Mike Campbell's      ^The Campblog

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada        "Of Interest To Me"        March 02, 2007

Friday, March 2, 2007

Cool Antarctica

Cool Antarctica is a tourism and faq site, of sorts, for Antarctica.  Um, cool.  Interesting site, actually.  Did you know there are about 1,000 relatively permanent residents of Antarctica?  This goes up to about 4,000 during the short summer when scientists and researchers arrive.  Also, there are about 25,000 tourists who show up each year - do you want to be one of them?  Click here.  There is no indigenous population, of course.

Is Antarctica suffering the effects of Global Warming?  Well, a little 'yes' but a lot more 'no'.

The Antarctic Peninsula is particularly sensitive to small rises in the annual average temperature, this has increased about 2.5°C in the region in the last 50 years, this is 2 or 3 times faster than the average in the rest of the world. This makes it an excellent study area.

The temperature of the rest of Antarctica - the other 96% - shows no current indications of rising.

There is no unusual significant loss of ice of any kind from the larger 96% of Antarctica that is not the Peninsula.

Maybe some of the people who are going on about Antarctica melting away should head on down there and check it out for themselves.  (You know, while all the snow and ice is still there!)

I wonder if Al Gore could go.  His carbon footprint is being felt worldwide these days (yes, I know, he probably throws money at it to buy credits of some sort -- uh-huh), particularly in proximity to his home which uses 20 times the energy of the average American home.

Christopher Monckton points out more errors from Gore's film, as well as what he should have said.  He also had identified some errors in the IPCC 4AR SPM which the IPCC has apparently corrected albeit quietly.  Here is a very good discussion regarding the Singer/Avery book "Unstoppable Global Warming".

Could the Gore-ist consensus be wrong?  And, if they are, what will be the consequences to the Royal Society?  (Nil, probably.)

Anyway, I think everyone is giving Al Gore too hard a time.  He's just doing his thing like the rest of us.  After all, a 20' rising sea level lifts all boats, right?

Console Goals

Who needs real life soccer when you have kids all over the world putting their best FIFA and WE/PE goals online?

Sunday, February 25, 2007

EPL Fantasy League Team

I only joined the EPL Fantasy league in mid December, so I'm really just a-learnin' until things start up again in the summer.  Your 'captain' gets twice the points on the week - keepers and defenders get points for clean sheets, people get points for goals and assists, etc.  I've made lots of trades, but -- right now -- my team looks like this:

It's pretty Scouser-loaded, eh?

Beavers of New York

I guess this could be considered a pseudo-Gore Effect -- not seen in the wild within NYC city limits in 200 years, a beaver has been spotted.  Sensing that 20 foot sea level rise only decades away, Nature's Evil Land Developer has shown up to stake his claim!

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Britney, Sgt. Pepper, Craig Ferguson

Letterman Top Ten:  Top Ten Messages on Britney Spears' Answering Machine

Via Damian, here are scenes from a truly truly truly bad movie.  Steve Martin, Shame On You.  All of you - Shame!  I love the YouTube commenter:  That is so cool that the Beatles loved this movie so much they made an album based off of this.

And, here's some Craig Ferguson.  Just because he is frakking funny.  Like, all the time.

Friday, February 23, 2007

EU Bravery

Last week's headlines tell the brave tale of EU Environment Ministers who are ratcheting up the Kyoto targets, or is that post-Kyoto I guess, and also talking much larger commitments by 2050.

European Union environment ministers agreed Tuesday on an ambitious target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 in one of the boldest moves yet to contain global warming -- a goal likely to lead to mandatory limits for cars and pollution allowances for airlines.

But the goal -- to cut emissions to 20 per cent below their 1990 levels -- could put a heavy burden on the EU's newest members, and it was unclear how much of the load wealthier nations would shoulder.

The ministers said the target could be pushed up to 30 per cent below the 1990 levels if other industrial countries sign on to a global effort.

