Stuff I wrote elsewhere: plant sex edition

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On the pollen count:

Unable to meet up in person, elm and juniper are among the many plants that have developed a decidedly unromantic reproductive strategy. They spew pollen into the air in search of a mate. A lot of pollen.
“The pollen is basically sperm,” explained University of New Mexico biologist Felisa Smith. “The pollen is basically out there cruising for eggs.”
Some plants tuck the eggs down inside pretty flowers, tricking insects to carry the pollen from plant to plant. But the sort of pollen that gives us itchy eyes and runny noses, the kind that keeps Gates busy, uses a brute-force approach.

Access to the Code

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One of my old Gnome friends, Dave Mason, is in Rwanda working on a public health technology project. He told a great story today about what the Rwandans he is working with need from their software:

I was very directly asked if we would develop our software in open source. They asked because two other systems they have had to deal with are proprietary and they are tired of having to fly in “experts” to fix or change the code. Brilliant. Of course, I proudly said it would be free/open and that we’d also hire a local developer. Smiles all around.

My Darkest Secret

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At the risk of tarnishing whatever green cred I might possess, a confession: I have always wanted a riding mower. I sit in them when I’m in the garden department at Home Depot, making brrmm brrmm noises under my breath. I imagine myself king of my domain as I ride the mower this way and that.

But really. Can I justify the environmental degradation that would accompany such a decadent, wasteful thing? Which is why I was so excited to learn of this remarkable invention:

EnviroGard’s “Low Polluting Lawn Mower” meets all current and future emission requirements by the Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board. There is up to a 60% reduction in smog forming emissions and 80% reduction in toxic emissions compared with diesel and gasoline fuel.

Besides the huge advantages of lower emissions, Propane is on average 30% less expensive than gasoline or diesel fuels. The savings are increased with no spillage, theft, or contamination concerns that occur with other fuels. This is real savings in your pocket! The cost of a conversion utilizing our certified conversion kits will pay for itself in about 6–12 months.

Now all I need is a lawn.

Credit Where Credit is Due

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Last week, USA Today’s Doyle Rice wrote a story about a research project in which I was involved. Rice did what journalists do. He got wind of a topic that interested him, tracked down and interviewed the lead researcher, got and read the paper, interviewed others for perspective, and wrote a story.

Four days later, David Roberts wrote a blog post on The Nation’s web site on the same study. Roberts did not ask for a copy of the paper, or interview the lead scientist. Instead, he cut and pasted from Rice’s piece into his own. Roberts tweaked the cutting and pasting with parenthetical insertion and paraphrase. Nowhere did he mention Doyle Rice, link to Rice’s original story or offer any credit or attribution to Rice.

The norms of journalism and blogging are different, with large gray areas as one melds into the other. It has never been clear to me which of those worlds Roberts inhabits. But by the norms of either community, using someone else’s words and work without attribution is wrong.

I wrote to David two days ago asking about this. I have received no response.

Click through for full excerpts:

Continue reading ‘Credit Where Credit is Due’ »

Water in the Desert: Tempe Edition

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We’ve got a standard joke around the office when it starts raining: “Drought’s over.”

You’ve gotta love the picture on Arizona Republic water guy Shaun McKinnon’s blog today of water spilling over the dam in the middle of Tempe. To non-southwestern desert types: that’s a place where you don’t usually see water. But Shaun bids us take note:

Heavy rain and snow and the excess runoff has tempted a lot of folks to suggest Arizona has been rescued from its long dry spell, which has entered its 14th dust-choked year. And it’s easy to take a breath in anticipation of a relieved sigh what with all the storms that have improbably soaked this year of La Niña.

“The wet winter has definitely been a bonanza for us,” said Tony Haffer, meteorologist-in-charge at the National Weather Service in Phoenix. “But the Southwest in general, and Arizona in particular, has been in deficit for many years. Naturally, it will take many winters like this one to get us back into balance.”

Water in the Desert: Angostura Edition

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Angostura Dam

Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck.

Lissa and I stopped at Angostura Dam on a recent drive up to Santa Fe. It’s the diversion for water used in the Albuquerque reach of the middle Rio Grande. It’s a modest affair, built in the 1930s, just building up enough head to divert water into a concrete channel that’s on the right of this picture.

It is owned and maintained by the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, the local government agency formed in the 1920s to bring centralized management to what at the time was a disparate group of acequia-based irrigation districts.


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Boykoff Revisited

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Max and Jules Boykoff wrote a widely quoted paper back in 2004 that has been used as a cudgel to bludgeon the news media for providing a sort of false balance in coverage of climate change that amounts to a hidden bias. The argument is that mainstream U.S. media, in its instinctive search for “balance,” in fact creates a sort of hidden bias, quoting outliers among a tiny minority of scientists and thus elevating their minority view to a status it does not deserve.

The argument is not without merit, but (as I have written previously) the Boykoffs took it too far.

Max is back with an update of sorts in the 21 February Nature Reports Climate Change. But a close reading of the two papers shows that this new effort has the practical effect of quietly correcting the mistake that undercut the thesis of the earlier paper.

Continue reading ‘Boykoff Revisited’ »

Drought in Chile

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While I’m at it, another global drought report (I’m really just catching up on some news stories I set aside over the last week to read). This time Chile:

Farmers in small towns in south-central Chile have lost crops and livestock in the drought blamed on the weather phenomenon La Nina.

Rainfall records show the semi-arid region got one of its lowest levels of precipitation in half a century, and some specialists say its been 80 years since the weather got so dry.

Drought in China

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While we’ve been seeing news of extraordinary snows in China, folks in the north are in the grip of what sounds like serious drought:

The drought has led to loss of arable land, livestock and drinking water, according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, the official Xinhua News Agency said late Sunday.

China’s south and central areas have been hit by the country’s worst snow storms in more than 50 years, but in the north 2.43 million people have been left without sufficient drinking water and 27 million acres of arable land and 1.89 million livestock have been affected, Xinhua said.