MSNBC

Please, MSNBC, can we stop now?

gregladen — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 08:50:49 +0000

Please, MSNBC, can we stop now?

MSNBC has added Bret Stephens, climate denier formerly of the WSJ, lately of the NYT, to their list of commenters. Shame on them.

Also, shame on Wikipedia and others for referring to Stephens as a journalist. He is no more a journalist than Anne Coulter. He is a commenter. (He's way better than Coulter, of course.)

Prior related posts:

Out of the gate, Bret Stephens punches the hippies, says dumb things

Honestly, New York Times? You are entitled to publish all the opinions, but not to endorse your own facts!

My letter to the New York Times

Dear New York Times: Climate Change Is Real

The New York Times Bites It With New Climate Denier Columnist

Apparently the widespread opposition to Stephens, which included a lot of tweeting, has driven him off Twitter.

And, MSNBC has added climate denier Hugh Hewitt as a host of a Saturday morning program. Read this expose from MMFA for the documentation on Hewitt's climate denial.

gregladen Thu, 06/29/2017 - 04:50

Tags

Climate Change

Global Warming

Brett Stpehens

climate denial

Hugh Hewitt

MSNBC

Stephens

Shame on them for straying from group think!!

He's a witch! He's a witch!

Which one, this post is about two people?

Irony: Batshit going "GROUP THINK!!!!" because it's "bad, m'kay, when there's no plurality" and thinking that a group (two people is still a group) is one person.

Greg - "Which one, this post is about two people?"

Both.

Do I get a WARNING for that?

Wow - "thinking that a group (two people is still a group)"

Strange, I thought Greg was saying "shame" on MSNBC and Wikipedia?
By hiring people with different viewpoints, they have apparently "shamed" themselves because they strayed from group think.

Here's the "irony" - Wow thinks that the two people are the "group" from this sentence:...."Shame on them for straying from group think!!"

Which mean he thinks the two people are straying from themselves.

Classic.

The notion that MSNBC has been a bastion of left wing thought and promoter of decency has long been put to rest.
At least they didn't try to find someone as dishonest as Fox's Jessica Waters, who, during a discussion of CNN's admission of error, said:
' "Imagine if a Fox News producer said "they are pushing a bogus story about the president's birth certificate just for ratings, and the CEO is on board with it, that would be national news." '

Greg,
This is Celeste at The Pump Handle. Liz, Kim and I are having a terrible time logging into ScienceBlogs because of a JetPack error message. Have you had any problems?

I have not. Just logged in and had no problems.

Hey Greg,
Still waiting for you to explain your word version warning rules and who they apply to?

You own the blog, I would think you could respond to such a simple question...

Didn't Bret Stephens pay penance in an interview with Gail Collins and disown his previous positions?

Netherlands
June 29, 2017
After nearly sixty years of natural gas exploitation in the province of Groningen and a worldwide sale of Dutch gas, complete areas are getting uninhabitable, because of earthquakes ruining houses, farms, churches, monuments and soil. What are the effects of the overexploitation of non renewable energy for the economy, the land, richness and well being of citizens? The USA can open its gas tap fully and unconditionally, but what happens than?
Climate Change and Earth Change are two sides of the same medal. People help raise the temperature of oceans, land and atmosphere and in doing so people bring earth to the melting point of poles and glaciers. In doing so people accelerate the process by which the crust of the earth will change positions, by collapsing poles as fuses. The president of the USA and the GOP are (blindly) applying for a historic role as fuse igniters. Not a thing to be proud of. They are literally playing with matches. Time for change. Laren NH, Thursday 29 June 2017, 23.38 PM DT.

"In doing so people accelerate the process by which the crust of the earth will change positions, by collapsing poles as fuses"

Meaningless wordsalad babble.

an excellent choice of words of Wow's own input.
Laren NH, June 30th. 2017, 6:34 AM DT.

No, it was an excellent choice of words, great boogers.

Go learn what the earth's crust is made of and how moronic your bullshit was.

Hell, just go learn. Something. ANYTHING.

I read something recently about blog writers and how they can
be considered journalists in Australian Law.
I personally find the standard of media these days very dismal, especially science reporting.
There are some notable standout exceptions.
Robyn Williams comes immediatly to mind.

By hiring people with different viewpoints, they have apparently “shamed” themselves because they strayed from group think.

So if a serious news outlet hired a geocentrist flat earther, or AIDS Denialist would they also be going against group think? Or if a teacher tells off a child for saying that 1 + 1 = 3, is that encouraging group think?
To quote The Princess Bride:
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Julian, do you have anything real you would like to talk about, or just made up things floating in your head?

Looks like I'm going to have to explain it to you as if you were a fifth grader, Betula.
Ignoring and excluding people who hold views contrary to the normal consensus is not Group Think. Geocentrists hold views contrary to the consensus. Flat-Earthers hold views contrary to the consensus. AIDS Denialists hold views contrary to the consensus. It is not group think to ignore or mock those groups, and it is not "straying from group think" (your phrase) to hire climate denialists when the evidence that they are wrong is so overwhelming as to be total.

"Looks like I’m going to have to explain it to you as if you were a fifth grader"

You'll need to dial it down. Special needs fifth grade isn't low enough.

Try trump level.

Julian - "it is not “straying from group think” (your phrase) to hire climate denialists when the evidence that they are wrong is so overwhelming as to be total"

Then why the "Shame on them" for hiring him?

Because they hired people who ignored (and are continuing to ignore) the evidence. Anyone here would respond exactly the same way if a museum hired David Irving as an expert.

"Anyone here would respond exactly the same way if a museum hired David Irving as an expert"

Don't knock one of Betula's heros.

Oh, I get it, the people who deny something that has actually occurred, are the same as people who have questions about predicted catastrophic-only future scenarios based on estimated climate sensitivity derived from imperfect computer models that are used to create policies that redistribute global wealth as a way to achieve social justice and equality,

Makes sense.

So you won't be waking up tomorrow, batshit?

No betula, you don't get it. Once again, that is not a surprise to anyone reading the slop you post.

Wow - "You’ll need to dial it down. Special needs fifth grade isn’t low enough."

This, from Wow, who reads these words:

Betula - "John Hofmeister, former President of Shell Oil Company is on the Board of Advisors of Climate One…
You know what this means don’t you? That’s right, Michael Mann is being backed by big oil!
And that my friends, is how you play the liberal retard game…
[WARNING: Betula, watch your language.]

And somehow sees these words:

Wow – “Batshit, on the other hand, called Obama a retard with ABSOLUTELY NO ACTIONS TO ASCRIBE THAT STATE TO.”

Delusional. Lying. Hypocrite.

So you agree. Otherwise you would have disagreed. Instead you decided to lie and bullshit off at a tangent.

Again.

Unfortunately for you, I can copy and paste your words....it's also unfortunate for you, that you can't copy and paste your imagination.

I'll just continue to prove you're a liar and hypocrite, you just continue to imagine you aren't...

Fun times.

Whoops writes...

"So you agree. Otherwise you would have disagreed. Instead you decided to lie and bullshit off at a tangent."

By this wonderful logic, your interests and profits from your solar venture are agreed upon. Otherwise you would have disagreed. Right? When asked all you do is "lie and bullshit off on a tangent." That is the definition of your M.O.

You know what I find funny? "Wow" and The Donald--of who I am no fan and embarrassed to have to call our President--have very similar traits. Let's compare...

Thinks they know something about everything even when they clearly don't? Check.

Lie blatantly then try to pretend what they said was either justified or never said, despite clear evidence that it was? Check.

Clearly and obviously delusional and unnecessarily confrontational? Check

Offensive language towards people with mental disabilities (which to quote Greg is a "dick move")? Check.

Clear feelings of superiority when not justified? Check.

I could go on.

"Wow" and Trump. Kindred spirits I would say

Well Greg at least they fired Greta Van Susteren - that's a plus. You'd think by now with the soaring ratings Rachel, Lawrence, and Chris are having that the execs would figure out that moving to the left is more profitable than trying to compete with Fox.

This discourse teaches us the importance and necessity of a minimum standard of civilized communication. For good thinking controversy is necessary as well as the classical virtues: humility, diligence, patience, kindness, moderation, prudence, justice and fortitude. This blog proofs again and again the necessity of these values, which this blog lacks completely. All topics on this blog being spoiled by trolls very much resemble the state of mind of the 'greatest' state of the world in decline. What we see here is a guerrilla of trolls. In this forum one at least has debunked itself as a perfect cooperative of Donald Trump. Every dictator needs a ministry of disinformation and cooperatives. Let the one whom this concerns throw the first stone. Laren NH, Saturday July 1st, 9.37 AM DT.

No, it just shows that without any actual thought people will retire to complaining about presentation rather than do any effort to support their claims, great boogers.

For instance, you never looked into the actual lithosphere of the planet earth and how much energy would be needed to supply to make it warp and move like you claim, then investigate the energy released by the melting of ice caps to see whether it would supply that energy and over what time it could occur.

No, you just whined "But I really BELIEVE this crap!!!! Stop calling me a dumb fuck for doing that!!!!".

Gerrit B

For good thinking controversy is necessary

That is *exactly* the specious rhetoric deniers and creationists use when attempting to insert their rubbish into the public discourse. It is 'teach the controversy'. Straight up.

When you fall into pits this vast and obvious, you forfeit the right to lecture others on 'good thinking'. Even polecats like Wow.

Oddly enough, not the controversy about child raping by priests or the muslim faith (and the sharia compared to the US constitution). Nor will they want to have 50% of the time taken up at the congregation by alternative faiths.

Wow - " it just shows that without any actual thought people will retire to complaining about presentation rather than do any effort to support their claims"

Speaking of a lack of effort to support a claim...pot, meet kettle:

Wow – “Batshit, on the other hand, called Obama a retard"

Oddly, betula never provides any evidence to support his denial. Interesting that.

Hi dean,
What denial? Be specific, provide evidence...

Interesting that.

batshit never bothers. information can be refuted. blank claims are either blankly refuted giving it the "but they do it too!" excuse, or effort and work to find evidence to counter, which is just fine with the gishgallop of the runninghorse trotskies this blowing anus on the internet, because if just means that he's "punished" everyone else with the expenditure of effort and thought.

Or, in other words, that shitstain is crazy.

Of course there are several options to take. Mix and matched based on personal and temporary preference and feelings.

Don't give a shit about this blowhard demanding evidence, just return the disfavour of blank assertion back. If anyone bothers to do evidence they can find out that batshit is crazy.

Don't bother at all. Ignore the stupid twat.

Take the piss out of the pissant.

Troll the shit out of it. Batshit is full of shit, though, so don't expect much change in the amount of crap it exudes.

Explain to others.

Get evidence and put effort into it because you find you have time and effort to spare.

There are more, but those are the major options.

It's only frustrating while you are under the impression that there's an actual human being behind the posts batshit dumps out on the keyboard, but when you finally accept that this is just the troll fuckwit's insistence to be a trolling fuckwit and that there was never any actual humanity behind the posts or reasoning behind them either, you can get over the frustration at not getting through and realise that there was never any getting through to begin with. So you aren't failing to make sense, batshit just doesn't care about what they post or what they get in response.

"“Batshit, on the other hand, called Obama a retard”"

So you're not denying that?

"Even polecats like Wow."

Kinda pointless since this makes no actual sense. Based on past performance, I would expect this to be some sort of "burn", but there's no actual burn there.

All I can think of is a song by Squeeze.... Cool pole cats.

@40 - I never said it dean, if you have some sort of evidence you would like to share, please do...

And your attempt to change the subject doesn't deflect from the fact that i'm waiting for you to provide evidence of what you claim is my "denial"

Be specific.

It looks like you are going from stepping in Wow's shit to stepping in your own.....either way, you keep stepping in shit.

So you're saying you never denied it, batshit?

No betula.
a) You have a history of lying about what others have said
b) You have a history of lying about items in the news
c) You have made repeated use of the word "retard"
But, when a-c are pointed out, you avoid and say "no I didn't".
So, regarding
d) (Your) claim you never used it as a descriptor of President Obama

the evidence indicates that is another lie.

That's the problem you have betula: you've demonstrated you don't care about facts and that you are willing to lie about the simplest things. No reasonable person will ever give you the benefit of the doubt -- and the only people you are arguing against here have reasonable objections to your comments.

Oh, I get it, the people who deny something that has actually occurred, are the same as people who have questions about predicted

Not predicted, Betula. Happening.
Severe coral bleaching is already occurring, with large parts of the Great barrier Reef dying. Last month, Knysna in the Western Cape was subjected to violent wildfires. Heatwaves that have seen deaths are becoming ever more common.
Climate Change is happening, and the Bills are coming due. Dismissing these as "estimated climate sensitivity derived from imperfect computer models" just shows your denialism.

Wow - "So you’re saying you never denied it, batshit?"

I'm saying you've been caught being a lying sack of shit over and over again and you've got nothing to defend yourself other than to ask questions that have no purpose other than to deflect the fact that you're been caught being a lying sack of shit over and over again and you've got nothing to defend yourself.

It's really quite simple.

Do you deny it?

Julian - Right, because wildfires and heatwaves have only occurred in your lifetime....

Tell me Julian, what percent of the .8C rise in GAT over the past 140 years is known to be a direct result of man, and how
much will the planned development (on a global scale) of the poor nations reduce that percent over what period of time in order to prevent ant wildfires and heatwaves from occurring in the future?

By the way, I know you don't know the difference, but this is a question, not a denial...

Tell me Julian, what percent of the .8C rise in GAT over the past 140 years is known to be a direct result of man,

All of it. See AR5 WG1.

More than all. Natural cycles still operate and they would have us on a negative trend.

Oh, I get it, the people who deny something that has actually occurred, are the same as people who have questions about predicted catastrophic-only future scenarios based on estimated climate sensitivity derived from imperfect computer models that are used to create policies that redistribute global wealth as a way to achieve social justice and equality

This is denialist bullshit. The severity of climate impacts will depend on the extent to which CO2 emissions are cut over coming decades. It's in our hands. Catastrophic outcomes are not yet inevitable, although the clock is running on that. But at present, 'CAGW' is a false framing within denialist rhetoric.

Sensitivity is not solely derived from models; the primary evidence is palaeoclimate behaviour. Interestingly, the best estimate from palaeodata is ~3C, in good agreement with modelling.

Aaaand the key point underpinning all the denialism is of course, Fuck You (Brown) Jack. 'Wealth redistribution' is another right-wing trope designed to rile up the masses and distract them from two self-evident truths:

- Since it is clear that the climate system is moderately sensitive to radiative perturbation we must limit emissions or pay a heavy price for not doing so

- Therefore any technology transfers to assist developing economies in avoiding a coal-fired industrialisation will be massively cheaper than BAU and will benefit all of humanity.

"Wealth redistribution’ is another right-wing trope"

Well, that's good to hear, because I was thinking the poor undeveloped nations needed money from the rich developed nations for development. I misunderstood that the poor nations will be hit by climate change the hardest and the rich nations are to blame. You know, just compensation, social justice, equality and fairness...

And then I was wondering how this development on a global scale, what with the increases in manufacturing, transportation, shipping, infrastructure, consumption, use of the earths resources etc....would affect overall CO2 emissions in the short and long run.

Anyway, that's all behind us....no worries.

Thanks BBD

Well, that’s good to hear, because I was thinking the poor undeveloped nations needed money from the rich developed nations for development.

They do, and I said so:

– Therefore any technology transfers to assist developing economies in avoiding a coal-fired industrialisation will be massively cheaper than BAU and will benefit all of humanity.

But the benefits will be universal. If it makes you feel better to ignore the fact that the global north is indeed responsible for the climate impacts that will indeed hit the global south sooner and harder, then you can. Just think of it as an investment in the global future and a way of avoiding much, much higher costs of BAU and severe climate impacts.

It is an essentially conservative view, so should feel natural to the right-leaning mind.

And then I was wondering how this development on a global scale, what with the increases in manufacturing, transportation, shipping, infrastructure, consumption, use of the earths resources etc….would affect overall CO2 emissions in the short and long run.

The whole point of tech transfers and development aid is to avoid a high-carbon industrialisation of developing economies. I just explained this. Do nothing to help and much, much more coal will get burned.

BBD - "an investment in the global future and a way of avoiding much, much higher costs of BAU and severe climate impacts"

Severe climate impacts? Sounds a little bit like "a false framing within denialist rhetoric"...

Julian – Right, because wildfires and heatwaves have only occurred in your lifetime

Better keep that straw man away from any open flames, Betula. My point was that wildfires and deadly heatwaves are becoming ever more common, and that AGW is the reason for this.

Julian, so do you have some "peer reviewed "evidence that wildfires in Knysna are due to AGW?...or we just have to assume it was...because it's a wildfire, and the GAT has risen .8C over the past 140 years.

And your evidence it's only 0.8c in 140 years, batshit?

Severe climate impacts? Sounds a little bit like “a false framing within denialist rhetoric”…

Well, that's because you are a denier. You deny the palaeoclimate and modelling evidence pointing to ~3C ECS, and (implicitly) the ecosystems science that shows that when the speed of environmental change outpaces species' ability to migrate or adapt, food webs unravel.

So, no evidence it's only been 0.8C in 140 years.

Nothing is exact, but very close...even the IPCC gives a range.

"The globally averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature data as calculated by a linear trend, show a warming of 0.85 [0.65 to 1.06] °C3, over the period 1880 to 2012, when multiple independently produced datasets exist. The total increase between the average of the 1850–1900 period and the 2003–2012 period is 0.78 [0.72 to 0.85] °C, based on the single longest dataset available4 (see Figure SPM.1). {2.4}"
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf

But I do enjoy the way you evaded my question...

So do you have some “peer reviewed “evidence that wildfires in Knysna are due to AGW?

Neither Bret Stephens nor Hugh Hewitt have yet to show evidence of understanding much of anything about Science. And yet they weigh in on climate change, a topic which has its roots in science. Science deals with everything, and everything affects everybody, so everybody seems to feel that they can weigh in on scientific topics.And they do. How unlike Medicine or Law, professions which have managed to successfully mark off their lucrative turf with professional associations and laws. As a result, we now have a culture in which pontificating on law or medicine without the appropriate credentials can be illegal in many cases. Scientists, on the other hand, are watching helplessly as the TrumPruitt nightmare dismantles lifesaving scientific rules based on scientific principles.

There is some sort of cultural phenomenon going on which involves an increasing tendency of media hosts and politicians to engage in uncivil, uncivilized, unempathetic, divisive behavior, saying things that unabashedly make other feel pain and discomfort, without ever advancing a sound, useful, productive position, without ever advancing a goal that both sides can work towards........ and these are things that Stephens and Hewitt excel at.

MSNBC is probably largely funded by advertisements for fossil fuel powered cars. Who knows what pressure their advertisers have put on MSNBC to make them accept fossil fuel apologists Stephens and Hewitt into their lineup?

"engage in uncivil, uncivilized, unempathetic, divisive behavior, saying things that unabashedly make other feel pain and discomfort, without ever advancing a sound, useful, productive position"

Stop you whining and leave Wow alone!!

