No Peak Now?

Monbiot has given up on Peak Oil:

The facts have changed, now we must change too. For the past 10 years an unlikely coalition of geologists, oil drillers, bankers, military strategists and environmentalists has been warning that peak oil – the decline of global supplies – is just around the corner.

...

Peak oil hasn't happened, and it's unlikely to happen for a very long time.

A report by the oil executive Leonardo Maugeri, published by Harvard University, provides compelling evidence that a new oil boom has begun. The constraints on oil supply over the past 10 years appear to have had more to do with money than geology. The low prices before 2003 had discouraged investors from developing difficult fields. The high prices of the past few years have changed that.

...

There is enough oil in the ground to deep-fry the lot of us, and no obvious means to prevail upon governments and industry to leave it in the ground. Twenty years of efforts to prevent climate breakdown through moral persuasion have failed, with the collapse of the multilateral process at Rio de Janeiro last month. The world's most powerful nation is again becoming an oil state, and if the political transformation of its northern neighbour is anything to go by, the results will not be pretty.

But The Oil Drum says that the Harvard study is flawed:

So, there now comes an Energy Study from Harvard which boldly states that this is rubbish - that by 2020, global production will be at 110.6 mbd and these concerns that most of us have at The Oil Drum (inter alia) are chimeras of the imagination.

...

The amount of oil in the region tapped by the well is finite, and when it is gone it is gone, whether from a vertical well that shows gradual decline with time, or from the horizontal well that holds the production level until the water hits the well and it stops. I am not sure that the author of the report understands this.

...

The report further seems a little confused on how horizontal wells work in these reservoirs. As Aramco has noted, one cannot keep drilling longer and longer holes and expect the well production to double with that increase in length. Because of the need to maintain differential pressures between the reservoir and the well, there are optimal lengths for any given formation. And as I have also noted, the report flies in the face of the data on field production from the deeper wells of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Limits of Biochar

I recently did some basic equations about Biochar. If Biochar were the sole way that carbon is removed from the atmosphere, how much land would be needed to store the stuff? The calculations ended up being very pessimistic indeed. Armed with these calculations I sent off an email to the boffins at Real Climate. NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt responded and pointed out that I had wildly overestimated the amount of anthropogenic carbon in the atmosphere but, when taken with carbon that had been sequestered into the ocean, the final figure ends up being 400 billion metric tonnes - an amount that doesn't take into account future emissions.

How much Biochar can be used as a soil amendment? According to this, the amount is around 23.2 metric tonnes per hectare. It was just a matter of then dividing the amount of anthropogenic carbon by 23.2 and see how much land is required to sequester Biochar. The result is very depressing:

In short, 23.2 metric tonnes per hectare is not enough. Even if every single hectare of above ocean land mass is sequestered with 23.2 metric tonnes of biochar, the result is not enough to remove anthropogenic carbon. In reality, sequestering of biochar could not be achieved over the entire earth's surface, so I've given figures there for 10% of the earth's surface as well as 5%, which would require a Biochar sequestering of up to 23 times what is recommended.

So, the questions are:

1. What amount of sequestered Biochar is too much? At what point will it turn from being a soil amendment and become toxic to plant growth?
2. What would be the effects of deep Biochar sequestering, whereby Biochar is sequestered up to 10 metres underground rather than just existing within the 1-2 metres?
3. Is it viable to use carbon as a resource to replace current commodities such as iron, aluminium, glass and so on?
   

The good news, I suppose, is that a cylindrical storage container 50 metres high and 18.25 kilometres wide could effectively store all 400 billion metric tonnes of carbon (at 2.267 grams per cm³ = 90,680,00 km³, volume of cylinder = πr²h) if necessary. NOTE: My spreadsheet let me down in its maths here. The real figure would be 500 metres high and 7600km in diameter: Not good news.

