November 10, 2007
Category: Global Warming
I just read this scoop from my friend Eli Kintisch in Science. Scary stuff. Seems Eli attended a high level meeting of climate scientists in Cambridge, MA on the subject of geoengineering--i.e., artificially altering the planet in some way to help stave off global warming (think Frank Herbert's Dune). And to Eli's surprise, he found the scientists pretty darn open to at least studying the idea. As he writes:
Harvard geochemist Daniel Schrag and physicist David Keith of the University of Calgary thought that geoengineering deserved a closer look (Science, 26 October, p. 551). In an opening presentation yesterday, Schrag explained that extensive, rapid melting of arctic sea ice (ScienceNOW, 2 May) and the fact that the world's 2005 and 2006 carbon emissions from fossil fuels were higher than predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are forcing the hands of climate scientists. Schrag also fears that when countries are faced with the prospect of even more drastic environmental change, they will turn to geoengineering regardless of whether the consequences are known. "We're going to be doing this if we're afraid of something really bad happening, like the Greenland ice sheet collapsing," he said.
My God, are we really this far gone already? Do we need to seriously consider geoengineering as an insurance policy, if nothing else?
Posted by Chris C. Mooney at 7:03 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Updates
A few weeks ago, I appeared for the second time on PBS KCET's "Tavis Smiley Show," this time to discuss Storm World and global warming generally. I would have given an update and told folks to watch the show live, but I didn't know when my segment was going to air.
But in any rate, you can now go online to read the transcript of the interview--or to listen to it. Here's a brief excerpt:
Tavis: Let me ask you two questions about Republicans. One about the current occupant of the White House, President Bush, and the other about the Republicans running to take his place in the Oval Office in 2008. The latter first. I just read an article the other day that suggested that amongst those running now for the GOP presidential nomination, there is a divide on the issue of global warming.
There isn't this uniformity like there was some time ago, uniformity opposed to the science on global warming. Now there's a divide about global warming and what our responsibility is as humans to do something about it. What's your read on that divide amongst some of these candidates running for the GOP nomination?
Mooney: I think that's accurate. There is a divide. This is the triumph of Al Gore. The issue is shifting and it's becoming harder and harder to be a denier, to be questioning the science. It's becoming kind of embarrassing to be a denier at this point.
So you have some Republicans, the more conservative ones, the kind of Tom Tancredos who are still out there still questioning the science. But if you look at the whole field, you find you have some of the more moderates, the McCains, the Giulianis, they accept human causation.
They realize that we got to do something about it. Even somebody like Sam Brownback. Mike Huckabee is talking about how we have to find different energy solutions for powering our societies because we can't stick with fossil fuels into the indefinite future. I think the issue is turning. I think we're going to get the policy solutions we need in the next presidency.
Again, the full transcript is here. And audio is here.
Posted by Chris C. Mooney at 5:27 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 9, 2007
Category: Personal
Thanks to my favorite Mooney, I'm enjoying life as a writer. Well a blogger really, but that's a style of writing just the same. Open correspondence to both everyone and no one at all. Chris recently considered whether bloggers should unionize and I suspect that will come with time as our new medium evolves.
One aspect of the blogosphere that particularly appeals to me is that while prose is encouraged, there are no rules. I've always found such formalities counter productively confining for any form of self expression. Most traditional, strictly-defined protocols are much too stifling for creativity because writing is an art form after all. It allows others a rare glimpse into our private selves so rules just have a pesky habit of mucking up the process.
This weekend finds me with the unique opportunity to use a vintage Smith-Corona Super Sterling Portable Manual Typewriter. Translation: typing with no plug, connection or correction. Imagine that...
My family had a typewriter when I was a couple of decades younger, but it was nothing like this remarkable throwback to a simpler time. Round creme colored keys suspended high above the frame. Here google can't match advertisements to my text and emails do not interrupt flow of thought.
There's something absolutely genuine about what an old typewriter like this can produce. The blank page in the carriage is full of possibility and somehow in what's composed - even amid uneven spacing, missing letters, and misspelled words - I find freedom. Honesty assembled in plastic, metal, and ribbon.
And so this weekend I celebrate the typewriter and leave my laptop to the world of the wired. At least, that's the intention. I will remain a recluse to the blogosphere and allow the Smith Corona to dance beneath my fingers as I wonder how many others have explored these keys and what else has been born on this very same machine. As winter approaches, I'll write privately in the cozy confines of my warm apartment on a frosty November day. Me and a typewriter.
