Monthly Archives: September 2014

Ten Thousand Birds

Birds, Books, , , , , ,

There are over 10,000 species of bird on the Earth today. There is one blog called “10,000 Birds” for which I write a monthly article, in case you did not know. But this post is about Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology Since Darwin, a book by Tim Birkhead, Jo Wimpenny and Bob Monegomerie.

Birds and various studies of birds are central to evolutionary theory and the development of all of the surrounding biology and science. Here’s a short list of key roles birds have played in evolutionary biology:

<li>Darwin's study of pigeon breeding was central to <a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/41349/biblio/9780674637528?p_ti' title='More info about this book at powells.com' rel='powells-9780674637528'>On the Origin of Species</a> and later works. </li>

<li>The Galapagos <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/02/14/charles-darwin-finches/">finches</a> and other birds, observed by Darwin during <a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/41349/biblio/9781626365605?p_ti' title='More info about this book at powells.com' rel='powells-9781626365605'>The Voyage of the Beagle</a> were also key in the development of his work.</li>

<li>Darwin's work involved a great deal of other birds, such as <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/02/13/darwin-and-the-voyage-10-rheas-1/">the Rhea</a> and helped shape his thinking about species.</li>

<li>Skipping past many examples, and far ahead in time, The Sibley–Ahlquist taxonomy was the first major application of DNA to develop phylogeny. </li>

<li>As described in <a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/41349/biblio/9780679733379?p_ti' title='More info about this book at powells.com' rel='powells-9780679733379'>The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time</a>, the Grants' study of finches in the Galapagos advanced evolutionary theory with detailed tests of Darwin's models, and influenced <a href="http://gregladen.com/wordpress/wp-content/pdf/Laden_Wrangham_Roots.pdf">one of the most important works on the origin of humans</a>. </li>

<li>Birds have often been used as examples in teaching evolution.  Have a look at this example: <a href="http://10000birds.com/a_new_case_study_of_natural_selection_in_birds.htm">It May Be Hard To Swallow, But Bumpus Could Get Bumped To The Back Burner</a> </li>

Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology Since Darwin is an absolutely spectacular book. It is big and heavy and over 500 pages long. It is dark green like all great scholarly books. Despite it’s great lenght it has only 11 chapters, so you know the material is treated in depth. It has dozens and dozens of pages of notes and references. It has an appendix with a list of 500 ornithologists. It has a separate appendix with a list of ornithologies.

That’s all nice but the meat of the book is in those long intense chapters. These chapters provide a very thorough, detailed, and fascinating history of ornithology, often focusing on the ornithologists, their quirks, their visions, the contexts in which they worked, and their findings. So, yes, this is a history of the science. The story starts when birds first flew into the field of evolutionary biology, or perhaps, were captured by it, and traces the history of biology from a birds eye’s point of view, including the development of the modern synthesis, and on to the behavioral revolution of Lack, the conceptual revolution of Tinbergen, and the ecological reframing of MacArthur.

This could serve as a very readable core of a college elective in the history of science, though it is certainly not a textbook. Richly illustrated, well written, engaging.

Tim Birkhead is a professor of zoology at Sheffield, and has done major bird research. He wrote The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Ornithology and Bird Sense: What It’s Like to Be a Bird. Jo Wimpenny is a bird researcher at Sheffield. Bob Montgomerie is professor of biology at Queen’s University in Ontario, and studies the evolution of plumage and bird sex.

Judith Curry Scores Own Goal in Climate Hockey

Climate Change, War on Science, , , , , ,

Did you ever read a textbook on economic history, or an in-depth article on the relative value of goods over the centuries expressed in current US dollars? Have you ever encountered a graphic that shows long term trends in rainfall patterns or other climate variables, using a couple of simple lines, designed to give a general idea of relative conditions during different eras? Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about.