So, you'd want to even inflict more pain upon yourselves in the face of Developing World emissions.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said many European colleagues had spoken of a moral duty toward future generations during the talks.

"Those who took the floor said that their daughters asked them exactly what they did when they came to such meetings and did they come home with good results,'' he said. "I think that's a pretty good incentive.''

The target, which must be approved at an EU summit next month, is a critical first step in a global warming strategy that must be in place by the time the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The protocol requires 35 industrial nations to cut carbon dioxide and other harmful gases collectively by five per cent from 1990 levels.

The EU ministers called for UN-led talks to finish by 2009 to fix a new climate-change goal after Kyoto expires. The next agreement should include the United States -- which rejected Kyoto -- and other less-developed polluting countries like India, China, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa.

Yes, China and others are bound to follow your lead.

President George W. Bush has kept the United States -- by far the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed by scientists for global warming -- out of the Kyoto treaty, saying it would harm the U.S. economy.

He was just repeating what Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry told him in that 95-0 Senate vote.

The Bush administration has said it is committed instead to advancing and investing in new technologies to combat global warming.

A UN climate official praised the new European target as a milestone in efforts to bring down emissions from industrial countries by 60 to 80 per cent by mid-century, which scientists say is necessary to curb the Earth's potentially disastrous rising temperatures.

The decision is "quite dramatic,'' said John Hay, spokesman for the UN Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn, Germany. "But it cannot be a stand-alone target.'' If other nations don't follow suit, "it won't have the desired effect.''

I believe, though, an alternate headline might be:  Since EU Environment Ministers KNOW that the US, China, India, Brazil, etc are not about to sign on to some restrictive agreement, they're happy to blab on about just about anything.

Meanwhile, more evidence that the sun is the primary driver of climate change keep emerging.

"our present climate is in an ascending phase on its way to attaining a new warm optimum," due to some form of solar variability. In addition, they note that "a recent modeling study suggests that an apparent 1500-year cycle could arise from the superimposed influence of the 90 and 210 year solar cycles on the climate system, which is characterized by both nonlinear dynamics and long time scale memory effects (Braun et al. 2005)."

Well, there are those sunspots to watch out for...

Predicting Cycles 24 and 25

The Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model is enabling NCAR scientists to predict that the next solar cycle, known as Cycle 24, will produce sunspots across an area slightly larger than 2.5% of the visible surface of the Sun. The scientists expect the cycle to begin in late 2007 or early 2008, which is about 6 to 12 months later than a cycle would normally start. Cycle 24 is likely to reach its peak about 2012.

What about Cycle 25 again?

"Cycle 24 will be strong. Cycle 25 will be weak. Both of these predictions are based on the observed behavior of the conveyor belt."

How do you observe a belt that plunges 200,000 km below the surface of the sun?

"We do it using sunspots," Hathaway explains. Sunspots are magnetic knots that bubble up from the base of the conveyor belt, eventually popping through the surface of the sun. Astronomers have long known that sunspots have a tendency to drift—from mid solar latitudes toward the sun's equator. According to current thinking, this drift is caused by the motion of the conveyor belt. "By measuring the drift of sunspot groups," says Hathaway, "we indirectly measure the speed of the belt."

Using historical sunspot records, Hathaway has succeeded in clocking the conveyor belt as far back as 1890. The numbers are compelling: For more than a century, "the speed of the belt has been a good predictor of future solar activity."

If the trend holds, Solar Cycle 25 in 2022 could be, like the belt itself, "off the bottom of the charts."

I wonder ~ is the looming climate disaster we've been warned about actually have more to do with an observed lack of warming and an associated loss of research funding?!  OMG!  It's only about 15 years away!!  Seriously, who knows - I note the solar cycle during the 60s was high and this was a relative cool period during the 20th century.  Still, looks like Cycle 25 will be lower than anything seen during the 20th century ~ the one around 1890 appears to be comparable.

