Christopher Hitchens has oesophageal cancer

You can read his brief announcement, interesting comments from those who love him and bad taste comments from those who hate him, here: An Update from Christopher Hitchens. I admire him for his outspoken support for the Iraq war and wish him well in his battle against cancer.

Related:
the irony of September 11th
waterboarding: DIY

capitalism: for and against

I responded to LinuxLiberty on a reddit thread (source), which began with a misleading quote from John Maynard Keynes.

LinuxLiberty:
It is kind of amazing that capitalism even needs to be defended given the enormous amount of prosperity it has brought to the world. While I won't say the U.S. is an example of free market, in particular like the rest of the world it has a Marxist banking system that repeatedly fails, but it has brought enormous amount of prosperity to even poor people. Look even most poor people live in a house an apartment that has indoor plumbing, electricity, AC, a color television, a DVD player, a phone, a computer with Internet, and many poor people own cars. If you own all of those things that puts you in the top 10% of the rest of the world. The average person in China can't even afford a color television much less a car.

The biggest problem with capitalism is it turns people into spoiled brats who can't even comprehend what a rough life or poverty is.

billkerr:
It's true that capitalism has been the most productive system to date. However, there are also some problems with it, which I would summarise as follows:

• it can't avoid major economic crisis, eg. the last Great Depression and the next one, soon
• it has deformed or crippled the nature of work, especially the way factories operate
• the wealth disparity b/w rich and poor continues to increase
• it promotes the unsustainable dream that you can create more money from money

pielke snrs hypotheses regarding climate change

From Roger Pielke snr, who favours hypothesis 2a, that whilst CO2 is significant it should not be elevated above other climate forcings:

Hypothesis 1: Human influence on climate variability and change is of minimal importance, and natural causes dominate climate variations and changes on all time scales. In coming decades, the human influence will continue to be minimal.

Hypothesis 2a: Although the natural causes of climate variations and changes are undoubtedly important, the human influences are significant and involve a diverse range of first order climate forcings, including, but not limited to, the human input of carbon dioxide (CO2). Most, if not all, of these human influences on regional and global climate will continue to be of concern during the coming decades.

Hypothesis 2b: Although the natural causes of climate variations and changes are undoubtedly important, the human influences are significant and are dominated by the emissions into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases, the most important of which is CO2. The adverse impact of these gases on regional and global climate constitutes the primary climate issue for the coming decades.
- Invitation On Assessing Three Climate Hypotheses

Roger Pielke snr invited feedback on these hypotheses following criticism of them at Real Climate: What do Climate Scientists Think? (See Comments 36, 43, 49)

Pielke snr has now published the feedback he has received about the different hypotheses: Feedback On My Invitation On The Three Hypotheses Regarding Climate Forcings

I did post comments (and received responses) to John Cook’s blog: A Scientific Guide to the 'Skeptics Handbook' , which does seem to make an honest attempt to evaluate evidence about climate change, about Pielke snrs invitation to improve his hypotheses.

32. billkerr at 11:11 AM on 2 July, 2010
hi John,
Have you considered the choice b/w Pielke snrs invitation and hypotheses 2a and 2b? (Invitation On Assessing Three Climate Hypotheses) You seem to support 2b judging by your handbook's CO2 emphasis but 2a may be a better fit for the evidence

Hypothesis 2a: Although the natural causes of climate variations and changes are undoubtedly important, the human influences are significant and involve a diverse range of first order climate forcings, including, but not limited to, the human input of carbon dioxide (CO2). Most, if not all, of these human influences on regional and global climate will continue to be of concern during the coming decades.

Hypothesis 2b: Although the natural causes of climate variations and changes are undoubtedly important, the human influences are significant and are dominated by the emissions into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases, the most important of which is CO2. The adverse impact of these gases on regional and global climate constitutes the primary climate issue for the coming decades.

Response: I hadn't seen Pielke's hypotheses. It seems to me 2a and 2b aren't mutually exclusive - any climate scientist would agree that CO2 is not the only driver of climate and that we need to take into account all forcings. The reason for the emphasis on CO2 is because it is the most dominant and fastest rising forcing. The emphasis on CO2 in the Scientific Guide is also necessary as the 'Skeptics Handbook' fails to recognise the many lines of evidence that more CO2 forces up temperature - this is a somewhat more extreme stance than the more nuanced views of Roger Pielke Snr.

50. billkerr at 10:03 AM on 3 July, 2010
#32 and #33

John,
When you say "The reason for the emphasis on CO2 is because it is the most dominant and fastest rising forcing" you are supporting Pielke snrs hypothesis 2b and rejecting 2a. They are mutually exclusive by my reading.

Doug and John,
The Real Climate discussion that Doug links to predates Pielke snrs invitation for people to improve the wording of the hypotheses if they feel the wording is inadequate, as claimed by Eric in the Real Climate discussion. This Pielke snr post, which also predates the invitation, condenses the different viewpoints

.

study political economy

Given that we are facing the greatest economic crisis in 80 years it is a good idea to begin some serious study of the fundamentals of political economy.

great depression looms

Mainstream economists Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Telegraph) and Paul Krugman (New York Times) are now saying we are heading for a version of another Great Depression.

