Is this racist?
Yes. Discussion on CNN here.
Monthly Archives: February 2014
More on the "Drunk Arctic"
Mother Jone’s Climate Desk has an excellent and important interview with Jennifer Francis and Kevin Trenberth. I can’t really comment on it now due to lack of time but I think it is time for me to update my AA->QR->WW linkage post based on this discussion. I’ll also bring this into my next talk on Climate Change, possibly in Plymouth sometime during the next couple of months (still being arranged).
Anyway, CLICK HERE to get the blog post by Chris Mooney which includes the stream of the Inquiring Minds Podcast.
Also, thanks to Chris for asking the question I suggested. Very interesting answer.
“Climate Disruption in Missouri: Consequences and Solutions”
I have some information on an interesting event coming up in Union, Missouri, in case you happen to be in the neighborhood:
“Climate Disruption in Missouri: Consequences and Solutions”
Date/Time: April 17, 2014 from 7pm to 9pm
Location: East Central College, Union, MO
Format: 60 to 75 minutes of presentations and 45 to 60 minutes of open forum discussion
Audience: Expected to be between 100 and 150
Synopsis: Missouri business leaders, educators and environmentalists discuss dangers and opportunities related to human-caused climate change in Missouri.
Climate change is disrupting the lives of our citizens, costing billions in damages, harming our economy and putting our state’s vital natural resources at risk.
In just the past few years, Missourians have experienced increasingly severe floods, droughts, forest fires and dangerous storms. If current trends in emissions continue, the results could be catastrophic in the decades ahead. That’s a risk we don’t need to take with our children’s future.
We can put Missourians to work now implementing common sense solutions that will benefit our economy and generate jobs. Market-based clean energy technologies present a real opportunity to reduce fossil fuel dependency and make Missouri, and America, cleaner, safer and stronger.
The speakers will share ideas for solutions on how Missouri, the Show Me State, can step up and show the country how to get it done – here and now, in Missouri.
A moderated open forum panel discussion will follow the presentations
Agenda:
Presenters and Agenda Topics (all talks are from 15 to 20 minutes):
· Larry Lazar: “From Doubtful to Alarmed: My Climate Journey”
· Dr. Johann Bruhn: “The Once and Future Missouri Forests”
· Chris Laughman: “Save Energy, Save Money and Save the Climate”
· Brian Ettling: “A Conservative Case for a Price on Carbon”
A facilitated audience Q&A of the panelists will follow the presentations
Presenter Bios:
Larry Lazar is a businessman living in Eureka with his wife Kellie and two college age children. Larry works in planning and analysis for a consumer product company, but has always had a keen interest in science and the environment. He organizes “Climate Reality-St. Louis” and speaks throughout the St. Louis region about climate change and the need for action.
Dr. Johann Bruhn is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri’s Center for Agroforestry. Dr. Bruhn has a PHD in Plant Pathology and is a leading expert in forest health. Johann has been a Climate Reality Presenter since July of 2013 and has participated in several climate communication events in central Missouri, St. Louis and France.
Chris Laughman is a Corporate Facility Manager focused on improving energy efficiency, indoor air quality, site sustainability, water conservation, proper material and resource management and corporate social responsibility. Chris serves on both the local St Louis and International IFMA Sustainability Committees and has spoken at several national conventions on the subject of business sustainability
Brian Ettling is a St. Louis resident and has been a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon for over 20 years. His ranger talks focus on climate change impacts on Crater Lake. Brian is a Climate Reality Leader and Mentor, co-founder of Climate Reality St. Louis and co-leader of the St. Louis Citizens Climate Lobby.
John McCain and Newt Gingrich are acting like Middle School Bullies
I’d love to describe the details to you but I don’t think I can ever do as good a job as Representative Henry Waxman and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. They wrote a letter to McCain and Gingrich. Gave ’em a good shellacking, they did. I love this letter so much I’m giving it to you three times. First, as a picture of the letter because it is so cool looking. Then, as a transcript so it is searchable. Then, as a link to a PDF file.
