Global Warming Happening Much Slower Than Expected?

Back in 2010, President Obama suggested NASA refocus its energies a little bit on using satellites to observe Earth's weather and gather more data on climate change.

Well apparently they did, and boy is it surprising:

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Well, I for one am actually glad of this. It should relieve my ancestors to know that their reckless industrialism may not have destroyed the future as quickly as feared. The extreme weather of the last few years is simply that: an extreme. Not the new normal. Or at least, the if the new normal is hot, it isn't as likely caused by humans as it is the natural sway and variation of the Earth itself.

However, even if we can breathe a (cool) sigh of relief about global temperatures, it does not mean humans aren't absolutely destroying the Earth. Here, I point to harvested fish biomass reductions and a beautiful (though apocalyptic) graphic by David McCandless:

Global temperatures have little or nothing to do with the way we are fishing the oceans. Or the way we are causing (through agriculture and hunting/harvesting) the most massive extinction event in 75million years.

But at least when aliens visit our lifeless blue marble in a few thousand years, having traveled here with utmost speed, excited to meet us, after receiving our first radio transmissions into deep space in the 1940's...and they arrive here only to exhume the ruins of our long gone and mostly eroded civilizations...at least then the weather will be nice.


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White Roofs

Sullivan starts a thread on white roofs. This Duke University prof confuses me by arguing that white roofs are so good at cooling that in the winter (anything can be argued true when you can point to a somewhat-related scientific study!) you'll have to provide extra heat to offset the lack of sun heating the normally black roof. This extra heating is greater than (the article and Dr. Chameides argue) the decrease in cooling needed during the summer, therefore white roofs are a plague on the world and cause increased carbon dioxide production.

I'm no NOAA scientist running calculations and I have to give them credit, but something here seems really fishy to me. And I think the problem is that they've de-regionalized a sustainability solution. On a global scale, they argue (and admit the limitation of the argument) that white roofs are a net negative. But they also concede that air conditioning isn't available in many places, nor are Energy Star appliances.

This leads me back to what I've been arguing for quite some time: in order for sustainability to work it needs to be regionalized. Although water conservation in general is a good idea (or rather wasting water is a bad idea), it doesn't make sense for an architect designing a building in Missouri to put in low-flow toilets when that architect could save money on normal toilets and use that money instead on better wall and attic insulation. In New Mexico, it makes more sense to focus on solar installation and water conservation. In Minnesota focus on better insulation for homes.
Look, sustainability is important, and as TPI once smartly pointed out: its easy and the technology is readily available to decrease our carbon consumption through efficiency gains rather than futuristic clean energy concepts like fusion. But sustainability cannot be applied with a broad brush. Especially when climates vary, societal pressures vary, etc.

So while white roofs put on every roof on the planet might not be a net gain...its still a really good idea for a lot of areas.


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Competing Headlines Battle It Out!

MSNBC: Fewer people buy homes, but prices rise.
CNN: Home Prices dip 4.5%

Amazingly, both these articles have the same content.


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The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization

$263,000,000 for a movie about teen vampires. Meanwhile...


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Curbing College Costs by Ending University Athletics, Ctd

Andrew Sullivan points to this Wilbon piece suggesting that colleges should pay collegiate athletes:

If the student as athlete can find a way, he/she should be able to endorse products, to have paid-speaking gigs, to sell memorabilia, as Allen Sack, the author and professor at the college of business at the University of New Haven has suggested in recent years. The best college athletes in the two revenue-producing sports have always been worth much more than tuition, room, board and books. The best football and basketball players in the Big Ten have produced to the degree that a television network has become the model for every conference in America, a network worth at least tens of millions of dollars to the member institutions. Yet, no player can benefit from that work. The players have become employees of the universities and conferences as much as students -- employees with no compensation, which not only violates common decency but perhaps even the law.

Sullivan adds a follow up from a reader:

Some will say that the free college education is reward enough.  Others will say that college sports is supposed to be amateur athletics, and still others will point out that all the money the schools receive from the "big sports" go to fund the less popular sports.
But the people saying these things are ignoring the reality of the situation.  The kind of athlete who would like to get paid illegally today does not value their education the way you or I would.  These people are invested in their hands, their legs, their bodies; the skills they have to offer the world are physical, not mental (in most cases).  An elite athlete's life after sports will be relatively the same whether they have a college degree or not.  Besides, most of these students who do play professional sports never finish their degree.