Investors are starting to chew over the awful possibility that America's recovery will stall just as Asia hits the buffers. China's manufacturing index has been falling since January, with a downward lurch in June to 50.4, just above the break-even line of 50. Momentum seems to be flagging everywhere, whether in Australian building permits, Turkish exports, or Japanese industrial output.
- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

There is a difference of ruling class opinion about how to deal with the ongoing economic crisis, either to introduce austerity measures (as in Greece and some other Eurozone countries) or to print more money. Both of the above authors advocate more stimulus and are dismayed at the growing trend to austerity measures.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932, 04 Jul 2010

Paul Krugman, The Third Depression, June 27, 2010

Update (12th July 2010): Greenspan Says Economy May Be Undergoing a `Pause'

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the U.S. economy may be undergoing what he called a “pause,” and that he can’t rule out the possibility of a so- called double-dip recession ... Inventory accumulation “has stopped” and production “has flattened out,” the 84-year-old former central banker said.

australian democracy

Australian Labour Party faction speak about Rudd (anonymous):

"This crypto fascist never bothered to build a base in the Party and now that his only faction, Newspoll, has gone, so has he."

So, the great moral issue of our age is not climate change but the need to retain political power, not only government power but also factional power inside the Labour Party.

There is little difference between ex PM Rudd and new PM Gillard. The main reason for the change is that the factional bosses of the Labour Party seized their chance to remove Rudd who had refused to play their game by ignoring them whilst relying on his direct electoral popularity (which faded once he renounced his climate change scheme). Ironically, Gillard has little time for the factions either but when presented with the opportunity to become PM she couldn't resist.

More:
Labor's shadow men stuck knife into Rudd
Gillard: stooge for the party bosses

overcoming narrow economics inertia

Because of the 2008 economic crisis I decided to study political economy seriously, something which I had previously put into the too hard basket. This study was and is difficult for me and was proceeding too slowly so I have taken time off work this year to move it along.

After over 6 months of reading and searching I have finally found a modern book which meets my needs:

From Political Economy to Economics: Method, the social and the historical in the evolution of economic theory by Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine. Check out the contents page at this amazon link using their look inside feature (one page of contents is missing at google books, why do they do that?)

I'm about a third of the way through but have read enough to say it is very good.

Tracing the history of how the methodology of economics went so wrong provides insight into a big part of the solution of what to do to repair the enormous damage that has been done. And the damage goes back over a century. Obviously there is a need to make many new economists political economists who understand how it should be done, rather than universities continuing to churn out narrow econometrics experts, who don't understand the big picture. How are we going to overcome a hundred years of narrow economics inertia? Make a start by buying and reading the above book.

btw I'm now buying books through The Book Depository since they have free delivery, which saves a lot.

corruption of the language

Terms such as "social capital" and "human capital" represent a corruption of the language we have to think about social and economic issues. Once you understand that the origin of capital itself is social (accumulated surplus value extracted from labourers) then it doesn't make sense to have social or human capital that is distinct from a fictional non social capital. This is explained in a far more detailed and sophisticated manner by Ben Fine and Costas Lapavitsas in this article: Social Capital And Capitalist Economies (pdf 18pp)

Aborigines need to turn radical

We need more gutsy Pearson type political leaders in Australia rather than the spineless back room dealing, phony labour party types such as Anna Bligh (Queensland Premier) and Kevin Rudd (Prime Minister)

Aborigines need to turn radical

Bligh has ignored Macklin's attempt to broker a peace deal.

It is not possible to convey the intensity of the feelings I harbour for these bastards. It is not their contempt for Aboriginal people. It is not their utter lack of principle. It is the torment of our own powerlessness that gets me. The powerlessness of Aboriginal people to hold a position of dignity in this state - in this country, which is supposed to be our country, too. How can the 3 per cent mouse deal on a level playing field with the 97 per cent elephant? How can Aboriginal people be dealt with fairly in a governmental system in which we have no adequate representation?

...

If this leader of this system of government in Queensland has done anything, she has made the choices clear for our people. Either there is structural reform that accords to Aboriginal Australians sufficient power to hold our own in the institutions of government in this country, or the Aboriginal rights movement will have to become more radical than it has ever been.

The proper Latin meaning of radical is root. The root cause of our malaise as a people is the torment of powerlessness we endure at the hands of those in power, who see us as nothing more than a mendicant people.

Bligh redoubled our awareness of our condition this week. We either become steadily weaker and sicker as a result of this torment, or our call for power must become more radical.

progress without progressivism

Scripted lessons start a classroom revival

Radical learning program changing Aboriginal kids' lives

Australians are aware that Aurukun in far north Queensland is a social and educational disaster zone. Nearly everyone puts it into the too hard basket.

The articles above provide some hopeful evidence that the method of Direct Instruction designed by American Zig Engelmann and introduced into Aurukun by Noel Pearson is proving to be effective. Aboriginal students are learning to read. This may not sound remarkable for anyone ignorant of the realities of remote aboriginal communities. But it is remarkable.

To establish this progress Pearson has had to break all the rules of what is regarded as being progressive.
- imported a program from the USA
- plans to extend the working and teaching day
- carefully scripted instruction rather than freedom to explore
- classes organised by ability and not by age

The second article points out some of the teething problems:

the workbooks have come under fire for containing American references, while the direct instruction method was cited by five teachers as their reasons for leaving Aurukun earlier this year

If we achieve progress by methods that are not regarded as progressive then it is time to rethink what progressive is.

Further reading:
It's beyond bad in Aurukun
radical hope: education and equality in australia
Some magic bullets for education
Teachers vote with their feet on Cape York curriculum
Bureaucrats take over Pearson's school plan
Jump-start for Aboriginal education at 'tough-love' school

scientists: neither angels or devils

Roger Pielke jnr runs a great blog on the connection between the science, politics and policy making of the global warming issue.

