended to eventually go into space, 22 (5%) have died as a result. American astronauts were statistically about four times as likely to die as their Soviet counterparts, though that is partly a result of how the large crew of the Space Shuttle means a catastrophic accident kills seven people. The Space Mirror Memorial in Florida commemorates Americans who have died in the space program; their cosmonaut contemporaries are buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. No Russian has died in relation to space travel since the fall of the Soviet Union, so it is unclear how they would be memorialized now.

Evolution and Ben Stein

It is always surprising when a seemingly intelligent person adopts a hopelessly indefensible position. This seems to be the case with Ben Stein’s new anti-evolution movie. It is still possible to argue that some kind of deity must have created the universe. What is not possible is to argue convincingly against the central elements of the theory of evolution: namely how mutation and selection drive change and how all life on earth is descended from a common ancestor. There is simply too much evidence for both claims, and it is too good:

The fossil record shows overwhelming evidence for a branched tree of life, connecting existing organisms to ancient ones that preceded them.
Comparative embryology provides good anatomical evidence of both evolution and common descent.
Concrete examples of evolution on human timescales can be easily found. These include plant domestication, moths that darkened in response to coal soot, and antibiotic resistant bacteria.
The geographic distribution of species provides evidence for speciation and adaptation to new biological niches.
Both nucleic and mitochondrial DNA provide excellent evidence for both common descent and evolution through selection.
Common aspects of biochemistry are demonstrative of both claims: especially those features which are arbitrary yet consistent among living things

I haven’t seen the film, and it probably argues something more sophisticated than “the world is 6,000 years old and every creature that has ever lived is alive now, in the exact form in which it was created.” Even so, it is depressing to see someone commonly associated with intelligence fuelling a false debate centred around ignorance.

There are certainly many incredible mysteries that remain in biology – including many of the details on how evolution functions and has proceeded. Similarly, a questioning attitude is essential to scientific advancement. Those things freely admitted, purporting to challenge things with so many strong and independent collections of evidence supporting them is much more likely to retard the advancement of human knowledge than it is to advance it. This is especially true when a contrived debate runs the risk of forcing sub-standard education on children.

Climate change ‘delayers’

There is a good post over at Grist on the proper nomenclature for what are generally called ‘climate skeptics’ or ‘climate deniers.’ It argues that calling them skeptics is inaccurate, since they don’t actually treat information with skepticism:

Skeptics can be convinced by the facts, but not the delayers [the author’s preferred term]. Skeptics (and real scientists) do not continue repeating arguments that have been discredited. Delayers do. Skeptics believe in science, in well-tested theories backed up by real-world observations, but delayers do not.

“Denier” is also problematic, both on its own and as a half-reference to Holocaust deniers. This is both because they don’t generally outright deny the existence of climate change and because their ‘denial’ concerns something ongoing, on which action must be taken, rather than something that has already passed.

The piece makes some good points about the state of the discussion:

By calling them “deniers” we are making the focus of our response the climate science; we are fighting on their turf, so they still win. In fact, the science has long since passed the realm in which the delayers try to debate it. The key question for humanity today is not whether human-caused global warming does or does not exist — it is not even whether human-caused global warming is a serious problem. It is already past a serious problem. The only serious question facing the human race now is whether we will act strongly enough and quickly enough to avert a catastrophe that is both beyond historical comparison and probably irreversible for centuries, if not millennia.

Despite the unambiguous nature of the science, that really doesn’t seem to be the understanding that is dominant within popular culture. It is not clear whether additional scientific evidence or reports would ever change that. As such, the kind of rhetorical arguments that this post is addressing have considerable importance.

In general, I see good reasons for using the term ‘delayer’ but, unless it catches on fairly widely, it will always be necessary to explain it. I plan to do so by linking back to this post.

Project BudBurst

Project BudBurst is an interesting initiative aiming to collect data on plant behaviour using scores of volunteers. The ‘citizen scientists’ are to record phenomena such as the “first bud burst, first leafing, first flower, and seed or fruit dispersal of a diversity of tree and flower species, including weeds and ornamentals.” All in all, the project is meant to provide useful data on climate change and the effect it is having on plant life.

To have much value, such a project would need to be maintained for many years. That’s the only way year-to-year random aberrations in weather can be isolated from genuine climatic trends. That said, it could be a valuable source of information on how plants are responding to changes in the global environment. Other studies have already shown that the ranges inhabited by plants and animals are shifting in response to changes in temperature and precipitation. What is most interesting is what happens when those gradual changes encounter an obstacle: when creatures moving upslope towards colder air find themselves at the top of the mountain, or when plants flowering earlier miss the time when the insects pollinating them are active.