What's the point of a college? I ask this question seriously.  The answer I would give is this: the point of a college is to provide people (of any age) a place to obtain an education and/or skills that will enable them to have a job that an non-college-educated person could not do. That and that alone is the point of a college.

Now, I recognize that in order for a college to recruit and retain top-level educators as well as in order to lure high-potential graduate students, they must also allow the professors to do their own research, and subsidize the education of the graduate students in exchange for their work under the tutelage of these professors. Therefore, colleges have grant-writing facilities and laboratories and all the things professors need so they can have the fun while they aren't preoccupied with the doldrums involved in educating tomorrow's leaders.

Further, while I've argued before, half-jokingly, that University-Sponsored Athletics Should Be Abolished, I am not so naive as to believe there is no place for it. I recognize that Saturday afternoon football games are a great way to lure back Alumni aka donors and certainly many of those donors provide important revenue to the school, either by way of donation or less directly by sending their children to the school who then are charged tuition.

However, one thing a college is NOT is a venue for some enterprising young athlete to advertise his money-making skills to the commercial marketplace in order to secure a lucrative sports drink contract. Nor is a college athletic program simply an entertainment provider for the TV watchers of America. If 18-year-olds believe they have the skills necessary to excel at professional athletics, playing on a college team with no intention to graduate does neither them nor the college a service. In fact, having a "one-and-done" star on the school roster is a massive drain on resources:
- The recruiting staff has spent a small fortune trying to win the allegiance of this player.
- The education the athlete will laugh off will be subsidized through scholarships...which is paid for either by taxpayer subsidies or by offsetting it with higher tuition across the rest of the student body.
- Tutors are often hired by the University under the auspices of helping these students to pass.

 Finally, there's the casuality implied in a statement like "besides, most of these [student athletes] who do play professional sports never finish their degree." Thank you for succinctly summarizing the entire problem.

Here's something to chew on: of the 450 or so underclassmen that will quit college early to enter the NFL draft next year, only 70% of them will get drafted. Of the ones that do get drafted, less than 20% will still be in the NFL in 4 years. That means roughly 86% of these guys will be on the street. And of those unlucky guys, their college-football-playing counterparts who finished college but never even went to the NFL will end up making $600,000 more during their careers than the fellas who skipped their senior year in search of a fast buck.

But by all means, let's even further monetize college athletics by allowing "student athletes" to take endorsement deals.


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The Three Rules of Modern American Economics

 Another apt title for this post would be "why I'm a liberal."

The above chart has, for several months now, floated around the internet and irritated me like no other graphic I can remember. Partially it is because it is so obviously true, and partially because I know the truth of it is as inescapable as gravity.

The Three Rules of Modern American Economics
Rule 1: Rich get richer. Everyone else gets stagnant.
Rule 2: Repeat Rule 1.
Rule 3: Pretend Rule 1 isn't true.

I think this is pretty cynical of me, but I also think it's absolutely true.


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Unobtainium

I love these "mine the moon" concepts because they are so far-fetched. Here's a run down of the plan:
1) Set up $20 billion Moon base
2) Strip mine huge areas of the Lunar surface for Helium-3
3) Ship Helium-3 back to Earth for use as a fuel source for yet-to-be-invented fusion reactors
4) Repeat 2-3 while also paying for maintenance of Moon base.
Meanwhile:
5) Invent a fusion reactor with positive output
6) Build fusion reactor (several billion dollars)

I';m suddenly reminded of the movie Avatar (2009), in which the humans arrive on "Pandora" and set up an expensive mining operation to extract hilariously-named "unobtainium" which has a value of "20 million a kilo."

Back in reality, Harrison Schmitt, the advocate for this Helium-3 Lunar strip mining operation suggests the Helium-3 is worth at least "1.5 million a kilo"

The question I have to ask is this: how is this possibly a better solution than solar panels? Isn't it pretty common knowledge that all the world's electricity needs could be met with widespread adoption of solar?
Or, if this were to be an American-only operation and not some sort of international Helium-3 mining cooperative, the numbers become even more ludicrous. All America could easily be powered by solar energy into the next century for less money, with less risk to human life, and perhaps most importantly of all: solar panels can be purchased from companies that don't have a 60 year relationship with the DoD. Solar can be sourced from new startups. Solar companies could set up manufacturing facilities for all that power here in the U.S., and make a positive economic/jobs push.