If our future ex politicians Kevin Rudd and Malcom Turnbull had been aware of him then they would not have so much egg on their faces now

Some say that AGW demands immediate policy action. eg. James Hansen has participated in demonstrations against the opening of new coal plants. Others say that the science has now been exposed as a fraud, following the climategate emails. Pielke's position is that the science and the policy can be detached, that good future energy policy can be developed despite the unavoidable uncertainties that accompany the science. The scientists are neither angels or devils. Like everyone else they are caught up in the machinations of our capitalist society. (the last sentence is mine, not Pielke's, who is a blue dog Democrat)

I left this comment on Roger's blog:

Just a thank you for your great blog

thanks for link to pdf (The Development of the U.S. Global Change Research Program: 1987 to 1994), your early detection and analysis of the issues of the connection b/w science and policy is noteworthy

great doghouse cartoon too - I admire the way you combat the slings and arrows of your critics with calm detachment and humour

your blog is a great model of those who advocate (1) transparency (2) open engagement, including engagement with critics (the judith curry principles)

roots of oppression

roots of oppression

in case you haven't seen this, it's an amazing and very comprehensive photo gallery with commentary by a Dane, Jacob Holdt, hitchhiking around USA, some years ago.

Extract from Chapter 1:

Traveling in such a deeply divided society inevitably was a violent experience:

4 times I was attacked by robbers with pistols,
2 times I managed to avoid cuts from men with knives,
2 times frightened police drew guns on me,
1 time I was surrounded by 10-15 blacks in a dark alley and almost killed.
1 time I was ambushed by the Ku Klux Klan,
several times I had bullets flying around me in shootouts,
2 times I was arrested by the FBI, and 4 times by the Secret Service.
I lived with 3 murderers and countless criminals.....
...but I have never met a bad American!

That I survived I owe to my stubborn belief in these words by Jose Marti:

You must have faith in the best in people and distrust the worst.
If not, the worst will prevail.

steve keen: asking why

Steve Keen has successfully completed his Australian house pricing awareness walk from Parliament House, Canberra, to the peak of Mt. Kosciuszko. There are now posts and photos from those who walked with him going up on the walk site. David Lawson who trained in neo classical economics, then worked in Real Estate and has now abandoned those things. Nina Shedrin a former Russian rocket scientist who is worried about her daughter's generation becoming trapped in a house mortage. More to come.

Steve Keen is doing an amazing job of alerting people to problems in the economic system and encouraging them to dig deeper. His personality is described by David Lawson:

After spending time with Steve Keen on his journey from Canberra to the top of Mt Kosciousko, I have come to know him as a man who always asks the question ‘why?’ He thrives on the challenges that life has to offer, both physically and mentally. Clearly an extremely intelligent man, he also has heart of gold, strong morals and a great sense of humour. There is no wonder why he pursues the work he does

IPCC consensus unravels from within

Judy Curry's Q&A about the CRU Oxburgh investigation findings and her repeated assertion of IPCC corruption is well worth a read: an inconvenient provocateur

Combine that with Pielke snrs blog posts about fundamental issues and we see that the IPCC consensus is unraveled not just in the eyes of ranting sceptics but from within, from peer reviewed published climate scientists

Where does that leave us? Back to where science is treated as a contested method or methods of investigation and not as a source of authoritative pronouncement.

Dan Meyer: maths teacher

How to convert text book word problems which spoon feed too much into problems that students will have a conversation about and go onto solve with slower but deeper thinking. Even better, Dan is an entertaining presenter who combines humour with socially important knowledge and modern technology.

Steve Keen walk begins today

Steve Keen's regular blog: Debt deflation
Debunking Economics website
Keen Walk to Kosciuszko

Steve Keen begins his protest walk against Australian house prices, today, starting from Parliament House, Canberra. This arose because he lost a bet in predicting that Australian house prices would fall and they haven't, so far. Read the links above for more detail.

I admire the way in which Steve Keen has turned a bad bet into a good thing, a protest to raise awareness about the state of the Australian economy. He has generated a lot of interest and support with many people joining him on his walk.

I'm interested in Steve's ideas about Minsky, Fisher, Sraffa, Marx etc and have been reading his extensive online publications in trying to deepen my understanding of political economy arising out of the current and ongoing economic crisis.

Steve Keen is the sort of public intellectual we need. He puts his ideas up for public scrutiny and engages in public debate about them through his blog. I have read enough to understand that econometrics which dominates my local university curriculum (and apparently many others) is a narrow subset of what economic study ought to be. Clearly there needs to be a revolution in university economic departments to bring in the theories of thinkers such as Minsky or Marx who predicted that capitalism would always be an unstable system.

monkeys challenge God

Put the Pope in the Dock by Geoffrey Robertson

This article puts the legal case for holding Pope accountable for covering up child sex abuse and that it is doubtful that he can claim immunity as a head of state. The initiator of this move was Christopher Hitchens. Richard Dawkins elaborates in a letter to the Sunday Times which gave him the credit with a headline that made him seem personally grandiloquent.

The Pope should not be above the law. Human mental evolution has continued since 1860 (Huxley versus Wilberforce)

Arundhati Roy: not looking away

On the news in between the latest road accident and the football results you might hear how the Indian Army has marched into a forest region to wage war against the "maoist extremists".