Later:  a bit of a skirmish between someone from Climate Audit (not McIntyre, btw) and Gavin Schmidt of Real Climate.  Go here, then here,

But you are trying to insinuate that CO2 rises now are not anthropogenic - they are, and no amount of your posturing changes that.

The funny thing is Gavin, is that I’m pointing out that the ice cores both of the millenial scale and the higher resolution ones show that carbon dioxide and methane RISE AND FALL NATURALLY with a delay response on the order of eight centuries. All of them show that without exception. So working back, eight centuries ago, was the Medieval Warm Period, a period when temperatures appeared to be higher, if not just as high as they are today. So even if mankind had remained with a small population in the Stone Age, carbon dioxide rise would be expected to happen as a result of natural climatic variation as a delayed response.

If carbon dioxide was this dread greenhouse forcing that you claim it to be, and “higher than its ever been in X thousand years”, then it begs the question as to why the current climate is so unremarkable in the context even of the Holocene. I might remind you that 6-8 thousand years ago during the Holocene Maximum, the Sahara desert wasn’t a desert but covered in jungle, with large lakes and large meandering rivers full of hippos and crocodiles. Also at that time, the treelines in both North and South Hemispheres were much higher altitudinally as well as latitudinally than they are today. Even 2000 years ago, the Alps were almost devoid of ice. Even 1000 years ago, the treelines of Scandinavia and Russia were c100-150 km north of their present extent.

I do not claim that carbon dioxide is not currently rising, nor do I claim (nor anyone else I know) that the current carbon dioxide rise does not have some anthropogenic component. The question is why do you constantly refer to the climate of the past as if natural variation were negligable when all properly done paleoclimatic studies show the precise opposite? No GW skeptic I know of denies climate change - in fact they consistently make the case that climate is always changing, and on all timescales.

It is only from the Hockey Stick and similarly poorly done statistical studies that such a notion that the natural climate variation is small or negligible. But as has been found from multiple wholly independent and knowledgeable statistical authorities, those multiproxy studies are riddled with basic and fundamental mistakes that invalidate their claims and with which you, Mann, Connelley and the rest fail to come to terms with.

I do not support the idea that there is such a thing as a “pre-industrial climate” or a “pre-industrial temperature” because such notions presuppose negligible natural climatic variation, something never seen in any properly calibrated temperature proxy nor any historical record - instead they show the reverse: large climatic variation which is natural in origin.

The Greenhouse forcing hypothesis fails tests where it predicts phenomena that are not occurring such as the Arctic Polar Amplification and even fails to predict Antarctic Cooling except by reference to post hoc rationalization. It also predicts increased storminess outside of the natural cyclical nature of the climate which cannot be seen except by an extraordinary appeal that all or nearly all climate variation seen today cannot be natural. GW theory is used not to predict future climate change to to rewrite the past, a past history which refuses to conform to the all-encompassing theory of Greenhouse Gases. That is what the climate models are for, not to predict the future because they make no falsifiable predictions on any testable timescale but to rewrite the past according to an orthodox belief that appears immune to disproof.

then here.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Dark Ages Cold Period

A few years back, not many of us had heard of something called the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age.  Even today, it doesn't seem to have become part of the Gore-ist 'consensus' view; indeed, these periods are anathema to that consensus view.

Further un-consensusism is discussion of the Roman Warm Period.  I think I only would have heard of the RWP around mid-2006.

In Brian Fagan's "The Little Ice Age", he did discuss the MWP and its associated prosperity.  It made me wonder though what we knew about the period leading up to the MWP in terms of climate and social history.  They were the Dark Ages, after all.  If the MWP was, as the name would imply, 'warm', was the period preceding it relatively cool?  Was this period between the RWP and the MWP more or less 'normal' or was it a period of colder, more unstable weather?

[Btw, a lot of the GW talk speaks to coming instability in weather patterns for the 21st century.  Well, read Fagan's book and ask yourself if the people who lived through the Little Ice Age would have traded our predicted future weather for the harsh, unstable weather that they experienced during those centuries.]

