This latest panorama is adopted from a beautiful photograph by Yuri Beletsky from the ESO (European Southern Observatory). Pictured here is the Milky Way Galaxy and other celestial objects as viewed near the Very Large Telescopes in Chile. I have included two versions of the panorama. The first, which can be seen here, is a high resolution image of the telescopes at night. The second, lower resolution image is the same as the first, but includes labels of celestial objects including the Magellanic Cloud galaxies, Orion, Barnard’s Loop, and the Moon as viewed during a total lunar eclipse. Enjoy!
Orange County Out-Dumbs Itself
I just wanted to add quick comments about this story coming out of Orange County, CA where an AP class addressing global climate change now requires instructors to teach opposing views on “controversial issues.”
http://www.ocregister.com/news/-300559–.html?cb=1305440000
1. I’m tired of all this “we need to provide a balanced view” nonsense. “Balance” does not imply that every idea receive equal time. It demands that ideas receive weight proportional to their merit. When 97% of scientists and every major reputable scientific organization in the world has adopted a uniform conclusion, during a 70 hour course an instructor should mention the opposition point for less than 30 minutes. That’s true balance.
2. Denial of climate change lies predictably along party lines. Denial of science based on party affiliation is an instantiation of the denial of facts based on a philosophical position. Such judgments do not belong in a science classroom.
3. This sets a precedent that all controversies must be taught. This means that a group of loudmouths can start spouting off nonsense like Obama is a secret Muslim or the federal government brought down the Twin Towers and schools would now be required to introduce that into the classroom because a “controversy” exists. This is ridiculous. We cannot honestly be that stupid, can we?
4. This actually dilutes the meaning of “controversial science”, which involves multiple theories striving to be adopted into a scientific paradigm. Human driven climate change is not controversial science. The real explanation for dark energy or the balance between quantum mechanics and general relativity are controversial scientific issues.
Green Roofs in New York City May Be an Effective Adaptation to Flooding
In her book The Weather of the Future, climatologist Heidi Cullen describes the impacts of global climate change on New York City. She focuses in part on the city’s aging and mostly immutable sewage infrastructure. Since sewage water and storm water use the same pipes, the system is more vulnerable to above-normal flooding, i.e. the kinds anticipated from greater rainfall and more forceful tidal surges. She writes:
When it’s not raining, sewage treatment plants can handle all the sewage and clean it up. But when it rains, the vast amount of rainwater that goes into the sewers exceeds their capacity, so some of it has to be released into the rivers untreated. If rainfall becomes more intense-as observed data and climate models suggest will happen-the sewer system could be overwhelmed. That would result in more flooding of streets and basements, and more untreated waste would enter rivers.
Last year’s catastrophic floods in Pakistan and this spring’s historic flooding along the Mississippi River lends visible credulity to the future impacts of flooding. But if the sewage infrastructure of NYC can’t reasonably be modified, how does the city keep from going underwater?
The answer may be green roofs. A study released by Colombia University in January reveals that converting NYC’s 1 billion square feet of roofs into green roofs would divert more than 10 billion gallons of water per year from the sewage system. The vegetation retains 30% of the water that falls on it, then releases it back into the atmosphere as vapor. The heat required to vaporize the liquid is drawn from either the building or the sun, which in either case cools the building and lowers its energy bill. The study estimates the cost of maintaining a green roof means that they could divert a gallon of water for only 2 cents per year.
Panorama from atop Everest
A view from the top of the world! I’ve adapted this image by Roddy Mackenzie into another cylindrical panorama. Admittedly, the original photo I lifted was at a shoddy resolution. I managed to smooth out the sky and color gradients, though.
Climate Compared: Public Opinion on Climate Change in the United States and Canada (from Brookings)
Brookings has published a very interesting report surveying beliefs about global climate change in the United States and Canada. Quoting directly from their executive summary:
- Belief in climate change among Canadians substantially outpaces belief in this phenomenon among residents of the United States.
- In the United States an individual’s partisan affiliation is the most important determinant of their views on the existence of global warming, with Democrats significantly more likely than Republicans to believe that the Earth is warming.
- Americans remain highly divided on claims that scientists are manipulating climate research for their own interests, with most Canadians rejecting such claims.
The full report can be read here.
Is Sugar Toxic?