If you are curious and would like to hear the inside story then read Arundhati Roy's beautifully written Walking with Comrades. Arundhati Roy is a Booker Prize winning author (The God of Small Things)

I’m going to get a history lesson. Or, more accurately a lecture on the history of the last thirty years in the Dandakaranya forest, which has culminated in the war that’s swirling through it today. For sure, it’s a partisan’s version. But then, what history isn’t? In any case, the secret history must be made public if it is to be contested, argued with, instead of merely being lied about, which is what is happening now.

Feynman: utter honesty required

The following Richard Feynman quote was quoted in a climate change discussion at Roger Pielke Jnr's blog. Roger's blog provides a whole range of excellent and seems to me reliable information about "problems" (including corruption) with the IPCC official science. Roger and his other guest contributors think that global warming is an important issue but argue that it is being managed poorly by most politicians and many scientists. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the overlap of the AGW issue with the economics, science and politics of it.

The Feynman quote and the whole article applies to any serious search for truth.

CARGO CULT SCIENCE by Richard Feynman

It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

Charlie Perkins

There was a program on ABC TV last night about Charlie Perkins (1936-2000), an Australian aboriginal activist. It was very moving. It was narrated by his daughter.

The thing about Charlie Perkins is that there was never any bullshit but also he knew how to handle himself politically, he would make his point directly but not overstate it. He was a very effective advocate for aboriginal people in an Australia that was racist but then gradually emerged from racism.

There is a website, Charles Perkins, with video clips and extracts from the documentary. I read some of the transcript of an interview with Perkins towards the end of his life. This bit about how he represented the aborginal people in presenting to the Queen against the wishes of Malcom Fraser, the Prime Minister, is very funny:

And the next minute, the Queen comes around, stops, and who should be behind her, but big Malcolm. Well Malcolm was looking at me as though he wished I'd fall through a big hole in the ground. You know, his eyes were just riveting, and he waited for me to pull out a petition and everything. And I ... and the Queen come and said, 'Mm, Mr Perkins?' I said, 'Yes'. I never bowed, because I don't believe in that stuff. And I said, 'Eileen, don't you curtsy or nothing', I said, 'Just treat her just the same as everybody else', you know, and we did. We treated her with respect. I said, 'Yeah, good to see Your Majesty. Good to see you in Australia, and I'd like to, as an Aboriginal person, welcome you to this country'. And I said, 'You'll find no problem from us. We'll treat you decently'. 'Oh', she said, 'Thank you very much for that'. And of course, Fraser's going, [SHAKES HEAD] you know, and others around him are all screwing up their fingers, wishing to throttle me, I would presume. And then I said to her, 'I'll tell you what, you know, it's ... I was going to give you a petition, but I'm not going to give you that tonight, but I'll tell you what it's about. But I gave it to your right hand man, that Sir Something or Other, and he was a nice fellow, and he took it and he said that you're going to read it, is that right?' She said, 'Yes, I've given my word. I'll read that petition'. And I said, 'Well, that's good. That's all I wanted to know, and I won't embarrass you or nothing, but I'll tell you what I'll do. The Aboriginal people asked me to give you a present from us, not from the Australian Government, from us Aboriginal people', and it came off my walls by the way. It was a boomerang and a shield I took, because we couldn't find it in time, and I said, 'But it's a boomerang and some shield and things like that, we think are very important. It's got Aboriginal markings on them', but I said, 'We'll give it you, but please, would you not put it down back in your shed, down the back, you know, where people like yourself get a lot of important things, and you put it down the sheds, or back rooms, and so on. Can you hang it in an important place in Buckingham Palace?' I said, 'That's why we'll give it to you'. She said, 'I'll do that'. I said, 'Yeah, if you do that, then you can have them'. She said, 'All right'. So she ... and I said, 'Well now, I got nothing more to say. I've got no petition and that. That's all I want to say, and welcome to Australia again. Nice to see you'. And you know, 'Come again any time you like'. So, of course, the other lads were waiting out their says, so we moved aside, and then she went on, you know, and I just waited until the right time, and Eileen and I just sneaked out and then went home.
- full interview transcript

Hansen's book and sea level increase

Reading James Hansen's book, Storms of my Grandchildren, has convinced me that AGW (anthropogenic global warming) is a real problem. I won't attempt to summarise the book except to say that it is an outstanding  example of clear science communication to the public.

I haven't looked closely at the issue of species extinction yet but Hansen and other research convinces me that the threat of rising sea levels is real and that the IPCC estimates are conservative. Sea level rise is difficult for humans to adapt to since so many people and important cities are located around the coastline. I hadn't thought about this much before. I had thought that Climate might or might not be changing but the IPCC maximum projection of 59cm in the next century was a maximum and was sufficiently far off in the future to be not a major problem.

Hansen points out that sea level stability has been with us for approximately 7,000 years and that this provided enormous advantages for the emergence of civilisation, such as increased fish breeding around the coasts providing a high protein diet for a settled population. He also uses paleoclimate data to point out that in the previous interglacial, the Eemian, 140,000 years ago, at one stage the climate was only 1 degree Celcius warmer and the sea level was 4-6 metres higher. See Fig. 3 (source)

My thinking was guided by the idea that everything changes continually anyway and in general new technological discoveries can be used to overcome new problems as they arise. I still think this is correct as a generalisation but I can't think of anyway in which new technologies would overcome a significant sea level rise for millions of people. Of course, it's possible / probable that sea level will rise anyway, sooner or later,  and we will have to adapt. But it seems that we have reached the point where we do have some control over the climate and should collectively exercise that control.