I inquired at Climate Audit,

Is the period between the RWP (Roman Warm Period) and the MWP (Medieval Warm Period) named, climate-wise?

Steve Sadlov kindly replied,

It’s called the Dark Ages Cold Period. There are a number of pieces of evidence for a certain amount of correlation between the cold and drying climate especially in West Asia and East Europe, and the horrendous geopolitical events of the time.

Now, I'm *not* saying that it was the only factor, but it is reasonable, I think, to suppose that climate did indeed help provide the conditions for the success or failure of human civilisations over the millenia -- aside from Fagan's "The Little Ice Age", read "The Long Summer".  Not too long following the Holocene Optimum, some of the earliest human civilisations began to arise:  the Mesopotamian civilisation of Sumer is believed to have begun around 6000 yrs BP; the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt occurred about 5200 yrs BP - cattle herding had begun in the region about 8000 yrs BP; the Norte Chico civilisation of South America began about 5000 yrs BP.

So, what about the Dark Ages and climate?  The Roman Empire had to do with its organisation, but did it also not have to do with wealth and prosperity?  If the conditions that created the prosperity over which the Romans grew their empire changed, could this not have an effect on the foundations of Rome?  Was it all inter-royal family intrigue and malaise?

Two thousand years ago, the Roman Empire was nearing its greatest extent (the year 117 under Trajan).

Within three centuries, it had collapsed.  Many reasons are offered as part of the explanation, but could climate change have played a part?

A study of the this period in the Pacific NW coast of North America found,

What was learned
Reyes et al.'s analysis indicated there had been "a widespread glacier advance during the first millennium AD ... along an ~2000 km transect of the Pacific North American cordillera" that was "centered on AD 400-700."

What it means
The eleven researchers concluded that "the synchroneity of this glacier advance and inferred cooling over a large area suggest a regional climate forcing and, together with other proxy evidence for ... regional climate amelioration ca. AD 850-1200 (Hu et al., 2001) during the Medieval Warm Period (Cook et al., 2004; Moberg et al., 2005), and subsequent Little ice Age glacier expansion (Larocque and Smith, 2003; Wiles et al., 2004), are consistent with a millennial-scale climate cycle in the North Pacific region."

We additionally add that since all of the major ups and downs in temperature that produced the multi-century warm and cold periods that preceded the Current Warm Period occurred during a time of rather steady atmospheric CO2 concentration, there is no reason to believe that the final "up" that produced the Current Warm Period was caused by anything other than the most recent natural warming phase of the well-established millennial-scale climatic oscillation that produced the earlier warmings that led to the development of the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods. Also of significance is the fact that this important millennial-scale climatic oscillation operates globally, as is suggested by Reyes et al.'s comment that "glacier advances during the first millennium AD have also been documented in the Canadian Rocky Mountains (Luckman, 1996), Iceland (Gudmundsson, 1997), the European Alps (Holzhauser et al., 2005) and New Zealand (Gellatly et al., 1988)."

This Wiki discussion of the Early Middle Ages yields more,

Starting in the second century, various indicators of Roman civilization began to decline, including urbanization, seaborne commerce, and population. Only 40 percent as many Mediterranean shipwrecks have been found for the third century as for the first.^[2] The population of the Roman Empire shrank from 65 million in 150 to 50 million in 400, a decline of more than 20 percent. Some have connected this to the Dark Age Cold Period (100-700), when there was a decline in temperature globally which reduced agricultural harvests.^[3]

Why should we care whether it was cold then?  There are lots of reasons that relate directly to present-day and future public policy, but another main reason is that it was our history.  If there were periods of cooler and warmer weather, it's important that this history be upheld and not 'smoothed' over like unwanted data on a graph.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Squeaky-Voiced Teen on Climate Change

Look to the skiis! 

Squeaky-voiced Teen makes a good point, I think, relating to Climate Change ~ that we do have to consider the new evidence that appears to be mounting relating to the influence of our good old Sun and Cosmic Rays that hit the Earth.