" show a warming of 0.85 [0.65 to 1.06] °C3"

So not 0.8 after all.

Moreover, it's 0.88C over the past 52 years (the 1951-1980 baseline) as of now, an decadal rate three times your claim, batshit.

So, you have it entirely wrong. By a factor of near enough three fold.

And you wonder why nobody believes you, batshit?

Sad.

Wow, you conveniently left out the IPCC part that stated "over the period 1880 to 2012", so you will have to take up your "three fold" issue with them....

Anyway, at least now I can expect you to present some “peer reviewed “evidence that wildfires in Knysna are due to AGW.

Thanks.

No, I completely showed up your claim about it being 0.8C over 140 years is errant bollocks, batshit. My "threefold issue" is with you lying again, retard.

Betula

As surface temperatures rise, there will be a greater likelihood of wildfires. Many other factors are also involved, but AGW is increasingly one of them. This is so utterly uncontroversial and obvious as to be scarcely worth mentioning.

Re the temperature squirrel, if we update to the present, it's probably >0.9C with about 0.6C since 1970.

Diversionary nonsense, as per.

Wow, thanks for providing that “peer reviewed “evidence that proves the wildfires in Knysna were due to AGW....it was very helpful.

No problem, batshit. Providing the evidence you want is easy.

Sigh. It gets warmer. Wildfires increase.

But just ignore the facts and keep on trollin'.

UPDATED: Was there a Clinton Surge or not?

gregladen — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 08:47:06 +0000

UPDATED: Was there a Clinton Surge or not?

Updated to include polls through Oct 26th (AM, more polls later in the day on the 26th will be added at the next update):

Updated, 25 October AM

As I expected, and demonstrated much to the consternation of everyone, the ever widening double digit lead of Clinton over Trump in an increasing number of polls meme is a falsehood. Here is the latest graphic using the same approach as described below, but updated to reflect additional polls.

Rather than a widening, or even consistent, gap, or a gap that is double digit, we see Clinton continuing to lead, but pretty much in the same way that she has led since the conventions. In other words, the three presidential debates, the release of Trump's tax records, the sexual assault tape, the confirmation of many actual groping cases, and the VEEP debate, may have had some short term effects on the polls, and if you look closely and squint, may have actually re-widened Clinton's lead to post convention levels a bit, but for the most part, we are looking at a pretty steady relationship between the two candidates from the end of the convention period to the present.

When the general polls conform to expectations, they matter. When they don't conform to expectations, say "yeah, but what really matters is the electoral college, and in the electoral college ... bla bla bla."

And yes, since we attempt to choose our president using the Electoral College (though that doesn't always work) that is what matters, and it may be the case, though I can not independently confirm this at this exact moment in time (Tuesday AM), that Clinton is either taking or widening the lead in some of the swing states, and some red states are turing less red, as we speak. But, it turns out that we DO look at the general numbers for a number of reasons, including the fact that we expect general trends to conform to state wide trends, as a check on what we are seeing, and general trends may matter down ballot.

The original reason that I wrote this post is that I was concerned that a lot of commenters (and maybe voters) had come to the conclusion that Clinton's lead was growing, nearing or in the double digit range, and that the Clinton campaign need not look back, and could start doing other things, but, my read on the polls was that the debate/scandal swing looked like earlier swings, and I had little faith that it was long lasting. I took a look at the data and saw preliminary information suggesting that this may be the case. And now, that is confirmed. I conclude for now that the three presidential debates, the release of Trump's tax records, the sexual assault tape, the confirmation of many actual groping cases, and the VEEP debate, may have had some short term effects on the polls, and if you look closely and squint, may have actually re-widened Clinton's lead to post convention levels a bit, but for the most part, we are looking at a pretty steady relationship between the two candidates from the end of the convention period to the present.

And yes, I said the part that the incredulous will ignore twice.

I may do another electoral projection to replace this one later today.

Original Post:
America. Democracy. Decency. Thoughtfulness. Everybody and every thing, it feels like.

Everyone is upset this morning about Trump's comment that he will wait and see about the results before he accepts them. His comments are deplorable and astonishing, but I think they are also a distraction. If he ignores the results, it may be a bit messy but he will be ignored. A few militia groups will go and take over a Federal facility or two, but that will be managed. Unless the Congress gets on board with denying Clinton the presidency, nothing really bad will happen.

I'm more alarmed by all the comments he made in this debate, and perviously, about how he would handle wars, the military, the economy, the law, the Supreme Court, trade, ethnic/race relations, and his comments about women (which continued last night). Those are all problems that will ruin us as a country if he wins, and that have damaged us as a country already even if he walks away from this race right now. I'm not all that worried about him having a tantrum if he loses.

And, of course, it is maximally concerning that Trump wins the election, than it is that he loses and refuses to go quietly. This is because it is simply not the case that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats have this sewn up. Let me show you why.

This graph shows the daily averaged-out polls, all of them, as listed by RCP's site, since July 1st (plotted on a y-axis of days before the election). There is a 3 day moving average imposed on this (a shorter moving average than usual, but this is an average of averages, and those averages are of polls taken over varying numbers of prior days, so we have plenty of helpful smoothosity on that curve).

Never mind the details for a moment. Notice first that over this time, which starts in the month of the conventions and goes up to the present, there is an overall pattern of oscillation. For much of the time all of the pols are within the margin of error, but Clinton's polls are usually higher than Trumps, when averaged out. If you apply the FiveThirtyEight method, or use similar approaches, to combine the different polls into probability statements, one can be more definitive about Clinton's overall and consistent lead since the conventions.

But, notice that about 50 days out, the two candidate's polling became close before Clinton started to separate again, and also notice, that this cycle of Clinton pulling ahead and then drawing down again seems to be happening one more time. There was probably a lot of pressure separating Clinton and Trump, with Trump's bizarre and generally poor performance in the debates, the revelation of the tape in which he seems to have no clue that sexual harassment is not OK, and the revelations seeming to confirm that he is a serial sexual molester, and the tax story from the NYT, and all of that. But the about 27 days out, that pressure relaxes, and all the numbers regress towards the mean again.

Let me put this another way, as a stark but supportable hypothesis. About 50% of the United States would vote for Trump, and about 50% would vote for Clinton. People talk about the 35% to 40% Trump base, and that's real. And Clinton has a similar base. But the rest of the country, the 20% to 30% that are not part of those groups, are divided roughly in half, in terms of preference for either candidate, and their preference is soft.

If there are no more strong events pushing people away from Trump, the numbers will settle down to where they were between days 40 and 50. this will place trump within about one point of Clinton. And, one point is very very close.

The current widespread rhetoric that Clinton is going to win no matter what may be the exact cause of her losing. How many people will not bother to vote, when they otherwise might have, because they are confident that Clinton will win? If the two candidates are 1% apart, then only 1 in 200 voters have to do that to put Trump in the White House.

Let me note what may end up being the greatest situational irony of our times. MSNBC has lots of great commentators and reporters, like Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes. They are providing the most thoughtful and coherent analyses of what is going on during this election cycle. But, they are also constantly repeating and supporting the rhetoric that Trump can't win. And, their audience corresponds closely to that subset of people who are going to vote for Clinton.

Unless...

Unless MSNBC and other sources fail to shut up about how Clinton can't possibly lose, and one in 200 otherwise-Clinton-voters stay home.

There are, of course, other possibilities. The apparent closing of the gap we see on the above chart could be an artifact of poling and disappear by itself over the next 48 hours, or it could be real, but reverses because of something Trump does. However, keep this in mind: Trump is being such a distraction from the race that a lot of information that could be used against Clinton (legitimately or not) is currently piling up and not coming into play. It is quite possible that forces that work to push Trump down on this graph could be weak, and forces that work to push Clinton down on this graph could be strong, and we might not be looking at a dangerously weak 1% lead by Clinton when the first week of November rolls around. We may be looking at a distinct Trump lead.

I should mention that today's polls are not shown on this graph because they are mostly not available. Those that are available are in that subset that tends to favor Trump, but they are all showing a virtual dead heat.

Today, tomorrow, through Monday, we should be looking very closely at the polls. If they show narrowing, then my Hypothesis from Hell can't be ruled out and the idea that the race is really about 50-50 between scandals needs to be taken seriously.

gregladen Thu, 10/20/2016 - 04:47

Tags

I hope that's not your own chart. A 3-day moving average cannot end on the last data point.

Is it "deplorable and astonishing" that Al Gore took weeks to accept his defeat.

Is it true that he did?

They were still counting the votes. One does not concede when the race is close and the counting is still in progress.

Your implication is deplorable.

Yeah, pretty much. Apparently Al Gore was supposed to concede before the recount in a vote that was barely 500 votes between them in an entire popular state...

How deplorable...

From an electoral college angle, Clinton seems unstoppable despite the close percentage of voter preference shown in your table. Do you agree?
Also, Gore's situation makes me think of a scary possibility: Trump wins the popular vote, but loses the electoral college...he and his supporters are not likely to go quietly in that scenario.

It's also important to remember that Gore did not request the Florida recount: it was mandated by law. At least at the time, Florida was one of many states that requires a recount when the margin is less than 0.5% of ballots cast. Those laws are in place because officials want to be sure that the winner has been correctly determined.

The 2000 Florida recount was never completed because the US Supreme Court intervened to stop it. There have been two other nationally prominent cases I know of where the 0.5% rule has come into play: the 2004 WA Governor race and the 2008 MN Senate race. My memory of the former is a bit hazy, but after a trial held in Chelan County (one of the reddest counties in the state, which is why the Republican Party specifically chose that venue), Democrat Christine Gregoire was declared the winner. In the latter case, election night returns had Norm Coleman ahead of Al Franken by a small margin. After the required recount, Franken pulled ahead and was eventually declared the winner after the MN Supreme Court dismissed Coleman's challenges to the process.

Trump not willing to accept the presidential election results = The conservative senators not willing to complete the hearing process for the empty SCOTUS seat.

"Your implication is deplorable."

Come on, it was Harris who said it. "Intentionally dishonest" is the correct description.

You're doing it wrong, you should be making the accusation in the form of a question, like Tom did:

Is it deplorable and astonishing to accuse based off a situation that never happened, but never mention it's falsity?

"Is it deplorable, astonishing, and blatantly self-serving to accuse innocent people using a made-up, fraudulent, intentionally misleading situation of "false equivalence", one that has never happened, and further your malice by intentionally not mentioning its falsity and your own duplicity and bad-faith motivations?"

The Bush/Gore recount of 2000 was way more complicated than I remembered. Here is a link:

http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/ARTICLES/pe2000timeline.php

Steve, it certainly can if you put the average on the last day, which is a perfectly acceptable way of doing a moving average. On this day, the current three day moving average is as shown.

I prob. should have specified that somewhere, but consider it hereby specified.

Tom, there was a legitimate recount going on. Had the recount been allowed to continue, Gore would have won the election.

James, see the two maps in this post for the Clinton with 358 (blowout) vs 275 (nailbiter) versions:

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2016/10/16/the-current-trump-clinton-…

I am concerned that if things go in the way proposed here as a hypothetical, we could be looking more at the nailbiter, but I'm not sure exactly how it would pan out.

Eric: And, in Mn, (where I recounted some of the votes myself) an important principle of American electoral politics was demonstrated. Coleman was ahead by just over 200 votes. After the recount, Franke was ahead by a couple thousand votes.

The Democratic Party is highly diverse, and one of the earmarks of diversity, is a higher inclusion of people who can't fill ballots out properly, so the machine does not read them correctly. But, on visual inspection, the intention of the voter is crystal clear.

Both candidates lost votes during the recount (machine error) and gained votes during the recount (more machine error) but the gain was higher than the loss.

According to factcheck - Bush would have won under all the requested scenerios. By that I mean what the Florida Supreme court had ordered, but which was stopped by the US Supreme Court - or the Gore requested four county recount, etc.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/the-florida-recount-of-2000/

Here is what factcheck.org says about the non-requested scenerio:

On the other hand, the study also found that Gore probably would have won, by a range of 42 to 171 votes out of 6 million cast, had there been a broad recount of all disputed ballots statewide. However, Gore never asked for such a recount. The Florida Supreme Court ordered only a recount of so-called "undervotes," about 62,000 ballots where voting machines didn’t detect any vote for a presidential candidate.

My fear as well. I do not believe in the polls particularly, but I most definitely feel the situation is a lot closer than the Clinton supporters have been trumpeting. It's ALL about who actually votes on November 7th!

Mark: Democrats vote on November 8th Republicans on the 9th.

RickA: Gore would have won had there been a fair election in Florida.

Isn't this just fatalistic guesswork? There is also a bandwagon effect: people like to vote for the winner. It might work in her favor. Besides: people are already voting, early voting is a great thing if you are ahead!

G127: There is scientific evidence that GOTV is very important. There is very little support for a large "bandwagon effect" when it comes to something as onerous as leaving your house, standing in line for a long time, and not getting ice cream at the end.

Of the 127 million people, or whatever the number is, who will vote, about 2 million have voted.

So, sorry, no.

I think Clinton probably has this race in the bag, as I've said recently on man occassions. But I've never seen the winning side give up the fight so completely as I'm seeing it right now, and that is very dangerous.

But I’ve never seen the winning side give up the fight so completely as I’m seeing it right now, and that is very dangerous.

It was complacency of this sort that caused Brexit. The malcontents are motivated and they voted in droves. The UK was particularly let down by the young who didn't bother to take their pro-European beliefs as far as the ballot box.

We need a Constitutional Amendment that makes voting mandatory.

I'll settle for higher taxes with a corresponding refund if voting rolls show you voted. (Or, reducing your refund if you didn't vote.)

Democracies turn into oligarchies (or dictatorships) when the populace declines to vote.

"it certainly can if you put the average on the last day, which is a perfectly acceptable way of doing a moving average"

Greg: you missed my point. Even if you do that, the moving average and the last data point can only align if the last data point is also the average of the last three. The average of the last three data points would give you a final gap in the moving averages at least 3 times the size of the gap your chart shows, which undermines your argument that the numbers are converging again.

I'm only pointing this out because it's the same thing that climate denialists often do when they create misleading charts to show some trend has stopped or reversed at the end of the series.

Al Franken didn't take his Senate seat until July because Norm Coleman kept demanding recounts. That's the situation to compare a possible Trump protest to.

Amazing... Propaganda really, REALLY works to brainwash human beings.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-rigging-idUSKCN12L2…

#19
But I’ve never seen the winning side give up the fight so completely as I’m seeing it right now, and that is very dangerous.

What I'm seeing is just the opposite – an extension of the fight into otherwise secure red states. I'm seeing the effective use of surrogates, and I expect that Clinton's performance in the last debate will soon give her another little bump.

Early voting seems to indicate a Democratic advantage, and the turnout capabilities of the two campaigns favor the Democrats. In 2012 Obama did better than the polls predicted, and I believe that that will be the case this time too. And this time the Democrats will probably have the added benefit of reduced Republican turnout.

Meanwhile the prospect for a Democratic Senate majority looks better than ever.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/senate-update-the-last-week-has-be…

The Princeton Election Consortium gives the Democrats a 79% chance of control.

I agree about not relaxing. But I don't see the same chart you show from the RCP site. Their current four-way chart has Clinton ahead of Trump by over 5 percent. See here:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_elect…

"The average of the last three data points would give you a final gap in the moving averages at least 3 times the size of the gap your chart shows, which undermines your argument that the numbers are converging again."

Steve, you can look at the chart and see the points and the line. Nothing is being hidden here, this is not a science denialist tactic.

It really is optionally done this way.

Gary, that chart is not from the same day these data are taken from, uses a different scale, and all my numbers are the percent of Trump v. Clinton even if in a four way race, which is a more accurate prediction of who would win, say, a given state (if applied there)>

I am very proud of everyone for looking so closely at the data and charts and commenting, instead of just taking a graph face value. But it is a but funny that the reason people are looking so closely is that their expectations are not being met.

I'll have a full on analysis as soon as the first new set of polls come out, I expect on Monday and/or Tuesday, reflecting 100% post debate. The fact remains that just as the news reporters were rushing to declare a huge gap, frequently referred to as a "double digit lead," that was growing and would continue to grow until election day, the gap was that widened in the immediate wake of the bus tapes narrowed at least a bit and has not been widening. And, all these charts make the differences look huge, but if you put in margin of error ... Yes, Gary, don't relax! Too much is at stake.

I'm still pretty much sticking with this set of predictions:

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2016/10/16/the-current-trump-clinton-…

But as I said, I'll have a new set out Mon or Tue.

Nate Silver sees the possibility of a Trump/Republican debacle caused by low turnout.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-trump-may-depress-…

"We need a Constitutional Amendment that makes voting mandatory."

If you do, you MUST allow a "None of the above" which puts government "on hold" and new candidates found to vote for if the "None of the above" vote wins the majority.

And you will probably need some method for coalition governments, specifically to defuse this false dichotomy of two parties.

"The UK was particularly let down by the young who didn’t bother to take their pro-European beliefs as far as the ballot box"

No, it was let down by the elderly who turned out in their droves to vote on a mandate of "I don't like today, it MUST be europe's fault, so lets leave!".

If nobody had voted for exiting, it wouldn't have mattered how many young had not bothered (and the "not bothered" was less than a third, not all of whom actually cared, since there wasn't any information to make an actual damn decision on).

Re 11: yup.

I note it wasn't answered, though, by anyone.

Odd that, eh?

Q&A: MSNBC's Alan Boyle answers your questions about science in the mainstream media

eklemetti — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 02:58:24 +0000

Q&A: MSNBC's Alan Boyle answers your questions about science in the mainstream media

Alan Boyle, Science Editor for MSNBC.com, was kind enough to answer questions about science in the mainstream media after the fallout of the coverage of the Chilean earthquake.

Alan Boyle, science editor for MSNBC.com

Alan has been with MSNBC.com since 1996, covering science and technology. He has his own blog on space called the Cosmic Log. He's also won quite the array of awards including from the National Academies, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Association of Science Writers, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Space Frontier Foundation, the Pirelli Relativity Challenge and the CMU Cybersecurity Journalism Awards program. He's also a big fan of Pluto.

I want to thank Alan for taking the time to answer the questions!

Q&A - Alan Boyle, MSNBC.com

Alan: Thanks so much for your questions.

(Randall Nix)
- I was just wondering how many emails you received about that headline (after the Chilean earthquake)?

Alan: Randall, I'm not sure I received any e-mails about the "Out of Control?" headline, except for the e-mails back and forth with my editor. As you may know, we weren't satisfied with that initial headline and settled on a different one after a couple of hours ("Big quake question: Are they getting worse?").

The "Out of Control?" angle stayed alive a while longer in references from the site cover, and I did use that angle as well in a question board (our unscientific version of a vox-populi vote). You may also recall that the story was picked up from one of our content partners, LiveScience - and when I went back to look at the LiveScience site version of the story, it also carried the "Out of Control?" headline. So now I'm thinking they came up with the headline first and we just adapted it.

(Fitz)
1) How much interest would there be in a Documentary Series about Geology? Something a little deeper than just Yellowstone, St Helens and the San Andreas over and over. For instance, the 26 "supervolcanoes" in Colorado?

