No Taco Bells?
John Keller, in the comments below, notes that he lives in what by my measure is clearly not a world-class city:
No Taco Bells here, but 5 in the equivalent Zip code.
The place? Paris, France. Guess we’re not world-class yet… Though I hope we’re never as “world-class” as NYC by this metric.
Climate, Land Use and Spatial Variability
Johannes J. Feddema and colleagues have a paper in Science today(Feddema et al. 2005) on the importance of land use in climate change. (And the suddenly ubiquitous Roger Pielke Sr. has an accompanying Perspective piece(Pielke Sr. 2005), and Roger also blogs it here.)
What Feddema and company did was run a global climate model with greenhouse gas changes alone and with land use changes as well. No surprise – the land use changes had a significant effect on the results – especially in terms of regional spatial variability.
The details of the changes here are less important, I think, than the underlying message – that land use changes matter a lot, especially at the regional scale, which is, after all, where we all live.
The details are, however, pretty interesting here in the southwest. Their simulation suggests a weakened Hadley circulation because of deforestation in the Amazon, which changes the circulation that contributes moisture to the North American Monsoon system, intensifying the summer monsoons that bring parts of New Mexico up to 40 percent of its annual precipitation.
I don’t think you should view this as a prediction, so much as a clear indication of the scope and significance of land use changes in climate change at the regional scale, and of the importance of seeing this question explored further.
Feddema, J.J., K.W. Oleson, G.B. Bonan, L.O. Mearns, L.E. Buja, G.A. Meehl, and W.M. Washington. 2005. “The Importance of Land-Cover Change in Simulating Future Climates.” Science 310(5754):1674-1678.
Pielke Sr., R.A. 2005. “ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE: Land Use and Climate Change.” Science 310(5754):1625-1626.
Double Protection
Writing a little squib for the Rio Grande Racing Team newsletter on staying warm cycling in the winter, I ran across a rather odd suggestion from one of my teammates: aluminum foil inside the helmet to block the helmet air holes, thus keeping your head warmer.
It occurs to me that this might have additional benefits in preventing New World Order mind control experiments – at least while cycling.
You Go, Tim
Props to Tim Schoeny, RGRT teammate and 2005 New Mexico Cyclocross 45+ champion. Though why anyone would run with a perfectly good bicycle is beyond me.
Forensics
Michael Fumento is taking up sock puppet forensics.
But wait! Is that a rake I see lying there in the dark? Michael, look out!
Damn, too late.
Planning One’s Future
In which Nora talks to the Army recruiter:
I wonder what happens to those files, anyway. Do they keep them to make sure our stories match up? If I tell the Air Force that I want to go to UNM and major in philosophy, will they know that I’ve already told the Army that I want to get a job drilling oil in Mexico?
Societal Complexity
On our October trip, Lissa and I visited the Anasazi Heritage Center outside Cortez in southeastern Colorado. It’s a neat museum, built to record, preserve and provide public access to excavations done before the nearby McPhee Reservoir was filled. Adjacent to the museum, there’s a small pueblo room block that’s been excavated and then stabilized for visitors to see.
This morning I was reading an amusing discussion of the site by Joseph Tainter in the introduction to Evolving Complexity and Environmental Risk in the Prehistoric Southwest. Tainter points out the relative complexity of two structures – a small pueblo room block “consisting of a few rooms, and once home to a handful of people.” Next to it is the museum, “a great edifice, many times the size of the little pueblo…. It exists because our national government commissioned it to be built, and pays each year for a permanent staff, energy to heat and cool the building, and a fleet of vehicles.” Then he adds:
Indeed, the energy we have spent to excavate these small pueblos, analyze and curate their remains, attend scientific conferences, publish interpretations and theories, and tell the public what we have learned may well exceed what the prehistoric Puebloans themselves consumed in their lives.
I personally say it’s energy well spent.
The Strange Case of Michael Fumento
There’s this strange sort of schoolyard bully pleasure in taunting Michael Fumento. I wonder, though, if we’re the bullies, or if he is. I sorta feel like the skinny guy, taking pleasure in the bully’s comeuppance. But I dunno. Maybe we’re being the bullies. Should I feel bad, picking on poor Michael?
The thing is, Fumento is, at times, a quite talented journalist. But then, over and over again, he shows himself to be a complete tool.
Continue reading ‘The Strange Case of Michael Fumento’ »
Zelicoff on the Flu
I meant to blog this when it came out a couple of weeks back: Al Zelicoff’s take-down in the Albuquerque Tribune on “bird flu mania”
So, are the fears justified for Washington’s preparations against the spread of this new “killer” influenza to humans? The short answer is no. The threat is extremely remote.
It’s not that Al doesn’t think there are legitimate threats out there. He does. And he also argues, I think persuasively, that we’re not doing some of the fundamental things we could to keep our guard up. He’s pushing a relatively low-cost solution involving “syndrome surveillance,” in which sentinel doctors and nurses report briefly and in real time on the stuff that’s coming through their doors, allowing a sudden uptick in, say, respiratory infections, to be quickly noticed.
I’ve testified four times on Capitol Hill about it, including before Sen. Bill Frist, president of the Senate and its only physician. He applauded its use and numerous successes. As Frist himself has noted in his book, “Every Moment Counts,” should a bioterrorism attack occur or another novel disease reach our shores, we are hopelessly hamstrung by our lack of situational awareness of disease patterns in animals and humans.