With the increasing solar/cosmic ray evidence, along with information we have on the climate sensitivity of CO2, and the evidence we have from Earth's climate history, and the huge questions relating to the models, and the apparent divergence between consensus predictions and actual climate behaviour, one does get the strong feeling that Al Gore & Friends have made an Enormous Blunder in hitching up to the CO2 Wagon.

If it is the case that the Sun's active magnetic field has been blocking Cosmic Rays that would otherwise have helped form low-level clouds that would help cool us, then in the fight against Global Warming it may be that we have no alternative but to take even more drastic measures than almost anyone has ever considered...

Since the beginning of time, Man has yearned to destroy the sun!

Monday, February 12, 2007

Fulton film

A long-forgotten short 'news-reel' film of Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech at Fulton, Mo, from March 1946 has been recovered.

"That video is absolutely fantastic. Its amazing what comes to light so many years after the event," said Dr. Rob Havers, Churchill Memorial Executive Director. We've got some film footage of Churchill's day in Missouri. Nothing of that quality. The color brings it alive in a way that you can't with black and white photography."

As we played and replayed the one minute, 42 second video, word spread around the museum of the new discovery and the audience got bigger.

"I have to tell you that this is historically significant. There are scenes here that we don't have," said John Hensley Museum curator. "And its in color and there's only one other color segment that I know of and its in 8MM. Nowhere near this quality."

"It really gives you a sense of the day. In just a short minute-forty two," said Rob Crouse Westminster director of College relations. "You get a sense of what it was like to be there and get a sense of the crowd."

Churchill's speech, which he himself titled "The Sinews of Peace", outlined the Soviet threat in that the aggressor would always challenge a balance-of-power situation and called upon the West to join together to ensure that the Soviets would never achieve that balance.  It came at a time when the US and the other Allies were in no mood for further conflict with the Soviets and appeared content to let them have their way.  But, Churchill knew that the Second World War ended in both 'Triumph and Tragedy' in that Hitlerism was destroyed while Soviet Communism held sway over Eastern Europe.  Churchill's warning garnered him a label as a 'warmonger' and just about everyone was quick to either distance themselves from Churchill's remarks or outright denounce them.  But Reagan would later call the speech "a firebell in the night, a Paul Revere warning that tyranny was once more on the march."  In spite of all the denunciations, Churchill did succeed in warning the West and his strategy was eventually adopted.

An important look at one of history's most important speeches.  What else is out there?  To your parents' attics!

Graph neglected

Here's a chart Al Gore won't be showing during his Oscar acceptance slideshow ~ the Hadley Center's estimate on what full implementation of Kyoto might accomplish by 2050.  I assume that even 'full implementation' does not include Developing World emissions which would negate the Kyoto implementation many times over (via Friends of Science).

And here's an article that Al probably won't be quoting.  Nigel Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, writes

Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.

The Chinese population doubled then, while in Europe the Vikings and cathedral-builders prospered. Fascinating relics of earlier episodes come from the Swiss Alps, with the rediscovery in 2003 of a long-forgotten pass used intermittently whenever the world was warm.

What does the Intergovernmental Panel do with such emphatic evidence for an alternation of warm and cold periods, linked to solar activity and going on long before human industry was a possible factor? Less than nothing. [...]

He co-authors Svensmark's new book, The Chilling Stars

We are not exaggerating, we believe, when we subtitle it “A new theory of climate change”.

Where does all that leave the impact of greenhouse gases? Their effects are likely to be a good deal less than advertised, but nobody can really say until the implications of the new theory of climate change are more fully worked out.

The reappraisal starts with Antarctica, where those contradictory temperature trends are directly predicted by Svensmark’s scenario, because the snow there is whiter than the cloud-tops. Meanwhile humility in face of Nature’s marvels seems more appropriate than arrogant assertions that we can forecast and even control a climate ruled by the sun and the stars.

... or, I would add, 'climate, period'.

It will be interesting to watch all this unfold over the years.  What does it take for paradigm shift?  There is now a great deal of inertia on the consensus/CO2 side.  If people like Svensmark and Shaviv are correct, and CO2 is much less of a driver of climate change (Shaviv believes that it had less of a role during the 20th century but should have more of a role in the 21st), then how to we adjust to that, collectively speaking?  What will it take?  Despite all the warnings of sinister oil company funding, there is a great deal of power and money wrapped up in the 'consensus' camp.  One would hope that the IPCC will start to look at this stuff soon ~ I understand that the next AR will deal with 'adaptation'; I would guess then that the mandate to review the background science isn't even there and it may take another AR or two to bring the solar/cosmic evidence into the picture (and there may be a lot more of it in 5 or 10 years' time).

Lubos Motl has more on cosmoclimatology.

Meanwhile, petrolhead Jeremy Clarkson is making some eco-enemies!

Saturday, February 10, 2007

RLS

The Halifax International Airport has been much improved and expanded in recent years.  It now has a name:  the Robert L. Stanfield International Airport.

The late Robert Stanfield was a premier of NS and federal PC leader in the Trudeau era.  Anyway, he seemed like a decent chap, so, probably a good choice for the name.  To my mind, his service as premier is more important in this case than his federal party leadership days.

It's about time we had a named airport.  Pearson.  Trudeau.  LaGuardia.  John F. Kennedy/JFK.

I will never again say "I'm going to the airport."  I plan to avoid just using the Pearson-esque surname and adopt the initials, as in JFK.

"I'm going to RLS."  "I fly into RLS."  "Hey, could you pick me up at RLS?"

Future humans to live in parking spaces

Another shiver of protesters.  Some kind of sustainable planning group from car-less Toronto were in Hali for some conference at the Dal School of Planning.  They decided to protest against evil cars by occupying a parking space.

Braving the frigid February air, a group of Torontonians in Halifax this week for the Making Great Streets conference took over Pizza Corner on Friday afternoon, converting a salt-stained strip of pavement into a variable wonderland of outdoor activity.

From the miniature croquet game to a makeshift ice fishing hole, the young people had one message for passersby: there are better ways to use parking spaces than just parking.

"Everyone all over the world just uses them for parking, all the time," said Kelsey Carriere of the Toronto group Streets are for People. "That’s the only imaginable function of this space.

"But if you pay for the parking spot, it’s perfectly logical that you can use that space for whatever, whether you’re just sitting there listening to the radio or having a cup of coffee or making music."

Parking cars in parking spaces is downright un-Canadian!

"People are attached to their cars and addicted to their cars and need parking," Ms. Carriere said. "But as soon as you change the function of the street, people find other ways to use it, and often much better ways."

Anyway, citizens of subdivisions and more remote areas of HRM can be sure that their future holds long bicycle rides or walks into town to go to work (either that or moving their families into the Dal School of Planning).

Friendly Giant

Look up, look waaaay up.

Here's some Canadiana -- did you know that "Good Night Moon" was the first book ever read on "The Friendly Giant"?

Dead Planet Watch

Kajillionnaire Richard Branson has ponied up $25m to go to the scientist who figures out how to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.  Uh-huh.  (Tip-toeing quietly toward the exit...)

"Lethal"?  He did say "lethal", right?  The planet has a fever.  Awwww (well, it is flu and cold season).  "Scavenged".  This is the new word kids; watch for it.  Man, this kind of stuff scares me a kajillion times more than any IPCC-report-driven headline.  [Later:  Is Lubos going for the $25m?!]  Anyway, make sure there's an "OFF" button, eh Sir Richard?

What is the word used to describe a group of global warming protesters?  A "shiver"?  8-)

So, what would happen to the collective consensus of the planet if the science does in fact (eventually) hold up that solar and cosmic rays are the main drivers of climate change on Earth?  Lubos Motl has a review of science underway that might combat this geocentricism.  What then for all these current Cosmic Ray Deniers?  Maybe focusing on some Copenhagen Consensus stuff or something; hey, that would be cool.  (Very funny to hear of Copenhagen Consensus being criticized for 'prejudging issues'.)

Meanwhile, we await news that Richard Branson is grounding his Virgin fleet so as to, you know, stop adding to that lethal amount of CO2.

Friday, February 9, 2007

Sci-Fi Web-Cred

Recent looks at a few 'best of' or 'top 50/100' science-fiction novels (like here from Sept'06 and here at David's blog) pronounced to me what I had known all along in my heart of hearts ~ that I have been woefully under-read when it comes to sci-fi.  I am like the Belgium of sci-fi readers.  With an eye to some interesting reading and an accompanying boost to my sci-fi web-cred, I began around Christmas to read the following,

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin -- This was perhaps the perfect way to start; just what I was looking for.  Gender is certainly a major theme, but I was much more struck by Leguin's creation of the myths and stories of this world, the various cultures and her descriptions of life on an ice age world.

Neuromancer by William Gibson -- Well, now I am a cyberpunk.  You know, I've never seen any of the Matrix films.  Maybe it was for the best; if I ever do see them, it is better to have read this Gibson novel.  And I know where the terms 'cyberspace' and 'microsoft' come from now.

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke -- Found it kind of anachronistically lame early on, but warmed to it.  Now I know what the heck this album cover means.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller Jr. -- Holy crap this was good.  Why oh why didn't any of my friends ever tell me about this one?!  The post-nuclear holocaust Dark Ages.  Sadly, Miller's only novel.  I note on the inside cover the publisher was advertising a few other novels, including Pat Frank's "Alas, Babylon" which was the nuclear war-themed novel that I read in Grade 10 English.  (I was communicating with my Grade 10 English teacher last year and he told me that a parent had complained about the subject matter of "Alas, Babylon" saying that it scared their 15 year old too much; sadly, the teacher felt pressure to eventually drop it from the curriculum.  "Alas, Babylon" was nothing compared to "Leibowitz" - I wonder what that parent would have said to this one.  Certainly, you could find some stupid parent to complain about the subject matter of just about anything that is taught in high school English ... I dunno, violence of "Macbeth", underage sex in "Romeo & Juliet" ... so that you'd basically wind up with such bland nothingness that all you'd be teaching is grammar.)

P.S. - Brother Francis' end certainly left an impression on me!

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer -- Tremendously inventive.  The first of Farmer's 'Riverworld' series -- I'll be looking for the next in the series.

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham -- I'd seen it on film and this was one I probably should have read earlier in life, but Wyndham didn't come my way through school anyway (I remember kids in other junior highs had read 'The Chyrsalids" at least, if not this one).  Wonderful British end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it sci-fi.

Well, my webby sci-fi cred is up slightly, but there is a long way to go.  I have a number on deck though from the used bookstore excursions that resulted in the above.

Sunday, February 4, 2007

Da Toffeesss

After thumping Liverpool 3-0 at Goodison back in the fall, Everton made the 12 minute walk to Anfield yesterday to play in the Red-hosted version of the Merseyside Derby.  Although AJ as lone striker in a 4-5-1 had a great chance, Liverpool had many more chances and all the possession.  Tim Howard made some fine saves, and Everton's defence played pretty much rock solid ~ Hibbert was back from injury (allowing Phil Neville to move up on the wing), Yobo, Old Man Stubbs and Joleon Lescott out on the wing to replace Nuno Valente.

Although the announcer called Everton's strategy "a classic away game", the Liverpool manager didn't see it that way in the post-game interview.

Everton have responded angrily to Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez branding the Toffees a "small club".

The Spaniard said after Saturday's 0-0 Merseyside derby: "When you play against the smaller teams at Anfield you know the game will be narrow."

Everton chief executive Keith Wyness responded on the club website and said: "Benitez is in a minority of one in believing Everton is a small club.

"Somehow we just expect more of a Liverpool manager."

Benitez was angry with Everton's tactics in holding the Reds to a stalemate at Anfield as Liverpool fell further behind second-placed Chelsea.

Liverpool dominated possession in the 205th derby but failed to find a way through a stubborn Everton resistance.

He said: "There was only one team that wanted to win and one team that didn't want to lose, they had nine men all the time behind the ball.

"When you play against a big club, a draw is sometimes a good result."

Everton manager David Moyes was not happy with Benitez's comments.

"I would not say that about any football club anywhere," said the Everton boss. "I am disappointed that has been said.

"There is no doubt we are in the shadow of Liverpool, but we are doing our utmost to compete with them."

Moyes felt his side were unlucky not to have gained their second win over their neighbours this season.

He said: "We've taken four points off Liverpool this season, so we must be doing something right.

"There's a difference of about £100m in spending between the two clubs, but we are doing our best to bridge the gap. I would have liked to come here and put on a bigger show, but it's not an easy place to get a result and we've not done bad.

Well, certainly "a smaller club" then?

"We could even have won the game with a bit more luck."

Wyness however, was not as forgiving and felt Benitez's comments were inappropriate.

He added: "It is disappointing to hear such an unnecessary comment at the conclusion of what was such a splendid local derby."

Science publication actually considers science

This Physics World editorial says Hey, things look pretty cut and dry, but there are other voices out there.

One bona fide sceptic is Richard Lindzen, a climate physicist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, who was involved in preparing the IPCC's 2001 scientific report. While he does not dispute that the Earth is getting hotter, Lindzen thinks that, in all probability, the warming is largely the result of natural variations in the Earth's climate (see "A climate of alarm").

Lindzen believes that climate models, although rooted in physics, contain far too many uncertainties to provide accurate forecasts. Indeed, mainstream climate physicists admit their computer models are far from perfect. Writing in their feature, for example, the chief scientist of the UK's Meteorological Office and colleagues describe how hard it is to incorporate the impact of clouds, which are much smaller than the resolution of the best models. They also warn that if clouds were modelled incorrectly, climate simulations "would be seriously in error".

But this kind of stuff is a heck of a lot scarier than doom and gloom GW scenarios, if you ask me.

There is even a small band of researchers proposing various outlandish schemes to deal with the effects of climate change – an approach known as "geoengineering" (see p10 print version only). Nobel-prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, for example, has suggested pumping vast quantities of sulphur into the atmosphere to act as a huge Sun block, while others are considering sending solar reflectors into space or even painting roads white. These ideas are hugely expensive and possibly unfeasible, and it is to be hoped that we will never have to put them into action.

Da Bearsss

I'm not saying they'll win.  I'm just saying Da Bearsss.

Farley is hilarious in this one.

Summary of the Summary

Lord Monckton's summary of the IPCC's Summary for Policy Makers.  Recommended.  (via Lubos Motl).

Sources at the center of drafting say that, although the now-traditional efforts are being made to sound alarmist and scientific at the same time, key projections are being quietly cut.

One says: "Stern is dead.  The figures in the final draft ... [make Stern's report] ... look like childish panic."

Lubos also provides the Czech president's response to that 5 Minutes without power thingy.

On Thursday, before the report was released, cities like Athens and Paris turned off electricity at various place for five minutes; see the Eiffel tower above. The spokesman for Czech President Klaus, Mr Petr Hájek, described the official opinion of the Prague Castle: "You talk in categories of holocaust deniers which is clearly absolute nonsense. If you were right, we could return to the trees and deny the whole civilization. The 'five minutes without power' campaign is a ridiculous political event and people who believe these warnings are naive. We can't see obscurantism [in Czech: darkism] in natura frequently but this is an example."

Meanwhile, Nir Shaviv's review of Earth's climate and the connection with cosmic rays is well worth reading:  The Milky Way Galaxy's Spiral Arms and Ice-Age Epochs and the Cosmic Ray Connection.