Science – Page 98 – a sibilant intake of breath

Meat and antibiotics

Quite a while ago, I wrote about connections between human disease and the factory farming of animals. Recently, some new observational data has supported the link between the two. In the Netherlands, a new form of the superbug MRSA has emerged. It is strongly resistant to treatment with tetracycline antibiotics: a variety heavily used on livestock. The animals need the drugs because they are kept in such appalling conditions (unhygienic and constrained) that they would get infections too easily otherwise.

Xander Huijsdens and Albert de Neeling found that 39% of pigs and 81% of pig farms in the Netherlands were hosts to the potentially lethal antibiotic resistant bacteria. People who came into contact with pigs were 12 times more likely to contract this form of MRSA than members of the ordinary population; those who come into contact with cattle are 20 times more susceptible. The strain has since been found in Denmark, France, and Singapore. A study conducted by the University of Guelph found the strain in 25% of local pigs and 20% of pig farmers.

Maintaining the effectiveness of antibiotics for the treatment of people is highly important for human welfare. Antibiotics are one of the major reasons why modern medicine is valuable: they help people die dramatically less often after childbirth and surgery than was the case before their development. They have also helped to make diseases that would formerly have been probable death sentences treatable. The fact that we are allowing farms to deplete their value so that they can produce meat more cheaply (by forcing more animals closer together in less clean conditions) seems profoundly unwise. In Pennsylvania, legislators have even banned farmers who produce hormone and antibiotic milk from saying so on their packaging – on the grounds that it would make consumers unduly worried about the other milk on offer.

Passionate Minds

I started Passionate Minds: The Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment, Featuring the Scientist Émilie du Châtelet, the Poet Voltaire, Sword Fights, Book Burnings, Assorted Kings, Seditious Verse, and the Birth of the Modern World with high hopes. It promised science, literature, and history in an accessible package. That promise is only partially realized. While the book does reveal some of the most remarkable (and the most flawed) characteristics of both Voltaire and du Châtelet, it sometimes makes claims that stretch the evidence provided. Often, the book simply asserts things rather than seeking to prove them.

Bodanis’ central thesis – that Émilie du Châtelet has been given insufficient historical attention – is fairly robust. Clearly, hers was an extraordinary life: born into nobility, but driven towards science and the sometimes hapless literary life of Voltaire instead of occupying a more traditional position in the Court. At times, the book demonstrates startling contrasts between the way of life at the time and the present. This is especially true of the marriages: purely political and economic unions in which years of habitation with a prominent lover were apparently not too exceptional. When a court rival attacks Voltaire through a lawsuit, her husband comes to his defence – despite how Voltaire has been living with his wife for years and they are a highly prominent couple.

In the end, the book would have been better if it had focused less on intrigue and more on what significant scientific contributions du Châtelet actually made. Saying that “[m]ore technical aspects of her work played a great role in energizing the French school of theoretical physics, associated with Lagrande and Laplace” isn’t a very convincing way of showing historical importance. Likewise, the assertion that “[t]he use of the square of the speed of light, c², in Einstein’s most famous equation, E=mc² is directly traceable to her work” is never adequately argued.

The book does an excellent job of describing how atrocious the medicine of the time was, contributing to du Châtelet’s own relatively early death in childbirth. It also relates some fascinating historical episodes in an engaging way: for instance, the rigged lottery through which Voltaire made his fortune.

A book about du Châtelet written by someone with more of a focus on studying and explaining science would be a better tribute to the woman than this interesting yet flawed volume.

Clearing Indonesian rainforests for biofuel

I have already mentioned how important rainforests are to climatic stability. Likewise, the acute danger that biofuel production will lead to increased deforestation, either directly – through the madness that is palm oil biofuel – or indirectly – by increasing the price of crops like corn, the value of agricultural land, and the profits to be made from cutting down rainforest and growing cheaper things like soy there instead.

This video – found via Grist – does a good job of attaching some visuals to the argument. Unhappily enough, this crazy conversion of rainforest into palm oil biofuels is taking place in the very state where the UNFCCC is meeting right now, in order to try to tackle the problem of climate change.

‘Green’ fuel for military jets

There has recently been a fair bit of media coverage discussing an announcement from the United States Air Force that they are trying to use 50% synthetic fuel by 2016. The Lede, a blog associated with the New York Times, seems to misunderstand the issue completely. They are citing this as an example of the Air Force “trying to be true stewards of the environment.” There is no reason for which synthetic fuels are necessarily more environmentally friendly than petroleum; indeed, those made from coal are significantly worse.

The actual fuel being used – dubbed JP-8 – is made from natural gas. Air Force officials say they eventually intend to make it from coal, given that the United States has abundant reserves. This inititative is about symbolically reducing dependence on petroleum imports, not about protecting the environment. The German and Japanese governments did the same thing during the Second World War, when their access to oil was restricted. Furthermore, it is worth stressing that efforts by militaries to be greener are virtually always going to be window dressing. The operation of armed forces is inevitably hugely environmentally destructive: from munitions factories to test ranges to the wanton fuel inefficiency of aircraft afterburners, the whole military complex is about as anti-green as you can get.

People should be unwilling to accept superficial claims that installing some solar panels and building hybrid tanks is going to change that.

The efficiency of solar

Robert Rapier, petroleum expert, and Steve Heckeroth, writing for Mother Earth News, agree that solar power is the future.

Based on their calculations, the overall efficiency of biomass “from sun to wheel” is between 0.01% and 0.05%. By contrast, charging electric vehicles using solar power can produce efficiencies of 3% to 20% on the same metric. Electric drivetrains are also “5 to 10 times more efficient than internal combustion engines.” Even if power from conventional fuels is charging the vehicles, overall emissions are likely to be lower. It is also much easier to sequester greenhouse gas emissions from big power plants than to do the same thing with car exhaust.