Thinking about Thorium

I'm not, as yet, prepared to do a back-flip on Nuclear power. However the proposals behind reactors powered by Thorium, rather than Uranium, are quite compelling. Here's a summary of the advantages:

1. The radioactive waste created by Thorium reactors decays over a much shorter time period - 200 years as opposed to many thousands by "traditional" nuclear reactors.
2. Nuclear waste from "traditional" reactors can be inserted into a Thorium reactor and turned into regular Thorium radioactive waste - this means that Thorium reactors can permanently remove the radioactive waste stored around the world from traditional nuclear reactors.
3. Thorium can be used to create nuclear bombs (the US tested a Thorium bomb back in the 1950s) but it is much more difficult to achieve and cannot be stored for very long (unlike Plutonium bombs).
4. A melt-down is impossible in a Thorium reactor.
5. Thorium is more widely available than uranium.
6. Thorium does not have to go through many secondary processes to use it in a reactor, making it cheaper to use.
   

I do, however, have some concerns:

• Any nation with a Thorium reactor has the ability to create weaponized Thorium. While it is not as "good" as plutonium it nevertheless increases the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation. Having Thorium reactors in the US, UK, Europe, Canada and other nations might seem acceptable... but what about Thorium reactors in third world nations? Would we trust Zimbabwe or Saudi Arabia or North Korea with Thorium reactors?
• If a Thorium reactor is destroyed with conventional explosives (by terrorists or by an air force), what will the result be? Will a Chernobyl like radioactive cloud be released?
• if a nation has a Thorium reactor, will they also, by proxy, have the technology to create and weaponize Plutonium?
• Can radioactive waste from a Thorium reactor be used in a "dirty bomb"?
  

While I like the potential behind Thorium reactors, the danger posed by the concerns I have just outlined make me wary. Unstable third-world nations need a safe and reliable source of non-carbon emitting electrical energy in order for them to progress without harming themselves or the rest of the world. Coal and Gas plants in third world nations are "safe" but produce carbon dioxide. If they were replaced by (for example) wind, solar or geothermal energy then electricity would be available that is both safe and good for the environment. But a dictator who has a Thorium reactor under his control is far more dangerous to his nation and its neighbours than a dictator with a bunch of wind turbines under his control.

Climate change - a new religion?

There is a comments writer at the Newcastle Herald who sees proponents of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) as being part of a "false religion" or "cult". My personal feelings have been the opposite - that those who deny AGW, the sceptics or the "denialists", are part of a "false religion". Given that a recent survey of the Hunter Valley shows that one-third of people are to be considered "climate sceptics", that's obviously a very large "cult".

Evangelical Christians (of which I am one) are also ever mindful of new religious movements that challenge the claims of Christ. The rise of Neopaganism and the simultaneous rise of environmentalism and Green politics has led to a sort of "guilt by association", whereby evangelicals see "Greenies" or "treehuggers" as being ultimately satanic in origin.

This is not to say that sceptics are Christian and AGW proponents are not (I am both an AGW proponent AND a Christian) but the way these two groups have described each other in negative religious terms is problematic yet also understandable.

And, yes, I have described sceptics in such terms as well. Moreover I think that it is a good way of describing them.

Of course there is nothing religious per se about Climatology and the whole Global Warming debate. The use of the word to describe either side of the debate is not meant to literally label such a belief "religious" (though there is a point at which actual religion sometimes ends up being discussed, ie many Christians oppose AGW on religious grounds). What it is meant to convey, along with word "cult" would be the following:

1. A commitment to the truth of their belief.
2. The desire to change the world based upon the natural outworking of the belief.
3. A belief that is not rooted in reality.

So from the point-of-view of scepticism, AGW proponents 1) believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming, 2) want to reduce carbon emissions on an international scale to prevent global warming, and 3) are doing so either because they are stupid (AGW is false), misled (belief that the IPCC and others are right when they're not) or because they have ulterior motives (money, prestige, conspiracy theories).

But now take the opposite viewpoint. From the point of view of AGW proponents, sceptics 1) do not believe that current warming has anything to do with human activity, 2) do not want to reduce carbon emissions because it is unnecessary, and 3) are doing so either because they are stupid (AGW is true), misled (by media, think tanks owned by sceptics) or because they have ulterior motives (funded by oil and mining companies).

Daniel Okrent, former public editor of the New York Times, created the following adage:

The pursuit of balance can create imbalance because sometimes something is true.

According to Wikipedia, this adage refers "to the phenomenon of the press providing legitimacy to fringe or minority viewpoints in an effort to appear even-handed."

What we have in this debate are two mutually exclusive polar opposites: Those who believe in AGW and those who don't. Now the fact is that one of these groups MUST be wrong -  there is actually no room for a third alternative viewpoint. Either the world is heating up because of human activity or it is not.