I am no critic of fusion power. I have lauded it more than once on this blog. But sourcing fusion fuel from the Moon? Really? Maybe while we are up there we can extract all that water they say is trapped in the regolith. And we can find that Transformers crash site, too.

Now, I should point out that I've approached the ideas of Harrison Schmitt with more than a little cynicism before. Back in May, Schmitt outlined a post-NASA organization for space exploration he called the NSEA that basically was just NASA, rebooted. Last time he wanted a Moon base to keep it out of the hands of the Chinese. This time he wants a Moon base for Helium-3 mining. What will he try next?


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The Exobrain

Typically I razz on Jonah Lehrer, but this article about the internet's effect on human memory is spot on, and makes an incredibly valid point:

And this is where the internet comes in. One of the virtues of transactive memory is that it acts like a fact-check, helping ensure we don’t all descend into selfish solipsism. By sharing and comparing our memories, we can ensure that we still have some facts in common, that we all haven’t disappeared down the private rabbit hole of our own reconsolidations. In this sense, instinctually wanting to Google information – to not entrust trivia to the fallible brain – is a perfectly healthy impulse. (I’ve used Google to correct my errant memories thousands of times.) I don’t think it’s a sign that technology is rotting our cortex – I think it shows that we’re wise enough to outsource a skill we’re not very good at. Because while the web enables all sorts of other biases – it lets us filter news, for instance, to confirm what we already believe – the use of the web as a vessel of transactive memory is mostly virtuous. We save hard drive space for what matters, while at the same time improving the accuracy of recall.

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Friday Poetry Burst

Well, not literal poetry today, but when Chaplin performed it, it was basically poetry nonetheless.

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible -- Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me I say, "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers: Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers: Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, "the kingdom of God is within man" -- not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite!! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise!! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

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Weekly Devotional

Once again, I came up in the rotation at church:

So I tried to explain to my 3-year-old Ava what "the purpose" of something is. For example the purpose of a refrigerator is to keep things cold. The purpose of a car is to carry people around from place to place. The purpose of a fork is to pick up food. However things became very hazy (i.e. Daddy became stumped) when I tried to explain what the purpose of a person was. There are some easy ones. For example, apparently the purpose of a grandparent is to spoil a granddaughter and give her popsicles even when her father thinks she doesn't especially deserve one.

But if Ava had asked me "what is your purpose, Daddy?" I would have had a real problem. Because honestly I don't know what my purpose is. Is my purpose to raise my kid? To work my job? To love my wife? All the above? Or am I meant for some "higher" purpose, like inventing a new form of power, or building water purification devices for people in the Third World, or curing cancer? It's a scary notion to accept that I really don't know the answer to that. I wake up most days, go to work, come home, hang out with my family, and go to bed having not once wondered how the activities of that day fit into a larger scheme for my life. I'd end the day never having asked myself whether I had really made any progress on my life's purpose. Of course this realization is unacceptable. I should have a purpose!

So I picked up my Bible to see if God could help me find a purpose for my life. Of course, the answer had been right in front of me the entire time.

A teacher of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him: "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" Answered Jesus: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. And Love your neighbor as yourself."

It turns out that my purpose is the same as yours, the same as everyone's: to love. Maybe at the end of the day I shouldn't be asking myself if that day was part of some grand cancer-curing process, or if that day had been spent working toward building an engineering empire. Instead, at the end of the day I should simply stop and ask myself "Did I love today?" And this is true for all of us. Our lives, careers, families, and personal goals are all highly varied, but this one purpose is universal among us all.

Helen Keller once wrote that happiness comes from "fidelity to a worthy purpose."  What worthier purpose is there from which to derive happiness than a consistent and overt attempt to love each and every person we meet? It certainly isn't easy. But a worthy life's purpose shouldn't be easily accomplished. A life's purpose should be something challenging, radical, and noble. But most importantly, having "to love" as a purpose allows us to measure our progress each and every day. Maybe some days we won't make progress, we'll regress. For example when I was cut off on the highway this morning and then almost rear-ended someone...I definitely did not love. But I've got the rest of the day to work on it. And the rest of my life too.

By the way, I did a better job at loving on the drive to work this morning. So, there's progress.


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