Back to the present, the evidence from the GRACE satellites (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) and other data indicates that the ice sheets in Antarctica (especially West Antarctica) and Greenland are losing mass at an accelerating rate. The GRACE figures are in gigatonne per year and the mass loss is accelerating over the period measured (2002-09) on both sheets:

In Greenland, the mass loss increased from 137 Gt/yr in 2002–2003 to 286 Gt/yr in 2007–2009, i.e., an acceleration of −30 ± 11 Gt/yr2 in 2002–2009. In Antarctica the mass loss increased from 104 Gt/yr in 2002–2006 to 246 Gt/yr in 2006–2009, i.e., an acceleration of −26 ± 14 Gt/yr2 in 2002–2009.
- source

A central issue is the inertia of the oceans and the ice sheets. Ice begins to melt slowly but the rate accelerates over time. Ice in the wild has different dynamics. Ice flows, ice can get dirty, moulins can form to accelerate the destruction etc. With oceans the warming process is much slower overall but the quicker part is early rather than late. These combined inertias create the threat that if you go past a tipping point, which we can’t predict, then you can’t recover from it. We may be letting systems which are controllable to an extent slip out of control. With so many people living in coastal regions then anything faster than the IPCC predictions would be a real concern for future generations.

I still think that economic and industrial development is very important for everyone, especially for the developing world. Since we have the nuclear energy option I don't see any reason for pessimism about the long term energy future for humans.  However, the present problem is that nuclear is more expensive and subject to excessive regulation owing to the widespread fear of anything nuclear. These issues have been and are being discussed in detail at Barry Brook's  blog, Brave New Climate.

At the moment I'm particular interested in the threat of rising sea levels. I found another excellent blog, Getting skeptical about global warming skepticism which has a series of posts about this question. This amazing page lists 94 skeptical arguments and links to responses to all of them based on reviews of peer reviewed papers by John Cook, a Queensland physicist. Here are some of the links to Cook's blog which directly or indirectly look at the issue of rising sea levels:

Sea levels aren't rising
Ice isn't melting
How much will sea levels rise in the 21st Century?
Is Greenland gaining or losing ice?
It's the ocean
Arctic ice melt is a natural cycle
Does ocean cooling prove global warming has ended?

Reading these references makes me think that the IPCC maximum estimate is a conservative one and the sea level may well rise faster than that. This video provides an illustration of how the ice sheet dynamics might work, explains the reasons for IPCC conservatism and looks at some of the paleoclimate data. The section right at the end is overly alarmist but overall it's worth watching:

james hansen

I've booked into the James Hansen presentation on March 11th in Adelaide, South Australia.

I've started reading his book, Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. Here are some preliminary thoughts:

The full title of his book seems ridiculously melodramatic. I say this because we have a solution to worst case global warming scenarios (nuclear power) and Hansen knows about it and devotes a section in his book to it, pp. 194-204

Nevertheless, so far I'm very impressed by the way he lays out the big picture science in Chapter One. More on this later, hopefully.

I like the way in which he presents his differences with contrarian Richard Lindzen in Appendix 1. I was particularly interested in this because I have been influenced by Lindzen's articles.

Hansen explains that he is a shy person who would prefer to stay out of the limelight and just do the science. But because others can't explain the issues properly he has decided to speak out publicly more.

In the video clip below I think he is a bit too eager to blame the fossil fuel industry for clouding the picture. It would be better if the promotional video confined itself to the science.

living with offence

Kindly Inquisitors: The new attacks on free thought (1993) by Jonathan Rauch

Frances Widdowson (Offended by Offence) has recently reviewed this book on her blog. I liked her review and also the Kirkus review at amazon books. I haven't read the book. These brief notes are based on the reviews.

In our civilised democratic society (not Iran, China, etc.), the modern day equivalent of the Inquisition are the philosophies of egalitarianism and humanitarianism

ie. the principle of the Inquisition was that people with wrong or hurtful opinions ought to be punished for the good of society

egalitarianism - the beliefs of all sincere people deserve equal respect
humanitarianism - one must never offend

Taken separately and in particular when combined these outlooks undermine the pursuit of scientific truth by introducing a variety of mental and ideological barriers to free and open discussion. This is explained more in the reviews.

It is essential to learn the hard discipline of living with offence that will inevitably follow from this approach rather than fudging the quest for truth out of fear of offending others or being offended ourselves. Words might offend but as long it remains just words then we need to accept it and either argue back or move on, not try to censor it and to reject philosophies which attempt to censure open, vigorous discussion

Previous: This book reminds me of Frank Furedi's book, "Where have all the intellectuals gone?" which I did read and review
truth slips from view in the sea of post modern knowledge
how the left became conservative

economics of nuclear energy

Irrespective of other concerns (safety, disposal, proliferation of weapons) the generally accepted wisdom about the cost of nuclear generated electricity is that it is more expensive than electricity from coal or other fossil fuels.