This is a graphic made by a major investment firm culling information from dozens or perhaps hundreds of sources into a single graphic. This is the graphic as it was initially provided by the researchers

The value of gold in US dollars since the 14th century, from the Bank of England, Goldman Sachs Global ECS Research. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/charting-price-gold-all-way-back-1265
The value of gold in US dollars since the 14th century, from the Bank of England, Goldman Sachs Global ECS Research. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/charting-price-gold-all-way-back-1265

This is a graph of oxygen concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere. It is culled from a large number of different sources. This is the graphic, based on numerous proxyindicattors, as published in a peer reviewed paper:

From: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/361/1470/903.full.pdf
From: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/361/1470/903.full.pdf

This is a compilation from many different sources of stock market values assembled to show waves in stock market behavior over the last few centuries:

Long term look at stock market waves. From: http://www.elliottwave.com/affiliates/featured-commentary/bear-market-formation.aspx?code=91715
Long term look at stock market waves. From: http://www.elliottwave.com/affiliates/featured-commentary/bear-market-formation.aspx?code=91715

This is a set of climate related variables show in relation to human “civilization” over 18,000 years (n.b.: the term “civilization” is reserved in archaeology and prehistory for specific phenomena which did not occur before about 10,000 years ago).

Various climate variables in relation to human civilization (sic) over the last 18,000 years, from: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/17/climate-and-human-civilization-over-the-last-18000-years/
Various climate variables in relation to human civilization (sic) over the last 18,000 years, from: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/17/climate-and-human-civilization-over-the-last-18000-years/

In all these cases complex sources were culled in the peer reviewed literature 0r professional research literature, and turned into summary views of something happening over time. The graph itself is meant to show a derived variable, not the underlying complexity of the data. The graph is the sausage. The making of the sausage is laid out in the original documents, in some case in the peer reviewed paper the graphic appears in.

Here, Judith Curry makes the argument, in an excessively tl;dr blog post, that climate scientist Michael Mann acted inappropriately, perhaps fraudulently, or perhaps as a matter of scientific misconduct, when the IPCC published a version of his famous Hockey Stick Graph that instead of looking like this:

The famous Hockey Stick Graph with pretty colors and labels indicating which part of the data come from instrumental records and which parts come from proxies.
The famous Hockey Stick Graph with pretty colors and labels indicating which part of the data come from instrumental records and which parts come from proxies.

Looked like this:

Dumb old black and white version of the Hockey Stick Graph that shows the key point of the graph but does not indicate the different origins of the numeric values being plotted. Like the graphs above.
Dumb old black and white version of the Hockey Stick Graph that shows the key point of the graph but does not indicate the different origins of the numeric values being plotted. Like the graphs above.

For the record, here is the original version of that graphic from the peer reviewed paper. Note that it indicates where the data come from but that was back in the late 20th century when in order to have color graphics in your paper you had to hire monks to draw them and there weren’t any monks available.

Screen Shot 2014-09-12 at 7.09.15 PM

And here is the same graph in a similar updated paper a year later, looking much better:

From Mann, M., Bradley, R and Hughes, M. Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 26, NO.6, PAGES 759-762, MARCH 15, 1999.
From Mann, M., Bradley, R and Hughes, M. Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 26, NO.6, PAGES 759-762, MARCH 15, 1999.

And, at the time of the publication, owing to the costs of monks and such, color versions of the graphics were made available. This is what anyone who wanted to could look at at the time:

Screen Shot 2014-09-12 at 9.19.50 PM

Mann’s graphic representation of climate change, the Hockey Stick, is not fraudulent. But it is verified, real, and important. There are people in the climate discussion who make up graphs, of course (see this) but Mann is not one of them.

So Judith Curry and the flock of winged monkeys and child molesters that comment on her blog are arguing that Mann carried out scientific misconduct when he did something that is normal to do, and in fact, that he didn’t actually do. This is an “own goal” for Curry because it is a clear cut case of making up a version of reality in order to denigrate a fellow scientist and discredit his research on the basis of color coding rather than the science. Curry has credentialed herself a denialist.

(Related: Curry’s Credibility Crumbles by Climate Hawks.)

That. Is. Science. Denialism. Welcome to the list, Judith.