Alan: I think that would be a good angle for future coverage. The routine that I've fallen into is not really conducive to doing long-form documentaries, but I could see doing the occasional item on "past and future eruptions" ... particularly with the (ahem) St. Helens anniversary coming up. I've been programmed to look for news hooks or anniversary hooks for stories, so I hope you don't mind if I try to capitalize on one of those better-known volcanoes or faults.

2) Does your network train your broadcasters at all in Disaster Presentation? It seems like every news channel has the same problem, after the first reports are given, confusion, stammering, repeating. Isn't there a canned set of questions and graphics to show for such repeatable events as quakes, crashes, and balloon joy rides?

Alan: I can only speak to how we do things on the Web site, and I can't say there's a formal procedure for disaster coverage. We do have a lot of people here with experience covering various types of disasters, and there is a to-do list that the journalists tend to follow (reports of damage, possible causes, disaster response, timeline, scientific background, etc.). For example, we have some standard explainers for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, as well as illustrated galleries for past disasters.

We do have a detailed disaster plan for space shuttle accidents, but natural disasters may be variable enough that we don't have canned sets of questions. Of course, TV is quite different from the Web, but there are some old hands on the NBC side who have covered quite a few disasters and know what to do.

(Taylor)
-Alan, I feel as though there is not much science in the media unless it is pertaining to something like an earthquake or volcanic eruption. I wish there was more but it seems that whenever it gets out there is a lot of debate. For example, climate change. Do networks purposely put out stories that are going to cause a debate?
- When it comes to science I personally know that there are many big confusing words that some people may not understand. I think that if networks took some more time to broadcast about science and explain these terms more people would be able to understand what is going on. Any thoughts on that?

Alan: On the Web site we put out a goodly amount of science and space coverage as part of the Tech/Science section. I'd say we have seven to 17 stories a day, including daily original reports from yours truly. (Today it was eight, yesterday it was 17.)

Other folks cover climate change and health/medical issues for the Web site, so I'm not often involved in those issues. Including those stories would certainly double the 7-to-17 count mentioned above. (Today the count was 16 additional stories.) You can easily find those stories by going to environment.msnbc.com or health.msnbc.com.

It's certainly true that conflict and debate generally raise the news interest in a particular story, so it may be that news media focus more on the debates relating to science as opposed to explaining settled science.

I think the Web is well-suited to science coverage in part because we have the ability to link out to other resources. For example, in a story about the fabrication of an invisibility cloak, I didn't need to explain the process of direct laser writing in detail because I could refer readers to a Web page elsewhere. I do agree that it can be difficult to find opportunities to explain basic concepts or wide-ranging topics in science. Nevertheless, we are able to do that every once in a while.

(Arron)
I was just wondering what types of pressures you feel in editing for a source that so many look to in order to form their opinions on current events, especially in the area of the sciences and technology, and how you deal with them?

Alan: The pressure usually has to do with time: There's not a lot of time available to put out a report with the depth and breadth that I'd like, especially when I feel an obligation to offer something at least semi-original every weekday. I just have to prioritize and decide what we can do without, and even when I do that the workdays are always longer than I would like. There's not usually much time or opportunity for second-guessing ... but if it turns out that there are problems with what we've put out, I do try to set things right.

(Amy)
My name is Amy and i'm a college student taking a course on how to write popular science articles. I am just curious about who are the main readers of popular science articles? Are the readers a certain age, gender, or profession? Do popular science writers target a specific reader?

Alan: The easiest thing is to visualize your reader as someone like yourself ... or, um, myself. Someone who's interested in and intrigued by the quirks, discoveries and deep themes associated with science. Someone who would like to hear about innovations that could affect society in the years or generations ahead. We used to think of these people as more educated or more connected than the average computer user. Fourteen years ago, when MSNBC started operation, demographics might have suggested the readers of science/tech stories would be more likely male than female. I think those demographics have changed quite a bit since then, however. Currently, the demographic skews older for science news than for tech news.

(Samir)
I am also a college student taking a course on popular science writing and I often find it hard to incorporate everything I read in original research articles because there is a lot of jargon that the popular media probably would not appreciate. What I have learned is that whatever the students find interesting the popular media will also find interesting but I often feel that I am not giving all the necessary information for the subject. Is there any reading strategies that you would suggest for these research articles?

Alan: Usually I start by reading the abstract at the beginning of the article as well the conclusions at the end. Then I look at how past work in the specific field has been covered, to get a sense of the context for the research. Then I delve into the methods described in the middle of the research report, but I don't worry too much if I don't totally get the description of the methods. Then I contact the researcher(s) and check my understanding of the methods.

Robert Krulwich, one of the best science journalists in broadcast media, once told me that he basically argues with researchers until they're able to settle on "a metaphor they can live with." Here's a link to the posting where Krulwich discusses his approach:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9732230/ns/technology_and_science-science/#…

I hope that's helpful.

(Geolith)
Is the media aware of the role of cognitive biases in altering perceptions of the world? If so, what role can media play in educating its audience about the effects of, say, the recency bias, in altering perceptions of unrelated events. From that perspective, stringing the Haiti and Chilean earthquakes together into a headline about nature out of control is understandable. It's not science, but it is human nature. If not, how can 'the media' be 'learned' about such things?

Alan: Yes, the stories you reference with regard to the Haiti and Chile earthquakes (and later stories about the Haiti/Chile/Taiwan/Turkey earthquakes, or the Chile aftershocks) are actually attempts to explain the broader sweep of seismic activity, framed in a way that mirrors how people generally perceive temporally proximate events.

Here's another example of the genre:

http://www.globalreinsurance.com/story.asp?sectioncode=23&storycode=383…

Similarly, there are the occasional stories about global climate change vs. regional weather patterns:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-6194071-503544.html

http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/08/climate-science-extreme-weather-m…

For a couple of years we had a columnist at MSNBC, David Ropeik, who went on to bigger and better things as a risk consultant. Risk perception happens to be his specialty, and he's just written a book titled "How Risky Is It, Really?" I'm just starting to delve into the book but I might have more to say (and write) about risk perception after I'm done.

(Jay)
How can scientists, the media, and communities act together to create societies and towns that are consciously prepared to mitigate and deal with natural hazards? What are the most effective strategies for promoting risk-awareness and communicating safe evacuation plans to the public?

Alan: We do have "standing stories" that address disaster preparedness. For example, this is the extensive story we keep around to fill people in on earthquake preparedness:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12911952/

... And here's an interactive on what to do during the aftermath of a hurricane:

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Interactives/News/US/Katri…

But I think we could do more in terms of drawing these types of resources together into a "Need to Know" guide that's easily accessible at all times ... rather than trotting out the advice after the earthquake, or hurricane, or whatever. Theoretically, it's good to be prepared in advance of a disaster, rather than afterwards (even if the disaster happens to occur somewhere else). Realistically, however, some people (and journalists) don't devote enough attention to these preparedness / mitigation issues until disaster strikes.

We in the media should be developing really good resources in collaboration with scientists and emergency workers, and then we should find ways to make those resources easy to get to at all times. I'm betting we'll have something like this front and center when the hurricane season starts.

(Lockwood)
- Do journalists (both reporters and editors) realize how distressed science-literate readers are by the frequent mistakes, sensationalism, misrepresentation, and more subtly, inappropriate emphasis we so frequently encounter when reading MSM science reporting?
- Are those of you in the MSM even aware of the magnitude of your credibility gap in the science community, and if so, do you have any plans or ideas for improving your reporting and delivery in the future?

Alan: I think journalists do realize that they're not perfect, although I'm not sure we're keyed into how frequently problems crop up. I have to smile at the reference to the "MSM" ... for one thing, I still think of our Web site as a long way out from the mainstream. But since we've been in business now for 14 years, and are finally making a profit, I guess we have become part of the media mainstream.
For another thing, using the acronym implies that there's some distance between journalists and the public, as if I was part of the CIA or the NWO (New World Order). Actually, I'm just a guy, trying to provide a fair and factual picture of the world and the wider cosmos. Obviously I can't know as much about seismology as a seismologist (just as an example), so I do depend on seismologists to set me straight if I stray.

I think professional scientists have to keep in mind that we're writing primarily for folks who are not professional scientists ... folks who may not fully understand all the ins and outs of a technical field. Thus, we have to put things in terms that regular folks can understand. That usually involves simplifying a concept without distorting the facts. Sometimes we have to gloss over some of the finer points that scientists may feel are important to their more nuanced understanding of a particular phenomenon. And sometimes we have to ask questions or address issues that some scientists feel are not worthy of being asked or addressed.

The only way we can improve our reporting and delivery is by talking with each other, and staying engaged with the public. Although I'm paid by MSNBC, my first obligation is not to serve the MSM, or scientists, or sources, but to serve the public. And that includes you or anybody else reading these words. I'm very glad to hear from you if there's ever anything about our science coverage that needs to be fixed or addressed. You can write me at alan-dot-boyle-at-msnbc-dot-com.

(Callan)
Rick Sanchez's behavior while interviewing Dr. Kurt Frankel on CNN was bizarre. He was extremely aggressive and "shouty." Is there a decent explanation for this behavior, or is the consensus that he expressing some sort of pent-up frustration at the fact he didn't understand what was going on? (...or for that matter, what a "meter" is, or where Hawaii is located...)

Alan: I didn't see what Sanchez was doing at the time. I've only seen clips of his faux pas as captured on YouTube, etc. It looks as if he was experiencing the stress of doing a live show during a catastrophic event, and maybe he was a little out of his depth. I'd hate to be in his shoes - or the shoes of the folks who were with him on the set.

(Me)
What is the relationship between science journalism in the mainstream media and science bloggers (like myself)? Do you feel it is antagonistic right now? How do you think the two groups might come together?

Alan: Actually, I'd say the relationship between bloggers and journalists is really good. The line between those groups is getting fuzzier as time goes on. For example, journalists tend to see me as a blogger, and bloggers see me as a journalist. So I don't at all feel as if the relationship is antagonistic. Many of my most valued colleagues are bloggers and tweeters, and would not be considered "journalists" in the traditional circa-1995 sense.

If people feel respected, they tend to provide respect as well. But if people don't get that respect, that's when resentment can build up. So, mutual respect is the key to bringing bloggers, journalists, scientists, readers and commenters together. (By the way, a Pew Research Center study indicated last year that scientists were seen as having a significantly more positive impact on society than journalists, 70 percent vs. 38 percent. I discuss that study here: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/07/09/1991160.aspx)

Is there a struggle at times with the need to entertain and the need to inform that exists in the mainstream media?

Alan: I think there is a tension between the need to inform and educate and the need to entertain. That's particularly true for the kinds of things I tend to write about, which have to do with technical subjects (from nanotechnology to cosmology) ... subjects that do not have an immediate impact on personal health, wealth or well-being. The stories that I write generally have to convey a sense of wonder, discovery, mystery ... and touch upon the cosmic themes that humans have wondered about since the first days when they sat around the fire and looked up at the stars. So I do have to get people's attention first, and then give them something that nourishes the brain.

Do you think that the general public is science-phobic or antiscience based on your experience at MSNBC or is there still excitement about science (other than disasters and debate)?

Alan: My impression is that the general public is excited to hear about exciting discoveries, and powerfully drawn to news about actual or potential catastrophes ... but they're not much interested in the nuts and bolts of the scientific process. The traffic that we get on stories about science almost always pales in comparison with the traffic for stories about celebrities, for instance.

If you could change one thing about how science is treated in the mainstream media today, what would it be? Do you think it could happen in the next 5 years? 10 years? Ever?

Alan: If I could change one thing about science reporting, I guess it would be to create a ways to tie in the discoveries and challenges of the day to in-depth resources that would help people understand those developments in vivid ways. In a recent item I referred to a video documentary that attempts to do that for quantum mechanics. It's called "The Quantum Tamers":

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/03/17/2231022.aspx

http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Outreach/Quantum_Tamers/The_Quantum_Ta…

I could envision doing similar videos or interactives for energy policy, climate change, genetic research and other key scientific issues for society. But it takes a lot of time, money, expertise and focus to do that ... so I guess that's what I'd wish for. Will the next five or 10 years bring more time, money, expertise and focus for science communication? Here's the answer:

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ssanty/cgi-bin/eightball.cgi

What are your favorite subjects to cover in science? Anything recently get your attention?

Alan: My favorite subjects all have to do with outer space: space exploration, commercial spaceflight, planetary science and astrobiology. I'm intrigued by the current debate over the goals and future course of America's space effort. I'm fascinated by the idea of finding evidence for life (ancient or extant) on Mars, or Enceladus, or Europa. And of course I'm closely following the search for new worlds in our solar system and beyond. I recently wrote a book titled "The Case for Pluto," which is about that dwarf planet's ups and downs as well as the wider planet quest ... so that subject has a special place in my heart. I'm generally on the side of the underdog - particularly if that underdog has a Disney character named after it. ;-)

http://www.thecaseforpluto.com

I was traveling in the Midwest last week to promote the book, and that's why it's taken a little longer than I expected to get back to you with these answers. But I thank you for the opportunity to chat ... and look forward to continuing the conversation.

What do you think is the most important science story you've covered in your career?

Alan: That's a surprisingly hard question for me to answer, because you could take that several ways. When it comes to the sorts of things that Eruptions readers are most interested in, I guess that would be the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. It had a huge impact on the region at the time - and served as something of a seismic wakeup call for Americans, even though it didn't have the devastating impact other eruptions have had elsewhere in the world. That seems so long ago now, and my role at that time was really to edit and help direct coverage (as an assistant city editor) rather than to write about it myself.

When it comes to issues with important scientific and technological angles, the big story would be the search for cleaner and more abundant energy sources as the fossil-fuel era enters a late phase. I do feel as if the energy terrain will change dramatically in the next 20 years, and we'll eventually look upon petroleum the same way we look upon whale oil now. But right now I'm covering that wave of change around the edges, and not devoting as much energy (heh, heh) to the subject as it deserves. This is a story that's being covered as well by other folks at MSNBC ... folks who are on the environment and energy teams in the newsroom.

If I had to pick a scientific issue where my coverage played an important role, I might go with the controversy over the Large Hadron Collider's safety. I wrote stories that tried to explain what people were worried about when it came to crazy stuff like runaway black holes or strangelets, as well as what the experts and the courts said about it. In the past couple of years, I've spoken to particle physicists as well as the general public about this issue - and I hope the things that I've said and written have helped people understand this weird issue as well as particle physics in general.

When it comes to developments in science and technology that will be important for decades or centuries to come, I'm drawn to the discussions over humanity's long-term future in space, which takes in the push toward commercialization and the development of a frontier mentality toward space travel. I'm very interested in tracing NASA's changing role in a new era of space science and exploration, as well as the growing role of new players in the cosmic field. It may sound a bit woo-woo to earth scientists (or should I say down-to-earth scientists?) ... but I do think that in the long term, we have to find a way to get off this rock.

eklemetti Thu, 03/25/2010 - 22:58

Tags

volcanoes in the media

volcanoes in the media

Monday Musings: Iceland, Chilean volcanoes and the SI/USGS Update

eklemetti — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:11:41 +0000

Monday Musings: Iceland, Chilean volcanoes and the SI/USGS Update

Cleaning up some news ... busy week leading up to a field trip I am helping co-lead to Death Valley next week.

Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley, California

First off, I want to say how amazed I am at the great discussion that went on all weekend about the signs of potential activity in Iceland. It now appears that the earthquakes at EyjafjallajÃ¶kull may be waning, however the levels of seismicity have definitely bounced up and down over the last few days. However, the level and depth of the conversation is a testament to all volcanophiles out there. Nice job, folks.
For those of you into extraterrestrial volcanism, there is a brief piece on the development of "channels" caused by lava on Mars. You see similar features on the Moon, where lava flows have made their own channels - and you even see it on Earth, but typically as thermally-eroded bottoms to lava tubes.
I meant to post this a while back but forgot - the NASA Earth Observatory has some nice images of the region around Chaiten, showing the extensive ash, tephra and lahar deposits from the eruption that started nearly 2 years ago.
I somehow also forgot to post last week's SI/USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report, so here it is.
The Volcanism Blog has a report about how the SERNAGEOMIN in Chile has noted no real change in the activity at most Chilean volcanoes following last week's M8.8 earthquake. There will be a lot of eyes on Chile in the coming months, looking to see if the hypothesized connection between large subduction zone earthquakes and increased volcanic activity comes to pass.
Also, a reminder that if you'd like to send a question for me to pass onto Alan Boyle, the science editor at MSNBC, about science in the mainstream media, do so soon. I'll be sending the selected questions off to Alan in the next few days.

eklemetti Mon, 03/08/2010 - 10:11

Looks like Turrialba has had a mild increase in gas emission.
http://www.ovsicori.una.ac.cr/videoturri.html.

That Icelandic thread is really quite interesting. I wonder if a time depth plot could be made like this from Rainier.

http://www.pnsn.org/RAINIER/raintimedep.rec.html

In the unlikely case EyjafjallajÃ¶kull should undergo explosive volcanism with loss of human life, I have already identifed the explanation Pat Robertson will present for the cataclysm:

"Iceland is the most gender egalitarian country on earth, with women having closed 80 percent of the gap with men. (the 2009 Global Gender Gap report)" http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/pollitt

Apart from allowing women to walk around outdoors unescorted by male family members, thus promoting promiscuity, consider the word "egalitarian", which means "Godless communism".
Plus, Icelanders are proud of their pre-christian history, so they are actually crypto-pagans no better than those voodoo practitioners who got hammered by God's rightous wrath.

Nice to see some Geo depts. haven't foresaken field trips! Enjoy your trip and hopefully the weather will cooperate and you won't encounter mud where you expect a dry lake. On the other hand you might catch Racetrack Playa in action.

If you have lesson material prepared for your field trip to Death Valley, would you possibly consider sharing some of it here on the blog, as well?

It's not a topic you hear much about, Erik.

Erik,

I am envious. I would love to be on that field trip. With all the rain they have been having in S CA, you just might run into a lot of mud. I guess you will find out.

@Birger, I don't know just what point you are trying to make, but Iceland has had volcanic action since before anybody was there! And, I might add, Judge not!

You will run into a lot of flowers. Nice place to be, right now.
Have fun !

@Diane For background on Pat Robertson's forays into the earth sciences, see http://campbellbrown.blogs.cnn.com/2010/01/19/the-haiti-quake-an-%E2%80….

@Barry Abel, I am familiar with that article and Pat Robertsons remarks. If Birger is just reporting on what he is saying, then I read the post wrong. All I meant is I don't agree with the idea that "God" caused the Haiti quake because of what the people believe. If that were true, then what can be said about the Chilian quake or any other disaster. To me, stuff happens that we have no control over. What we can do is study the events to learn what we can do to save lives.

Besides all that, it is interesting to watch and see what will happen.

Diane, Barry pointed out that Birger's post was facetious.

The earthquake image is of a earthquake in MÃ½rdalsjÃ¶kull, GoÃ°abunga region. That area makes a lot of this low period tremors as magma is pushing up there too.

So far, EyjafjallajÃ¶kull has only made high frequency earthquakes.