If a person believes in something that they hold to be truth, and if that truth demands action, then they will act accordingly. Whether or not their position is true in an objective sense doesn't enter into the equation, which means that this basic behaviour is quite normal and quite human. For those who believe, they will do x. For those who do not believe, they will do y.

This means that each group will naturally see each other with incredulity. "How can these jokers believe in / not believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming!? They are so committed to their position! They are like a false religion, a cult!". That is a natural position to take.

In the end, it comes down to information analysis and self assessment. Can we trust those experts who form the scientific basis of our belief at this point? Have we been guilty of believing stupid stuff in the past? How much knowledge of the subject do we need before we must let the "experts" take over and speak for us?

And that is why I am an AGW proponent and not a sceptic. I believe that a consensus of climatologists on this subject is all the evidence I need, regardless of where these people get their funding or which country they're from. I think that it is likely that the vast majority of climatologists have approached this subject with diligence and have come to their conclusions based on evidence, and I find it much less likely that these Climatologists have conspired and colluded over time to falsify the data for their own twisted ends. Moreover I also believe that, just as Big Tobacco hired doctors and scientists to confuse the public about the health effects of smoking in order to promote their own interests, so too do I believe that oil companies and mining companies are hiring scientists to confuse the public in order to promote their own interests (ie profit).

Moreover, I also note that there has never been any mass collusion of scientists to promote lies in history, whereas there have been multiple instances throughout history of quashing scientific knowledge by groups that are threatened by it - Big Tobacco attacking those scientists who discovered the link between smoking and cancer; the church attacking Galileo for his scientific progress. Science has obviously been corrupted by political operatives (eg Nazi Germany) but, left to itself, it has yet to deliberately use its power to lie and mislead the public. I see no evidence of political influence upon the world's Climatologists.

And those are my reasons for being a proponent of AGW, and the reason why many sceptics would see me as part of the "climate change religion", and the reason why I see them as being deceived by a "religion of scientific denialism".

There can be no "balance" here, because something IS true.

The Limits of Climate Scepticism

Occasionally The Economist gets it right:

I woke up the other morning to find that I would have to confront yet another headache-inducing attempt to phase-shift my perception of reality, and that this would require wading into historical accounts of the collection and homogenisation of temperature data. On December 8th, a climate-change sceptic named Willis Eschenbach posted what he called the "smoking gun" of climate change data manipulation: a series of graphs of the uandjusted historical record of the temperature-monitoring site at the airport in Darwin, Australia, plotted against the same data as adjusted for various error factors ("homogenised") by the Global Historical Climate Network, or GHCN. Mr Eschenbach claimed the adjustment was so arbitrary, it had to be evidence of intentional manipulation.

(and then, after a lengthy piece exploring the evidence and dismissing Eschenbach's claims)

So, after hours of research, I can dismiss Mr Eschenbach. But what am I supposed to do the next time I wake up and someone whose name I don't know has produced another plausible-seeming account of bias in the climate-change science? Am I supposed to invest another couple of hours in it? Do I have to waste the time of the readers of this blog with yet another long post on the subject? Why? Why do these people keep bugging us like this? Does the spirit of scientific scepticism really require that I remain forever open-minded to denialist humbug until it's shown to be wrong? At what point am I allowed to simply say, look, I've seen these kind of claims before, they always turns out to be wrong, and it's not worth my time to look into it?

Well, here's my solution to this problem: this is why we have peer review. Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand. So for the time being, my response to any and all further "smoking gun" claims begins with: show me the peer-reviewed journal article demonstrating the error here. Otherwise, you're a crank and this is not a story.

I couldn't have written it better myself. It's a pity that The Economist doesn't have the same sort of attitude towards Peak Oil.

Not Sceptics: Conspiracy Theorists

Just found this over at Dave's site about the CRU Hack:

I’ve been watching the ‘controversy’ develop over the last week or so, and I have to say, it’s pretty dispiriting. Not because a global leftist conspiracy as been unearthed, but because of the renewed enthusiasm of the sceptics to shoot first, and ask questions later. It’s saddening to see how little hey understand, and how little they want to understand.