By the way have a look at this image:

wp32765e9f_0f

If you ever see an image like this used by a climate science denialist, ACCUSE THEM OF FRAUD AND MISCONDUCT because this graph shows NOTHING about the multiple sources used to create the single black line squiggle therefore it is ILLEGAL.

Sorry… I get carried away sometimes. Anyway, I have a pro tip for those who are following along with the climate change discussion: Individuals who study climate change from any perspective (as a climate change scientist, some other kind of scientist, policy maker, communicator, interested citizen) should realize that some depictions or summaries are underlain by extensive and complex literature. A proper scholarly approach, even by an avocational scholar or journalist, requires keeping that in mind and digging beneath the surface where needed. So if you see a monochromatic hockey stick like curve, or any climate squiggle, hopefully there is a reference to where it comes from and then you can dig around and reconstruct the scholarship, if you are reasonably smart, reasonably diligent, not lazy, and well intentioned.

Or you can be one of Judith Curry’s followers and just whine about it.

Finally, here’s a recent version of the Hockey Stick Graph showing the many ways it has been verified. Checkmate, denialists.

HockeyStickOverview_html_6623cbd61

Added: Judith Curry Picks A Cheery…

Don't forget to look up tonight!

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Auroras are amazing sites because they are, of course, impossible. When Amanda and I got married a year or so ago in northern Minnesota, there was an amazing Aurora, surpassing what anyone at the wedding had ever seen in the state. Big colored curtains of light.

Tonight, and over the weekend, the northern lights will be majorly large and extensive, and visible from very far away. The the graph above (from here) gives you an indication of where you might see them. Anywhere north of the solid green line has a chance, depending on local conditions.

Rare Birds of North America

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Rare Birds of North America is the only extensive treatment I’ve see of the so called “vagrant birds” in the US and Canada. Most, or at least many, traditional bird books have a section in the back for rare birds, occasionals or accidentals, which one might see now and then. But when you think about it, how can five or even a dozen species in a bird book really do justice to the problem of spotting birds that are normally not supposed to be spotted?

I’m reminded of one South African bird guide that has a half dozen penguin species listed in it. There is only one species of penguin in South Africa but a handful of others have shown up, almost always as a corpse floating around with other junk on the beach somewhere. I suppose when we’re talking penguins, that counts.

Anyway, Rare Birds of North America by Steve Howell, Ian Lewington and Will Russell includes 262 species illustrated across 275 plates, from the Old World, the New World Tropics, and the planet’s oceans. The first 44 pages or so are about rare birds, and the rest of the book is a morphologically-grouped compendium of the species. The species discussion run from page to page (unlike a typical modern guide). They include common name, binomial, basic size stats, then info on taxonomy, rarity, normal distribution, and as appropriate, subspecies Most of the plates have multiple illustrations showing various angles and flight vs. non-flight, sex-specirc, and other views. The illustrations are drawings and as far as I can tell are good quality. But since you never see these birds who the heck knows!?!?

An appendix includes brand new rare species not covered in the book. A second appendix includes species that may or may not have occurred. A third appendix lists the “birds new to North America” by year. This appendix and various data presented at the beginning of the book are analyzed in the work, but seem ripe for further Science by Spreadsheet!

This is a Hefty, thick-leaved, well made book (I reviewed the hardcover). Not a field guide but not a big coffee table book either. More like the bird-book-shelf and truck of the car style book.

Steve N. G. Howell is research associate at PRBO Conservation Science and is affiliated with WINGS, an international bird tour company. Hew wrote Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America. Ian Lewington a bird illustrator famous for the high quality of his work. Will Russell is cofounder and managing director of WINGS.

Giant Semiaquatic Predatory Dinosaur

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It is called Spinosaurus aegyptiacus but it sounds a bit more like Godzilla. Spinosaurus is a theropod dinosaur (that’s the groups birds evolved within) found in what is now NOrth Africa, between about 112 and 97 million years ago. It was first discovered about one century ago, though those bones were destroyed during WW II. Spinosaurus aegyptiacus might be the only species of this genus, or there may be two. It is probably the largest carnivours dinosaur, up to 18 meters in length. Up top of the post is the picture from Wikipedia. Although the head looks a lot like a crock, you can see the overall Godzilla-esque body.

