An update to yesterday’s post. The Guardian reports that the White House wrote letters to ExxonMobil thanking them for their role in crafting the government’s climate change report. The letters also sought to assure Exxon and other anti-Kyoto business associations that US climate change policies would be structured in ways that companies would find acceptable.
Isn’t the sweet? No one writes thank you letters anymore. Or maybe, if they do then they shouldn’t keep a paper trail.
A sombering thought, one that might be good to take down: there are a lot of neat statistics that make environmentalists feel warm and fuzzy… such as this banner. Of course, there are countless types wonderful endeavors that somebody, somewhere is putting their all into. But all the neat statistics may blind some from the true ‘true cost’ of things. In example, it would be possible to power an overwhelming part of the US with a wind farm in North Dakota (they have lucky winds), but the power lines would dissipate too much energy. OK, so why not install superconductivity-enable power lines? Or nano-tube powerlines, both with close to zero resistance (and thus close to full transmission capacity)?
Because, these things costs something too. That is, energy, resources, capital, etc. etc. The moral of the story? Don’t get carried away, I wonder if it just might be more harm than good.
Jaded readers will not be surprised by the announcement that a White House appointee “who once led the oil industry’s fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports to play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.”
What is shocking is the NYTimes graphic of an actual page of the document with hand-written annotations striking out paragraphs because climate change is “speculative”.
another bonafide environmental group is emerging at McGill. . . and you can be witness to its beautiful development at the new site for Gorilla Composting www.gorilla.mcgill.ca. As of 11am, GC was granted the coveted ‘independ student group’ status.
Undeniably, Climate Change is ‘in’, ‘hip’, and ‘with it’. If you’ve got an eye out for mention of greenhouse gases, the hydrogen economy, emission credit trading… you’ll start to see it everywhere. And the New York Times certainly has its finger on the pulse: nuclear waste casks are suddenly popular, squeezing more energy from the consumer-side (finally!), and an article + audio slideshow of the most commercially-inclined hydrogen car to date.
From the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a new pre-design software package has been unleashed that provides a LEED breakdown of energy use. In short, it’s a energy diet designer. Energy-10 and affiliated Sustainable Building folk have left nothing out when it comes to the full trajectory from planning to construction, a no-loose-ends offering.
In a move that Democrats and Californians alike are no doubt grinning about, Gov. Schwarzenegger has broken ranks with the Republican majority in re: climate change. “I say the debate is over,” he says, and summarily convinced, Arnold put California leaps and bounds ahead of any other US state with its ambitious legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. A scant review of this program’s ‘teeth’ is covered in the NYTimes article.
Happily, many states are falling under the auspices of the Kyoto protocol by mechanisms of their own design – with (obviously) no support or backing from the federal government. Actions include letigation and lawsuits against power plants (most famously last summer’s suit), to bolstering renewable energy (see UCS factsheet), to good, old-fashioned muckracking against the President (see angry formal letter), to simply adopting the Kyoto protocol on some respectable level. 44 case studes are available from the Pew Center’s database.
As Pablo Picasso once said, “every act of creation is first an act of destruction.” This is important when you observe the debate over cloning. From an NY Times article: ‘”I never destroy any life during my process,” said Dr. Woo Suk Hwang, the laboratory director, his eyes flashing above his surgical mask as he gave a reporter a rare look at the controversial human-cell transfer process developed at this small lab on the sixth floor of Building No. 85 at Seoul National University.”
But he goes on to make a distinction, and stating that embryos are never formed… ‘”We have never attempted human cloning.”‘ Enough people from the opposite point of view state the opposite. If the process creates embryos, the process is cloning.
So what of Alma Matter? Embryos are being produce. . . thawed after being frozen at a rate of 20,000 degrees C, no less! Also, a baby was actually born of this embryo, as reported by McGill’s Newswire. It seems there is no forseeable end to reproductive innovation.
Check out the Indigenous Environmental Network, which has recently dedicated itself to addressing the effects of climate change on native peoples around the world and particularly in the sub-Arctic.
Existential questions from the drawing room seem to be left by the wayside. . . Can a genetic clone really fill the void left by a lost & gone pet? Or, is it nature or nuture? Now that legal barriers and technological shortcomings are subsiding, the real questions are: can cloning be profitable?
Many months ago, mention of Dolly et al would have been strictly science & technology, but the latest leap in closing is squarely a business article. The LA Times and NY Times both reported a price drop to the tune of $18,000.
You have to admire their style: “To display its work and perhaps to help demystify its science,” the laboratory at Genetic Savings and Clone is built within glass walls for the viewing pleasure of the public. The parlour talk has worn thin, and biomedical ethics has invited in ribald attitudes.
In a world where information is quickly commodified wherever it is uncovered, and genetics hold a bounty of information, perhaps it’s only a matter of time until price tags become affixed to every trait of someone’s child. . . or for the time being, someone’s pet cat.
As seen on slashdot, Burlington Vermont is embarking on a plan to run fiber to the home. It’s interesting to note the approach: provide a fibre infrastructure at low cost, and then allow the private sector to lease a part of the bandwidth for phone, television, and internet.
The article is actually fairly informative, and does a nice job of presenting the head of the project, as well as some of the hurdles the project has faced. It’s interesting to note that the city feels it’s unlikely any private sector companies would get around to putting in the fibre for a good many years.
