Category Archives: Science And Society

Superman

Could he punch someone into space?

My answer is no, without even reading the link. I think that he could throw someone there (though they’d get cooked from the air friction on the way up), and they’d come back down unless they had escape velocity when they got to the top of the atmosphere, because there wouldn’t be an orbital insertion impulse. But if he punched them hard enough to do so, his fist would probably just take their head off. If he did it through their solar plexus, it would probably just go right through. People don’t consider the structural issues associated with superheroes and normal-human interactions with them.

Now Ralph Kramden, on the other hand… But then, he never carried out the threat.

That Terrible Pollutant, CO2

allows trees to get by on less water. Of course, this can’t possibly be allowed to be good news:

The immense volume of water that trees pull out of the ground winds up in the atmosphere, helping supply moisture to farming areas downwind of forests. So if trees use less water, that could ultimately mean less rain for thirsty crops in at least some regions of the world.

It could mean lots of things — good, bad and indifferent — and the vast majority of them unpredictable, given the non-linear nature of the equations and our lack of understanding of the complexity of all the interactions, which is why it’s crazy to be attempting to make costly public policy on the presumption that Carbon Is Evil.

Salt

There is no scientific evidence that reducing intake is good for your health.

I’ve cut back myself, because I seem to be empirically salt sensitive, in terms of my blood pressure, but EPID in that regard, I think. I’ve also switched over to sea salt to get a wider variety, including potassium. I’d never prescribe public policy about the matter, or make war on it, as Nurse Bloomberg has.

Obama’s Five-Year Plan

…for the climate:

Speaking at Georgetown University on Tuesday, President Barack Obama outlined his “new national climate action plan,” which amounts to a federal top-down five-year plan—although he has only four years to implement it. Obama’s plan ambitiously seeks to control nearly every aspect of how Americans produce and consume energy. The goal is to cut the emissions of greenhouse gases and thus stop boosting the temperature of the earth. The actual result will be to infect the economy with the same sort of sclerosis seen in other centrally planned nations.

This is doubly hubristic: that he thinks he knows what’s happening with the climate, and that he thinks he know what best to do about and that it will work.