@Passerby, I guess I just read into it what wasn't there.

@Birger, my appologies. I misunderstood what your post was about. Maybe I should read a bit more carefully!

Thanks.

@ Diane, it is OK. Irony requires a shared frame of reference. Since I usually read the "Pharyngula" blog, I uncorrectly assumed most people were aware of Pat Robertson and similar nutters. Anyway, Iceland is a great country, with lots of amateur theatre groups and not a few good musicians. BTW keep an eye on their geothermal technology development, it looks very promising :)

Thanks Birger. I am very aware of Pat Robertson and he is way off base.

I do think Iceland is doing a good job with their geothermal program. I saw a program on Discovery, I think, about that and it was very interesting. I think they have a good thing going there and CA can learn from them. There is a geothermal plant south of Clear Lake north of SF and they pump the water back into the system which creates about a third of the quakes in CA. There is also a geothermal plant just off of I80 in Nevada and I never see any quakes there so they must not be reinjecting the water. They have all kinds of warning signs about the dangers of the hot water and steam coming out of the ground. Years ago, you would never had thought there was a geothermal field right by the highway. The plant is on the right as you are traveling east and to the left is a playa, but when you look at the terrain, it looks like a caldera. I don't think it is, but it sure looks like one.

I wish I could visit Iceland. Especially right now. :-)

Iceland will also be the site for the first large-scale basalt carbon-sequestration experiment this month. Look up CarbFix for more detailed information.

The basic idea is to capture volcanic CO2 being released from one of the geothermal power plants, dissolve it under high pressure in water, and then pump it down into basalt rock strata where it will hopefully precipitate into carbonates within the pores.

The science is solid, but the question is whether the solution will precipitate far enough into the strata before it precipitates out the minerals. If it doesn't, then it'll just clog up the pores immediately surrounding the injection site, and it will be useless. On the other hand, if it works, it will be an enormous step forward, and could lead the way for huge carbon-sequestration projects around the world.

I was briefly lectured in environmental geochemistry by one of the guys involved in the project, Jon Olafsson, and it was really quite interesting.

Passerby, I read your post under the Eyjaf leads and I was wondering if you used EM techniques such as microprobe in any of your studies. I started out as a bio tech for EM, but I didn't get along with the microtome so I went to physical EM which was looking at metals and setting the scope to diffraction then indexing the patterns. I did much better at that, though I did finally get the microtome to work for me, but the camera in the Seimens decided not to work. That was the second time around for me so I decided bio wasn't the way to go. One of the projects I did was a quantitative analysis of Hexel hip joint material. We also did failure analysis of metals and did some etching to get the grain structure. I analyized two types of chain to find out why one broke on the link and the other on the weld.

Anyway, so much for that. I have always been interested in volcanoes since I knew they existed and rocks and minerals. Then there is gold panning. ^_^

Thanks for your input. It keeps my brain working.

Just a bit of other volcano news: the lava lake in Erta Ale is unusually high right now, about 20m below the rim. The north crater has a hornito that is ejecting scoria and a flow. There are some pictures of this on Stromboli online. Thought you all might like to take a look.

@Diane. Am reasonably familiar with electron microscopy (transmission and scanning) techniques because it was an important cell biology tool in labs that I worked in, but had very little use of it in my projects. The less said about glass knife making, embedded section chatter and uranyl acetate, the better.

Now, I asked earlier if there were ongoing projects that may be a catalytic source of unrest for this exceptional swarm.

Carbfix.
http://www.or.is/English/Projects/CarbFix/Readstory/1964

So I go looking for a point of reference, I find:
Hengill volcano and mention of the geothermal reservation, situated near HveragerÃ°i

Look it up on Wikipedia, take a look at the map.
Copy it and paste it into a simple drawing program.

Then go to the Iceland Met Office EQ map (which we all have bookmarked by now), and copy that map.

Superimpose the second map on the first.

There is a DIRECT line of activity between the seismic activity center near HveragerÃ°i and the activity center at our swarm location.

Coincidence? I think not.

I told you there was an interesting trend line to the NW (a more local trend has been mentioned in previous publications that evaluated swarms at EyjafjallajÃ¶kull.

Did the Carbfix project drilling cause the swarm. By itself, no but as a contributing factor, possibly. The timing of construction is eyebrow raising. Could it possibly have contributed to the seismic signal density detcted? Again, possibly. Could the timing be critical for initiating or augmenting activity? Yes.

1. In each of the previous eruptions at EyjafjallajÃ¶kull, Katla was also active. It may be that very similar or conjoint or perhaps coupled magmetic movement / intrusion cycles and seismic swarm mechanisms are present at this volcanic center.

Prominent volcanologists who study Katla have warned of potential eruption and growing probability based on monitoring and modeling observations.

2. Each of these eruptions occurred proximal to marked (protracted) solar minimums. Solar cycle behaviors that occurred before active monitoring late 1600s) is approximated by Group Sunspot Number. Solanki and friends have constructed GS plots back to..tadaa...1610, showing that this early period, while not a Grand Solar Minimum, preceded one that would form about 3o years later (Maunder Minimum), with the intervening time being very low solar activity.

The second of our Object of Interest eruptions occurred just after the end of the Dalton Minimum, within 10 years of very, very large eruptions elsewhere. Remember our discussion of temporal proximity of clustered events.

I put out a feeler early on about weather conditions in Iceland, asking about precitation. The response was warmer than normal, always not a good thing for glacier recession over paired volcanoes, one of which is quite active.

In fact, this year's winter has had very odd. The Jetstream has been very much to the South. Cooler waters in the Gulf of Mexico, for instance, gave us one of the five lowest tornado activity months (Feb 2010, one event). Similar Jetstream oddities have brought heavy snows to Spain and the Mediterranean coast (palm tree country), with high velocity east-west humid streams to the south meeting nearly perpendicular Arctic coldfront intrusions, echoing continental patterns of the massive successive winter storms of the US Eastern Seaboard last month.

I mentioned a little pattern of arrayed cells of earthquake activity across the Alpide Belt. Yes indeed, if one does their searches, they will find UNUSUALLY SEVERE and heavy precipitation event in these areas in the weeks preceding the quakes in Greece and Turkey (and elsewhere along the two parallel tracks).

So we have a sort of grand conjunction of *possible* mechanistic contributions to elevated seismic activity with deformation at EyjafjallajÃ¶kull.

We do hope that Iceland Met Office is paying attention here.

Prudence and caution might be warranted with respect to test injections at Carbfix.

@Passerby, I get the embedding part and making the glass knives, to say nothing about ozmic tetroxide, para formaldihide, nitric acid+methol alchohol (for metal etching), and acetone flowing like water. But the most dangerous thing in the lab was the hammer. It was heavy, had a break to stop it, and we used it to test metals that we split with that hammer. We would do them room temp and then after being put into liquid nitrogen and check what the difference was.

Now, as for above, are you saying that there is a connection between weather, solar minimums, and volcanic eruptions and earthquakes?

Another thing that I have a question about is what a planetary line-up would do. I am not talking about just Jupiter or Mars, but a situation where all of the planets lined up and the combined gravetational pull on the earth helping along eruptions or quakes. I remember just such a line-up (not the year, though) when the gravetational pull caused the ocean off the coast of Spain and France to recede enough to expose some of the ships that went down in WWII. People were heading out to see these wrecks and they were warned to not go because the sea would rush back at any time and they would not make it back to shore. Some people died that day. I wish I could rememeber what year that was because I would do a study on the volcanic and quake history for that year and the time it happened. Whether or not it affected eruptions or not, it would be an interesting study to see if there is a correlation. If anybody can remember the year (I think it was in the '60s, but I could be wrong), I would like to do some research on it and see what comes up, unless someone else has already done that. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody has checked it out.

Also, I think it will be interesting to see what happens in 2012. No, I don't believe the world will end. I just want to see if this line-up with the galactic center does anything to create quakes and/or eruptions. I am not an astronomer, so I don't know what kind of gravitational pull that would have. I just remember the incident when all the planets were in a line with the sun and earth. A rare event indeed. Nothing drastic happened as far as I know except for the people going out to the downed ships.

Interesting stuff. Iceland, watch yourself. You could be in for a not so nice surprise. I hope not.

Please not bring up planetary alignments and 2012 BS. We already have an uphill battle with climate-change denialists. The linkages I mention are not coincidental, nor are they fantastical contrivances to explain events.

All I am saying is that (1) glacier recession and volcanic activity coupling is known and examples documented. (2) there is a strengthening line of seismic signals between the new geothermal injection field installation and our Object of Interest (see most current IMO map) and (3) the solar minimum isn't done quite yet.

Do glacier recession patterns at our Object of Interest match, roughly, patterns of seismic activity in the past two decades??

Interested parties would very much like to know.

Only planetary alignment worth considering would be earth-moon-sun, spring-tidal forces and resultant earth crustal deformation forces.

On the Galactic plane and x-rays, use search phrase:
Galactic ridge x-ray emission

Many good articles recently explaining diffuse x-ray sources and galactic plane focusing of these galactic cosmic rays, measured using the Chandra telescope.

Cool reading, but far from apocalyptic.

Hey, I was not talking about apocalyptic stuff. I do not believe in the 2012 doom and gloom. There is just going to be an alignment that is a normal happening every 26,000 years and all I was wondering about would be if it would have any affect. And the alignment I spoke of in the '60s was not BS. It happened. The particular way they lined up had enough gravitational pull to draw the Atlantic back far enough to see sunken ships off the coast of Europe. I remember it in the news. It does happen and it is not doom and gloom. It is just the natural orbits of the planets and once in a great while, they do align. No big deal!! I just see it as an interesting event from a purely astonomical view as in astronomy; something else I have an interest in. It has nothing to do with anything other than astronomy and what effect it may have on geophysical forces here. That is all I was asking about. I figured if there was enough gravitational pull to draw the ocean that far out, maybe there could be other effects as well. Maybe it wasn't strong enough to do anything other than affect the ocean. Ok. I was just asking a question.

I know about tidal forces and that if the moon is at apogee, the tides will ebb more than at perogee. (Unless i have that backwards.) Anyway, I didn't mean to cause a storm here or raise anyones' ire. There is a lot about astronomy we don't know, too.

As for the quake lines, I found that to be interesting as well as watching Eyjaf. And now Erta Ale is up to something and it may not mean anything, but it could. And I hope Erik will do a write-up on Death Valley. I had no idea there was a crater there, so that was news to me. I wish I could be on that field trip. I will just have to be happy with the volcanoes and craters I have been able to get to. I would like to spend some time in Long Valley again, too. It is an interesting place and beautiful. Lookout Mt. is an obsidian dome and there is another obsidian dome there, too.

BTW, Mammoth is calming down a bit.

On climate change, I want to let all of you know what I have observed in the last 55 years. Back in the '50s, the Sierras had snow on them all year around. When my parents came to CA in 1937, they had a cabin off of HWY 50 that they could only get into three months out of the year. Now they would be able to get into that same cabin about 9 months out of the year. The Sierras now loose most of their snow fall by the first of August. Sacramento used to get an average of 28" of rain/year. Now it is about 18". So there is climate change.

My mom had a friend named Mariam and her father was a physisist and he said the weather patterns change about every 50 years. It seems to be bearing out.

@Passerby, on the glaciers, there could be anything happening under there and I bet there is some interesting things going on given what type of lakes there are. I saw Jon's last graph and it was definitely different than the ohter ones. Hmmm.

Diane There are several oceanic and atmospheric oscillations such as the Arctic Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation and several others that have a big influence on the weather in the Northern Hemisphere. Except for 2 years in 97-98 the Pacific Decadal Oscillation had been in a positive phase (warm) since 1977 but has gone strongly negative (cold) since last year. Your temps haven't dropped as much as they will after the current El Nino fades in the next couple of months, next winter you should see a big difference in your winter temps mostly due to the -PDO.

Here is something you might find interesting:

The "Pacific Decadal Oscillation" (PDO) is a long-lived El NiÃ±o-like pattern of Pacific climate variability. While the two climate oscillations have similar spatial climate fingerprints, they have very different behavior in time. Fisheries scientist Steven Hare coined the term "Pacific Decadal Oscillation" (PDO) in 1996 while researching connections between Alaska salmon production cycles and Pacific climate (his dissertation topic with advisor Robert Francis). Two main characteristics distinguish PDO from El NiÃ±o/Southern Oscillation (ENSO): first, 20th century PDO "events" persisted for 20-to-30 years, while typical ENSO events persisted for 6 to 18 months; second, the climatic fingerprints of the PDO are most visible in the North Pacific/North American sector, while secondary signatures exist in the tropics - the opposite is true for ENSO. Several independent studies find evidence for just two full PDO cycles in the past century: "cool" PDO regimes prevailed from 1890-1924 and again from 1947-1976, while "warm" PDO regimes dominated from 1925-1946 and from 1977 through (at least) the mid-1990's. Shoshiro Minobe has shown that 20th century PDO fluctuations were most energetic in two general periodicities, one from 15-to-25 years, and the other from 50-to-70 years. Major changes in northeast Pacific marine ecosystems have been correlated with phase changes in the PDO; warm eras have seen enhanced coastal ocean biological productivity in Alaska and inhibited productivity off the west coast of the contiguous United States, while cold PDO eras have seen the opposite north-south pattern of marine ecosystem productivity.

Causes for the PDO are not currently known. Likewise, the potential predictability for this climate oscillation are not known. Some climate simulation models produce PDO-like oscillations, although often for different reasons. The mechanisms giving rise to PDO will determine whether skillful decades-long PDO climate predictions are possible. For example, if PDO arises from air-sea interactions that require 10 year ocean adjustment times, then aspects of the phenomenon will (in theory) be predictable at lead times of up to 10 years. Even in the absence of a theoretical understanding, PDO climate information improves season-to-season and year-to-year climate forecasts for North America because of its strong tendency for multi-season and multi-year persistence. From a societal impacts perspective, recognition of PDO is important because it shows that "normal" climate conditions can vary over time periods comparable to the length of a human's lifetime .

Here is the link just add the www.

jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_decadal_oscillation

Diane also did you see the newspaper story in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday about Mammoth
just add the www.
Study sheds new light on Mammoth Mountain's age

sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/08/BAQ41C5JEI.DTL

Thanks Randall. There have been some changes here over the time I have been living here, which is 20 yrs sans 4 months. We had a drought during that time and the last three years have been a drought. This year we are getting more rain and also snow at ~2500' where we live. It got down to 20 degrees in December when we had 14" of snow. Last night it got down to 27. It is cold tonight and we are expecting some snow. Yesterday, it was nice in Sacramento and Auburn(1500' for Auburn) but it was sleeting in the canyon of the river just out of Auburn. Weird weather. We have had more rain, too, which will bring down some more of that yellow stuff.

Anyway, there is also the 11y drought and 22yr drought that has to do with sun cycles. I would suppose the PDO also affects the cycles with it's own cycle. There is a lot that affects the weather. It was just a few years ago that Death Valley was alive with flowers. They have had so much rain down there that it could be that way again.

There was one year in the early 90's that was so dry here that they didn't know how things were going to turn out. Then in March of that year (I don't remember the exact year) we had what they called the Miracle of March. It rained 4" in one day. After that rain, I went out to see how deep the water went: 1/2"! It was DRY. But that rain basically saved the state from very severe drought. Even with the rain we have had this year, which is supposedly above normal, it isn't quite enough to end the drought. I don't know what the snow pack shows as they haven't measured the water content yet, but they will soon. At least is it more than the last three years.

Another thing that is different. When I first moved up here, we had a true fall and by November all the leaves were off the trees. Then things changes and now it is clear into December before the leaves are even half off the trees. I think this year by mid January, most of the leaves had fallen off with a few that hang on. We have not had a true fall since that first year I was up here. The leaves don't turn color. They just turn brown and take forever to fall.

So there are some definite differences in the weather and also how the flora and fauna react to it. The rutting season for the deer is later. They are dropping in June instead of May. Changes have been happening.

Diane, regarding precipitation and American SW water resources, I recall a piece in "Science" magazine about the limestone aquifers absorbing much of the rainfall and providing water for the rivers downstream after some delay...
This means that even if spring melting occurs earlier every year, the water making the detour through limestone will still be feeding the rivers later in the year, somewhat reducing the risk the rivers will run dry. Otherwise, the earlier spring flood would literally leave the southwest "high and dry" during late summer.

Near the Pacific coast, Californian firestorms are a worse consequence of drought. The most logical preventive measure would be to plant wide bands of succulents or cacti perpendicular to the hot "Santa Ana". The remaining moisture in the plants , and the absence of high trees would prevent the fire from leaping across the forest canopy, while an ordinary firebreak would block the ground-level fire. The bands would have to be very wide, since the firestorm "microweather" blows glowing embers far and wide.

Regarding the concerns for tsunamis, the only major troublespot I know in the far north Atlantic is the potentially unstable slope near the "Storegga" at the edge of the North Sea -a possible cause of concern if methane hydrate is sudenly released in amounts sufficient for detabilizing the sea floor.

@Birger, thank you for the information on the SW. I was not aware of the limestone aquifers. Where I live, we have a lot of limestone and also a serpentine fault system called the New Melonies Fault.

I don't think anyone was worried about the rivers running dry, but in the Bay area, they had to go to water rationing. No watering lawns and such. They have had to do that in Sacramento where your address number was used to determine what day you could water your lawn.

Another issue is the California Aquaduct. I was in the legislature when they were arguing about building it. The legisaltor from Contra Costa county told them that if they built the canal, his county would have a water crisis. They built the canal and sure enough, in the '70s, they has a water crisis in Contra Costa county. A very severe one.

Right now, here, I am watching the sun trying to come out and melt the 2" of snow we got last night. :-)

I was just reading this morning about "Storegga" tsunamis and other things that can cause a tsunami. Interesting reading.

The fire storms of S CA are due partly to all the chapparel that grows after a fire and we have some of that in our area. It would be nice if they could plant succulents and cacti. The problem is all the native brush that burns like pine pitch. Manzanita is one of the hardest woods and boy does it burn hot. You get that stuff started and it is hard to stop it. OF course, the dryer the area is, the more likely to have a fire. We have fires up here just about yearly, mostly because some people just don't pay attention to what they are doing. A big one was started by a family who got lost so they started a fire to be found. Boy was that on a hard one to get out. We were fortunate it didn't come into town. Fire is our major threat. I suppose the next one would be a quake. But there are volcanoes around, though the last eruption in CA that I know of was in 1915 when Mt. Lassen blew. We know it will go again some day and maybe even Shasta.

One thing they are doing is trying to get people to develope a defensible space around their homes. There was a bad fire at Tahoe a few years back and the people that lived there were not allowed to clear the pine needles from around their homes! The head of the water district lost his house and said he was going to rethink some of the regulations.

As soon as I could after I moved into the house I live in now was clear away the dead brush from my property. I do have to cut the native grasses every year, but at least it is clear and looks so much better. Some people here just don't do that. Now, you have to clear 100' instead of the 30' you used to have to do. That helps. Fortunately we don't get Santa Ana type winds here. The wind can blow sometimes and we had an arson fire in Auburn one day when the wind was blowing about 25mph. It burned so fast the fire department couldn't get there in time and a number of homes burned. So arson is another problem. And then there is dry lightning. That starts a lot of fires, too.