If you insist on maintaining a car-based society, basing it around electric vehicles charged using renewable energy or fossil fuel generation with sequestration seems to be the way to go. Hybrids are only a minor improvement and hydrogen fuel cells are a non-starter.

Canada’s science-savvy fifteen-year-olds

Canada’s educators should be proud of the recently released results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The test examines the performance of 15-year-olds in science and placed Canada third in the world, after Finland and Hong Kong. Following after are Estonia, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, and South Korea. Britain is 14th, France 25th, and the United States is 29th.

This is especially welcome news given the ever-increasing importance of basic scientific understanding in contemporary society. In everything from making decisions about one’s own health to voting, having an understanding of at least physics, chemistry, and biology is increasingly necessary. Hopefully, the results of this assessment demonstrate that young Canadians are being well prepared.

More information is available through their website.

Bali talks beginning

Starting tomorrow morning, there will be twelve days of talks in Bali, Indonesia intended to begin the process of drafting a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, when the period it covers ends in 2012. This particular meeting is mostly about choosing the structure for the real negotiations. Three possibilities are likely:

The parties agree to extend the Kyoto Protocol, keeping in place many of its institutional structures
The parties decide to create a whole new instrument
The talks collapse in acrimony, with no agreement

Which of these takes place will largely depend on the stances adopted by the great powers and major emitters, especially the United States, Russia, China, Japan, Brazil, and the European Union.

Some questions of succession hang over the proceedings. The new Rudd government in Australia has only been in power for a week, and may not have a well developed negotiating position. More importantly, everyone knows the Bush administration will soon be out of power. Leading Congressional Democrats are attending the summit themselves. It remains to be seen what effect that will have.

Hydrogen and helium as sources of lift

Here is a random counter-intuitive fact about chemistry: while the atomic weight of hydrogen is 1.00794 grams per mole and that of helium is 4.002602 grams per mole, the helium nonetheless has 92.64% of the buoyancy of the hydrogen. This is because air weighs about 1.3 grams per litre, while hydrogen and helium gasses weigh 0.08988 and 0.1786 respectively. It is the difference between the density of air and the lift gas that is important and, in absolute terms, hydrogen and helium are not that different.

Ultimately, both hydrogen and helium are capable of providing about 1kg worth of lift per cubic metre of gas at room temperature and pressure. The major reason for which helium is popular as a lifting agent for balloons and zeppelins is because it is not flammable (it is actually a remarkable unreactive element). Unfortunately, helium is a lot more costly, has other uses (such as cooling superconductors), and is in the midst of significant shortage.

McKinsey climate change study

McKinsey – a major consultancy – has released a report (PDF) on the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The general conclusion is a familiar one: that existing technologies and emerging technologies with a high probability of success can collectively reduce emissions by a very considerable degree at modest cost. Specifically, the study argues that 3.0 to 4.5 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent can be averted by 2030, at marginal costs of under US$50 per tonne. Business as usual would see present emissions of 7.2 gigatonnes grow to 9.7 gigatonnes by 2030: almost twice what the whole planet can handle.

The executive summary linked above is well worth reading, as it is rich with detail. It stresses how abatement will not happen through a few big changes: many thousands of emitting activities must be incrementally reformed. That said, 40% of the abatement they describe would actually save money in the long term (for instance, by replacing existing systems with more energy efficient varieties).

Perhaps the most interesting element in the whole report is the abatement curve on the fifth page of the executive summary. It ranks a collection of mitigation activities from those that produce the highest level of economic benefit per tonne to those that are most costly. For instance, increasing the efficiency of commercial electronics could save $90 per tonne of CO2 equivalent. Other win-win options include residential electronics, building lighting, fuel economy standards for cars and trucks, and improvements to residential and commercial buildings. Cellulosic biofuels are net winners, though of a lesser magnitude, as is changes to soil tillage to boost the strength of carbon sinks. The most expensive abatement options include carbon capture and storage, the use of solar electric power, and the use of hybrid cars (the single most expensive option listed).

This is quite an encouraging view. Achieving substantial reductions within a developed economy for under $50 a tonne is promising in itself. It also suggests that international abatement prices could be even lower, given how insane things like tropical deforestation are from an economic perspective, once climate change is taken into account.

Ecosystems in a changing climate

As climate changes, many species are moving. Sometimes, it is from lower to higher altitudes, in order to live in familiar temperatures. Sometimes, it is from south to north for the same reason. Such natural adaptation is inevitable and, while it is a coping mechanism for individual species, it invariably changes the composition of ecosystem. Birds and flying insects may be able to relocate more easily, leaving slower-moving or less adaptable species behind. Suddenly, the structure of food webs start to change as predator-prey relations are redefined.

Some people have argued that allowing ecosystems to respond to climate change on their own is the best course of action. Others have argued that vulnerable species should be relocated to areas where they will be able to continue living. Some have even argued that polar bears should be relocated to Antarctica to make them less vulnerable to global warming. Others have argued that elephants and rhinos should be introduced to North America as a hedge against the danger of poaching. Finally, there are those who argue that we should actively manage ecosystems to try to mitigate climate change effects: if pests have shifted into new areas and begun eating crops, import their predators. If coastal erosion is worsening, bring in species to stabilize beaches.

The human record of such interventions is definitely not stellar, but the debate is nonetheless increasingly energetic. The discussion is both pragmatic – asking what the probable costs and benefits of making a change would be – and philosophical – engaging with the question of what the ‘natural’ world is and how people should engage with it. Global climatic change will make both of these sets of questions more immediately relevant and pressing.