There’s a couple of posts here that look at a couple of the accusations: http://allegationaudit.blogspot.com

There’s a couple of reasonable posts here:
- Scientific American: Climate change cover-up? You better believe it
- OpenDemocracy: The real scandal in the hacked climate change e-mails controversy

Personally, I think I’m going to stop referring to the sceptics as sceptics, but rather conspiracy theorists. There’s nothing sceptical about the sceptics (and that’s nothing new) - but the wild political conspiracies people are so quick to believe in, and anything that looks vaguely like evidence for the conspiracy instantly becomes not just a smoking gun, but ‘the mushroom cloud’.

These are clearly irony-deficient people. They claim AGW is a religion for true believes, yet they believe in crazy, global conspiracies on scant evidence. There’s still no scientific counter to AGW, there’s not even a desire to understand the issue, or examine the new ‘controversy’ in any depth.

But then again, these are the people that gave us Iraq’s WMDs, so I guess a desire for understanding is not a high priority.

(emphasis mine)
Original Link.

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Nazism and book burning

One way to check on the various beliefs of German Nazism is to look at the books they banned and/or burned. Thanks to someone at Reddit, a link has been provided to a site which translates the original German book-banning guidelines into English. What we find is interesting:

1. "The literature of Marxism, Communism and Bolshevism." Well I guess that pretty much confirms the idea that Nazism and Communism are NOT the same thing.
2. "Pacifist literature", which means that anyone morally against war cannot be described as a Nazi.
3. "Literature with liberal, democratic tendencies and attitudes", so anyone slightly interested in, say, progressive policies cannot be described as a Nazi.
4. " Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism", which means that Nazis were not Darwinists or Evolutionists when it came to Eugenics, and which pretty much proves that Darwinists are not Nazis.
5. "All writings that ridicule, belittle or besmirch the Christian religion and its institution, faith in God, or other things that are holy to the healthy sentiments of the Volk." which means that atheism was certainly not a Nazi ideal and that atheism is not associated with Nazism (BTW, Hitler was not an atheist).
   

So what can we conclude?

• Nazis hated Marxism and Communism.
• Nazis hated Pacifism.
• Nazis hated Democracy and progressive politics.
• Nazis hated Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.
• Nazis hated Atheists.
  

Jonah Goldberg and Ben Stein need to check their sources.

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AGW and the Cru Hack

AGW and the Cru hack sounds like a really bad band, hence the picture. Actually it's got nothing to do with music, so sorry for misleading you!

AGW is, of course, "Anthropogenic Global Warming". CRU is short for "Climatic Research Unit", specifically the one at the University of East Anglia. And "hack", in this case, means "to devise or modify (a computer program), usually skillfully".

What it all adds up to is that hackers have broken into the CRU server, stolen a whole heap of information - specifically climate data and staff emails - and then sent copies of the 61mb file all over the internet for people to see. The BBC is reporting it here.

Although the hackers themselves have broken dozens of laws and making private emails is, shall we put it, unethical, the security breach may help to provide vital information for those interested in Global Warming - both the advocates (like myself) and the sceptics. What it will show is the pure, unadulterated and honest opinions of those who work for an organisation that promotes one side of climate science thinking. It is a snapshot - warts and all - of what goes on in a scientific community that believes current global warming is caused by human activity.

Of course there will be plenty of dross. The emails will contain derisive opinions of Manchester United fans, discussions about what sort of Indian restaurant in Norwich provides the best Korma, the Heydon bed and breakfast booking for two research students conducting a secret affair and whether or not "New Moon" will be a good film. But what it will also provide (hopefully) is evidence as to whether data is ignored or manipulated or not, and whether there is some sort of shadowy conspiracy going on.

RealClimate, the blog I go to on a daily basis to read about Climate Science, has this to say about the CRU hack:

Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement. For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor that a large group of them thought that the Soon and Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and should not have been published. These sentiments have been made abundantly clear in the literature (though possibly less bluntly).

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.

It’s obvious that the noise-generating components of the blogosphere will generate a lot of noise about this. but it’s important to remember that science doesn’t work because people are polite at all times. Gravity isn’t a useful theory because Newton was a nice person. QED isn’t powerful because Feynman was respectful of other people around him. Science works because different groups go about trying to find the best approximations of the truth, and are generally very competitive about that. That the same scientists can still all agree on the wording of an IPCC chapter for instance is thus even more remarkable.

