The oceans don’t seem to be warming. Even NPR says so.
This is obviously one of those many insidious effects of global warming.
Category Archives: Science And Society
Space Visionary
I don’t remember the first book I read by Arthur Clarke, or my age when I read it, but I would imagine that it was less than ten. But I do remember that, whatever book it was, it spurred me to go find more.
Do They Come In Peppermint?
Striped icebergs. Must be global warming.
I don’t think they have them in Lake Michigan, though.
More Clarke Thoughts
From John Derbyshire:
It is plain from his life and his work that Clarke was deeply in love with the idea of space. In 1956 he went to live in Sri Lanka so that he could spend his spare time scuba diving, the nearest he could get to the silence, weightlessness, and mystery of space. That profound imaginative connection with the great void is one of the things that separates science fiction writers and fans from the unimaginative plodding mass of humanity — the Muggles. Clarke had it in spades. The other thing he dreamt of, and wrote about, constantly was alien civilizations: how incomprehensibly magical they will appear to us when we encounter them, and how they will deal with us.
He mentions Bradbury in his remembrance. Some thought of them as four: Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and Bradbury. I never did. I like Ray Bradbury, both as an author, and personally (I met him occasionally when I lived in LA), but I never considered his work science fiction, at least not hard science fiction. It was more in the realm of fantasy and poetry to me (and of course, Fahrenheit 451, which was a political dystopia).
[Late morning update]
Bruce Webster agrees:
I’m not sure I’ve ever met, talked to, or read of an engineer or scientist who was inspired to become such because of something Bradbury wrote. I’m not saying they’re not out there — I just think it’s a very small number, especially when compared to Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein.
Yes. I enjoyed some (though not all) of Bradbury’s work, but I was never inspired by it. It just seemed too far from an attainable reality to me.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Even Bradbury himself agrees:
First of all, I don’t write science fiction. I’ve only done one science fiction book and that’s Fahrenheit 451, based on reality. Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it’s fantasy. It couldn’t happen, you see? That’s the reason it’s going to be around a long time–because it’s a Greek myth, and myths have staying power.
The Last Of The Giants
I’m hearing that Arthur C. Clarke
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s a link to the story.
Among many other things, he wrote the foreword to our July 20th ceremony (though not for that purpose–it was fair use).
[Update a couple minutes later]
Instapundit has some instathoughts.
[Update a few minutes later]
Bruce HendersonWebster already has a requiem up. He must have had it preprepared, like the MSM.
I have to dispute this, though:
The irony is that Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein would all have loved to go into space personally, but obviously were never able to.
He’s joking, right? When it comes to Asimov, the man wouldn’t even get on an airplane, let alone a rocket. If he had to travel long distances, it was always by train. The notion of the actual man going into space, regardless of his fantastic imagination, is ludicrous.
Meanwhile, Clark Lindsey has a link roundup.
Also, I should note that Bruce explains my post title in a way that I didn’t, for those who didn’t get it. And the fact that I have to explain it makes me feel old. More when I write a serious post about it.
[Update on Wednesday morning]
Sorry, wrong Bruce. It was Bruce Webster, not Bruce Henderson, who emails that Asimov would have loved to go into space, if he could do it via train. It must be a mite confusin’ to have a Bruce blog. Do they sing the Australian philosopher’s drinking song over there?
[Another update]
Bruce also notes that he didn’t have the eulogy in the can:
I made my living as a writer for several years (see http://brucefwebster.com/publications/), mostly in computer journalism, and have published over 150 articles, columns, and reviews, plus a few books. Because of my tendency to, ah, wait until the last minute, I often wrote those articles, etc., the night before (or the night after) they were due. For example, during the two years I wrote a column for BYTE, I typically wrote that column — usually 3000 to 4000 words and sometimes as much as 7000 words — in one sitting, late at night, the day before deadline. So a 540-word post about something near and dear to my heart is hardly breaking a sweat.
Actually, being a major procrastinator myself, I can (strongly) identify with that. Apologies for the mistaken assumption.
Very Cool
Literally. There are icebergs in Lake Michigan. Must be global warming.
Hope they aren’t a problem for the whales.