I thought this as well until I researched it. Here are some notes

France is the number one country in the world which generates electricity from nuclear power. France derives over 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy. Their electricity costs are very competitive in Europe. France is the world's largest net exporter of electricity and gains over EUR 3 billion per year from this. (Nuclear Power in France)

In the 1970s in the USA electricity from nuclear power was sometimes cheaper than coal. But this situation reversed itself in the 1980s which led to many planned nuclear power stations being abandoned. The reasons for this are clearly documented in an online book, published in 1990, The Nuclear Energy Option, by Bernard Cohen. Here is a brief summary of his Chapter 9:

• construction time for nuclear plants doubled from 1971 (7 yrs) to 1980 (12 yrs), which in turn doubled the costs
• labour costs also doubled with the biggest increases being professional labour

(these figures corrected for inflation)

So, the cost of nuclear plants quadrupled in 10 years and as a result they were no longer built. The main reason for these increases were regulatory ratcheting (excessive) and regulatory turbulence (the latter being having to change things after the project has started and hence more expensive)

According to Cohen it was accepted wisdom by the utilities in the USA before the over regulation of the 1980s that nuclear would be cheaper than coal and would replace coal.

"Many utilities seek cost analyses from economics consulting firms, some utilities have their own in-house economists to make estimates, and banking organizations maintain expertise to aid in decisions on investments. From the early 1970s until the early 1980s, all of their reports found that nuclear power was the cheaper of the two. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the largest electric utility in the United States. Its profits, if any, are turned back to the U.S. Treasury. It maintained a large and active effort for many years in analyzing the relative cost advantages of nuclear versus coal-burning power plants, consistently finding that nuclear power was cheaper. The 1982 analysis by the Energy Information Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Energy, was the first to find that coal and nuclear were equal in cost; their previous analyses found nuclear to be cheaper. By 1982, these analyses were mostly discontinued, since it seemed unrealistic for a utility to consider building a nuclear power station, or even to hope that it could be done without regulatory turbulence"
- Ch. 10, The Nuclear Energy Option by Bernard Cohen

Tom Blees also discusses and updates answers to these questions in his book Prescription for the Planet. One of the important points he makes is that the modern reactor designs (Gen III and Gen IV) employ passive safety using molten sodium as a coolant and consequently do not have to operate under high pressure, except for the steam portion of the system in the turbine room. This means that significantly fewer valves, pumps and tanks are required compared with the older reactors. This lowers construction costs.

The other main point made by Blees about high costs in the USA (compared with France and some other countries) is that the nuclear industry there has yet to agree on a standard design and each new design has to jump many regulatory hurdles all of which pushes the cost of the process higher.

Thanks to Barry Brook's blog I recently attended a debate in which Tom Blees participated. Subsequently, I bought a few copies of his book and have distributed them to friends who are interested in discussing these questions.

I notice that the Obama administration has just announced a loan guarantee intended to underwrite construction of two nuclear reactors in Georgia. If the project goes forward, the reactors would be the first begun in the United States since the 1970s.

From what I have read I conclude that electricity from nuclear power could be as cheap as electricity from coal.

update 4th March: After a fair bit of discussion on threads at Strange Times (Technology, development and c... c... c... climate change) and Brave NewClimate (Do climate sceptics and anti nukes matter?) I have changed my mind again. In general nuclear is not cheaper than coal unless extra costs such as a carbon tax are (in the future) added to coal.

our energy rich future

The importance of numbers, from John McCarthy's sustainability of human progress site

The fission of an atom of uranium liberates about 10 million times as much energy as does the combustion of an atom of carbon from coal. I fear that to many people, the impression made by saying 10 million is about the same as if I had said 10 thousand or 10 billion.

One cannot understand policy issues without taking numbers seriously. If the number were 10 thousand, we probably could not afford nuclear energy. If the number were 10 billion, there would be no need for a significant uranium mining industry, and the waste problem would be trivial.

In another part of his site McCarthy quotes figures from Bernard Cohen demonstrating that nuclear energy can supply human needs for billions of years into the future. Although there is no reference to Bartlett type exponential growth here (which is not maintained in real life indefinitely, anyway) the calculations do demonstrate that there is no scientific reason to fear an energy deprived future.

david mackay: do the arithmetic

John McCarthy: He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense. (Progress and its Sustainability)

I'd forgotten a lot of my basic physics, so here is a refresher.

Power is the rate of energy conversion, or, the rate of doing work. This applies to both mechanical power, measured in joules / sec and electrical power, measured in watts

Work is done when a force is moved through a distance (W=F*D)

Mechanical force = mass * acceleration, the UNITS are kg.metre/sec/sec or Newtons
Mechanical work = force * distance, the UNITS are newton.metres or N.m or Joules
Mechanical power is work divided by time, or, Work / time, the UNITS are N.m /s or Joules / sec

Electrical power is measured in Watts. 1 Watt = 1 Joule / sec. A watt is also a volt.amp. Watts= Volts * amps

To obtain electrical energy then multiply the power * time. The UNITS here could be joules or watt.seconds. The normal units for larger amounts of electrical energy are KW.hrs. To convert watts to kilowatts divide by 1000, to convert seconds to hours divide by 3600 or 60*60.

We need to have an internalised way of having a feel for these values. A joule is the energy or work required to lift a small apple one meter straight up. If you perform that action in one second then that is equivalent to a watt or joule/sec of electrical power.

The small apple weighs 0.1 kg
The acceleration caused by the earth's gravity is roughly 10 m/sec/sec (9.8 m/s/s more accurately)
The distance we move the apple through is 1 metre
Work = force * distance
Work = mass * acceleration * distance
Work = 0.1 * 10 * 1
Work = 1 joule or 1 Newton.metre or 1 kg. metre ^2 / sec ^2, where ^2 means squared

Some other joule practical examples at the wikipedia joule page

A 40 watt incandescent light bulb produces forty joules of energy per second or the equivalent of lifting 4kg of apples 1 metre in one second. Fluorescent or LED lights achieve a similar effect with much less energy.