A paper out today in science presents a detailed analysis of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus‘s aquatic adaptations. Writing for Science, Michael Balter notes:

Researchers have long debated whether dinosaurs could swim, but there has been little direct evidence for aquadinos. Some tantalizing hints have appeared, however, in claimed “swim tracks” made by the bellies of dinos in Utah and oxygen isotopes indicating possible aquatic habitats in a group of dinosaurs called spinosaurs. Now, a research team working in Morocco has found the most complete skeleton yet of a giant carnivore called Spinosaurus [which] confirm that Spinosaurus was bigger than Tyrannosaurus rex, but also show that it had evolutionary adaptations—ranging from pedal-like feet to a nostril far back on the head to high bone density like that of hippos—clearly suited for swimming in lakes and rivers.

The scientists describe Spinosaurus aegyptiacus as “semiaquatic.” It’s pelvis is small, hind limbs short, and as mentioned, its limb bones are solid to act as balast. It’s hind limbs may have acted as quasi-flippers while in water. The dorsal sail “may have been enveloped in skin that functioned primarily for display on land and in water.” They say nothing about its ability to exhale nuclear fire-breath. Perhaps that will be ascertained with further study.

Here are some of the bones and a semi-reconstructed skeleton:

F2.large

Of related interest:

<li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/09/05/titanic-fearless-dinosaur-unearthed/">Titanic Fearless Dinosaur Unearthed</a></li>

<li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/09/03/flying-dinosaurs-a-new-book-on-the-dinosaur-bird-link/">Flying Dinosaurs: A New Book on the Dinosaur Bird Link</a></li>

Has #Ebola Death Toll Surpassed Malaria in West Africa?

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In the earlier days of the West African Ebola outbreak, it was not uncommon to hear people note that we should not panic about Ebola because, after all, far more people are killed from Malaria than Ebola. This is of course an irrelevant argument. That is like telling a person who has lost their family in a tragic airplane accident that it isn’t so bad because, after all, far more people die in car crashes than aircraft crashes. For example, on August 5th, James Bell write in the Guardian, in a piece called Concerned about Ebola? You’re worrying about the wrong disease:

Since the Ebola outbreak began in February, around 300,000 people have died from malaria, while tuberculosis has likely claimed over 600,000 lives. Ebola might have our attention, but it’s not even close to being the biggest problem in Africa right now. Even Lassa fever, which shares many of the terrifying symptoms of Ebola (including bleeding from the eyelids), kills many more than Ebola – and frequently finds its way to the US.

I’m not picking on James Bell here. A lot of people said things like this, and the facts are true, though as I said, there is almost always (actually, in exactly N-1 scenarios within a given domain of scenarios) an argument that goes like this, and it really isn’t particularly relevant unless one is tasked with dividing up a fixed set of resources that will be used for a fixed set of problems. Resources rarely come that way and problems are rarely solved that way. As I pointed out earlier, consider the thought experiment where you have $10,000,000 that you want to give to either developing an Ebola vaccine, or a Malaria vaccine. Since billions have been spent on developing a Malaria vaccine and there still isn’t one, your donation would be a drop in the bucket. Retrospectively, it would be equivalent to something like the combined costs of couriers and mail by researchers working on a Malaria vaccine over the last few decades. Or the cost of coffee and donuts in the break room. Or conference travel fees. Or something like that. The point is, a bunch of millions of dollars might actually produce an Ebola vaccine given the starting point we have now, or at least, move us a good deal in that direction.

But now, we can ask if Ebola in the countries that are heavily affected right now is still “minor” compared to Malaria.

This is a matter of numbers and the numbers are hard to come by. James Bell notes that between February and July, inclusively, there had been over 300,000 malaria deaths, I assume world wide. So the comparison is not really relevant; we should be looking at what is happening specifically in, for instance, Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone (or the three combined perhaps). Comparing world wide figures to a regional outbreak is a bit like reducing the Malaria death rate by shifting from numbers from countries that have endemic Malaria to include the global population.