Linus' Law states "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow", which in the context of software development means that open source coding is superior to closed source because its very openness and transparency ensures quality. While the CRU hack was certainly an invasion of privacy, it does allow us to view the "bugs" in this scientific community and determine whether or not their work is flawed. I await the results, and am reasonably confident that it will only bolster the case for those who believe in AGW.

If it doesn't, I'll start listening to Alestorm.

EDIT: 160mb of data. Sorry. Link also to The Guardian.

American Physical Society rejects Global Warming denialism

The American Physical Society, one of the largest and oldest scientific societies in the world, has an "official statement" regarding Global Warming. Here it is:

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.

The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms. The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

Naturally the "denialists" (those who actively promote the view that global warming is either not occurring or is not man-made) have had an issue with the APS statement, so a number of APS members put a petition through to the APS council. The idea was to change the "official statement" (which I quoted above) to the following:

Greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, accompany human industrial and agricultural activity. While substantial concern has been expressed that emissions may cause significant climate change, measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today. In addition, there is an extensive scientific literature that examines beneficial effects of increased levels of carbon dioxide for both plants and animals.

Studies of a variety of natural processes, including ocean cycles and solar variability, indicate that they can account for variations in the Earth’s climate on the time scale of decades and centuries. Current climate models appear insufficiently reliable to properly account for natural and anthropogenic contributions to past climate change, much less project future climate.

The APS supports an objective scientific effort to understand the effects of all processes – natural and human --on the Earth’s climate and the biosphere’s response to climate change, and promotes technological options for meeting challenges of future climate changes, regardless of cause.

The APS responded thus:

The Council of the American Physical Society has overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to replace the Society’s 2007 Statement on Climate Change with a version that raised doubts about global warming. The Council’s vote came after it received a report from a committee of eminent scientists who reviewed the existing statement in response to a petition submitted by a group of APS members.

What is interesting about the APS response are the final two sentences:

As a membership organization of more than 47,000 physicists, APS adheres to rigorous scientific standards in developing its statements. The Society is always open to review of its statements when significant numbers of its members request it to do so.

So how many APS members backed the denialist proposal? It seems that the number was around 160, which is a very small number when compared to the 46,840 members who didn't sign it. If denialists are to succeed in swaying scientific opinion, they need to get more scientists on their side. A proposal backed by 0.34% of APS members is hardly enough to matter. Moreover it seems to suggest that a consensus of scientific opinion exists within the APS that the current official statement is correct.

It is true that over 31,000 American scientists have signed a denialist petition, but since there are 2,157,300 scientists in the US (at least in 2001), that's still barely more than 1.4%. If a controversy did exist, you'd expect there to be more scientists up in arms about global warming. A good rule of thumb would be 20% - if 20% of scientists disagree with anthropogenic global warming then you could argue that a controversy does exist. I look forward to denialists getting 400,000 more signatures.

Haumea - the new dwarf planet

Finally there's a name better than 2003 EL₆₁

I want

Pseudoskepticism

Pseudoskepticism denotes thinking that appears to be skeptical but is not. The term is most commonly encountered in the form popularised by Marcello Truzzi, where he defined pseudoskeptics as those who take "the negative rather than an agnostic position but still call themselves 'skeptics'"

Understanding "Burden of Proof" here is important - in a legal situation, it is not necessary for the defendant to prove his innocence, but for the prosecutor to prove the defendant's guilt. Truzzi's words are important here:

In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis --saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact--he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof.

Of course you know where I'm headed - climate skeptics.

Popular climate skepticism is actually a form of pseudoskepticism because it does not hold to an agnostic position. In other words, when climate scientists say "Human beings are causing global warming by emitting too much carbon dioxide", the best skeptical response to this is to say "Well that sounds interesting. But what proof do you have?".

A Pseudoskeptic, on the other hand, will say "Scientists who say that humans are causing global warming are wrong" - which means, of course, that they are no longer skeptics (and thus agnostic) but simply hold a diametrically opposing position. And this means that their position must also have the burden of proof to back it up.

Other assertions that popular climate skeptics will say include:

• There is no proof that the world is warming up dangerously.
• Increasing amounts of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere are due to natural processes and not due to human activity.
• Climate records over time are unreliable.