In light of yesterday’s post about the dangers of poor diet and the effect on health costs and, therefore, the national debt, I want to pass along an article from the NY Times Magazine entitled Is Sugar Toxic? It makes the case that sugar consumption drives the liver to convert fructose into fat, leading to insulin resistance. Insulin is released after meals to keep blood sugar level under control. If cells become resistant, the pancreas must release more leading to “pancreatic exhaustion.” At this point, the blood sugar rises out of control leading to diabetes. Worse, if the pancreas releases too much insulin into the body, it can promote tumor growth leading to cancer.
The article is careful to not that many of these results are compelling, but inconclusive. At very least, it should give sugar consumers pause, and potentially give doctors (and government?) another target in protecting people from diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and now, perhaps, cancer.
Boston University Debaters Claim Top Honors
Congratulations to the Boston University Debate Society! The BU team of Alex Taubes and Greg Meyer has just officially won Team of the Year (TOTY) honors by earning the most high-profile victories in the country this year. Alex Taubes will also finish as the nation’s top speaker. It was a little over 11 years ago that I helped resurrect a then-dead and forgotten team. A decade later, BU students have proven themselves the best in the nation! Great job, guys!
Here’s a release from the BUDS:
“At Amherst, Alison and Alex won the tournament, and Alex was top speaker! Evelyn and Maddie also broke to quarters, and Maddie was 3rd novice speaker! Moreover, with Amherst gone, and the APDA season over, Greg and Alex have won APDA’s Team of the Year (TOTY) Award, Alison and Alex have finished as fourth TOTY, and Alex has clinched APDA’s Speaker of the Year (SOTY) Award. Overall, BU will finish 3rd in the College of the Year standings, behind only Yale and Harvard.
For the first time in the history of APDA, BU is TOTY and SOTY. There’s still one more tournament–APDA Nationals, coming up this weekend!”
Largest Smart Wind Power System on its Way
Wind energy is great, but it’s inconsistent. When the wind stops blowing, your power stops flowing. New power systems are needed to capture excess energy when the wind is blowing its hardest so that it can release that energy when it’s blowing little or not at all. It turns our that Duke Power Corp. has taken up the challenge. It plans to build the largest power storage system (to be linked to a wind farm) in the world. The system will be located in West Texas. It’s nice to see a US company leading in this market.
Shortlink: http://bit.ly/gUihXZ
Healthy Government Tyranny
I love debates, especially on the proper role of government. I’ve always believed in the concept of personal liberty up to the point where it begins to infringe on the well being of others. Of course, where to draw the bright line is often ambiguous. Protesting at the funeral of a gay soldier causes distinct emotional damage, but the alternative is a degradation of the First Amendment. Nobody ever said this stuff was easy.
Yet it is questions like these that motivate the discussion. The big conflict lately has been over the federal deficit. In my view, excessive federal debt causes two primary problems. It saps our treasury through interest payments and increases the risk that our borrowing rate will skyrocket, making it prohibitively expensive to borrow money. While the first is a well understood problem, the second raises many questions. What needs to happen before lenders lose faith? When will interest rates rise? How quickly? Will the US be able to absorb it at that time?
Assessing these harms should be done though standard risk analysis where we integrate the probability of an event’s occurrence times its impact. Only then can we compare an solution involving a constraint on liberty to gauge whether its warranted.
One idea that was introduced to me recently was that of eating habits. The largest single problem with our debt is rising health care costs. A significant driver of health care costs is obesity and associated harms like diabetes and heart disease. Much of this is driven by the generally poor diet of many Americans. Does the federal government retain the right to constrain people’s eating habits if it would save hundreds of billions of dollars per year? Is this degradation of freedom offset by the promise of better health and a balanced budget? Instead of clinging to platitudes of freedom and government tyranny, we should recognize the broad shades of gray in these problems and have an intelligent, informed, and balanced discussion. My hope is that this is not too much to ask.
Shortlink: http://bit.ly/h8Q3y5
The Sun Can Wash? Your Clothes
We all know you can dry clothes in the sun…but wash them? There’s an experiment underway in The Netherlands to do just that. Using smart grid technologies, several hundred homes are about to embark on an experiment: are people willing to change their electricity consumption habits to save money and the planet?
Homes will have access to solar power and the price of electricity during the day. If the Sun shines brightly enough, the power can be used to run a washing machine. If not, service can wait until the price for electricity drops. Either way, the consumer ends up paying less. But will they tolerate the trade-off of immediacy for cost savings? Time will tell.