@Passerby #19 "Please not bring up planetary alignments and 2012 BS. We already have an uphill battle with climate-change denialists."

You mean there actually are people who choose not believe the absolute truth of "The Day After Tomorrow"!?! How very shocking!

;)

It appears that there has been some incandescence visible at Turrialba. There was a press release (Informes Prensa) on March 10 that detailed the increasing activity with respect to seismicity. The PDF also contained some nice photographs which included seismograms, gas emissions and incandescence: http://www.ovsicori.una.ac.cr/informes_prensa/2010/turrialba_boletin_te…

You are right about Turrialba, it is getting more vigorous.

Nice.

I have been away for 3 days and this Blog has exploded with posts. I will never catch
@Passerby.Just wondering what portion of global warming is
anthropogenic ?And would you sell a house 13ft above sea level 400 yds from the ocean that has been in your family for 4 generations because of sea level rise ?

Well .. it turns out that my friend reports ( last week) that things are a bit raw & cold
and muddy in DV., esp , in the north.... Not what I expected based on wondrous 2005 bloom.
Things are changing fast.
I still have a gut feeling about Iceland..
Been watching it for a long time ... Never seen this "clustering' before......
Is there higher than normal melt water at Skogar ?

Ask Alan Boyle (science editor for MSNBC.com) your questions on science in mainstream media

eklemetti — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:59:05 +0000

Ask Alan Boyle (science editor for MSNBC.com) your questions on science in mainstream media

As many Eruptions readers read, the headlines produced by MSNBC for their coverage of the recent Chilean earthquake raised my ire. To me, it represented the sensationalism of the events - but as with all things media-related, there is a lot of opinions on the matter.

We were lucky to have Alan Boyle, science editor for MSNBC.com, comment on the fray and he has very kindly offered to take your questions about the coverage of science in the mainstream media. This is a unique opportunity for us to discuss how science is portrayed, the rationale for headlines and generally find out about how the mainstream media tries to give scientific information to the general public. If you have any questions for Mr. Boyle, email me at . I will select questions to send off to Mr. Boyle and post the answers here on Eruptions.

I look forward to getting your questions! (You might even ask Mr. Boyle about how he survived a volcanic eruption.)

eklemetti Thu, 03/04/2010 - 09:59

Tags

class participation

Eruptions Blog

Science Journalism

volcanoes in the media

volcanoes in the media

Great opportunity! Very agreeable of him to do this!

OK Erik, I'll bite: So, Mr. Boyle, how did you survive a volcanic eruption?

It is big of him and you Erik to do this.

Please ... call me Alan. Erik is welcome to ask me about the eruption again, but in case you can't wait for me to retell the tale, you can check out this reminiscence about my experience during the Mount St. Helens eruption of 1980. I was actually on the other side of Washington state at the time, but it was an interesting few days nevertheless:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077299/

I still remember things like Jimmy Carter coming to the region during the aftermath (Spokane Mayor Ron Bair greeted him in a safari jacket, which set off quite a ruckus in the local press)...

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19921108&slug=…

... I didn't actually get to Mount St. Helens until about a year afterward, when I took a helicopter flight over the mountain and felt glad that I wasn't that close to the volcano at the time.

And thanks to the wonders of the Internet, you can read the paper I worked on after St. Helens blew. I was an assistant city editor at the time, and I'm listed as a member of the "Volcano Squad" on page 9:

http://bit.ly/brzdtW

What a great idea!

Thank you!

(I have often been annoyed over the coverage of the curse of Pele after one takes just a bit of volcanic rock from one of her precious volcanoes.)

I would love to know if Mr. Boyle feels we could postpone a major eruption by a sacrifice to Pele?

Just a little snark!

SJR
The Pink Flamingo

This first question is for Erik....I know that modern humans have lived in a relatively quiet time but the earth has experienced many times of heightened geological activity in the past. Why would it not be a valid question to ask if we were possibly heading toward one of those times? Isn't the past usually prologue when it comes to geology?

This second question is for Alan....I was just wondering how many emails you received about that headline?

Thank you both for answering my questions.

@Randall, I answered your question to me under the Chile leads, #115. I didn't know if you had seen it or not.

Thank yous to Alan and Erik for providing us a chance to ask questions and have dialog. This is going to be very interesting!

I've gained the impression from tv documentaries that the times of massive volcanic activity have been associated with periods in earth's history when there have been supercontinents.

Is that the case? And if so, why?

I have two questions:
1) How much interest would there be in a Documentary Series about Geology? Something a little deeper than just Yellowstone, St Helens and the San Andreas over and over. For instance, the 26 "supervolcanoes" in Colorado?

2) Does your network train your broadcasters at all in Disaster Presentation? It seems like every news channel has the same problem, after the first reports are given, confusion, stammering, repeating. Isnt there a canned set of questions and graphics to show for such repeatable events as quakes, crashes, and balloon joy rides?

Diane sorry I fell asleep early last night but I did see your answer the other day. It looks like they have more or less shut the 1872 mining law down since I had my patents back in the 80's and early 90's...too bad I was thinking about trying to patent another one.

@Randall, here in CA they have just about shut down everything! I was hoping Schwartzenegger woudl not sign the dredging bill, but he did. That will affect the econonmy in ways they don't realize and all because one tribe of Indians are worried about THEIR particular river and the salmon! So they shut down all the rivers. It is a major issue here.

There are those in Congress who want to shut down all mining in this country and where do they think they get their gold jewlery from?! Oh, you see, we can buy gold from other countries. Yeah, right! Anyway, I'd better quit now because when I get to talking about this stuff I can get pretty upset.

We can go to a few places where my DH can get to still. I can go where he can't as he is on oxygen now. But that is not going to stop us from going to the river when we can.

If you pattened another mine, where would it be? I think it is still possible, but it would take a lot of rigmarole to get it done. Do you get the California International Mining Journal? DH and I laught at some of the adds in there for "virgin" ground up by LaPorte. Ain't no such thing. He knows some of the guys that post adds in there and they are not to be trusted. You may know who I am talking about.

Diane Yeah they have almost shut us little guys down. I have a little small honey hole I go to up in Roxana Alabama. It is a very small creek that cuts through several large faults. The area with gold only runs for about 200ft and it seems to re-seed itself every year so there must be a small vein close by but I haven't found it yet. I usually get about 1/2 to at most one ounce of gold there each year with about 3 days of running my sluice hard for 8 hours a day. The area is on timber company land and they don't have a problem with panning or using a sluice as long as you don't bother their trees but anything more than that and they will shut you down. Also the area is very hard to reach and all equipment has to be packed in about 4 miles from any road, through thick pines, briars, fallen timber and kudzu. During the summer it is rattlesnake and cottonmouth heaven...I have heard cottonmouths drop off the banks and into the creek I was standing in, looked down and watched them swim past me without even biting. The really weird part about this place is that it isn't in any of the actual Alabama gold belts, with the closest one being about 20 miles away just outside of Dadeville Alabama, it really shouldn't be there but it is;) I also have a spot outside of Rockford Alabama which is also on timber company land but it can easily be accessed from a road so I go there a lot more often. It doesn't produce the quantity of gold that the other does but it has some decent wire gold which make great micromounts. Would you believe that there is a little gold mining shop in Rockford and they don't even have a clue as to where my place is, even though the creek crosses the highway about 3 miles outside of town....this place is also about 5 miles out of the main goldbelt;)

@Randall, don't ever tell them! ;-D

Where we go is to an area that cannot be claimed, but you can dig as long as it is in the river or where the river has flooded to. There is one crevess I like to dig out and each time there is gold in it, but there seems to be less and less. The funny thing is last summer there was a guy with a 2" dredge (before shut down) and he nearly cleaned it out, but he didn't get it all. (grin grin) In that area the is a little hole that is deeper than it looks and it takes a bit to dig out, but every time I have I have at least gotten a flake or two. It is a fun place to dig at because the rock in the area makes a great place to sit and pan. With my feet and legs in the river, I keep cool.

The hydrolic pit gets HOT! It can be 100 there, though most of the the time it is in the 90s, but very little shade anywhere. It is the area that has a lot of white quartz and some kind of hot rock that has a lot of junk in it. I mentioned it before and it looks to me like a lava flow that ran into some river rock and all stuck together. I just may be from a hot mud flow or pyroclastic stuff that hit the gravel like stuff and it all stuck together. I know it will make a metal detector sing sometimes. I have found three different kinds of clay there, too; redish orange, tan, and whiteish. There is gold there and also a caved in tunnel, which I haven't trudged over to. It is hard walking in there.

BTW, a couple of the GoldHounds found a very large rock that didn't move no matter how much the river flooded. It had been there a good while (years)and they decided to detect it. It was full of gold! They had a heck of a time breaking it up and hiking it out. They also found a piece of quartz with a gold wire on it and they got $4500 for it. I got to see it before they sold it. It was really neat. Some of the gold wire can be worth more for specimen value than even jewlery value so watch what you get. It may be worth a lot to somebody who is collecting.

Alan, I feel as though there is not much science in the media unless it is pertaining to something like an earthquake or volcanic eruption. I wish there was more but it seems that whenever it gets out there is a lot of debate. For example, climate change. Do networks purposely put out stories that are going to cause a debate? Also, when it comes to science I personally know that there are many big confusing words that some people may not understand. I think that if networks took some more time to broadcast about science and explain these terms more people would be able to understand what is going on. Any thoughts on that?
I also have a quick question about volcanoes. If the Yellowstone Caldera were to erupt would the effects to the United States be similar to those of Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted? Is there any way of predicting when the Yellowstone Caldera may erupt?
Thank you

Hello Alan,
I was just wondering what types of pressures you feel in editing for a source that so many look to in order to form their opinions on current events, especially in the area of the sciences and technology, and how you deal with them?

Hi Alan,
My name is Amy and i'm a college student taking a course on how to write popular science articles. I am just curious about who are the main readers of popular science articles? Are the readers a certain age, gender, or profession? Do popular science writers target a specific reader?

Hello Alan,

I am also a college student taking a course on popular science writing and I often find it hard to incorporate everything I read in original research articles because there is a lot of jargon that the popular media probably would not appreciate. What I have learned is that whatever the students find interesting the popular media will also find interesting but I often feel that I am not giving all the necessary information for the subject. Is there any reading strategies that you would suggest for these research articles?

My question for Alan:

is the media aware of the role of cognitive biases in altering perceptions of the world?

If so, what role can media play in educating its audience about the effects of, say, the recency bias, in altering perceptions of unrelated events. From that perspective, stringing the Haiti and Chilean earthquakes together into a headline about nature out of control is understandable. It's not science, but it is human nature.

If not, how can 'the media' be 'learned' about such things?

For background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_position_effect#Recency_effect

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Chilean earthquake fallout: MSNBC implies nature is "out of control"

eklemetti — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:29:51 +0000

Chilean earthquake fallout: MSNBC implies nature is "out of control"

Screen capture of the MSNBC website on February 27, 2010 at ~5:30 PM eastern time.

Most of you have probably already heard about the magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck today off the coast of Chile. This becomes one of the most powerful earthquakes on record and so far, the death toll has been relatively low - in the hundreds - especially compared to the horrific disaster of the Haiti earthquake from earlier this year. My thoughts go out to all in Chile recovering from the earthquake.

However, I am a little appalled at some of the coverage I've seen for this earthquake. MSNBC has become the vanguard of sensationalist drivel and shoddy science reporting - specifically, the article posted today titled: "Is Nature out of control?" (also seen with the headline "Big quake questions: are they getting worse?") This type of headline is irresponsible, reprehensible "journalism" that the worst hacks should be ashamed to print. I feel like I don't even have to justify it with a response, but honestly, two big earthquakes hours apart in Chile and Japan (or if you want to get bigger, two earthquakes months apart with Chile and Haiti) does not "out of control" make. No geologist would ever even imply this idea - yet somehow MSNBC finds it necessary to use this sensationalist garbage to promote their website. As of Saturday afternoon (2/27), no other major media outlet had such a headline on their front page.

Earthquakes happen, and they happen in a random distribution (more or less), meaning sometimes we get more, sometimes less. Spend any time looking at the USGS earthquake feed and you'll see sometimes we have lots of M3+ earthquakes in a day, sometimes we can go a day or two without really any around the world. More importantly, looking at any of these earthquake patterns in a short timescale (geologically - which means in a human lifetime, maybe two lifetimes) is not sufficient to understand the pattern. MSNBC found one scientist who said that in the last 15 years (relative to the 20 years before that), "the Earth has been more active" - whatever that means - and have blown it up into an armageddon-like story. What does "more active" even mean? Does it mean more total earthquakes? More big earthquakes ? More total seismic energy being released? Does it include volcanoes? What about landslides? Hurricanes? That sort of throwaway line is the sort of thing that feeds the doomsayers and gives science a bad name.

Honestly, I sometimes think I need to go on Cafe Press and get t-shirts made that say "Correlation does not mean causation". Humans perceive connections and patterns in events even when none are there - think about the so-called "Face on Mars". Yes, we've had a number of large earthquakes in the recent past, but have we had a Toba-scale volcanic eruption? Have we had another New Madrid earthquake? The Earth is a big place with a lot of active tectonic margins and even more faults that gather stresses and periodically release them. Sure, they may have some connection broadly speaking, the same goes for the volcano-earthquake connection. However, we have no conclusive proof that these systems are directly related - that is to say, they are not the same as turning your key to start your car engine. Complex systems have many inputs - maybe the volcano that erupts next week would have erupted with a magnitude 4 earthquake, maybe it would have erupted without an earthquake at all. To connect the two merely because they are temporally juxtaposed is not scientifically sound. There is evidence that there could be an effect on nearby volcanism after large earthquakes in some settings, however, it is far from proven.

The point here is that the Earth is an active place - and we have very short experience with seeing events on a global scale. Reckless speculation the likes of which MSNBC (and LiveScience) partook in should be a warning of how the media still has a long way to come when it comes to reporting the facts rather than the hysteria of the natural world.

eklemetti Sat, 02/27/2010 - 11:29

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Since the advent of the net I have more or less stopped watching TV apart from the selected movie or sports feature. I turned on CNN today to see the coverage of the Chilean quake and was totally appalled. This is not journalism. This is pandering to the basic fears of uneducated people to raise viewing numbers and secure their own existence by inculcating a very theatrical sense of impending doom that sucks viewers in to compulsive watching. It would work if it hadn't in the meantime got so ridiculous.

I turned it off. My bet is that an increasing number of other people will too. We are watching the death throes of an outdated medium.

I didn't think earthquakes were ever particularly "under control" anyway....?

Hey at least the MSM hasn't blamed this on HAARP.

As soon as I heard about it I started hunting for tsunami info. Forget CNN, they accidently showed some good info but didnt explain it. Found a webcam on the S coast of Mexico, but it was looping and not updating. Checked the news from Fiji, they had a 1 foot tsunami wave at the closest island.
SO I went golfing.
When has Nature ever been ...
"In Control" ?? How arrogant.

Looks like one Chaiten site is back up. Very calm looking as well.
http://www.aipchile.cl/camara/location.php?locationID=34&cameraID=116

While not perfect, the best story I've seen on this so far (outside the geobloggers, of course) is at The Christian Science Monitor. CSM often takes a little longer to rush to print, and generally takes time to make a few phone calls and talk to some actual scientists. Yes, they are associated with the Church of Christ, Scientist, but their news reporting- science especially- is first rate. They do an excellent job of keeping their theology, news and marketing separate. I wish other news organizations followed their example.

I agree with Bruce; there's simply no point in trying to get news from TV sources any more.

Earthquakes and volcanoes aside, I sometimes worry about the "Correlation does not mean causation" line. It's perfectly true, but is often used dismissively when it shouldn't be.

I.e., causation does imply correlation, but correlation is, at best, a clue that causation might be involved. If you see correlation, that should be a motivation to look for direct or indirect causation -- which might or might not be there.

Have they changed the article? The one I read started:

Chile is on a hotspot of sorts for earthquake activity. And so the 8.8-magnitude temblor that shook the region overnight was not a surprise, historically speaking. Nor was it outside the realm of normal, scientists say, even though it comes on the heels of other major earthquakes.

It also included the unsensational:

"From our human perspective with our relatively short and incomplete memories and better and better communications around the world, we hear about more earthquakes and it seems like they are more frequent," Arrowsmith said. "But this is probably not any indication of a global change in earthquake rate of significance."

Intex - I definitely agree with your point. I think I am trying to emphasize that mere correlation should not be construed as causation. However, you're on the money that you never know how it might be connected, so investigating these connections is the key.

I was hoping someone on this site would write an article about MSNBC's ridiculous "Nature Out of Control!!" line. I just spotted that a couple hours ago and here you are Erik, right on form to point out the absurdities - talk about a speedy delivery! Well done!

Alun, the article did have good information, but MSNBC chose to present it in a wholly sensational fashion. That is the problem.

I had an interesting conversation with my mother today after she made the comment that "Natures really acting up lately". I asked her how likely it would have been for her to hear about the Chilean earthquake 30 years ago. She of course said very likely. Ok. yeah... so We dug a bit deeper and I asked her how. She said TV news. So local news would show constant live footage of the carnage the second it happened? She thought about it and said no. International news maybe, but not the way they do it now.

100 years ago none of use would even know about an Earthquake in Chile unless we a) lived there b) had family there and letters/telegraphs came out much later or c) in case of telegraphs being sent out, we picked up a paper also probably much later and read a short paragraph. It would not even be a blip on most peoples radar...

This sort of gets to the core of things. We have so much instant data coming at us these days that I feel our primate brains are having a hard time keeping perspective. We see so much compared to our recent ancestors that it's triggering some sort of panic reaction.

MSNBC's headlines are feeding into it. And the people who are putting this stuff out there are doing it consciously and deliberately. How's that for tinfoil?

We better not have another New Madrid earthquake like the one in 1817; I live in St. Louis, in a brick house built in 1929, and dropped my earthquake insurance after it got too expensive. As for MSNBC and CNNi, I'm smart enough not to buy into everything I see or hear on TV. The earth is not "out of control". Severe storms, eruptions and earthquakes and floods happen but it doesn't mean the apocalypse is nigh. I have yet to see any of the Four Horsemen.

I have not read the MSNBC thing and I doubt I will now that I hear they are blowing it out of proportion. Since I started monitoring the quakes in CA (and the world) I noticed that there seemed to be more quakes in CA than there used to be. So I inquired about it and what has happened it the equipment is more sensitive and picks up more quakes than we were capable of before. So really, there are not any more quakes per se than there always has been. Maybe a few more, but nature out of control?! No, I don't think so. Besides, it was never in control in the first place!

And how do we know there wasn't a mag of 10 or worse some time back? I bet Toba would have made seizmographs go off the charts if they had had them back then.