Which, of course, are not skeptical positions but opposing positions and require firm evidence to back up their assertions ie a burden of proof. This means that they are pseudoskeptics.

So if you're ever tempted to consider the climate-skeptic argument, ensure that you are skeptical of the skeptics.

Wilkins Ice Shelf about to collapse

Okay, this is a rather serious issue. Climatologists about ten years ago said that one of the indications of global warming would be the collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica - and that it would probably go within thirty years. Of course, the fact that it is about to go now after only ten years is an indication that things are speeding up.

An Ice Shelf is a floating block of ice. An ice shelf is the result of ice from glaciers going out onto the ocean's surface. The melting of an ice shelf is not going to have any direct impact on sea level rises.

However, there are causes for concern.

The first thing is that this potential collapse will occur in winter. During any polar winter, the low temperatures are such that there is a seasonal increase in the amount of ice present. Yet this collapse is occurring at the coldest time of the year. This indicates that the water around this part of Antarctica is not cold enough at present to prevent any disintegration from happening. In other words, despite the fact that the conditions are helpful to prevent the ice shelf from collapsing, it is still in the process of collapsing. If the water temperature is still too warm even in the perpetual darkness of a polar winter, then that is not good.

The second thing is that, while the melting of an ice shelf is not going to do anything directly, it will expose Antarctic glaciers directly to liquid water. These glaciers and ice sheets are not floating on water - they are located above sea level on land. The combination of (comparatively) warm water and warm air will begin to melt these massive reserves of ice.

The world's sea levels have been rising for quite a long time. In recent years they have risen at a faster rate. Currently sea levels are rising 2.4 - 3.8mm per year. Most of that rise is, I believe, due to glacial melt from Greenland. While the collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf will only result in a slight increase in glacial melt by itself, its collapse is a harbinger of what is possibly to come, namely faster increases in sea level rise.

And the faster it gets, the harder it will be to stop.

Cold is good

Here in Newcastle we are shivering. It is currently 11.4°C (52.5°F) at 11.30am. This will probably be the coldest day of the year.

If you live in a place where the temperature gets colder, yes I know that I have no idea what cold is like. I have never lived in a place where it snows regularly (except on a three week holiday in Northern Scotland in January 1991).

People often say that we put on weight in winter. That may be true for some, but the reality is that we are more likely to lose weight in winter.

The reason is that our body temperature remains constant throughout the year. Whether it is in the middle of a frozen winter or a burning summer, our body remains at 36.8°C (98.2°F). This temperature can change, but the difference is only slight (±0.7°C / ±1.3°F). If our body temperature rises or drops below this rate for any extended period of time, our body tends to get a bit sick (hypothermia/heat exhaustion).

Therefore, in order for our body to maintain optimum temperature, our metabolic rate adjusts accordingly. The colder it is, the more our body increases our metabolic rate to remain warm. Conversely, the warmer it is, our metabolic rate decreases.

And, of course, any increase in the metabolic rate means that our fat reserves are more likely to be used.

Here in the western world, however, we have so many warm clothes and heaters and so much good food (carbohydrates can increase our metabolic rate) that winter doesn't affect us as much as it used to. Culturally, therefore, it is quite possible that winter does see us put more weight on simply because we like comfort foods when things are colder.

AAAAAAAAA

A blog post with every single category marked (I'm doing this for scribefire)

Mt Pinatubo, June 12, 1991

Today's xkcd

I'm a Christian, which means that I believe in the supernatural. Nevetheless I have to agree with the message of this comic strip. So many mistakes of human behaviour - including ones by politicians that can result in the deaths of millions - can be traced to an inability to challenge assumptions.

Examples would be: The Common Cold (belief that a chilly environment can cause a cold), the Iraq War (in which clear absence of WMD evidence eventually proved to be evidence of WMD absence) and various other urban myths.

Global Warming Deniers are innumerate

ie they suck at Mathematics:

Every now and then, I venture over to other fields to see what the debates look like. The most recent laugher was amongst the global warming denialist crowd.

Why? In 2007, the average global temperatures dropped by 0.595 degrees centigrade. This is a fact. The response from this group was to say (verbatim) "Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming."

Um, no. As the charts... reveal, it does nothing of the sort.