Why Is Earth Here?
Lileks seems to be a co-religionist with me:
You know, every so often I run across comments on message boards from the “12 Monkeys” demographic, the people who wish people would just disappear and leave the earth alone. If the Aftermath show has any message, it’s how useless the world would be without people. Without humans it’s just hunting and rutting, birthing and dying, a clock with no chimes. It’s always interesting how people romanticize Nature, and ascribe all manner of purpose and intelligence to it, lamenting the injuries people wreak on the innocent globe. I’d love to read an interview with Gaia in which she says that her goal all along was to come up with a species that could produce Beethoven and make rockets to send the music deep into space. Now that’s something to make the other planets sit up and take notice. You think the point is merely to provide a home for thirty billion varieties of insect? I can’t tell you how much they itch. Sorry about the earthquakes, but it’s the only way I can scratch.
I do believe in a teleology, and this belief is not scientific at all.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Everything You Know Is Wrong
…about greenhouse theory?
Miskolczi’s story reads like a book. Looking at a series of differential equations for the greenhouse effect, he noticed the solution — originally done in 1922 by Arthur Milne, but still used by climate researchers today — ignored boundary conditions by assuming an “infinitely thick” atmosphere. Similar assumptions are common when solving differential equations; they simplify the calculations and often result in a result that still very closely matches reality. But not always.
So Miskolczi re-derived the solution, this time using the proper boundary conditions for an atmosphere that is not infinite. His result included a new term, which acts as a negative feedback to counter the positive forcing. At low levels, the new term means a small difference … but as greenhouse gases rise, the negative feedback predominates, forcing values back down.
And why is there resistance to his theory? Follow the money:
NASA refused to release the results. Miskolczi believes their motivation is simple. “Money”, he tells DailyTech. Research that contradicts the view of an impending crisis jeopardizes funding, not only for his own atmosphere-monitoring project, but all climate-change research. Currently, funding for climate research tops $5 billion per year.
Miskolczi resigned in protest, stating in his resignation letter, “Unfortunately my working relationship with my NASA supervisors eroded to a level that I am not able to tolerate. My idea of the freedom of science cannot coexist with the recent NASA practice of handling new climate change related scientific results.”
It’s always amusing, and frustrating, to hear people who attack skeptics ad hominem because they’re on the take from Big Oil or Big Coal, when places like the Competitive Enterprise Institute actually get very little of their funding from such sources. But climate researchers are always portrayed as objective, noble and selfless, unswayed by the need to maintain their grant funding stream from Big Climate Change. All I know is that I wish I was getting paid as much to be a skeptic as some apparently think I must be. Or getting paid at all, for that matter. But so far, not a single check has shown up in the mail from Exxon-Mobil or Peabody. It’s also an interesting story, in light of Hansen’s complaints that he was “muzzled” by the administration, all while he was going around giving speeches evangelizing to the faithful.
I also found this criticism underwhelming.
Dr. Stephen Garner, with the NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), says such negative feedback effects are “not very plausible”. Reto Ruedy of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies says greenhouse theory is “200 year old science” and doubts the possibility of dramatic changes to the basic theory.
Yes, can’t be overturning two-hundred-year-old theories. That would be completely unprecedented in science.
[Update in the afternoon]
This cautionary essay about science journalism seems to be relevant: beware the underdog narrative.
I Always Suspected It
I’ve always thought that Monster cables were a scam, and that the supposed quality improvement couldn’t justify the ridiculously high prices, and that it was quite annoying that they’ve monopolized so much shelf space in the electronics stores. It’s hard to get reasonably priced audio cables (though things are better at Home Depot). But really, I’ve always figured that most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Monster and lamp cord.
Well, it turns out that supposed audiophiles couldn’t distinguish between Monster and coat hangers. But I suspect that the scam will continue, with salespeople continuing to push them. There are probably great margins for both the manufacturer and the retailers.
[Via Geek Press]
More On Cholesterophobia
A few weeks ago I said that we don’t do enough science when it comes to heart disease, and may confuse correlation with causation. Here’s another interesting bit of data that reinforces the notion that cholesterol levels don’t necessarily cause heart disease.