I think taking a news break is a good idea for everybody to do from time to time. And maybe only looking at the basic headline and leave it at that: Quake in Chile, Quake off Okinawa, Pile up in fog on I5, or something like that. Leave off the details. We need to know what is going on to some extent, but not all the hype. It used to be no one knew what went on in the next village, let alone the whole world. I have a sense that knowing about all the disasters in the world weighs us down and brings on depression in addition to the fast pace we seem to have to lead these days.

I don't have much else to say about it except to be thinking and praying for the people of Chile and not be hyper focused on it.

Thanks for pointing some of the junk for us to avoid out there, Erik. Good job!

Boris, let us know how your friends are as soon as you know. We are here for you.

If you follow the links you'll find that the phrase "out of control" is not reported. It's a comments thread. No shoddy reporting. If there's any hysteria going on here it's closer to this site than MSNBC.

It is Lavos (Any Chrono Trigger fans out there). The Bringer of DEATH and DESTRUCTION. LOL I love how they use fear just as badly as Fox does to control the mindless masses (God Fearing)! Good article

By the way I am one of the "Four Horsemen".

Interestingly I had CNN on for 10 or 15 minutes, and the coverage I saw was excellent. The female expert they had on seemed to actually know the subject. Now maybe if I'd have left it on I would have seen the foolish ignornat stuff, but at least that small part of the coverage was high quality.

Of course people are going to ask "is nature acting up on us?". Even though us rational scientific types don't think it is a valid question, psychologically it is a valid inquiry to make. Hopefully it would be followed up with, NO, this is just the normal workings of the planet. But, we have a lot of people believing that the planet is just warming up for the big show -be it End Of Days, or Mayan 2012, or whatever. I'd bet there are far more people who believe that stuff than there are scientific rational types.

Now, I for one, expect that things like the rate of plate spreading probably varies over geologic time. We may even a a long cycle where supercontinents form and suppress heat loss, then breakup creating a period of higher than normal activity. So there are interesting scientific questions along these lines. Its just that the timescales involved are far different than human timescales.

Nice catch, Eric. As usual with this stuff, the headline is typically a mix of hyperbole, sensationalism, and just plain wrong and then the actual report isn't that bad ... it's the headline writers/editors who are the culprits (usually)

oops, I meant Erik instead of Eric (sorry)

Andy - Whether it be that it linked to an article (and it was to the article) or a discussion board (anyway, since when should a discussion board be linked from one of the banner headlines on the front page of a news website?), MSNBC is wrong for usually such hyperbole and misinformation in their main headlines about the earthquake. Report the news and tell us about the science, not the rating-mongering garbage.

Erik Sorry but it is buried too deep in the human psyche...They asked the same questions a thousand years ago..."Are the God's angry?" At least we don't sacrifice anyone to appease the God's anymore...I say that is at least a step in the right direction.

Randall - I have no problem with people feeling this way, but I do have a problem with a news organization exploiting that feeling.

I understand and if you look at the post I made to Passerby last night both before and after the quake you will see that I REALLY do understand.

I have had over 500 new visitors to my site since last night...people looking for info on Tsunamis and earthquakes. I really don't make anything off of what I post there because I feel like it is wrong to profit off of other peoples fears or misery. I do think it is a good thing to post info which can help someone understand things better and that is really my sole reason for doing it. The news guys see it differently, they see it as all dollars and let's face it disasters sell commercial spots...I wouldn't do it and you wouldn't do it but in a corporate environment you do what will make the most money for the corporation and that unfortunately is what they did.

I saw that headline and in all the other media crap today, I missed the significance. Good catch! I've been complaining all day at Geotripper about the basically horrific coverage of the tsunami and in the end the tsunami happened on the screen and none of the newsreaders actually seemed to notice. They actually covered it with a screaming red news banner.

I'm still shaking! Here, more than 600 km south of the epicenter still was 5 Mercalli, but no major damages occured. The quake was located just in the ConstituciÃ³n-ConcepciÃ³n seismic "lagoon" (I don't know the english term), that was last affected by a M8+ about 150 years ago.
My fear is that this could trigger a new volcanic eruption.

the stupid part is the statement implies that nature can be controlled.

"Idiotic MSNBC headline writers: are they out of control?"

Be positive, at least they did not blame it on global
warming. Drivelmeisters!

Maybe if the Public complain, NBC will fire their Hype Dept writers, and they'll all be forced to get jobs writing for Popular Science.

And just now, the Headlines read "Tsunami Fizzles" - they are SO disappointed!!

This is really irresponible of MSNBC. They know that such a headline will draw a larger audience. It appears that maybe all that they care about - we should boycott them until they retract their statement.

I hate to say it but they all do it...it's not just MSNBC. William Randolph Hearst was the king of Yellow Journalism. Unfortunately it made money then and it makes money now.

My brother has lived in Santiago for decades, and we haven't heard from him since the quake. Not too surprising as the power is out and cell phone towers destroyed. I expect he is OK but unable to communicate.

If you want to see what the fifth largest earthquake {since we have had instruments to record them} is capable of, check out these photos:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/02/earthquake_in_chile.html

The idea that "nature is out of control" is quite laughable. While it is true that humans are affecting nature via climate change and mass extinctions, nature has never been "under control."

It was fascinating this afternoon looking at so many news channels (including the weather channel) focused on the impending tsunami bearing down on Hawaii. They had the advance warning, and they were ready to show the wall of water and mass destruction plowing into the islands. Imagine their disappointment when (fortunately) the possible destructive wall of water didn't materialize.

Erik! "Humans perceive connections and patterns in events even when none are there". ;-) A biologist might tell you that this is indeed a survival mechanism and a social anthropologist that the people who got elevated to the positions of Village Shamans and Elders were those able to exploit it. Since our brain essentially is the same as those of our ancestors of 50,000 years ago, the ability to exploit human fears and beliefs is a social survival trait even today...

Erik I think you will enjoy this....Somethings things change but inside people are still the same;)

"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars: as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!"

----WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear

I saw that headline early on--and did the appropriate eye-rolling in response. However, a closer look showed the story and headline originated at a website called LiveScience, a science news site that also provides syndicated articles to various outlets. It is owned by Imaginova--the former Space.com, created by Lou Dobbs of CNN. The author of the story (and supposedly its execrable headline) was the site's Managing Editor, Jeana Bryner.

"Humans perceive connections and patterns in events even when none are there"

Yep. Just like math. 1+1=2 isn't there. It's in your head. As is all of science. It's all just patterns in our heads. These aren't tangible things. Someone needs to remind scientists of this every once in a while. At the end of the day, a scientist is as silly as a witch doctor because they're both just two animals of the same species doing whatever it is that species does. They come into existence, they go, the universe moves on.

It sounds like hippy drivel to me. We have offended Mother Nature and she's taking her revenge! I don't understand why people love superstition so much. Has anyone with easy access to long-period data looked to see if the shock is traveling around the world multiple times? My internet connection sucks and blows all at once so I can't look myself. Seismic stations around Asia should be far enough away to get a decent signal without being off scale.

@ adbsk: While it's correct that scientists can be as silly as any John or Jane Doe, mathetmatics and science are not simply "in your head". They are representations of reality where mathematics as the language of science is used to quantify and describe that reality. @MadScientist: The reason people are so fond of mysticism, superstition et al is, I suspect, that most people (myself included) do not amount to much if we're forced to make a realistice evaluation of ourselves. However, if we indulge in mysticism and other forms of wishful thinking we MAY be so much more and thus acquire a satisfying self-image.

uh, people like you who don't bother to read the 1000's of words JUST written in response to this blog by others who did???

poot.

An observation:

There are nearly as many earthquakes recorded on the USGS Current EQ activity map as there are listed for the prior three weeks in the 'Past 8-30 days' map.

Interesting, the increased EQ activity along the Alpide Belt across Asia. Textbook example of nonstochastic, spatio-temporal clustering of geological activity.

Ahhhh sorry Richard but that was Roosevelt;)

Wow what happened to Richard's post it was just there a min or so ago...I didn't know we could remove our posts.

@Jim Eaton, I hope your brother is ok and that you will be able to hear from him soon. Let us know when you find out, ok?

Here is an interesting statistic, if you want to call it that. And I suspect most of you know this already, but I just though I would mention it in light of the media blabble.

One of the most active years for earthquakes, one they have on record for having the most quakes in one year, is 1943. I have not looked up the info on this, but I did see it somewhere (it has been a while)that was discussing quake activity.

I think these quakes are nothing out of the ordinary, although I do believe that at some time there will be more and more of them and I am not talking about 2012, either. I don't care who they are that try to predict the so called end of the world, of that day and hour no one knows. In the mean time, it is interesting to watch what happens and study each situation and learn from it. In just a short time, we have seen what can happen to our buildings, no matter how well built, when the earth shakes and a volcano erupts close to a city. We learn to do better planning, hopefully, so we can save more lives. The buildings will go, but people are more important than all the stuff in the world.

I know that is easy to say because I have not been in a disaster and I don't know how I would react. Most liklely like everybody else. Scared, lonely, lost, and wondering where my next meal will come from. With that, let's continue to remember the people in Chile and Haiti. It isn't over yet for Haiti and Chile is just beginning to dig out. The best we can do for them is pray and if you are not in that mode of thought, just think good thoughts toward them.

I totally agree with Erik's post. But I just want to point out that 9 of the top 10 earthquakes since1900 (the last 110 years) have occurred during my lifetime (since the 1940's). So the general perception that major earthquakes are getting more numerous is probably correct.

In a way, it is surprising that people do not get that correlation does not imply causation. Thanks to innumerable crime stories in books, on TV and in movies, the general public knows you can never convict based on only circumstantial evidence. Then again we've seen the media jump to conclusions in criminal cases again and again.
As others have pointed out, it is a systemic problem that is as old as the hills. However, that should not stop us from calling out loudly and repeatedly those who sensationalise and misreport.
Good work Erik.

At least one climate phenomenon associated with increasing global temperatures may contribute to a perceived increase in geological activity: rainfall intensity (short-term total, not annual).

For a good read, see Dave's Landslide blog, Nov 28, 2009 entry, 'The link between rainfall intensity and global temperature'.

See also, ScienceDaily: Feb 28, 2010, 'Tropics: Global Warming Likely to Significantly Affect Rainfall Patterns'.

Dave also posted a prescient entry on Nov 26, 'The damage caused by landslides during earthquakes', a talk he gave to Chilean Geological Congress in Santiago Chile in late November.

Soil degradation and erosion has been pervasive and cumulative over the human history of agricultural development, with a marked increase in soil quality worldwide, due to modern large-scale, intensive farming practices in the past half century.

Coastal urban development has also contributed to erosion by soil disturbance in geotechnically unstable locations and mismanaged landscape ecology that increases fire hazard probability. Heavy rains following protracted dry periods along overdeveloped coastal areas prone to annual major fire events can result in catastrophic landslides, as we have seen recently along the California coast.

Soil erosion, coastal scour (attributed to climate-associated, increased severe storm frequency and urban development), and landslide debris contribute to problematic sediment deposition at regional scale, along seismically active coastal areas.

It's one of many 'natural' factors that may cumulatively contribute to an upshift in earthquake frequency in tectonically labile environments.

I love this blog.

Correction: should read 'with a marked decrease in soil quality worldwide'.

Larges-scale volcanic and earthquake events are often represented as stochastic events (apparently random). These complex, chaotic systems are operated upon by numerous physical processes acting over varying space enad time scales. Thus, they are only 'random' with respect predicting failure at an exact location and time.

Three difficulties are encountered when attempting to assign an return period for large-scale events: identifying the exact failure location (depth), detecting, monitoring, and modeling the many interacting processes that contribute to stress failure along and within fault systems at depth, and the relative brevity and data paucity within the event record.

Smaller-scale and short-term events are mathematically not random; they tend to be temporal-spatially clustered.

The 'trick' to improving prediction accuracy for large-scale events will be in bridging the gap in understanding, predicitng and modeling regionally discretized, smaller-scale nonrandom events and apparently random large-scale events.

Technology changes at a dizzying pace but human feelings and fears really don't...I guess that is why I am just a 16th century man in a 21st century world;)

"As, painfully to pore upon a book
To seek the light of truth, while truth the while
Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile;
So ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes."

Love's Labor's Lost Act 1. scene 1, 72â79

Sorry but catastrophes and seeing human interactions before, during and after a catastrophe will always cause me to dust off my Shakespeare.

@Eleanor
That's the thing. I think itâs safe to say that in or modern world every single earthquake is recorded.

Largest measured earthquake, either in your (our) lifetimes or over the last 110 years is a statistic thatâs applicable inside that time scale since humans have built highly refined measuring tools. What about 400 years ago, one thousand? Sure a court in china might have had a contraption to signal a quake but most people just had their physical senses. And if there were no people or no surviving people?

There could have been massive earthquakes in a sparsely populated region for months, small villages wiped off the map. A whole tribe gone. Sometime later some traders come through. They note that the villages/tribe are gone. They existed last season, what happened? Most likely the traders did not frame these events by saying the villagers where victims of the "largest recorded earthquake in modern historyâ despite them likely understanding that the earth can quake.

They chalk it up to "The God/gods/demons/monsters must have been pissed off." Because that is the only thing that made sense to them, that is âwhy- the earth quakes. That was the only thing they could prove or understand with their bag of tools.

And out of these random stories came legends and when many earthquakes happened we tend to get phrases like âThe earth shook for many moons while the gods/demons/angels/giants/unicorns waged war.â We do not get, âThere where aftershocks of 5.0 to 6.0 for months within an area 500 square miles around the epicenter of that 9.0â.

It's fascinating to read the old stories in the context of the physical earth and it's activity.

Part of the reason it seems that there are more and more quakes is because the technology to detect them has become so much better. As I have said before, some time ago, that I was able to view a book that had all the seizmographs of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. That was a treat to see all of them. Anyway, we are able to detect quakes we were not able to then or even in the 1940's. As I have watched the quake maps of CA on a daily basis since about 1995, I have noticed that over the years the number per week seemed to increase. In '95, there were an average of about 250/week. Now it can be anywhere between 450 and 700. I asked a seizmologist about that and he told me it was because of the advance in technology, that we are capable of detecting quakes we haven't been able to before.

We have always has thousands of quakes here in CA. I fail to see any indication of mathimatical regularity to the quakes. There are some areas that seem to have more of them, but they are not regular by any means. Of course, I am not a mathmatician. Math was one of my worst subjects, but I did ok; just not the best in the world. I would like to see some evidence of mathematical regularity to small events. I just don't see it. To me, quakes and volcanic eruptions are random, not mathematically predictable. Otherwise, it would seem to me that we would be able to predict these events already. I think the scientists have been looking for that for a long time. At least the mathmeticians.

There has been some checking out of weather and quakes, too. My dad once remarked to me that he thought it was earthquake weather when the clouds looked sort of weird. I don't think there is any such thing as quake weather. Now, repeated heavy rains may affect a fault close to the surface, but I doubt the water gets down far enough to cause a quake. As for denuding forests and such, that can cause landslides. Fires in CA happen from human causes and also Tstorms. One of the problems in CA is people building homes near chapparel brush and not clearing it around their homes far enough. That is why there is a 100' clearance now instead of the old 30'. Another problem is arson. Some of our largest fires were deliberately started. Some of them are accidental due to somebody mowing at the wrong time and creating a spark. I know about fires. I live with them. Where I live, we know it is a matter of time. Not if, but when. And believe me, a fire can be just as disasterous as a quake. I think sometimes we forget about that until one like the Oakland fire happens.

I suppose I have been on my soap box long enough. Point is, we live with disasters and what we can do in some cases is prepare as in having better building codes and such. Even here, there will be some quakes that the best built buildings won't be able to stand up to. That is the nature of it.

Since we are talking about myth now, I thought I would just toss this into the metaphorical fire;)

Loki
by Micha F. Lindemans
Loki is one of the major deities in the Norse pantheon. He is a son of the giant Farbauti ("cruel striker") and the giantess Laufey. He is regarded as one of Aesir, but is on occasion their enemy. He is connected with fire and magic, and can assume many different shapes (horse, falcon, fly). He is crafty and malicious, but is also heroic: in that aspect he can be compared with the trickster from North American myths. The ambivalent god grows progressively more unpleasent, and is directly responsible for the death of Balder, the god of light.

Loki's mistress is the giantess Angrboda, and with her he is the father of three monsters. His wife is Sigyn, who stayed loyal to him, even when the gods punished him for the death of Balder. He was chained to three large boulders; one under his shoulders, one under his loins and one under his knees. A poisonous snake was placed above his head. The dripping venom that lands on him is caught by Sigyn in a bowl. But every now and then, when the bowl is filled to the brim, she has to leave him to empty it. Then the poison that falls on Loki's face makes him twist in pain, causing earthquakes.

On the day of Ragnarok, Loki's chains will break and he will lead the giants into battle against the gods. Loki is often called the Sly One, the Trickster, the Shape Changer, and the Sky Traveler.

Encyclopedia Mythica pantheon.org/

What has really changed in the last 50 years or so is the development of mega-cities, many of which are located close to earthquake faults. So when there is a big earthquake, the likelihood of many people being harmed and huge economic losses is much greater than just a few decades ago when the population was smaller, more dispersed and not jammed into substandard high rises. That, coupled with the development of instant communications via internet, etc. brings the news and noise right into our households hightening the sense of immenent threat even though the underlying geologic forces at work are unchanged.

Nature has NEVER been under control. Any geologist will tell you this. In fact the "out of control" phrase is utter nonsense.

Very useful website:

Ranking/list of major earthquakes of the 20th and 21st century, pre-20th and Other major events, respectively. Updated today to include yesterday's EQ.

https://www.msu.edu/~fujita/earthquake/bigquake.html

Recent paper suggesting clustering effect window of large-scale earthquakes may span more than a decade and thousands of kilometers.

Long-Term Influence of Giant Earthquakes: Backward Empirical Evidence and Forward Test. Warner Marzocchi and Jacopo Selva (2008) Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 98(3):1102-1112.

Comment on the moment scale of the 1960 Chile earthquake.
"The seismic moment released in the largest event that occurred during this century, the 1960 southern Chile earthquake, represents about 30-45% of the total moment released from 1900 through 1989 (large earthquakes). "

Source: Seismic moment catalog of large shallow earthquakes, 1900 to 1989. (1994) Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 82(3):1306-1349.

The second eruption 1960 (May 22) earthquake may have contributed to the fissure eruption, May 24-July 22, of Puyehue-CordÃ³n Caulle, ~36 hours after the first an a few hours after of the two primary EQ events. The second major shock occurred during a very heavy rainfall. This volcano had been quiet since 1922; it has not erupted since 1960.

Passerby That all sounds kind of like the "Butterfly Effect" when I think what we have here is really more like the "Black Swan Theory" ;)

Rather than babble on fear mongering news headlines, it is cogent to consider real potential for additional triggered events (earthquake or eruption) in the region.

See: The influence of great earthquakes on volcanic eruption rate along the Chilean subduction zone. Watt, Pyle and Mather (2009) Earth Planet Sci Lett 277(3-4):399-407.