How much energy does a 40 watt incandescent light bulb use in one day?
40 * 24 / 1000 = 1 KW.hr energy used in one day

How much energy does the average person in an industrialised country use? The figures here are for the UK

Answer: The equivalent of 125 of these light bulbs running all the time

How many wind turbines would it require to meet the energy needs of everyone in the UK?
Answer = 600,000, which would cover half of the UK. The UK currently has 2408 wind turbines

How many nuclear power stations would it require to meet the energy needs of everyone in the UK?
Answer = 300. The UK currently has 10 nuclear power stations.

Here is a video from David MacKay illustrating the need to do the arithmetic. Irrespective of whether you are an alarmist, denier or somewhere in between you still need to do the arithmetic and basic physics to intelligently discuss these issues:

David MacKay is the author of Sustainable energy - without the hot air. He has recently been appointed the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change Chief Scientific Advisor.

thoughts on the nuclear debate

Debate: "Should we consider Nuclear Power as a response to climate change?"

Affirmative:

Professor Barry Brook, Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change, University of Adelaide, and author of the blog Brave New Climate

Tom Blees, President, Science Council for Global Initiatives and author of the book "Prescription for the Planet."

For the Negative:

David Noonan, Australian Conservation Foundation

Dr Mark Diesendorf, Deputy Director, Institute of Environmental Studies, University of New South Wales".

I bought Tom Blee's book Prescription for the Planet. Tom was a very effective presenter due to his extensive research and personal contact with a wide range of people deeply involved in these issues allowed him to communicate telling and interesting anecdotes - and he has a wicked sense of humour, which was much needed on the night

The majority of the audience was anti nuclear (2/3rds or 3/4) but thanks to the work done by Barry Brook on his blog, Brave New Climate, there was a significant pro nuclear presence

Mark Diesendorf was energetically aggressive in his attack on nuclear power as an "idealistic fantasy". He argued that renewables could completely replace fossil fuels by 2030 and presented a slide showing the growth of various renewables illustrating how this could be done.

I felt this slide was dodgy but didn't know enough to refute it. Mark also made a big issue of his expertise and criticised Barry for pronouncing outside his field of primary expertise.

Aspects of this slide were challenged by Barry Brook. How could geothermal grow so quickly when on another slide Mark had shown geothermal at the R&D stage in Australia and that new technologies took 40 years or so to reach large scale commercial stage. Mark had used this to argue that IFR (Integral Fast Reactors) was pie in the sky, so Barry's counter was quite effective.

There was other to and fro along these lines, some of it amusing. Barry pointed out that renewables only made up 1% of the world's energy. Mark responded that it was unfair to take a world average because some European countries had a much higher percentage. But Mark had earlier criticised Tom Blee's example of ineffective solar panels in Germany as "cherry picking" because Germany had a cold climate. This sort of exchange confirmed my belief that you need to have a firm grasp of the arithmetic to engage intelligently in this debate. I've read this page (Renewable energy cannot sustain an energy intensive society) of Barry's site and downloaded Ted Trainer's pdf from that page to improve my own knowledge here

David and Mark were unreasonably dogmatic in their anti-IFR stance. The issue of urgency was used in an irrational way, given the reality of the failure in Copenhagen and the certainty of developing countries like China and India to continue using massive amounts of fossil fuels. Even if IFR does take 50 years to develop on a large scale (in itself debatable) then that is not a reason not to develop it. There is a can do and a can't do mentality and wrt IFR their attitude was totally can't do on technical grounds alone. They want a total roadblock on nuclear power. They spent quite a bit of time on this, irrespective of their other objections.

Barry took a realistic economic approach that coal would not be replaced by alternatives until a cheaper alternative emerged - and the best shot for that was nuclear.

Mark disputed that but admitted that his renewable futures would be more expensive. For me this was the real "idealistic fantasy", his repeated statement along the lines that people power would convince governments to change.

The other main objection from the anti-nuclear side was proliferation. What emerged here was that IFR reactors do not produce weapons grade plutonium and there are other more effective means of producing weapons grade plutonium, such as high-speed centrifuge technology. I felt the pro-nuclear side was on shakier ground here since more IFR reactors will lead to more transport around the world of weapons grade plutonium (as a start up fuel) and so the probability of it falling into the hands of terrorists will probably increase.

Mark said that nuclear power was 14% of the world's electricity production and declining. Barry offered a bet that the nuclear percentage would increase but Mark declined to accept it. Good move, Barry!

So, it boiled down to who was living in the "real world" and who was living in "fantasy world"

scratch challenges update

Numbers 12-14 are new. Scratch is a free download

1) Use the Letter shapes to write your first name on the page. Then introduce some special effects such as making the letters wobble and change their appearance.

2) Point, click and move
Make an object both point and glide towards the mouse position when you click on the stage
Hint: Motion > point towards
Hint: Sensing > mouse down?

3) Make Dan or Anjuli or Cassy or ballerina dance to a beat, using all of their dance shapes. Include a suitable background that changes colours as the lights flash.