The Monty Hall Problem

I pride myself on understanding stuff. But I don't understand this:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

For whatever reason, this is known as The Monty Hall Problem. It is a counter-intuitive problem because, for some reason, it IS to your advantage to switch your choice. In other words, there isn't a 50-50 chance of getting it right if the game show host offers to change your decision.

Apparently the important variable to consider is the Game Show host - he knows what is behind each door. The fact that he knows means that it is to your advantage to change your choice. For some reason there is a 2 in 3 chance of getting the right answer. But if he didn't know - and just opened some random door - then the chance of getting it right remains 50-50.

So if you find yourself in a game show and this happens, you can thank me for helping you. Just give me a share of the prizes.

I support Desalinisation plants

But only if they're built right.

Desal plants have been used for many years to turn seawater or brackish water into fresh water. Unfortunately, Nimbys pretending to be Greenies tend to complain too much when these sorts of things get built - at least here in Australia. Desal plants are slated to be built in Sydney, Melbourne and somewhere in South Australia as a result of the long drought we have been experiencing.

Here are my reasons for supporting Desal plants:

• They provide perfectly drinkable water.


• The technology is proven (and it is also improving).
  


• It can "drought proof" both city and country areas.

Here are some common complaints, followed by my reply.

Desal plants use lots of electricity, which means they are bad for the environment.

Yes it is true that they use lots of electricity, but it is only bad for the environment if the electricity is produced by fossil fuels like coal or gas. If the electricity grid is switched over to "Green" power like wind or solar, then Desal plants won't be bad for the environment. It is not the consumption of power that is the issue, but where the power is sourced from.

Desal plants produce a brine slurry that will pollute the sea nearby.

The production of a brine slurry - essentially thickened seawater - is a byproduct of the desalinisation process. When the water is removed from salt water, obviously what is left behind is salt. If this slurry were simply dumped back into the sea in one spot it would have negative environmental effects on coastal areas nearby. If the slurry were pumped further out and dispersed somewhat (or even diluted with seawater before it returns to the sea) then the effects would be minimal. The reason for this is that the sun evaporates plenty of water from the sea every day, leaving salt behind. Adding salt to salt water would be like adding slightly more Nitrogen to the atmosphere (but only if it is dispersed - too much in one spot is a no no I believe).

Alternatively, the slurry could be dried out and the salt turned into table salt. Salt is a product that is purchased and sold in the marketplace, which means that it is not really a waste product at all (Australia is a salt exporter). Salt can even be used to augment cement (see here and here). Moreover, sea salt is sodium chloride, and chlorine can be extracted from the slurry - a chemical that has many industrial uses.

We should recycle used water from our sewerage system instead.

There's a guy from my church who is involved in the design of alternative energy systems, and he talks about this as "the yuck factor" - people don't really want to drink their own waste water. This, however, can be overcome through public education. Moreover, there are places around the world which recycle their waste water effectively and the population are fine about it.

In order to remove the nasty bacteria, chemicals and particulates from the waste water, an industrial process needs to take place which achieves this. It would involve either boiling the waste water at a low air pressure, or some form of membrane process involving reverse osmosis. What sort of "thing" could achieve such an industrial process? Why a desal plant of course! It doesn't have to use seawater all the time. Waste water could easily be diverted to a desal plant and converted into drinkable water.

Desal plants are only good for people on the coast who get good rainfall already. It would be too expensive to pump water inland to be used for irrigation.

Such a process - whereby desal plants pump irrigation quality water to inland parts of Australia where they are used for irrigation - is very expensive, but not prohibitively.

While spending 5-6 months in drought-stricken country NSW in 2006, I asked a number of farmers about water supply. "Would you", I asked, "be prepared to pay premium prices for water if its supply can be 100% guaranteed?" They all said yes.

Building thousands of kilometres of pipelines around inland Australia (mainly in NSW, Victoria and South Australia) to create a "water grid" that can guarantee water supply for farmers is an expensive proposition. Yet I would think that the price that farmers and towns are willing to pay for the water would make up for it, so long as their costs are less than the gains they would make by having a guaranteed crop, year after year. Moreover, if the cost of water is quite expensive, then steps would be taken by farmers to minimise its usage and to maximise crop production. It would also encourage crops that need less water (like wheat) over crops that need lots of water (like rice).