Abstract: Seismic activity has been postulated as a trigger of volcanic eruption on a range of timescales, but demonstrating the occurrence of triggered eruptions on timescales beyond a few days has proven difficult using global datasets. ...We show a significant increase in eruption rate following earthquakes of MW > 8, notably in 1906 and 1960, with similar occurrences further back in the record. Eruption rates are enhanced above background levels for ~ 12 months following the 1906 and 1960 earthquakes, with the onset of 3â4 eruptions estimated to have been seismically influenced in each instance. Eruption locations suggest that these effects occur from the near-field to distances of ~ 500 km or more beyond the limits of the earthquake rupture zone. This suggests that both dynamic and static stresses associated with large earthquakes are important in eruption-triggering processes and have the potential to initiate volcanic eruption in arc settings over timescales of several months.

According to John Seach, the aftershocks are running along for 600km and there are 21 active volcanoes in the vicinity of the quakes so there could be some volcanic activity because of the quakes. Time will tell.

@Eleanor: Calibrated seismic records do not extend much beyond 1940. I believe the earliest seismographs were built by the Germans using the Inverted Pendulum to drive a mechanical amplifier, but it was quite a few decades later before a calibration scheme was devised (and the galvanic device with a balanced photoelectric cell pair were already common; I don't think anyone calibrated the old inverted pendulum). So basically you knew there was an earthquake somewhere, but who knows how far or how powerful it was.

The other thing is that large earthquakes are relatively rare events (compared to the many thousand small ones which occur daily around the globe). There will be periods where you have more such events and periods where you have fewer. These events are rare enough that I doubt the instrumental record is long enough to show up any trends.

Spot-on paper with excellent graphics, modeled geotechnical situation preceding this earthquake:

Moreno, M., Klotz, J., Melnick, D., Echtler, H. P., Bataille, K. (2008) Active faulting and heterogeneous deformation across a megathrust segment boundary from GPS data, south-central Chile (36-39 deg S). Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 9, Q12024

Anyone heard from Boris...I hope his friends in Chile made it ok.

The MSNBC headline and lead-in for the story on the home page now says:

"BIG QUAKE QUESTION: ARE THEY GETTING WORSE?
Chile's magnitude-8.8 earthquake isn't the biggest shocker that region has seen, but one seismologist says Earth seems to be more active than it was in the 1975-1995 time frame."

and the headline and subheading on the stories page itself reads:
"BIG QUAKE QUESTION: ARE THEY GETTING WORSE?
Seismic shockers are to be expected, but planet seems to be more active"

This story and headlines are carried over from LiveScience.com, so you should direct your comments to them as well:
http://www.livescience.com/about_us/contact_us.php

The author is Jeanna Bryner and you can contact her by clicking on her byline.

Don't get mad at me but it seems like you really need to direct your comments as much to "Stephen S. Gao, a geophysicist at Missouri University of Science and Technology" as to Jeanna Bryner and MSNBC.

We always look for connections between things. The connection between large impacts and massive flood basalts (Deccan and Siberian Traps) comes cross-discipline via planetary geologist observations of jumbled terrain opposite the Caloris Basin on Mercury, comparison of the near and far sides of the moon, and Hershel crater and its opposite side on Mimas. Appears that the force of the impact is focused around the core of the body and focused on the opposite side of the body. All that energy has to do something.

But you are all correct that correlation does imply causation. On the other hand, it does pose an interesting connection that may or may not be worth exploring. And if you view a volcanic vent as a giant pressure cooker, rearrangement of the structure via a local quake or large impact may be enough to open up the vent. The only one we observed directly was St. Helens in 1980 where a quake caused a collapse of part of the cone and uncovered the vent.

A more interesting thing to consider would be a connection between periods of quiet solar activity and massive volcanic eruptions. The Watts Up With That blog gets into a volcanic eruption - global cooling conversation from time to time, and those connections have been physically measured (Tambora, Krakatau and Pinatubo).

But one of the things that seemed to happen from time to time during the last couple millenia are periodic times of quiet sun (Dalton and Maunder minimums are the most famous). If that wasn't bad enough, there were also very large volcanic eruptions during those times that exacerbated the global cooling (possible Krakatoa around 550 and Tambora).

Is there a connection between times of quiet sun and large volcanic eruptions? Don't know. But it may be at least worth going back a couple thousand years and seeing if we can list all the big ones, plot them against the times of quiet sun and take a look. It is most likely that they are taking place on an irregular basis and are simply less dangerous during times of high solar activity. Might be worth taking a look, though. Cheers -

Please do a google search, find the David Pyle and Tamsin Mather paper I referenced above, and read it. The authors provide insight into this question, with excellent cautionary logic as well regarding observation/record completeness.

There IS temporal-spacial clustering of high-energy eruption and rupture events evident over the past (see Fig 3), but the pattern is periodic, not random and not necessarily increasing over time. This paper suggests that the observed recent increase is yet another punctuated change in major geological event rate, alluded to in the 2007 Long-term influence of giant earthquakes paper, too.

Key points raised here:

1. escalating and rolling human health and social costs with each large event are associated with an ever-increasing human population density in active seismic zones, especially in developing nations with inadequate building code controls, and

2. potential for human perturbation of the natural environment that may influence stress additive processes, nudging stress accumulation rates upward and potentiating high-energy failures.

No. The solar cycle immediately preceding the major 1960 Chile earthquakes (2, one focal and one diffuse) was one of the largest in terms of solar activity, in the past 250 years.

Again, the rate of change, rather than the max/min values of stress and stressors, appears to be important for understanding and modeling dynamic process interactions within chaotic complex systems.

Agimarc Sorry but I don't think St Helens was caused by an earthquake, there were 10,000 earthquakes that proceeded it but they were caused by the volcano and were a sign of the coming eruption and not the cause. Erik or Boris correct me if I am wrong but I don't think anyone has ever identified a distant quake as the trigger for St Helens.

Also while we are technically still in a solar minimum sunspots have been on the increase since December, the Haiti and Chile quakes happened during a time when the Sun was much more active than it has been since 2004. I look at that stuff myself...I can't find a good paper on it or see any real cause and effect for volcanoes or earthquakes and the Sun. spaceweather.com

Events may be cyclical, but I believe the cycles are random. In other words, not every so many years on a regular basis, as in every 10,000 years or 1,000,000 year, ect. There are some areas of CA that have what you would call "normal" swarms, one being at the south east end of the Salton Sea. Another area that has swarms once in a while is in Nevada near the border with CA and that is the Adobe Hills. Then there is Mammoth (and Long Valley)which is having some activity that is not much, but it seems to be having around 50 quakes a week in the area with maybe a third to a half at Mammoth itself. The area is a large one that is also south of the caldera.

As I have been monitoring these events, (since just before the major swarm in the resurgent dome area at Long Valley)there is no rhyme or reason behind when they occur. At least not since I have been checking on them. Now over the last million years or so, well, maybe, but I doubt it. In the mean time, I will probably check out some of the papers that have been mentioned here. If the scientific evidence is there, ok. If not, then I go back to the randomness of volcanic and quake events. I do not see any regularity of any of this. Regularity to me is one every ten years or something like that.

Enough said for now.

BTW, correlation is NOT, repeat, IS NOT causation!!! Unless there is a direct link!!! And with what we are dealing with, it is very hard to prove a direct link.

Dr. Gao may have violated one of the primary guidelines for any professional when being interviewed - never speculate. However, it was not his decision to elevate his comments above those of others and use them as the basis of hyperbolic headlines. At least he is a seismologist. As shown by many post by Orac over at Respectful Insolence, journalists have no problems treating sensational poorly backed claims by cranks as being as equally valid as sober statements by professionals backed by careful research.

As for the assertion that somehow solar and volcanic activity are linked this is an extraordinary claim and demands extraordinary evidence. First such a correlation must be shown with robust statistics, then a plausible mechanism that explains how solar radiation can effect magma generation and ascent within the crust and upper mantle.

Randall, it wasn't a distant quake, it was one practically beneath MSH. And someone else will correct me, but I believe it was tectonic.

Damon and Randall - the MSH earthquake was related to the magmatic intrusion going on at the volcano leading to the May 1980 eruption. The seismicity was part of the earthquake swarm related to magma movement, and it was one of these earthquakes that triggered the avalanche. So, MSH is an example of an earthquake triggering an eruption, however, not in a direct fashion. Instead, the magmatic seismicity trigger a landslide that then caused the eruption.

Citation, Erik's comment:

Lipman PW, Mullineaux DR. 1981. The 1980 Eruptions of Mount St. Helens, Washington. USGS Publication 1250, 844 pp.

http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/Publications/PP1250/framework.h…

Erik the earthquakes were caused by the magma movement and not the other way around. There wasn't a known distant quake unrelated to the magma movement that triggered the volcano....was there? The quake that caused the landslide was caused by the volcano and not something triggered by a separate seismic event that had nothing to do with the volcano....that was the point I wanted to make.

I never said MSH was caused by a distant earthquake...I said it wasn't. The quake that caused the landslide happened because of the volcano and not the other way around...or is that not correct?

@EKoh #71: Except for the polar circles, eruptions occur within 24 hours of sunrise. So - the sun obviously causes eruptions. Of course there are some poorly understood situations which occur at the polar latitudes in which the 24-hour period abruptly changes to a 365-day period, but nonetheless there is a perfect correlation!

@agimarc: We only know historic sunspot activity to some degree due to (often sporadic) observations over the past 400 years or so. Beyond that we know next to nothing. I don't see how sunspot activity can be linked to large eruptions; the sun cannot drive the primary mechanisms for volcanic activity. In fact with remote sensor systems which I deploy I rely on the fact that the sun cannot affect the earth's temperature significantly beyond a meter or two below the surface within any single season. Since the sun's output doesn't change all that much even between the most active and most quiet periods, I cannot see how that small change would suddenly have a great impact on something which the overall solar output does not have much effect on. You may get some situations where the sun drives circumstances incidental to volcanism, but even then I cannot imagine any reason for active years being more important than quiet years.

@MadScientist #77
You're right, how could I have possibly missed that. Even more striking is the fact that all eruptions occur within one year of a solstice (give or take a day). The change in daily solar input obviously has an effect.

I agree with your post but headline writers did not write the content.

BTW this statement of yours about 3+ earthquakes is not correct, "sometimes we can go a day or two without really any around the world."

A 3.1 is a very minor thing and there are many each and every day. There have already been over 60 5+ aftershocks to the 8.8 quake and little comment, because even a 5+ is no big deal unless one occurs in an place where earthquakes are rare or kills many due to infrastructure failures.

When it comes to stupid journalism, Italy is second to none... here's a link frmo the "corriere della sera" website (one of the biggest italian newspapers).

http://www.corriere.it/scienze_e_tecnologie/10_febbraio_28/caprara_50c3…

Just a quick translation: "Haiti, Japan some days ago, and now Chile. Is the Earth shaking more than usual? Scientists are recording and defenseless watching the Earth's sudden violence without understanding."

The rest of the article is definitely less sensationalistic, but the title... BOOM!!!

I believe my eyes were opened regarding the total inability of a major news agency to report factual details on a technical subject in 1988. I watched aghast as a 60 minutes reporter Ed Bradley proceeded to question an aircraft mechanic on the consequences of a certain airplane component failing. This mechanic had been fired by the airline for poor performance and insubordination when he refused to put this scratched and gouged component on the airplane. When Ed asked the guy what what would happen if this failed he claimed "it could be catastrophic". Ironically, I worked for the manufacturer, and my boss had just asked me to review how much damage the component could sustain before failing for some unknown lawsuit. I found myself screaming liar at the TV set. I realized that the show simply wanted the mechanic to utter those words so they could get more viewers. There was no questioning of an independent expert who had no reason to lie. It's happened over and over since the.

Like I said in the post above;

"Also while we are technically still in a solar minimum sunspots have been on the increase since December, the Haiti and Chile quakes happened during a time when the Sun was much more active than it has been since 2004. I look at that stuff myself...I can't find a good paper on it or see any real cause and effect for volcanoes or earthquakes and the Sun."

So please don't think I was implying there was a connection between increased or decreased sunspots and increased seismic or volcanic events because that is not at all what I was trying to say.

@Mic22: Definitely one of the more stupid newspaper titles, and while the article itself is more pragmatic, it doesn't give an answer to the question - it rather states that even with the technology and knowledge available today, scientists are as helpless as ever when it comes to earthquake prediction. Yeah, right. We knew that since a while, and I fear that earthquakes will not be predictable for a long time if ever. That's because they are created by extremely complex processes happening in places to which we have no access.
To all those who ponder about links with solar activity and planetary constellations - it is fundamental to understand that earthquakes happen because the Earth is active and dynamic, and they would happen anyway whatever solar activity and planetary constellations we have because stresses build up due to plate tectonics and need to be released every now and then, usually this happens when the stresses increase beyond a certain threshold. It's the rocks that break along a fault, so it depends on the physical properties of these rocks, and on the speed and direction of plate movements, and whether there is water or other fluids in the fault areas, and a zillion other factors, which are all confined to this one planet. So even if solar activity or an alignment of the planets might exert a minimal gravitational or other force on the Earth, the energy involved is a minuscule fraction of the forces that work within the Earth, so they might help to accelerate things a tiny little bit but in the end it doesn't really make much of a difference.

I have never heard that the May 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens was triggered by a distant major earthquake, also because I recall that between a M 7.8 in Iran in September 1978 and a M 7.7 in Algeria in October 1980 there was not much going on in terms of large earthquakes globally. What is true is that a very local and shallow M 5 earthquake (triggered by the magma movement within the volcano) unleashed the catastrophic collapse of the unstable north flank of the volcano, which in turn led to the exposure and explosive decompression of the magma which had pushed into the volcano during the previous weeks.

On the other hand the large 1991 Pinatubo eruption was preceded, about a year earlier, by a M 7.7 earthquake centered about 100 km from the volcano, and it is generally believed that the earthquake might have had an influence on the reawakening of the volcano. But remember that many other large eruptions have occurred without preceding large earthquakes, and many large earthquakes have not been followed by significant earthquakes. These things can, and in most cases do, happen entirely by themselves, because the physical processes necessary to generate them are all there.

No news from my Chilean friends; I suppose there are still problems with the e-mail.

Some one collected quick scientific and tehnical details of Chile earthquake. Want to share it with others.

Chile Earthquake 2010 : Scientific and Tehnical details

FWIW I keep a pretty constant eye on NZ's seismic network (from the safe distance of continental Europe) ;-) and there was no evidence of any upswing in local seismic activity despite the strong signal of the Chilean quake.

More interestingly is the odd bit of HT shown on various NZ volcanoes in the last few weeks (including Taranaki) Nothing serious as the RSAM plots show but still interesting to see these things are still very much alive and breathing.

re my opinion on TV news channels: guess I was kind of harsh in my first post here but I hate the speed and shallowness of most TV reporting. It can be and sometimes is a brilliant medium when you get a proper documentary done but I have major problems with the sensationalist reporting that many news stations fall prey to. The bit I saw on CNN was the ten minutes before Acapulco was about to be "hit" by the first tsunami. This was tortured reporting at its best and not far removed from the 2012 kind of thing, aimed solely at stoking the public's fascination with disaster.

Speaking of reactionary headlines and news story from The Times Online, business section this morning:

'Buy farmland and gold,' advises Dr Doom.

There is a grain of truth in his Faber's cautionary over Washington oligarchy's inability to recognize three glaring facts: 1. the Federal government can't spend it's way back to financial health; 2. The Military-Industrial Complex isn't working as post-Cold War economy base; 3. "We are no longer in Kansas, Toto" - former financial largess of a large workforce tax inflow of the past four decades was long gone before Y2K. We now have serial pseudo-economy bubbles, waves retirements of folks who feel 'owed' and have scant savings and crappy health, and dwindling manufacturing job base.

The Middle East and Asia will no longer finance US debt as long as the US appears fiscally imprudent and unhealthy in the longterm, from escalating Federal deficit.

The rest of the article, much like the target of our blog host's rant, is pure conspiracy drivel about dirty wars and survival in the event of social collapse.

MSNBC reporting on environmental issues has been hopeless for years. I don't know if it's sensationalism, stupidity or agenda driven. Their coverage of climate change ranks close to the bottom with Newsweek's Sharon Begley in terms of being biased and one-sided. I'm waiting for the headline correlating earthquake intensity with global warming. They have done this with tropical cyclone intensity and with the recent northern hemisphere snowstorms. Right now, I think they'll put anything in a headline and expect people to believe it.

Mostly what I go to MSNBC for is to do the jigsaw puzzle.

Erik, you hack, you've done it again. You really should stop trying to attempt media commentary because you're so bad at it.

First and foremost it really looks like you never bothered to read the article.

(From the very 1st paragraph): "...the 8.8-magnitude temblor that shook the region overnight was not a surprise, historically speaking. Nor was it outside the realm of normal, scientists say, even though it comes on the heels of other major earthquakes."

The answer to "Is Nature Out of Control?" is an emphatic no! Why would you assume that the answer is yes unless you didn't read it, or you were too concerned with pushing your own agenda that you decided to overlook what the very 1st paragraph said?

(Arguably the answer to the question could be a "yes" in the sense that we cannot control earthquakes, but that is beside the point.)

What is more troublesome is that right now there is some of the best geological based science reporting in recent memory, explaining why the Chile earthquake was less catastrophic than Haiti and why only a small tsunami occurred.

See:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487040899045750940131943966…

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124181825

You're selectively cherry picking and misrepresenting facts to fit your agenda. Again.

Quantos - and again, you miss the point. MSNBC sold the article as "nature out of control" and followed it up clearly with the subheadline "Experts: Planet more active". This is misleading and inaccurate. One "expert" was the evidence of this assertion in the article (which, I made clear in the comments, was fairly well put together) and they left it up for days trying to make it seem as if the earth was heading towards increased activity. No misrepresentation and clearly no agenda - and you can see, many people agree here that MSNBC was definitely trying to sensationalize this. All the other media outlets have done a great job with coverage - notice that I made no blanket statement about any other, in fact I complement them on the fact that they didn't go down that road. I'm more than happy to link to good jobs that the media has done - and I hope it continues. However, name-calling and trash talk? Nice way to have a dialogue about the state of science in the media?

Quantos I don't always agree with Erik, I also know he doesn't always agree with me but we don't let things degenerate into name calling. Would you go to someone's house and use their home and hospitality, then call them names and treat them like crap? He has allowed you to be here and given you a forum to speak your opinion....please try to speak it in a civil manner.

"To offend and judge are distinct offices,
And of opposed natures."
Shakespeare The Merchant Of Venice Act 2, scene

I suppose we all should sympathise with the hard-working editors and journalists who have to present news that ensure happy sponsors. Without "adequate" ratings, revenue will drop and along with it it wages and job security. I suppose we have to accept sensationalist headline (and sub-headline) mongering as long as the article as such is balanced and scientifically sound, is that what you're saying Campos? I'm afraid that Dr Klemetti's observations are indeed correct.

Erik, I did not miss the point.

MSNBC "sold" the article as "IS Nature Out Of Control?" a question that honestly many people are wondering given the spate of high profile powerful earthquakes recently. It is not "exploiting" feelings to answer those questions.