G. Thomas Sharp with Albertosaurus Photo
© Blue Channel Media, LLC,
courtesy Museum of Earth History
The Museum of Earth History is the newest entry into the normalization of creation science. The well-funded museum brings to creationism modern techniques of museumology and computer mediated communication. It certainly is popular. The museum, which open last month in Eureka, Arkansas has already seen thousands of visitors. An adjacent area, The Great Passion Play, has seen 7.5 million visitors.
The museum forms part of a Bible-based theme park in Eureka Springs. The parking lot is full of cars and coaches from all over the country. To enter the museum is to explore a surrealistic parallel world. Biblical quotes appear on displays. The first has dinosaurs, alongside Adam and Eve, living in harmony. The ferociously fanged T. rex is likely to be a vegetarian. Then comes the “Fall of Man” and an ugly world where dinosaurs prey on one another and the first extinctions occur. The destruction of the dinosaurs is explained, not by a comet striking the Earth 65 million years ago, but by the Flood. This, the museum says, wiped out most of the dinosaurs still alive and created the Grand Canyon and huge layers of sedimentary rock seen around the world.
Some dinosaurs survived on Noah’s Ark. One poster explains that Noah would have chosen juvenile dinosaurs to save space. An illustration shows two green sauropods in the ark alongside more conventional elephants and lions. The final exhibit depicts the Ice Age, where the last dinosaurs existed with woolly mammoths until the cold and hunting by cavemen caused them to die out.
MOEH has a very professional web site. If I didn’t know what the museum offered, the picture of the T. rex on the home page would suggest a museum of natural history. The computer mediated communication offered on the site is on par with other museums. Check out this movie that describes (or rather poses the question) how 1000 years of natural phenomenon could be created in one day.
Unfortunately, the novelty of the blending of science and creationism receives great play in the mainstream media, for example here and here. Even our modest blog is participating in the diffusion of information. That adds to the normalization of creation science. This paragraph perfectly captures the leading edge of normalization:
That wellspring of popular belief [that 45 percent of Americans believe the Earth was created by God within the past 10,000 years], and the political clout that comes with it, are the inspiration behind the museum. It is not interested in debating with mainstream science. It simply wants to represent the view of a significant slice of America. “We want people to see that finally they have something that addresses their beliefs, to show that we do have a voice,” said Thomas Sharp, business director of Creation Truth, the religious group that co-founded the museum.
As the ideas blend into the mainstream, you don’t need to debate science. Just present an alternate view. Because isn’t that what an egalitarian science is all about? Accepting alternative hypotheses? (As long as they can be tested, of course. But if you also can create your own methodologies then you can confirm your hypotheses.)
What we take for granted as technological niceties are easily cloaked becuase they seamlessly mesh with our human needs. Or, our human needs mesh with technology? An interplay evolves, and happily, the two combine. Hence, the “Cyborg Manifesto” by Donna Harraway. This is old-hat for most, but reconsider the slurry of new gadgets with consumer comfort as their prime design goal, or, better, yet, consumer performance. The attack comes from both sides: humans being copied into computer/robot models and also computers complementing the mind&body. Some more glib developements: Ãœbergeek keyboard, ultra-manipulative computer interface, and reading to maximize space and efficiency.
Computer models have linked ocean warmth to African drought. The authors of a new study predict that “a 50-year-long drying trend [in southern Africa] is likely to continue and appears tightly linked to substantial warming of the Indian Ocean.”
Read the whole article, which is cheery (not).
Okay, it’s not about computers or the environment, but it’s a feel good article. Canada ranks number one in astronomy, in terms of the frequency that others cite our publications in astronomy-related scientific journals.
I love the title of the article, which isn’t explained but the reference should be apparent (the author knows his Canadians): Canada Looks Up, Way Up
In lieu of the status quo, what new technologies will be the top contenders against coal-fired power plants? No sectors will die out entirely (they’re all so neat!), but some will shine brighter… say, solar power? British Petroleum is picking up the slack and pouring money into this sustainable technology. Sustainable? Well, the costs of materials and energy-intensive production process have been depressing solar power.
Several months ago, radical departures form the standard volatic cell design emerged – my favorite was a spray-on polymer that aligned its molecules to conduct electricity from sunlight. For others, dive through the Technology Review issues of 2004.
Of course, technology works best in conjuntion with a support network. Just because there may be a patch of sunny-year-round grassy fields, it doesn’t mean electricity can be shipped efficiently enough without a proper power grid. Also from Tech. Review, May 2005; new superconductivity shortcuts include nanotube wires, with virtually ZERO resistance. Maybe wind farms will spring up in North Dakota like they’ve always wanted.
As for BP’s new solar program – it’s comforting when petroleum-intensive R&D makes room for green technology. But, one must always wonder, where is the line between greening and greenwashing?
Nick Christof, of the NYTimes, believes that the Chinese government is doomed. What or who’s going to do it? Blogs.
the Internet is beginning to play the watchdog role in China that the press plays in the West. The Internet is also eroding the leadership’s monopoly on information and is complicating the traditional policy of “nei jin wai song” – cracking down at home while pretending to foreigners to be wide open.
Colour me sceptical, but the Chinese government has been around for a long time and, I’m guessing, can find ways to use a new technology just as well as its citizens.