At present, the project only covers the continental United States. It aims to track 30 native trees/shrubs, 24 native wildflowers, 3 common exotic weeds, 2 common exotic ornamentals, and all of the U.S.A. National Phenology Network calibration species. The Woodland Trust does similar work in the United Kingdom.

You are very safe

Glancing through news stands and television reports, a person is likely to see all manner of terrible hazards highlighted: from kidnapping to toxic chemicals leached from Nalgene bottles. It is worth remembering – in the face of this onslaught – that we are about the safest people who have ever lived. Hunger and infectious disease kill hardly any Canadians. Violence kills some, but fewer than in just about any society ever. And yet, too many people live in fear.

Maintaining perspective is vital. Let your children play in the park, even though one or two children in the whole country get kidnapped from there annually. Let them build treehouses, even though some tiny subset of Canada’s population contracts tetanus.

Refusing strengthens the significant possibility that they will live sedate and uninteresting lives.

The viability of cellulosic ethanol

Corn-based ethanol fuels have received a lot of well–deserved criticism lately. This includes criticisms that they take more fossil fuels to produce than they replace, that they have a marginal effect on total greenhouse gas emissions, and that they raise food prices and starve the poor. Ethanol defenders use two approaches to counter-attack. They claim that these problems are not as severe as reported, and they argue that corn ethanol is a necessary step on the road to cellulosic ethanol, which will be made from non-food crops grown in ways that don’t use fossil fuels intensively.

A recent post at R-Squared questions whether that transition will ever occur. Rapier argues:

Cellulosic ethanol, and by that I mean cellulosic ethanol in the traditional mold of what Iogen has been working on for years – will never be commercially viable.

If so, this is bad news for biofuels in general. Rapier points out problems including the large amount of lignin in biomass, the difficulties in transporting such quantities of biomass to refineries, and the energy use involved in drying the stuff out.

Additional criticisms of cellulosic ethanol can be found in a recent study from Iowa State University. According to their economic analysis, cellulosic ethanol will never be produced at the levels envisioned by the American Renewable Fuel Standard, and will only be produced in substantial quantities if it gets three times the subsidy already granted to corn ethanol:

Competition for land ensures that providing an incentive to just one crop will increase equilibrium prices of all. Also, at pre-EISA subsidy levels, neither biodiesel nor switchgrass ethanol is commercially viable in the long run. In order for switchgrass ethanol to be commercially viable, it must receive a differential subsidy over that awarded to corn-based ethanol.

Largely, this is on account of how growing any crop in massively increased quantities will affect factor prices for other crops: from land to labour to farm equipment.

There is no doubt about it, if technology is going to help us transition to a low-carbon society without giving up liquid-fuel driven transport, we are going to need to come up with some awfully clever new ideas.

Monuments for heretics

At University College, Oxford, you can see a large memorial to Percy Bysshe Shelley. Those who have seen The Saint may remember it as the place where the lead characters meet. Its presence is a bit odd, however, given that the college and university expelled him because he refused to deny writing a pamphlet called The Necessity of Atheism.

The Vatican is now aiming to do one better than University College, erecting a statue of Galileo close to the apartment where he was imprisoned in 1633 on allegations of promoting heliocentrism. His Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems can be read online.

Climate denial conference

On various climate blogs, there has been coverage recently about a climate change skeptic conference run by the American Heartland Institute. DeSmogBlog and Grist have been leading the scolding, though the mainstream media seems to have started to cotton on that these people are corrupt, frauds, or seriously misguided. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal both have pieces that are somewhat critical of the validity and motivation behind the conference.

You can argue all you like about what level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is represents a tolerable level of risk. You can likewise wade into many fascinating debates about paleoclimatology, climatic feedbacks, and technological development. Nobody has an especially good answer to the question of how climate change mitigation, development, and poverty reduction can be ethically balanced against one another. What you cannot do these days, while retaining your credibility, is deny that the human burning of fossil fuels is causing the planet to warm, and that the consequences of that warming are extremely likely to be harmful to human, plant, and animal life.

The whole thing reminds me of the laughable commercials produced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Here are some resources for countering the misguided or disingenuous arguments made by those who challenge the rigorously demonstrated elements of climate change science.