Posted by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum at 1:34 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Hurricanes
From Jeff Masters' blog, describing the Dutch response to a powerful North Sea storm:
While today's storm did not approach the 1953 storm in severity, it did bring the highest storm surge seen in the past 20 years to the North Sea. The massive flood gates that protect the Dutch port of Rotterdam were closed for the first time since they were constructed in the 1990s. From early media accounts, the gates did their job admirably, protecting the Netherlands from inundation. Water levels reached 3.16 meters above mean sea level in the southern Netherlands, and 3.40 meters above sea level in the northern Netherlands, with no flooding reported.
If only we'd built something similar to protect New Orleans...
P.S.: For more info on the Dutch gated structure known as the Maeslantkering, see here.
Posted by Chris C. Mooney at 11:53 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Hurricanes
[A NOAA P-3 on the ground in Washington, D.C.]
This is a subject I've been meaning to do some reporting on for some time, but with the move and all my other obligations, I just haven't gotten the chance. So I've decided simply to blog about it (even though blogging is just a "hobby," and not a real job--right?).
You may or may not be aware that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration flies regular missions into hurricanes using instrumented aircraft. Two of the planes they use are Orion WP-3Ds, or P-3s for short, and they're nicknamed "Kermit" and "Miss Piggy."
Well, it has recently come to my attention that we very nearly lost Kermit--to say nothing of his talented crew--back in February. As an internal (and to my knowledge not yet public) NOAA report (PDF) relates, the plane had been detailed to fly a research mission into a non-tropical low pressure system in the North Atlantic off of Newfoundland as part of the Ocean Winds Experiment. On February 9, something seemingly unprecedented and nearly deadly occurred.
[Kermit in flight, with all four engines firing.]
Flying at night and in unusually dry and very windy conditions, the plane suffered the failure of no less than three out of four engines. The apparent cause? Accumulation of sea salt aerosols--an obvious by-product of seawater evaporation, but never thought to be a risk at the flight's altitude level--on the engines.
Reading between the lines, it sounds like this particular combination of dryness, high winds, and night flying was a novel one even for a very experienced flight crew. And it was very nearly deadly: With only one engine running, the plane was going down, and only luck and quick thinking seems to have saved the day. Notably, Kermit flew through some precipitation just before disaster might have occurred, and this may have helped wash some of the salt off the engines--which subsequently restarted at the last minute.
It sounds like the crew performed admirably in this case, and that they simply encountered new and unknown meteorological conditions--a danger no one knew was lurking out there in the atmosphere. In any event, it's a stunning and frightening story. Indeed, when comparing it to another near-crash tale involving a P-3--see Jeff Masters' account of "Flying into Hurricane Hugo" in 1989--I note that in that case the plane only lost one engine and sustained damage to a second. In contrast, and to repeat, this latest 2007 case saw the failure of three out of four engines!
So thank goodness the plane and the crew were all right. As for more general conclusions that may be drawn--does this incident say anything about safety measures or funding levels for instrumented aircraft research, or was it simply a freak event--I leave that to those more expert in the subject matter. I don't have enough background knowledge about this highly specialized form of aviation to jump to any conclusions.
P.S.: Unbeknownst to me, there was a previous public mention of this incident, see here.
Posted by Chris C. Mooney at 8:05 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 8, 2007
Category: Global Warming
Have you seen this paper making the rounds in cyberland?
Carbon dioxide production by benthic bacteria: the death of manmade global warming theory? Journal of Geoclimatic Studies (2007) 13:3. 223-231.
As suspected, it appears to be a hoax. And you thought the Halloween trickery was over...
Details from Pielke.
Posted by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum at 10:16 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 7, 2007
Category: Updates
Um, seeing as I'm out in Hollywood...well, I guess this came along at the right time. I am part of the "cast" for a docu entitled (for now) Weather Movie. (I hope they keep the title, tones of Scary Movie.) I will be playing myself. This is something I do all the time--sometimes more convincingly than others. But never before, at least to my knowledge, have I gotten into the Internet Movie Database for it.
Posted by Chris C. Mooney at 4:05 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Birds
You may have noticed Science Blogs runs a regular Ask A Science Blogger question referenced on Frontpage where different Sciblings provide interesting perspectives.
