For my earthquake risk friends, word that Cleveland was rocked last night by a major earthquake, which registered 3.6 on the “whatever” scale. It – I swear I am not making this up – “knocked at least one television off its stand”.
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere
I’ve argued in the past that my enthusiasm for the “scientization” meme comes from my experience covering all sorts of controversies, large and small, that play out in the same way: competing data used to support conflicting political positions. This doesn’t just happen on the big stuff, like climate change. It’s an intrinsic problem, found in nearly every political debate I’ve ever covered where data plays a role. Today’s case in point is the Albuquerque debate over red light cameras. It’s not merely “something … to be avoided in debates.” It’s intrinsic to how debates are conducted.
Broad in the New York Times
Apparently union regulations require all climate bloggers to weigh in on Bill Broad’s story in today’s New York Times about Al Gore etc. In brief, there’s not much more I could add to what Chris Mooney and Andrew Dessler have said:
- “surprised it didn’t happen sooner” (Mooney) given that Gore was largely solid on the science but strayed a couple of times from the mainstream consensus: “Why include the 1 to 5 percent of more questionable stuff, and so leave onself open to this kind of attack?”
- Is this all he’s got? (Dessler) A story that largely draws on predictable scientific outliers to criticize Gore is a story stating the obvious. We know Richard Lindzen didn’t like the movie. For Broad to make the case that there is unease in the fat scientific middle – “rank-and-file scientists” – he needs better than this.
If you look at the comments over on Gristmill and here on my own blog in a post that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Roger Pielke Jr., you’ll see why I was tempted to publish a new edition of my semi-regular “Pielke watch” feature. But I’m awfully busy, and this whole thing where I have to be Roger’s lead cheerleader just takes too much time.
The Next Great Flood!
Unfortunately, the world’s only reliable newspaper doesn’t put all its stories on line, so unless you’ve been to the supermarket recently, you probably missed this:
“It’s coming,” Dr. Soakes warned Weekly World News. “Due to the effects of global warming, there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that a flood as bad or even worse than the biblical flood will wipe out all life on Earth sometime in the next six months! It will be a combination of rain and rising sea levels creating perfect flood conditions.”
“But unlike the first flood, this will be an act of man, not God!”
Warren Soakes is not a crazed voice crying doom on a street corner. He is one of the country’s leading climatologists, a respected scientist who, until last month, was director of the Pacific Region Climate and Oceanographic Institute.
Something about El Niño, too. Dr. Soakes is pictured building a large boat.
The Four-Hour Nap
I’m not sure what this has to do with arms control:
A nearby motel advertises, I shit you not:
The Four Hour Nap.
“John Fleck is an idiot”
A thoughtful commenter over on Eli’s blog observes that it’s lucky I work for a small paper.
update: It seems this has been misinterpreted. Eli’s been a delightful host, and it’s been a thoughtful and largely respectful discussion. I just wanted to be first on Google when you search for “John Fleck is an idiot.”
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere
On the latest Clovis research:
The Clovis hunters, some of the earliest human settlers in North America, were not around for long, new research suggests. But they made the most of the time they had.
The Clovis culture, named for the New Mexico site where its distinctive spear points were first discovered, spread across North America in just 200 years, according to Texas A&M’s Michael Waters.
And then it was gone, as its practitioners adapted to a changing world.
The Nuclear Power Dilemma
Via NEI Nuclear Notes, an interesting discussion about the role of nuclear power in the energy mix as Europe grapples with carbon emission reduction targets. Per capita/per GDP unit carbon emissions in France are already substantially lower than the UK and Germany. France generates 80 percent of its electricity from its nuke plants. The French seem to want to get some credit for that which they already have done:
At his swansong summit, the outgoing French president Jacques Chirac insisted that he would only agree to binding energy targets if nuclear power were included and proposed that 45% of the mix come from non-fossil fuel sources.
Some El Niño That Turned Out to Be
With El Niño fleeing the equatorial Pacific over the last month, and with La Niña apparently seizing the opportunity like Rush Limbaugh seeing Al Gore’s electric bill, it’s worth reflecting for a moment on the El Niño that was. From today’s Drought Monitor:
Los Angeles has seen their driest season to date on record, with cumulative rainfall of 2.42 inches (21 percent of normal) since July 1. The Sierra did see additional snowfall early in the week, but snow water content remained less than 60 percent of normal at many locations.
Daybook
- birds: Via MJH, the Great Blue Heron Flickr project: take a picture of a heron, geotag it, include it in the group, and open source science of a sort occurs
- paper: Stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at low levels: an assessment of reduction strategies and costs: “The net present value of abatement costs for the B2 baseline scenario (a medium scenario) increases from 0.2% of cumulative GDP to 1.1% as the shift is made from 650 to 450 ppm.”
- word: chile – I’ll just link you to two definitions you can read yourself: from Pete Domenici or Jimi Hendrix
- music: At the record store over the weekend, I found used music from Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and John Coltrane. Didn’t occur to me until I was paying that I had a theme going, one that actually had a couple of layers. And I don’t mean “old guy music.”
- stuff I wrote elsewhere: While we’re on the subject of Pete Domenici….