And now, here is the text, from here:
February 20, 2014
The Honorable John McCain
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510The Honorable Newt Gingrich
Gingrich Productions
4501 North Fairfax Drive
Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22203Dear Senator McCain and Mr. Gingrich:
Over the weekend, Secretary of State John Kerry gave a powerful and important speech in Indonesia about the dangers of climate change. Secretary Kerry accurately said, “When I think about the array of global threats … terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction … the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them.”
Your reaction was disappointing. Senator McCain asked, “On what planet does he reside?” Mr. Gingrich called the Secretary “delusional” and “dangerous to our safety.”
You should know that Secretary Kerry’s assessment of the risks we face is consistent with those of national security experts of unimpeachable credentials. For example:
• Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, Chief of U.S. military forces in the Pacific region, said that the biggest long-term security threat in the region is climate change because it “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.”
• General Anthony Zinni, the former Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central Command, warned, “You may also have a population that is traumatized by an event or a change in conditions triggered by climate change. … [T]hen you can be faced with a collapsing state. And these end up as breeding grounds for instability, for insurgencies, for warlords. You start to see extremism. These places act like Petri dishes for extremism and for terrorist networks.”
• Robert Gates, the former Defense Secretary, said, “over the next 20 years and more certain pressures – population, resource, energy, climate, economic, and environmental – could combine with rapid cultural, social, and technological change to produce new sources of deprivation, rage, and instability. … I believe the most persistent and dangerous threats will come less from ambitious states than failing ones that cannot meet the basic needs – much less aspirations – of their people.”
• Admiral Michael Mullen, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated, “The scarcity of an potential competition for resources like water, food and space, compounded by the influx of refugees if coastal lands are lost, does not only create a humanitarian crisis but it creates conditions of hopelessness that could lead to failed states and make populations vulnerable to radicalization.”
• Admiral John Nathan, former Commander of the U.S. Fleet Forces, predicted, “There are serious risks to doing nothing about climate change. We can pay now or we’re going to pay more later.”
• James Clapper, the Director of the National Intelligence, testified, “there will almost assuredly be security concerns with respect to … energy and climate change. Environmental stresses are not just humanitarian issues. They legitimately threaten regional stability.”
• Thomas Fingar, the former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, concluded, “We judge global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for US national security interests.”
• Hans Blix, the former chief UN weapons inspector, said he thought climate change posed a greater threat to the planet than nuclear proliferation.
You may also want to review the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, which called climate change “an accelerant of instability or conflict” that “could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments.”
These concerns about the profound risks of climate change are shared by distinguished world leaders. Last month, Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, wrote in the Washington Post, “Climate change is the biggest challenge of our time. It threatens the well-being of hundreds of millions of people today and many billions more in the future.” Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, said last year that climate change has the “potential for major social and economic disruption.” And Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, stated that if we fail to confront climate change “we could witness the rolling back of decades of development gains and force tens of millions more to live in poverty.”
You may also want to reflect on what Robert Rubin, the widely respected former Treasury Secretary, said just last month about climate change: “There are a lot of really significant, monumental issues facing the global economy, but this supersedes them all.”
Senator McCain made a particular point of criticizing Secretary Kerry for talking about climate change “when we have got 130,000 people in Syria killed.” This is an inaccurate criticism because Secretary Kerry has been devoting extensive attention to Syria. It is also uninformed. There are experts who believe that climate change and the extended drought is one of the underlying causes of the conflicts in Syria. As the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote, tensions in the Middle East have been “driven not only by political and economic stresses, but, less visibly, by environmental, population and climate stresses as well. If we focus only on the former and not the latter, we will never be able to help stabilize these societies.”
Secretary Kerry needs allies in this fight for the future of our planet. History will not look back and fault him for leading the charge to prevent the worst impacts of climate change while we still have time. But history may question why Republican leaders who were once their party’s champions on climate change fled the field at a crucial moment.
Sincerely,
Rep. Henry A. Waxman
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse
And finally, here is the link to the PDF file.
The Fall Olympics #Sochi2014
Remember the Fall Olympics in Vancouver? That was the year that skaters … not the racing ones but the dancing ones … were falling all the time as if they had some kind of special extra slippery ice on the skating rink. Well, this year, at Sochi II, we are witnessing the Fall Olympics mainly on the snow slopes and half pipe, where lousy snow conditions, caused by warm conditions with some rain, have messed everything up.
But there is an interesting twist this year. According to a piece in the New York Times, women are being affected more than men:
…most of the injuries have been sustained by women.
Through Monday night, a review of the events at the Extreme Park counted at least 22 accidents that forced athletes out of the competition or, if on their final run, required medical attention. Of those, 16 involved women. The proportion of injuries to women is greater than it appears given that the men’s fields are generally larger.
Twenty-two falls, with 16 as women, is statistically significant (Chi squared = 4.545 with 1 degrees of freedom, two-tailed P=0.0330)
Why?
Generally, but not always, women and men have different rules or equipment when they play similar sports. In basketball, the rules seem about the same, and the court and the nets are the same, but for women’s basketball the ball is slightly smaller, I’m told. For hockey, as far as I know, the equipment is the same, but women are not allowed to body slam each other. But for many other sports, including a lot of summer and winter Olympic sports, there isn’t any difference as far as I know. Obviously, when there is no need for a different set of rules or alternate gear, there shouldn’t be any difference.
Women use a different downhill course than men, shorter and with, it appears, fewer jumps. That is a little hard to understand since there is no clear difference between what the two sexes are expected to do. On the other hand, I’m not a skier. Perhaps the body strength required to not buckle under the g-forces for so long is sufficiently different for men and women. On the other hand, isn’t this mostly lower body strength, and wouldn’t women have an offsetting advantage having less bulky upper body mass to work against? Any skiers out there want to comment on this?
It is interesting to watch the half pipe. The men and women have the same pipe, the same rules, the same judging, and in the end, produce the same array of spectacular gravity defying moves. In fact, given the standard half-pipe mode of attire, it is not easy to tell which gender is doing the deed. (That could just be me … maybe I need a bigger TV.) This applies to varying degrees across most of the fancy skiing events. But the suggestion has been made that this could be changed. From the same NYT piece:
“Most of the courses are built for the big show, for the men,” said Kim Lamarre of Canada, the bronze medalist in slopestyle skiing, where the competition was delayed a few times by spectacular falls. “I think they could do more to make it safer for women.”
Think back to the afore mentioned Fall Olympics in Vancouver. As I recall, a very large proportion of the ice-dancy people fell during their performances. But in previous Olympics, and during the current Olympics, this has not been the case. Aside from some physical explanation, i.e., that Canadian Ice is extra slippery (unlikely!), I would attribute this to a behavioral syndrome. Some sort of demand for a certain kind of extra jumpy move that would lead to more slippage may have emerged in the sport, peaking at the time of the Vancouver games, and since then either all the skaters learned how to handle this with additional training and experience, or as a group, they’ve shifted their expectations.
Something similar may be happening with the Sochi snow sports. One of the downhill women’s races had several bad runs in a row, and the coaches were able to pass information on to the skiers so they could avoid one particularly bad spot on the run, a jump that was often followed by an out of control spinning off the mountain effect, so the latter half, roughly, of the runs did not abort. A similar cultural, or training related, effect may be at work at Sochi’s slopestyle event for women. Check this out:
J. F. Cusson, ski slopestyle coach for Canada and a former X Games gold medalist, said that his women’s team usually did not practice on jumps as large as the ones the men use, for fear of injury.
“But when they compete, they have to jump on the same jumps, so they get hurt,” he said. “It’s a big concern of mine.”
It seems reasonable to assume that if the women trained for the setting they would be competing in, they would not have as much trouble. This vaguely reminds me of the early days of the Olympics (early 20th century, not Ancient Greek) when women were for the first time allowed to engage in a foot race, a 100 meter dash or something along those lines. It was hot, they were untrained, they wore petticoats. They all fainted. That was not because they were women unable to run. It was because they were women set up for failure, and expected to faint. I’m sure a lot of guys found that to be as hot as the weather was that day.
In a way, the Olympics are a slow and ponderous thing, since they happen only every four years. I suspect that the sex difference in wipe-out and injury rates we saw today will be attenuated in future games due not to adjustments in context or gear but rather to changes in training and preparation.
Shame on the BBC: False Balance in #ClimateChange discussion
The BBC stepped in it. First, they engaged in a totally absurd “false balance” presentation regarding climate change, then in response (link below) they aired very reasonable complaints by listeners, and to this, they responded officially that everything is fine, you can go home and lock your doors and windows, nothing to see here, our balance is in balance, thank you very much. Or words to that effect. If I was British I would be ashamed of the BBC for this, but since I’m not British I’m peeved.
Should the Today programme have invited Lord Lawson, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and now chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, to comment on climate change? On Thursday morning, as the floods across Britain continued to make the headlines, Feedback listeners poured scorn on a Today programme discussion between Lord Lawson and Sir Brian Hoskins, a government climate change adviser from Imperial College in London. We’ll hear why they were so angered by the debate.
Click here to listen. I think the link is already cued up where you need to be.
The commenter just after 20 minutes was brilliant.
Paul Douglas on Climate Change
Last night I attended a talk by meteorologist Paul Douglas, at the Eden Prairie High School. The talk was “Weird Weather: Minnesota’s New Normal? Our Changing Climate and What We Can Do About It,” and it was sponsored by Environment Minnesota, Cool Planet, and the Citizens Climate Lobby. I didn’t count the number of people in the audience but it was well attended (over 100, for sure). Extra chairs had to be brought in.
You probably know of Paul Douglas either because of his own fame or because I often link to (or facebook-post) his blogs at Weather Nation or the Star Tribune, and I frequently post his videos. Paul is an Evangelical Christian Republican who insists that we must adhere to the data and the science. He is outspoken on climate change, global warming, and science denialism, and he is sincere, thorough, and forceful in these areas. I consider him to be a very close ally. The contrast between what Republicans seem to think as a cultural group, and what Evangelical Christians seem to think as a cultural group, and what Paul advocates makes him, in his own words, a Human Albino Unicorn.
The talk, as something organized by three environmental activist groups, had the usual suspects in attendance. I recognized several fellow activists from the Twin Cities area, including individuals from 350.org and Obama’s OFA. I had the sense that I was attending a Democratic Farm Labor (that’s what we call Democrats ‘round these parts) convention being run by a Reasonable Republican.
Needless to say, Paul provided an excellent presentation that would have provided any skeptic sitting near the fence a gate to pass through when the moment was right. His talk would have likely convinced any dyed-in-the-wool septic in attendance to at least be quiet about the skepticism and let others take the conversation for a while. Paul tied together several reasons to respect the science and to act on it, touching on diverse perspectives including personal morality, concern for our children and grandchildren, business acumen, responsibility for the Earth’s environment, conservative political thinking, and (briefly, he did not belabor this point) religion.
Since I’m all into climate change and stuff, and give presentations on the topic myself, there wasn’t much new that hit me on the head, though I saw a lot of other heads being whacked with facts and ideas in the room. But there were two things that gave me a double take. They were both brought up in the question and answer period.
One came as part of the answer to the question, why isn’t there more climatology, and in particular, climate change, in with the weather reporting on local TV? I should note right away that this is one of the reasons you should read Paul’s blog. You get the weather AND the climatology. If you are in the Twin Cities area, his Strib Blog is the place to go. If you are elsewhere in the US or beyond, his Weather Nation blog is the place to go. There is a lot of overlap but somewhat different regional coverage. Anyway, Paul’s answer included this: On news TV, global warming is toxic. Meaning, specifically, stating the basic fact that global warming is established science is not really allowed on standard news TV, local or national. The False Balance sells, admitting the facts is boring. More importantly, stating that climate change is real and important will piss off 30% of the audience and the people running the news shows don’t want that. The anchors, including the weather reporters, are to be beloved, not reviled. So “just don’t do that” is the policy in newsrooms.
The other whack on the head was in relation to a question that I thought at first was a bit obnoxious but then I realized it was one of those questions that IS obnoxious but usefully so, and necessary. The question was, in short, “Is there anybody in this room that didn’t already believe in global warming before this talk … was anyone’s mind changed?”
One person raised their hand to indicate a changed mind (everyone cheered) but this apparent fact was left on the table: This talk didn’t do anything but reinforce everyone’s existing position. That was a bit depressing at first.
However, I think the implication and factual basis of that question were wrong. First, there were probably several climate change denialists in that room, but they simply chose not to raise their hands either because they would have been deeply embarrassed or because their mind was not changed. I recognized one person that I’ve encountered before who is a denialist, and he remained silent. I have given talks on climate change attended by people I know are denialists and they’ve stayed silent or asked questions that did not indicate their denialism. So, yes, there are people in the audience who do not “believe in global warming” and I suspect a talk like Paul’s would have an effect on them, eventually.
Also, this: Nobody should “believe in global warming.” That’s where Paul separates his own beliefs (i.e., that there should be Republicans at all 🙂 … or his religious beliefs which are based on faith) and a scientific approach to life, including both business and climate. A different question might have been, “Was there anything in Paul Douglas’s talk that you didn’t know before, about climate change, that you now know? Did you learn anything new either about climate or about how to talk about climate, in this talk?” The answer to that would have been, for almost everyone in the room, “Yes, many things.”
And this is a very important reason why “preaching to the converted” is important. Anti-climate science industrial interests spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on public engagement to develop and shore up their political position. Hundreds of millions of dollars a year buys a lot of rhetoric, but it does not buy one drop of truth. But truth by itself is not enough. Grassroots organizing and the power of citizenry, when armed with the truth, is enough to effect major change if it is sustained long enough over a sufficient range of the population (and done well). Last night’s talk was a highlight moment for local and regional activism in support of the planet we live on. Those who attended will keep Paul’s talk with them for decades, and it will supply them with tools and ideas, and perhaps most importantly, inspiration and hope, regardless of their personal staring point.
So, yeah, it was a great talk.
Amanda's Wayzata High School Science Bowl Team And Their Amazing Captain.
One of our local news stations, WCCO (Channel 4) CBS, has this story.
Blindness Isn’t Stopping This 15-Year-old H.S. Senior’s Quest For Knowledge
WAYZATA, Minn. (WCCO) – When the Wayzata Science Bowl team practices, they mean business. They just won the state championship, and they are now getting ready for nationals in Washington, D.C.
They’re all smart kids, that’s obvious, but one of them stands out — team captain Nathan Stocking.
“The other team gets intimidated,” said teammate Jayant Chaudhary, “because he doesn’t even need paper for pretty complex complications.”Stocking is a high school senior, even though he’s only 15 years old.
“Whether it’s speaking Spanish or Chinese, or if it’s programming computer scripts, or if it’s knowing every detail about a science subject, he excels in all of them,” said teacher Amanda Laden.
But something else is different about Stocking. He can’t see.“I think he was born smart,” says his mother, Karen Cotch. “He just thrives on knowledge…and we’re just the ones who try to find ways to feed it.”
Stocking lost his sight when he was only a few months old, but he’s been amazing people ever since.
“At around 8, he started taking middle school classes,” she said. “His first A.P. class, he was 11, and he went to the high school for that.”Now, he’s only at the high school for science bowl. His college-level classes are all online or through special instructors.
“I never really had a formal grade until this year,” he said.
And then there’s his music….
Olympic Snow #Sochi2014
It has become difficult to rely on natural cold and snow even in traditional winter sports venues. This is because of increased temperatures caused by global warming. This may not be the biggest problem caused by climate change, but it is one that has attracted a certain amount of helpful attention. Perhaps the North American visitation of the Arctic Vortex, which has made some people think that climate change is not real, is partly offset by a Winter Olympics with more than its share of problems, including injuries and lost medals, caused by crappy snow conditions.
Also, it is kind of a “First World Problem.” Such problems tend to receive extra attention and the demand for solutions may be more likely addressed. I imagine that the slopes of the better ski resorts are populated by a relatively high proportion of people who assume climate change can’t really affect them (because not much does), and perhaps by a larger percentage of people who feel, incorrectly, to be financially threatened by measures to curb climate change.
Meanwhile, science not only tells us that global warming is real, but it also tells us how to adapt, at least a little. From the American Chemical Association, a video on how they make snow:
Creation Science Homeschooler Science Fair
Every year the Twin Cities Creation Science Association puts on a science fair which is sometimes called the Home Schooling Creation Science Fair. It used to be held at Har Mar mall, which was great because it is always a pleasure to stop in at Har Mar. But for the last two years, including last weekend, it was held at a local Bible College. I haven’t gone every year, but most years, as does The Lorax at Angry By Choice and a variable handful of others. This year, PZ Myers also attended. (Speaking of PZ I just noticed that his book is now available as an audio edition, just so you know.)
Over the years, the number of entries has gone steadily up (this year was down from last year, but both years are up from previous years) and the quality of the entries has skyrocketed. In the old days, many of the entries would be about things like “How did Noah build the Ark” or similar topics such as how fossils are fake and evolution is too. But increasingly, the entries are about real things, and despite the required presence of a “relevant” Bible quote on each poster, most of the entries are not about “creation science” (sic) at all, but rather, about something interesting, usually science relates. Many entries are descriptive, really demonstrating how a student has learned about a particular topic, while others are reports of an experiment or set of experiments to test one or more hypothesis.
Back in the day when the fair was all about actual (fake) creation science, I did not approve. I regarded this as an attempt to brainwash innocent young children to have a very incorrect and even damaging view of the world. But now I like the Creation Science Fair for the very reason that the exhibits are of better quality and often demonstrate a child’s engagement with thinking about the world around them from a scientific perspective.
The typical visit by those of us who get get to the fair and who come from the science community involved us walking around and chatting to the students about their work. We don’t impose or cajole or make fun or anything like that. We simply contribute to the conversation, and don’t even identify ourselves as scientists. One wonders if a visit by a half dozen interested people who have a good science oriented conversations helps. I think it does.
I hope the Twin Cities Creation Science (Maybe Homeshooling) Fair keeps going. It is a good thing in a questionable context and I think it has a positive effect on the up and coming future scientists.
Also, I got a great idea for how to make a ketchup bottle that actually pours out ketchup. I also met the family I used to buy sheep from. But that’s another story.
Above photo stolen from PZ Myers.
Global Warming and Disease: Marine Mammal Parasites
Global warming, shifting ecozones and changing the climatology of large reasons, is expected to, and has already shown the ability to, affect distribution and incidence of various diseases. The brain-eating Ameba comes to mind. As it were. There is some new research by Michael Grigg of the NIH that addresses a different change.
Along with melting Arctic ice comes an erosion of natural barriers that once separated parasites from hosts.
That erosion has allowed at least two pathogens to infect marine mammals they were previously unknown in…
A newly identified parasite was once frozen safely away from grey seals (Halichoerus grypus). It has now infected some with disastrous consequences. In 2012, about 20 percent of healthy-looking grey seal pups born on Hay Island in Hudson Bay mysteriously died. The cause turned out to be a parasite that destroyed the livers of 404 pups and two adults, Grigg said.
Grigg and his colleagues found that the parasite… also infects about 80 percent of ringed seals (Pusa hispida) but doesn’t make them sick. The parasite, … Sarcocystis pinnipedi, invades cells and can cause inflammation that damages tissues…
The research was presented at the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is reported here, though it may be behind a paywall.
There are other examples. Beluga whales north of Alaska have been infected by Toxoplasma, previously unknown in the region.
Helpers at the nest and brood parasites. Coincidence? I think not….
The vast majority of the 10,000+ living species of birds are passerines, and the vast majority of those have a similar system of breeding: Mom and dad bird make a nest and share parental responsibilities roughly equally, if not identically. There are variations on that theme, of course. Even the non-passerines often follow this pattern. So, when we find a pattern that is different it is reasonable to try to explain this in adaptive terms; what features of this variant pattern provide enhanced fitness, and what ecological or social factors underly it?
There are two patterns that are fairly extreme that fall into this category: brood parasitism and helper-at-the-nest strategy. In the former, a female lays her fertilized egg in the nest of another species, in the hopes that her offspring will be raised by the unwitting hosts. In the latter, three or more adult individuals contribute to the raising of offspring. In the case of brood parasitism, made famous by the many species of Cuckoo as well as cow birds and some fiches, among others, one might expect the host birds to evolve anti-parasitism strategies. In the case of helpers-at-the-nest one might expect that this strategy arose because of certain ecological or social conditions. It turns out that the two strategies may be related. Brood parasites might parasites helper-at-the-nest species because the latter are so darn good at raising offspring under certain conditions. Or, helping-at-the-nest might be a good strategy to avoid parasitism.
A recent paper in Science, Brood Parasitism and the Evolution of Cooperative Breeding in Birds by Feeney, Medina, Somveille, et al, looks into this interesting possible relationship. …
Abrupt Climate Change
First, let me note that if you are not a regular reader of Peter Sinclair’s “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” you should be.
Peter’s latest video is “Abrupt Climate Change, and the Expected Unexpected”
Senior Scientists discuss the potential for sudden disruptions of human and natural systems as a consequence of climate change.
Is there a database of extreme weather events, globally? (Updated)
Links to sites/commentary/lists for extreme weather events.
Articles or blog posts listing events
Top 10 Global Weather Events of 2011
2012 Extreme Weather Sets Records, Fits Climate Change Forecasts
2012 Infographic on severe weather events
Weather extremes: freak conditions from around the globe for 2013
2013’s Most Terrifying Weather Disasters
2013 NOAA report on Billion Dollar Disasters (overview) and the report as a PDF file is here
Timelines, official lists, maps, etc.
State of the Climate: Extreme Events
Severe weather information centre
NOAA list of daily weather records (US)
A TikiToki of extreme weather and climate events for 2013
2013 Significant Climate Anomalies and Events map from NOAA
Other related items
Extreme Weather Events, Maps of the World
Climate Communication: Current Extreme Weather & Climate Change
Extreme Weather Events Signal Global Warming to World’s Meteorologists
NOAA’s page on extreme events with lots of links
This post has info on Winter 2103-2104: A Weird Winter of Extremes, via Climate Nexus
Twin Cities Creation Science Fair 2014
As PZ Myers points out, it is time for the Twin Cities Creation Science Fair! It is this Saturday, details here. Lorax is going.
Normally, those of us from the science community who go to this simply show up and wander around looking at the exhibits and talk science to the kids. No shenanigans. Also, we often go to a nearby venue and get lunch. Last year it was Grumpy’s.
Over the years, I think, the quality of the exhibits has gone up and the attention to the usual “creation science” myths has gone down. I like to think that a bunch of evolutionary biologists showing up every year has made a difference.
They still put Bible quotes on every exhibit, of course.