Well twice now, Sparticus Maximus the Great has taken over The Intersection with his own expert bird brain opinion. He weighed in on the passing of his hero Alex the Grey and hijacked the blog another morning to express concern over Socks and India - the notorious felines of the White House.
Readers have reacted by requesting regular commentary and lately he's even getting email - As if the little parrot didn't already have an enormous ego, now he's simply unbearable... squawking to be bathed and demanding only the best seeds and pellets for his delicate palate.
It's enough that we're finally giving in. We invite everyone to submit questions to our own 'Ask A Sun Conure.' Email the impish bird about science, politics, or anything that puzzles you at [email protected] and every now and then we'll let him crash The Intersection and teach us all a little something new.
Just please don't inflate his sense of self importance any more, because he's becoming terribly difficult to live with ever since becoming a famous guest science blogger.
Posted by the interSeCtion at 9:34 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 6, 2007
Category: Updates
It seems I am barely settled in L.A. before I leave again. Tomorrow, I am off to the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, where I will be giving the second lecture in the newly launched "Alabama Perspectives on Sustainability and Climate Change" lecture series. The press release announcing the event is here.
In addition, the book, which has been assigned to a number of UA students, will be discussed in a seminar before the lecture with the following professors:
Dr. Lynne Adrian, professor of American studies
Dr. Fred Andrus, assistant professor of geological sciences
Dr. Walter Misiolek, professor of economics and Dwight Harrigan Fellow of Natural Resources Economics
Dr. Utz McKnight, assistant professor of political science
Dr. Jason Senkbeil, geography instructor
So it'll be a busy day in Tuscaloosa on Thursday....but it's a town I've actually never been to before. I'm really looking forward to it. Moreover, given how well my September Cornell event went, I think it will be fun to have another panel of scholars responding to my book.
Posting may be intermittent while I'm on the road Weds-Fri, but hey, that's why we have a cool coblogger here. And if you get really bored, well, go read Beowulf.
Posted by Chris C. Mooney at 4:04 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
[This post is for sci-fi fantasy geeks only. If you're not a sci-fi fantasy geek, read no further.]
So anyways, there's something of a paradox in my life right now. Even as I'm supposed to be supporting the Writers' Guild strike, I'm also anxiously awaiting the November 16 release of Paramount Pictures' blockbuster version of Beowulf. I mean, sure, I may boycott some entertainment industry products as the Hollywood labor conflict rages on. But this just ain't one of them. I've been in Lord of the Rings withdrawal since...well, since 2003 or so. And now, we get the motherlode that inspired Tolkien to begin with, finally brought to film. How can I hold on to my picket sign for that?
Solemnly, to prepare for the upcoming movie, I got out Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. I had last read it something like seven years ago. So I went through it again, and this time even more than before, found it simply amazing stuff. Consider the opening, which has the single best first word of any epic, ever, in my opinion:
So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.
There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes,
a wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes.
This terror of the hall-troops had come far.
A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on
as his powers waxed and his worth was proved.
In the end each clan on the outlying coasts
beyond the whale-road had to yield to him
and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king.
Sort of feels like this story is itself being told in a mead hall--or by an old cabbie with a strong Brooklyn accent, doesn't it? This isn't highfalutin stuff. It's colloquial--downright earthy, and powerful in its simplicity.
Soon, as I got deeper into Heaney's translation, I started finding bits and pieces everywhere that Tolkien had taken up and, in his own way, also translated in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The poem starts right off with a dead warrior being pushed out to sea in a funeral boat filled with his possessions--like what happened to Boromir. Later, there's a thief who sneaks in and steals a goblet from a dragon, enraging the beast, which then promptly begins rampaging all over the kingdom. Soon the thief becomes the guide for a gang of thirteen.
Something else that struck me is that there's a character named Eomer in Beowulf. Indeed, the whole world of Tolkien's Rohan, with its great wooden halls and (apparent) copious mead drinking, is that of the Shieldings. And here's another parallel (though don't tell PZ): The poet who wrote Beowulf was clearly a Christian, though the characters of the story just as clearly are not. In the same way, Tolkien was clearly a Christian but his characters were not. In both cases, we instead get ruminations about a pre-Christian vein of heroism from a writer who knows of something "better," but refrains from judging what had come "before."
So I guess what I'm getting at is, Beowulf is really a kind of skeleton key to The Lord of the Rings. So it's about time that Hollywood brought it out. So I can't wait--and if you're anywhere as eager as I am, you too should go pick up the Heaney translation to while the time away.
Let's hope the movie isn't just so-so.
Posted by Chris C. Mooney at 11:20 AM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Marine Science
You may have been hearing all the hullabaloo over 'ocean acidification.' Sure sounds frightening [visions of a melting Wicked Witch of the West], but no CAP, the oceans are not turning to acid. Still, it is a very scary possibility nonetheless... So what's really going on just beneath the surface?
Ocean acidification means that the pH of oceans is becoming less basic because of us. Really. Now I know what you're thinking and sure... oceans are pretty big. But the truth is, yes, our actions do indeed have a real impact in the marine realm.
My post is now up over at Correlations explaining the mechanisms and potential consequences of this frightening phenomenon.
Posted by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum at 9:18 AM • 20 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 5, 2007
Category: Hurricanes
I've already had much to say about this year's puzzling Atlantic hurricane season. Indeed, I've called the year "schizophrenic." But now, the Houston Chronicle's crack science reporter Eric Berger has done an entire story on what the season does and doesn't mean. I'm quoted in there several times, and I also have my reaction to the Berger piece up at the newly relaunched and revamped Daily Green.
In essence, I argue this: As we move further and further away from the dramatic 2005 hurricane season, the science actually seems to get more murky...but that's no excuse for not protecting ourselves. We could easily have another disastrous hurricane very soon in the United States--if not this year, then perhaps as early as 2008.
Again, you can read my piece here, and Berger's here.
Posted by Chris C. Mooney at 4:17 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Marine Science
They did.
When a person's cornea - the transparent surface layer at the front of the eye - becomes damaged, it can be replaced using tissue from an organ donor. But there is a big shortage of corneal donors, as there are for every other type of organ.
An ideal solution would be to develop an artificial cornea, but is has proved very hard to design and manufacture a structure so that it is optically clear in the middle and biocompatible at the edges.
Now Garret Matthews, a biophysicist at the University of South Florida in Tampa, US, and his colleagues have come up with a design for artificial corneas that they say achieves this - using sea cucumbers.
Read more about everyone's favorite stimulating echinoderm at New Scientist.
Posted by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum at 2:54 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Media and Science
Last week, Sheril got amazing and (to me) unprecedented blogospheric results when she directly took on a troublesome commenter. While I doubt I'll get the same reaction, this post is in response to the same kind of thing.
Last week I wrote about the Hollywood screenwriters' strike and, as a fellow writer, voiced my support. I was really disappointed by some of the resulting comments from folks who didn't seem to understand why unions are important--and most of all, with a comment from "Bi-Liberal." The comment was not only off point, but meanly so:
Uh, no offense, Chris and girlfriend named Molly, but really? Let's sound the alarm that the profession you've chosen (blogger) isn't paid that much??? Well, it's been my impression that this is primarily a hobby for you and most bloggers. Your sole income comes in from other sources, namely the one where your expertise lies.
And considering you don't have a 9-5er like most of us do, I don't really feel bad for you. Most self employed, freelancing artists like yourself bite the bullet and accept their lack of time obligations as payment in itself.
You should probably invest in purchasing your own health insurance. I mean, you're writing books, right? Don't they pay you for that? Freelance artists generally don't get "benefits" as they are normally framed. But thats the tradeoff in being your own boss! Perhaps on your next book contract, you should negotiate temporary insurance...
All good advice aside, I'm guessing you're not paid 7.50/hr and boo hoo-ing about not being able to afford health insurance. Because, last time I checked, those are the people who really need support.
Sound your "I'm priveleged enough to make my own schedule and compensated adequately but still want more" alarm elsewear, please.
Read on »
Posted by Chris C. Mooney at 12:38 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Global Warming and Hurricanes
See here. Storm World made a list of 150 books in total, 25 of which are "nonfiction" entries. I'm honored.
Posted by Chris C. Mooney at 11:25 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Marine Science
Over at Cephalopodcast, check out Carnival of the Blue VI. It's a synthesis of the best ocean-related blogging and, as Jason explains, does represent the other 70% of our planet! You'll find a couple of my posts from October and recognize some other familiar sciblings who have made interesting contributions as well.
Posted by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum at 8:22 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