The article quotes a geologist saying that there have been a greater number of powerful earthquakes in the last 20 years vs. the 20 years previously, adding that it "Could simply be the natural temporal variation of the stress field in the earth's lithosphere."

This is factually correct. The full article expands on it to say that though there have been more as of late, that it does not mean that the world is changing seismically for the worse over the long run.

MSNBC and Live Science did not act irresponsibly by posing and answering a question that many people are wondering. If someone draws an incorrect conclusion, they are the ones at fault for only reading a headline, adn not actually reading the article, which they had full access to if they could see the headline.

As far as "name-calling and trash talk," you were the one to first use the term "hack" when you said "This type of headline is irresponsible, reprehensible 'journalism' that the worst hacks should be ashamed to print." What was this about having a nice dialogue about the state of science in the media?

I guess my argument here is would be it responsible for CNN or someone to post a headline that readers "Is the world ending tonight?" only to lead to an article that says "no". There are many other ways to present this material that doesn't sensationalize it, such as "Chilean earthquake is not out of the ordinary" or "Major earthquakes part of the planetary system". "Is Nature out of control" plays at people's feelings and emotions rather than conveying any useful information. Maybe I'm hoping for too much here.

I would argue no it is not irresponsible, provided that there is a good reason for it. Take for example a hypothetical article dispelling all of this 2012 nonsense. I would argue that because there is enough people that do legitimately believe the world will end in 2012, it's not only responsible, but very necessary.

Likewise to pose a question that many are feeling, i.e. is the Earth more seismically active (albeit posed somewhat imprecisely), then answer the question correctly is likewise responsible.

Reaching out to popular emotions in order to dispel myths is not irresponsible.

My problem with the proposed "Chilean earthquake is not out of the ordinary" headline is that this was one of the largest magnitude earthquakes in history, not an ordinary one. Though it is factually true, no one will read "Major earthquakes part of the planetary system." A good article that goes unread is not much more useful as one that goes unwritten.

Quantos - I suppose this is where we agree to disagree. I appreciate the fact that people do need to read more well-written science out there, but just feel that sensationalizing it like that works at purposes counter to the article. Headlines don't have to be dry, but neither do they need to be purely speculative - and considering that really no other media outlet followed suit in couching the science in this fashion, MSNBC does stick out as seeming the most sensationalized of the bunch.

@ Quantos, what do you think Erik's "agenda" is?

@Ekoh: Agenda may be too strong a word, personal bias perhaps would suit better.

Erik has a tendency to blow his media criticisms way out of proportion. He took here what amounts to a quibble with a single headline and sub headline of an a single article to "Reckless speculation the likes of which MSNBC (and LiveScience) partook in should be a warning of how the media still has a long way to come when it comes to reporting the facts rather than the hysteria of the natural world."

That's what I call sensationalizing.

The subject of 'nature being out of control' does play in the minds of a lot of laypeople and I do agree that the subject should therefore be mentioned with a title that fits it.

However, the fact that Erik is critical about it is important as well. The title could have been longer for example, like 'Is nature out of control? Scientists say no'. And there is a lot of fear mongering bull sh!t on the internet, so this place as the 'usual critical marginal note' to what's out there is one of the things that I like here. It puts things in perspective.

Now I know that more people read MSNBC than there are people that read this blog, but that's a reason why the voice 'screaming' back has to be loud. MSNBC's line may make the article look more sensational, but if that's a way the get the actual message out there, so is Erik's approach.

Quantos I appreciate what you are saying, i.e. MSNBC was using a purely rhetorical device in asking a question that many are asking and then answering it themselves to the contrary. If we are generous we could say they were even doing this to educate the general public and bring everyone a step forward.

Unfortunately, we all know the media doesn't work this way. It is all about ratings, grabbing the audience, attracting readership, etc. etc. i.e. the hard sell. Worse, we all know that many people's attention spans are not all that great and that many people will not even get to read the small print. A clever media strategy will pan to the fears and desires of the wider population, offering them the tidbits they are looking for to satiate their appetite for what is in many cases just a need to substantiate their own prejudices and package the "truth" (read more scientific appraisal) further on down in the article or, in the worst cases, not at all. It's the way they sell the story.

I don't know what your field is but I have followed Erik's these last two years and I know what really gets his goat is when the basics are inaccurately portrayed or just plain wrong. I think this is a valid grievance because it is not like it's difficult in this day and age to get properly informed, particularly with the huge resources that a news network has.

I posted first to this thread about how appalling I found the coverage by CNN. (and it was appalling, they were painting a scenario of a large tsunami washing into Acapulco and suggesting an imminent disaster was about to happen before our eyes). Later in the day CNN actually did have a woman on who knew what she was talking about and used a lot of USGS graphs to illustrate what was happening. Well done CNN. But even here, her time was squeezed into what was little more than an extended soundbite which kind of defeated the whole purpose and that is the gripe I have. There is no need to dumb-down the message in this way. And it is precisely the same for suggestive titles and sub-titles. The public deserves better than to have its base fears reinforced in such a cheap manner.

I still want to blame it all on Loki....but none of you guys will let me;)
Encyclopedia Mythica
pantheon.org/

Yet just make this a debate shall we? If you don't like what someone has to say they do not comment got that or better yet you should be blocked from posting at all! I guess you think you are the expert and Erik is not which is just plain stupid of you.

Chance I am going to tell you like I told Quantos "I don't always agree with Erik (or anyone else), I also know he doesn't always agree with me but we don't let things degenerate into name calling."....you really shouldn't either....As to blocking someone...Erik is a bigger man for not blocking people who have opinions that differ from his...it shows that Erik really doesn't have an agenda...a bias maybe but not an agenda;) Besides who really wants a forum full of people that only agree with you? It would get kind of dull wouldn't it?

Once again I repeat the wisdom of Willy The Man Shakespeare;)
"To offend and judge are distinct offices,
And of opposed natures."
Shakespeare The Merchant Of Venice Act 2

Erik you are really going to love this;)

"Financial Advisor Magazine

March 2010 issue
The Age Of Living Lean
Loomis Saylesâ Dan Fuss sees a soft recovery in which quality businesses gain at the expense of the rest.
By Evan Simonoff

The area around Yellowstone National Park has been experiencing a series of mini-earthquakes in recent months and, given that it lies on top of a mega-volcano and one of the four major fault lines, there is a reason for concern.

âThe local tourism board probably doesnât want you to write that,â says Dan Fuss, co-manager of the Loomis Sayles Bond Fund. Unfortunately, the geology around Yellowstone shares a lot of similarities with the global economy these days.

No one knows whether the next crisis will be a volcano or an earthquake, like a possible default by Spain or California, or whether it will be a minor economic tremor like the one in Dubai or the travails of Greece. But the economic environment isnât very comforting.

Fuss, who shared Morningstarâs 2009 Fixed-Income Manager of the Year award with his fellow co-managers, isnât necessarily predicting another tsunami. Indeed, the Big One probably already came in the fall of 2008 and the struggles of Dubai, Greece and Harrisburg, Pa., could just be aftershocks....."

fa-mag.com/component/content/article/5242.html?magazineID=1&issue=139&Itemid=73

GROAN!

Prehaps not but that doesn't make it right for him to basically go out and claim Erik is going after the media to serve his own purpose.

A sign of the modern age I'm afraid. In a dispute of opinions, one side will invariably resort to name-calling in it's opening statement, deny it when pointed out and say something on the lines of "he started it" or "but he's up to no good". That's right, you've spotted it. It is indeed the arguments from the primary schoolyard, unchecked by adequate parental bringing up. It is a rampant disease of our "Modern" Western Civilizatition that we cannot argue a case or debate a point without resorting to rudeness as soon as our opinions or beliefs are challenged and think we're in the right as our opinions are, if not sacrosanct, worth at least as much as those of any expert. Especially since experts are bought and if not, grumbling because they're not. ;)
PS. I am not saying Quantos personally is a point in case. As far as I know, his opening "you hack" could equally have been an attempt at a joke or even between friends.

Chance No it doesn't...but two wrongs don't make a right. You can go to Erik's defense without resorting to calling someone stupid or saying they should be banned....When you resort to those tactics it weakens your cause;)

Diane was that groan at the news story or my Shakespeare quotes?

Cafe Press already has T shirts etc. very like what you want - of course! See e.g.
http://www.cafepress.com/+correlation_organic_cotton_tee,176539195

@Randall, that groan was right after your news story. What I perceived was a parody of the economic market with the geological events that have been happening, as if there is a connection. Maybe I misunderstood your post.

I don't mind your Shakespeare quotes, though I am not particularly into Shakespeare. I think I had to read Henry II for an English class many years ago and it was ok. Just not my forte. :-)

Diane Awwwww a lady who isn't into the Bard...that is sad:( Everything worth knowing both good and bad about the human condition can be learned from Shakespeare. Human technology changes but spiritually and emotionally we haven't changed one bit since Shakespeare.

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't!

The Tempest Act 5, scene 1, 181â184

I also wanted to ask you if you have ever tried to stake out or patent any mining claims on BLM land?

Wow, I write one provocative headline and folks really get fired up! I went with that headline because I felt it probably reflected the question that some people had in mind after the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile (and Japan and Sumatra...). Of course the answer is that the seismic activity is not beyond the pale, but if I were to write a headline saying "Chile quake really not that bad" ... would people read it? In this case, I thought a question headline was appropriate. After a discussion with other editors, we did refocus the headline to ask instead "Are big quakes getting worse?" (Again, the short answer is no.) But it is interesting to note that in the related Newsvine question, 41.5 percent agreed that "natural disasters seem to come more frequently than they have in the past," compared with 45.5 percent who said there was nothing unusual about the latest string of disasters.

http://technology-science.newsvine.com/_question/2010/02/27/3958973-doe…

If there's anything you're wondering about relating to MSNBC's science coverage, please feel free to drop me a line. I'm glad for the opportunity to chat with y'all.

@Randall, I didn't mean to convey I didn't like Shakespeare at all, I just really haven't read much and I am not so sure I want to. But, I will tell you I did like some of the dialog between Henry (Hal) and Falstaf.

I have a funny story to tell you about Shakespearean drama. It has to do with Richard Burton and Winston Churchill. Burton was in a play, I think it was MacBeth. Churchill came to the show and sat in the front row. All through the play, he was sitting there and reciting right along with the actors and actresses. Burton told the story and it was really funny. He said they tried speeding up, slowing down, and speeding up again to no avail. He said they could here this low rumbling of disaproval when they would try to throw Churchill. I got a good laugh out of that.

And, no, I have not tried to file any claims. I am not in good enough shape to do that, though some of the guys in the club are actually mining on the club president's property. He has the original Succor Flat and Copper Bottom mines on his property. They are going onto an old addit and getting into the tertiary underground river. Now mind you, some of the guys who are working in there are in their late 60's and early 70's!!! There are also some younger guys, too.

Where I go is down to the river where I do crevessing and digging, and panning. DH and I bring a lot of classified stuff home to process and them we take the stuff back. We also have access to an hydrolic pit that is easy to get to and has gold there as well as a lot of clay. It is claimed and we have permission to go there.

Recently, the guys went hiking through a lot of manzanita to find a mine that was mismarked on the map. They did find it and an old collapsed cabin. When the weather clears, I know they will be back there and that would be a good place to detect. I just wish I could go with them.

Guess what?! We are getting snow! Probably about 2" now.

@ Alan Boyle: your personal motivation helps making things clearer. Or at least it does to me. It's interesting to see that there has actually been a discussion at MSNBC about the choice of the title. And I do think a question headline is appropriate.

However, I think there's still a good point in being careful with these kind of topics. Informing the public correctly is what matters most. A title that makes one want to read an article is a way to get people to actually read it. I personally don't really mind the title, but on the other hand I don't think Erik is wrong by mentioning that the subject should not be a prey to sensationalism.

Thanks for participating in the discussion!

If another big earthquake hits somewhere like the Pacific Northwest in the next couple months then maybe something is up. In that case it may not all be random. Right now to be careful I think it is wise to not jump to any conclusions.

I think it's fair to say that everything is caused by something and that it will in turn cause something else. The chaos theory (with the butterfly effect as the best known metaphor) explains how that works. A strong earthquake near Chile has been caused by enormous amounts of stress, and the quake itself has caused/will cause stress somewhere else in its turn, that might lead to a big quake at e.g. Juan de Fuca plate. Whatever lies in between the two quakes is way too complex to get a good picture of. What are all the factors? What part do all of those factors play and very important: how big is their individual role in the entire chain of events? Therefore I think that words like 'random' and 'chance' don't fit in the world of geology. We are just not able to tell what's really going on. We can only guess based upon the information we are able to comprehend.

So I agree (again): jumping to conclusions isn't going to do any good, whether it's about earthquakes or big caldera forming eruptions or anything else that can have a huge impact on a large number of people. That's also why sensationalism has to be avoided.

Like the headline of this article implies.

@ Alan respect for showing your face here. Much appreciated. I guess the issue many of us have here is the rather gaping disparity between the fears of the wider population about geological events and the facts. When we see the press then stoking these fears (albeit indirectly in a rhetorical headline) it kind of gets our goat.

As a corollary, the classic example often discussed here is a "super" eruption from somewhere like Yellowstone which thanks to various films has burnt its image on the public consciousness without unfortunately any balancing awareness of just how rare these things are or how they actually work. Any article that associates an earthquake swarm at Yellowstone with an imminent "super" eruption, even negatively, draws a groan because the damage is done, purely by association.

Granted, as a media person I am sure you are fully aware of just how juicy a natural catastrophe is as a media drawcard so when something like the Chilean quake happens it is kind of ripe for the picking and it would be a bit naive of us to accuse you of exploiting it.

That said, the real news in this event is not that an M8.8 earthquake occured, or that the frequency of earthquakes is particularly high (it isn't) but that so few people died in such a huge event. There are no doubt some natural parameters that played a role (depth of the quake, location, type of wave form) but the main thing is how well structures held up. Even those that did fall over didn't collapse so that most people were able to climb out of them. This, by any stretch of the imagination, is a huge triumph of modern building and would make a great story.

World events are mostly measured by how they impact human life. So even if it does tremble everyday, people will only care when it affects their lives and loved ones. That is the main reason why the Haitian and Chilean Quakes cause such a stir.
Take Thunder as an example. Everybody knows its a very normal occurrence, but lets say your neighbor got hit by one and died. Wouldn't you start to worry just a bit more?

Both objectively and subjectively, I think it's not unfair to say that earthquakes are "worse", if one is speaking of human consequences. First, urban migration means more people in more structures more susceptible to damage. Second, as noted, there is much more information about earthquake events that historically the case, which raises the salience and recall in people's perceptions. So, an average human being might indeed say they're "worse."

this is toooooooo long for me to read so why cant anyone just give me a SHORT summary of this passage for this stupid social studies project

"Excellent information here. This fascinating publish created me smile. Perhaps if you throw inside a few of photos it'll make the whole factor far more fascinating. In any case, in my language, you will find not a lot very good supply similar to this."

also I wouldn't agree again with my instincts fully on what you just wrote since its kinda wrong

You made a few good points there. I did a search on the issue and found nearly all people will have the same opinion with your blog.

Immer landen frische Handys auf den Marktplatz. Aber wie sicher sind diese ?

Wonderful writing:) I am going to take some time to entertain this article.

MSNBC: Time to retire Buchanan (an open letter)

gregladen — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:28:33 +0000

MSNBC: Time to retire Buchanan (an open letter)

Dear MSNBC,

I know it is appropriate to have a range of opinions among the talking heads representing a news agency, and MSNBC certainly does have a range. Pat Buchanan, regular commentator on two or three MSNBC news shows, probably serves at the most conservative individual in the MSNBC panoply.

But he has to go now.

This letter comes as a reaction to Buchanan's most recent column, which addresses Darwinian theory and evolution in an over the top intellectually dishonest, inaccurate, and offensive manner. I will not discuss the details of his absurd column; several of my colleagues on the blogosphere have (see "Old fossil" by PZ Myers, "Buchanan Blathers" by Ed Brayton and "We Don't Take Pat Buchanan Seriously" by Mike Haubrich). Rather, I'd like to simply call for Buchanan's retirement from his role as MSNBC commentator, with this letter being the written manifestation of Buchanan's final steps into unacceptable offensiveness and intellectual irrelevancy.

It has always annoyed me that MSNBC would use the services of Pat Buchanan. I would have thought that by now we would have put aside all remaining vestiges of the Nixon Administration. In fact, I always thought that MSNBC's choice to use Buchanan as a regular was moderately offensive to those of us who suffered through the Nixon years and were, at the time of Buchanan's joining MSNBC, now suffering through the Bush years.

You see, the self-righteous politics at any cost, "if the president does it it is legal" attitude of the 1970s right wing has moved off the stage over recent decades, and most of the practitioners of that attitude (many in prison) moved with it. So what was Buchanan doing on your show?

Now, we are seeing a new shift in political framework. Over the last decade we've seen a relentless erosion of the role of quality science in the forum of public policy, and a steady induration of ideological humors into the scientific discourse. Press agencies, even including the relatively intellectual and progressive MSNBC, have not helped as much as they have hurt society, the economy, and as a matter of fact, the truth itself, by insisting that every issue has two valid sides in matters of science (it doesn't, by the way). If someone says "global warming is real" there MUST be someone out there saying it is not. Find that person and put them on TV. The "balance" of viewpoints "pro" and "con" with respect to this and other important scientific issues has had a chilling, negative effect on science. At this point in time, more people die younger, suffer more, and live less happy lives than they otherwise might because science has been so badly treated by conservative politicians. That is indisputable fact. It will take years to undo the damage that right wing ideological anti-science has done.

Although there is still a great deal of work to do, it is a fact that as we speak the nature of science funding, evaluation, reporting, and implementation is rapidly changing in a post-Bush environment. Suddenly, science can breathe.

But many elements of the right wing hang tenaciously on to the ideological approach in which real science is denigrated and damaged wherever doing so will produce either profit or power. As a long time voice of this sort of conservatism ("Right from the beginning" is his motto, after all) Pat Buchanan now represents the damaging fringe, the corrosive edge, the untenable underbelly of political commentary at MSNBC. As the anti-science gambit of the right wing is moved, still struggling but doomed, off the stage, Pat Buchanan is left on your stage ... the MSNBC stage ... playing a tune on the atonal kazoo of ignorance to which fewer and fewer people dance.

That era of political whitewash of scientific truths and mean spirited hobbling of progress in medical, life science, and earth science studies is flanked by several events. The election of Ronald Reagan and the daparture of Bush II from office are volcanic layers dating the rise and fall of the eclipse of science. The publication of The Republican War on Science and Unscientific America are literary bookends. The first Earth Day, which some will remember as a radical act, and the IPCC report on climate change are the embryo and the wise sage representing different ends of a remarkable developmental period.

Perhaps the retirement of science-friendly Walter Cronkite in 1981 and the retirement from MSNBC of science-unfriendly Pat Buchanan ... this year ... would be appropriate era-markers for the dark ages of science's role in the American political forum.

Sincerely,

Greg Laden
Denizen of the Liberal Blogosphere

gregladen Wed, 07/01/2009 - 07:28

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