4a) Make two animals have a forwards and backwards conversation
Hint: Use broadcast, (ask for help if you don’t know how broadcast works)
4b) Make it an interesting conversation with each animal speaking at least 3 times and making gestures too

5) Make a sprite gradually grow in size and then shrink

6) Make 2 different balls move around on the stage
a) the first ball moves in straight lines but bounces randomly whenever it hits the edge
b) the second moves randomly, gliding from one position to a new random position continually

7a) One sprite chases another sprite around the stage. The first sprite moves in straight line but bounces off the edge randomly. The chasing sprite chases the first sprite but is moving slower.
b) Extension – if the chasing sprite catches the other sprite then it says something sensible and makes a suitable sound

8a) Play all the different drum sounds automatically
Hint: create a variable for the drum number
b) Extension – keep recycling through all the drum sounds automatically

9a) Count down on a timer. A rocket takes off when you reach zero
Hint: Use the number icons in the letters folder
9b) Your rocket has pulsating exhaust and disappears at the top of the screen

10) Add, multiply or subtract two variable numbers
Hint: Just to do addition only you will need 4 variables: firstNum, secondNum, answer (computer calculated) and myAnswer (human calculated)

11) Variable coloured squares
a) Write a script that can draw a square of any size
Hint: Make a variable for the side length
b) Use the variable square script to draw a series of square with variable sides, with a single click
c) Now add variable pen colour and pen shade to the variable square script and use it to draw a variety of different coloured squares, with a single click

12) Draw lines of random thickness in random directions with random colours. The pen must be lifted up and moved for each new line.
Hint: pen group contains set pen color, set pen size, pen up, pen down
Hint: colours range across the spectrum (ROY G BIV) starting with red = 0. There are about 190 colours in total and you need to display them all!

13A) Make a race
a) choose two suitable sprites, they must have at least 2 costumes to simulate motion
b) the sprites move at random speeds, you can’t predict the winner
c) make a finish line, using a new sprite is best
d) suitable background music
e) when the winner crosses the finish line it announces that it won
f) reset scripts to start again

13B) Extension: Make it a multi-lap race, the number of laps can vary
g) make a variable to set and count the laps (use this on just one of the sprites otherwise you will be counting the laps twice)
h) use “x position” with an if tile rather than “if on edge bounce” to manage the turning and lap increase value
i) hide the finish line so that it only appears for the final lap

14A) Play the scales on a piano
a) Check out the sound > play note tile
b) Teacher has supplies a graphic of a keyboard. Import it to your scratch project.
c) Program the computer keyboard so that it plays a series of notes on the piano keyboard
d) As the notes are played alter the keyboard graphic to make it appear they are being pressed and they revert back to blank when the key is released
e) Add some suitable background graphics

14B) Extension
f) As the notes are played a sprite dances to the tune created by the notes, ie. each note triggers a particular movement
g) The names of the notes are spoken by a new sprite as they are played
h) Find a way to play ALL the notes on the keyboard

We don't deserve this, Julia Gillard

source of graphic

OK, I spent 6 years or so teaching at a School in one of the most disadvantaged socio-economic areas in metropolitan Australia. And so I can empathise strongly with how teachers at that school would feel about the new Australian government MySchool site when they see how their low NAPLAN results (Paralowie) are prominently in RED when compared with ALL schools , even though the similar so called like school results are displayed in far lighter shades.

Just let me say that Paralowie had the most enlightened administration and the most creative teachers I have ever had the privilege to work with. Teachers who understood that the main source of educational disadvantage was socio-economic and worked very hard to turn things around for as many students as they could.

And guess what. It will be the same long after Julia Gilliard has left politics and has retired on her parliamentary pension to some upper class suburb somewhere.

Further reading: League Tables Increase Social Segregation and Inequality by Trevor Cobbold, pdf

Previous blog: sbs-insight: should-schools-test-results-be-made-public

Previous article:
OPTIMISM AND REALITY IN DISADVANTAGED SCHOOLS

More temperate but well researched blogs, even though I have no idea where Darcy gets the thought that Gillard and Rudd are well intentioned:
MySchool: Part I
MySchool: Part II

is it nuclear or newclear?

I like this approach to the global warming climate debate:

1) Rapid human economic development is good (not argued here) and inevitable (you aren't going to stop China, India etc. from developing)

2) The only valid alternative to fossil fuels for our energy needs is nuclear power. This is really a matter of doing the arithmetic. According to The Integral Fast Reactor – Summary for Policy Makers (IFR Summary article) , which is written from the POV of keeping CO2 under 450ppm, then we will need to produce 1 GWe per day of new clean power every single day for the next 25 years.

3) The integral fast reactor (IFR) is the safest and most efficient form of nuclear power about. It was invented by Charles Till in 1965 (Plentiful Energy and the IFR Story) who led a team which produced a small (non commercial) fast reactor which ran for 30 years without incident. Unfortunately, this program was shut down by Bill Clinton’s administration in 1994 for political reasons. In Congress, the main argument against (by John Kerry) was civilian nuclear proliferation (which I suppose is a valid concern today as well – although the end product of IFR is not suitable for weapon production I’m less certain about the fuel inputs, still researching)

4) So if you are a climate alarmist then you should support IFR (as James Hansen does, see Science Council for Global Initiatives)

5) If you are not an alarmist but support future human development then you should also support IFR, not so urgently but essential for the future.

There is a debate happening in Adelaide, Australia, this Friday presented by The Australian Solar Energy Society, Sustainable Populations Australia and The Zero Carbon Network, will see a debate on “Should we consider Nuclear Power as a response to climate change?” with Mark Diesendorf and Helen Caldicott for the negative and Barry Brook and Tom Blees for the affirmitive (The Nuclear Debate). I've booked a seat.

For more information about IFR do some reading from this page of Barry Brooks blog, Brave New Climate.

Tom Blees video, part 2 of 3: