gregladen | October 7, 2016This morning I was forced to do the "get off my lawn" thing with the kids at the bus stop. They were systematically destroying the pavement around the common mailbox area down the street from my house, throwing chunks in the street. I lined them up and read them the riot act. They are children, so they can be excused for bering a bit stupid about life, and the guy down the street telling them to get off the lawn is part of the learning process for them.
And now it's your turn.
The right wing yahoos have already started yelling about conspiracies related to Hurricane Matthew. "They are…
gregladen | October 6, 2016I refer you to the book Bad Clowns, by Benjamin Radford.
I remember my first bad clown. I was at a Home Bureau event with my mother, and I was probably not in kindergarten yet. Home Bureau was part of the "Ladies Auxiliary" arm of the war effort during WW II, that remained as an organization long after. It had to do with sewing, I think. This was at the Albany Armory. It might not have been a Home Bureau event per se, but a Home Bureau booth at a larger scale event of some sort. And there were many different events and attraction.
One of the things they had was a booth with Bozo the…
gregladen | October 4, 2016The 14th named storm has just appeared in the Atlantic.
The average number of named storms in the Atlantic, based on a fairly long climatology, is about 10.1. An average of 5.9 become hurricanes.
So, this year are more than average named storms. But is it more than predicted?
On average, the expert forecasts suggested anywhere from 12 to 18 named storms. We are well past the midpoint of the 2016 season, and are just about to reach the midpoint of these forecasted ranged, and there is still plenty of time left for a few more storms. The largest number predicted, as the upper end of the…
gregladen | September 27, 2016LATEST UPDATE IS HERE. CLICK HERE FOR LATEST UPDATE.
Update: Wed Mid Day
Matthew weakened, strengthened, strengthening
Matthew has interacted with land masses in Hispaniola and Cuba to the extent that the storm weakened quite a bit, losing its temporary Category 5 status.
But, now Matthew is already showing signs of strengthening, and is likely to grow back to Category 3 or 4 status as it moves over the Bahamas. How bad a hurricane is when it makes contact with land depends in large part on the angle of the attack, and Matthew will likely be affecting several spots in the Bahamas at a…
gregladen | September 27, 2016The US is already behind in its agreed to commitment to clean power
A study just out in Nature climate Change suggests that the US is already behind in its commitments to reduce the use of fossil fuel as an energy source, and the concomitant release of climate-warming greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
The paper, by Jeffery Greenblatt and Max Wei, says:
Current intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs)are insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature change to between 1.5 and 2.0◦C above pre-industrial levels, so the effectiveness of existing INDCs will…
gregladen | September 27, 2016It was a tossup, but in a rather complicated way.
Even the regular commenters with major network news, and PBS, clearly indicated that Hillary Clinton won this debate. And she did. She not only had better answers, but actual answers. Trump acted very poorly and Clinton acted presidential. Trump got caught in several lies, and made several more lies that were to be caught later. He made a fool of himself and Clinton did very well.
Therefore, it was a tossup. It was a tossup because a couple percent of the populous are former Bernie Sanders supporters with so much butt hurt that they will not…
gregladen | September 26, 2016You've probably already heard about his paper because everyone is all a tizzy about it. There is a fundamental complaint being made about one of the paper's conclusions. I've been paying careful attention to what my colleagues are saying about that one aspect of the paper, and I get their point but I'm not sure if they are right. I'll explain that later.
What everyone so far has almost entirely missed, though, is the actual point of the paper, and that is important and while I'm sure it could be improved with further work, this is good stuff and important.
One of the major contributions…
gregladen | September 25, 2016One of the differences among the current four candidates for POTUS is the recognition, by only one of them, of the great importance of basic research. By that, I mean, give the scientists funding to pursue the questions that interest them. A sort of free market of ideas driven not by profits of the Bayers, Koch Borthers, and Cargils of the world, but rather, by how cool stuff is and how much untethered knowledge is advanced each time something else cool happens.
Tsetse fly
Trypanosomiasis is a terrible disease. I know only one person who had it, he was treated, survived, but his brain did…
gregladen | September 23, 2016The American Geophysical Union just lost whatever remaining credibility it had as a scientific society earlier today when it announced no change in policy regarding taking money from ExxonMobil.
We talked about this before, here.
Margaret Leinen, the AGU president, issued a communication today that says this:
Last week the AGU Board of Directors discussed the organization’s April decision to continue engagement with ExxonMobil after receiving additional information from several sources. The Board maintained its original decision after another careful and systematic review of hundreds of pages…
gregladen | September 23, 2016First, a note on Lewis Carrol, Alice and Wonderland, and drugs. The current revisionist version of that work is that Carrol was not referring to drugs when he has Alice or other characters imbibe or smoke various substances (including 'shrooms) and in so doing experience dramatic changes in reality. Uh huh, sure. The argument is based on the belief that Lewis Carrol did not do drugs. That argument is absurd, of course, because Alice in Wonderland and related works ARE FICTION. If these stories can only involve thematic metaphor to drug use by the author actually being on drugs while…
gregladen | September 22, 2016Obviously, we need to stop the human enhanced extra greenhouse effect. There are a number of ways to approach this. Let me say right away that taking CO2, the main greenhouse gas of concern long term, out of the atmosphere is NOT one of the ways. Here's why: It takes energy to put Carbon into solid or liquid form. You get energy back when you move the Carbon into a gas form (as CO2). That is something of an oversimplification but long term, large scale, it is correct. Since, for the most part, the greenhouse effect is caused by the the generation of energy for use, which causes the movement…
gregladen | September 22, 2016This is it. Don't mess this up.
It isn't that common that a single event can have a cascading effect on so many things. And if it does, such an event would not be that likely to have an entirely negative effect on all it touches. But, the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States would be such an event.
Therefore, in turn and in opposition, your vote this November 8th matters as much as his presidency would matter. So, you must vote. (And please remember to NOT VOTE FOR TRUMP. That's the point. Do not vote for Trump.)
Also please, make sure that if you intend to vote for a…
gregladen | September 22, 2016So, many years ago, Amanda and I got a new car. The first thing we did was to switch get rid of my old Rodeo, and I took her old Subaru sedan, and she drove the new Forrester. So, thereafter I drove her old car, and she drove our new car.
One day I was on my way back home, and I noticed that the gas gauge needle was on E, but the Empty Tank Warning Light was not on. So I figured I'd get gas at the place near home, rather than stopping sooner.
Driving down the highway, the car sputtered and stopped working. I got it over to the side of the highway. Knowing that it was not out of gas, because…
gregladen | September 21, 2016Sciencedebate.org has managed a seemingly impossible task. They developed 20 distinct (but often interrelated) questions about science policy, based on vast amounts of public input, and then got all four presidential candidates to address them. Congratulations to Sciencedebate.org. This is important, and I know that was not easy to do. The questions, and answers, are here.
Here are my reactions to the candidates responses for some of the questions.
1. Innovation. Science and engineering have been responsible for over half of the growth of the U.S. economy since WWII. But some reports…
gregladen | September 21, 2016We went to the local library the other day to find books in the range appropriate for Huxley to read. It isn't sufficient to say he's in the first grade. Between preschool and second grade, there are (in English, anyway) probably about four or five levels of reading ability, and kids move through them fast. In addition to that, there are who the heck knows how many different scales, developed by various individuals and organizations, to reflect reading levels. It is so complicated that there is actually a company that you can pay to tell you what reading level a book is.
So we asked the…
gregladen | September 21, 2016This is just a pointer to my latest post at 10,000 birds on a tool using crow from Hawaii, as well as recent climate change related threats to the birds of that island state.
gregladen | September 21, 2016The Clinton Foundation started as a very successful post-presidency foundation of the type that is normally formed under the leadership of an ex president, in this case, Bill Clinton. Later, the foundation was expanded considerably and made into the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea foundation, and rivaled and exceeded earlier similar efforts to solve the world's problems. Now, the foundation is a big giant money magnet, that takes funds from all over and uses it for all sorts of great things, including addressing climate change.
It is normal for a president to step away from financial activities…
gregladen | September 20, 2016By important, I mean people who have their hands on the levers of power, more or less, in areas that affect energy policy.
I don't really care if Uncle Bob doesn't accept climate change. Uncle Bob votes for right wing yahoos anyway, that wasn't going to change. Why should it matter what Uncle Bob thinks?
Unless Uncle Bob is a top policy actor involve din climate and energy issues at the federal level or in Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, or Ohio. Right?
The Climate Constituencies Project looked at these folks (Uncle Bob's colleagues as described) to see where they stand on climate change…
gregladen | September 20, 2016For some time now ExxonMobil Corporation has been under scrutiny for having a) known about climate change, yet b) helped cause climate change, while c) investing corporate resources into getting people and the government to not take climate change seriously.
Worst case allegation: ExxonMobile has taken material steps, knowingly and intentionally, that will cause the end of civilization as we know it.
That, of course, is not illegal. But along the way, perhaps some laws have been broken, and some in the legal biz have been looking into this.
Now, suddenly, we hear from the Wall Street Journal…
gregladen | September 20, 2016The fiery history of blowing shit up mostly accident but then discovering something good. Generally, good for blowing stuff up, but with purpose.