It is hard to know how many people die of malaria every year, and the quality of the data varies considerably from country to country. A fairly recent study (here’s a discussion of it) suggests that an older estimate of 600,000 deaths per year should be doubles to 1,200,000 deaths per years. Having worked and lived in a region with some of the worst malaria (measured numerous ways) for several years, I can easily accept a doubling of numbers. If we assume that 1.2 million is right, by the way, Bell’s number of 300,000 is actually conservative.

Using data from that malaria study and WHO’s Ebola data, we can make some comparisons. I’m including all the information so you can check my work.

Here we have data from Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. The population number and malaria deaths per year are both from the aforementioned study and pertain to 2012. Then I divided malaria deaths per year by 12 to get a monthly value. I’m more comfortable working in months than years because an Ebola outbreak is normally short lived, and the number of deaths changes dramatically from month to month.

Following this we have the total number of Ebola deaths per country (summed in the right hand column as are the above mentioned data) and the approximate number of months of the outbreak. Then, the total deaths divided by the number of months. This constitutes a low-ball estimate of deaths per month from Ebola for the given expanding outbreak. Here we can see that in the comparison between Malaria and Ebola, it is not clear that one is a greater threat than the other (142:92, 49:67, 145:144).

Then we have the August-only monthly number of deaths. Here we dee that Ebola is huge compared to Malaria. So, back when people were saying “Malaria is worse,” in late July and early August, Ebola was starting to prove them wrong.

The last two numbers are calculated for all three countries combined. Here we are going out on a limb, and it is better statistically to crawl out on a thicker limb than a thinner limb. I made some estimates here, and those numbers conform to what is being talked about by WHO and others. If Ebola continues to spread at its current rate the daily number of new cases could be between 150 and 300 by the beginning of January. I state these as low vs high estimates, but actually, they are both conservative. Multiplying this by 30 days in a month, and dividing by 2 to approximate the ca 50% mortality rate, we have conservative numbers for Ebola that leave Malaria in the dust. Even if the doubling of estimated Malaria death rates should be doubled again, Ebola will be a bigger factor than Malaria.

Liberia Guinea Sierra Leone Total
Population 3,954,977 10,068,721 5,696,471 19,720,169
Malaria Deaths Per Year 1706 586 1734 4,026
Malaria Deaths Per Month 142 49 145 336
Ebola Deaths Total 508 400 461 1,369
Months of outbreak 6 6 3 –
Monthly average Ebola deaths 92 67 144 303
August Ebola Deaths 644 148 224 1,016
Estimated Janurary Ebola Deaths (low) – – – 4,500
Estimated Janurary Ebola Deaths (high) – – – 9,000

So that is why we should stop saying that Ebola is not Malaria, so relax about Ebola.

More on Ebola:

Ken Cuccinelli's appalling behavior.

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Ken Cuccinelli posted a highly offensive cartoon on his facebook page in which Hillary Clinton is depicted in a position where she is about to be beheaded by a caricature of a Middle Eastern terrorist. That was posted on the even of the anniversary of 9/11.

You will know of Ken Cuccinelli as the anit-climate-science activist, who was involved in the fake scandal known as “Climategate.”

Lowkell at Blue Virginia writes:

…this is appalling even by Ken Cuccinelli standards. First off, he links to a climate science “skeptic” website. Then, he channels Rand Paul’s insane criticism of Hillary Clinton that she can’t say that BOTH global warming AND terrorism are threats to the world (and that global warming poses by FAR the greatest threat to the future of mankind, 1000s of other species, the oceans, life on earth in other words). Then, he posts this disgusting, repulsive “cartoon” …. remember, this lunatic was elected Attorney General of Virginia in 2009, then spent four years waging war against climate science (and climate scientists like Michael Mann), then came within a few points of being elected GOVERNOR of Virginia!…

I’m not going to post the cartoon. Go to Blue Virginia if you want to see it.

Update on West Africa's #Ebola Outbreak: Getting worse

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The news is bleak. I don’t have a lot of confidence in the reported numbers. At one time it was said that on a nice Saturday in the summer, four out of five cars driving around in downtown Boston were looking for a parking place. This is somewhat like the situation in Liberia and possibly other affected areas. There may be as many Ebola victims driving around in taxis looking for a clinic as there are in clinics. Or maybe a fewer. Or, maybe more. Maybe a lot more.

But, we have to work with the data we have. There are two charts based on the information provided by WHO for up through September 6th. I’ve projected each data set out 90 days. Since there is no abatement in frequency of new cases, and in fact the number continues to increase on average, and since WHO is claiming that the situation in the worst hit areas is pretty much out of control, a 90 day projection seems reasonable. In other words, there is no reason to think that the relative rate of new infections is going to change because of any outside intervention or internal change in the situation.

The first chart shows the number of new cases. This varies a great deal from report to report. Some of that variation over time is probably real, reflecting the internal complexities of disease spread. But I suspect it is mostly administrative. If a bunch of cases don’t get into one report, the get into the next report. This explains a nearly perfect alternation between increase and decrease between successive reports.

Screen Shot 2014-09-10 at 1.03.44 PM
The second chart shows the number of cases over time, accumulated. This Projected outwards, we can guess that by around the beginning of 2015, there will have been over 10,000 people who have been infected by Ebola in West Africa (including Nigeria and Senegal as well as the main area of the outbreak), and over 5,000 deaths. Since I know you are curious, if this is projected out over a year or so, the number of infected people goes to between 60,000 and 70,000. I have no idea if this is realistic.

Screen Shot 2014-09-10 at 1.02.24 PM

The situation is bad and getting worse.

What is Internet Slowdown Day?

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How much will the Internet Slowdown slow down my Internet?

It won’t. That is not what it is for or what it does even though that is exactly what it says it does. The name is more of an attention getter, and it is apparently working.

Who is slowing down the internet?

Nobody (see above) but it is these guyz here.

Why are they slowing down the internet.

They are not slowing down the Internet, please try to pay attention.

This is a protest against big business trying to take over the free and open Ineternet and control it for their own nefarious purposes.

Can I slow down the Internet too?

Yes. Yes, you can.

On September 10th, sites across the web will display an alert with a symbolic “loading” symbol (the proverbial “spinning wheel of death”) and promote a call to action for users to push comments to the FCC, Congress, and the White House. Note: none of these tools actually slow your site down; they tell your visitors about the issue and ask them to contact lawmakers.

Click Here to learn more

Climate Smart and Energy Wise

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Climate Smart & Energy Wise: Advancing Science Literacy, Knowledge, and Know-How by Mark McCaffrey is a book written primarily for teachers, to give them the information and tools they need to bring the topic of climate change effectively to their classrooms. It addresses the Climate Literacy and Energy Literacy frameworks, designed to guide teaching this important topic.

The book provides basics on climate and energy, approaches to teaching about climate and energy, and of special interest for teachers, syncing the topics with existing standards. The main point of the book is to get teachers up to speed, but this is not restricted to teachers at a certain level, or for that matter, a certain topic, in that climate change and energy can be incorporated in a very wide range of electives and mainstream classes. The goal of teaching climate literacy is developed by focusing on the “seven essential principles”:

  1. The sun is the primary source of energy for Earth’s climate system.
  2. Climate is regulated by complex interactions among components of the Earth system.
  3. Life on Earth depends on, is shaped by, and affects climate.
  4. Climate varies over space and time through both natural and human processes.
  5. Our understanding of the climate system is improved through observation, theoretical studies, and modeling.
  6. Human activities are impacting the climate system.
  7. Climate change will have consequences for the Earth system and human lives.

And, similarly, there are seven organizing concepts for teaching energy:

  1. Energy is a physical quantity that follows precise natural laws.
  2. Physical processes on Earth are the result of energy flow through the Earth system.
  3. Biological processes depend on energy flow through the Earth system.
  4. Various sources of energy can be used to power human activities, and often this energy must be transferred from source to destination.
  5. Energy decisions are influenced by economic, political, environmental, and social factors.
  6. The amount of energy used by human society depends on many factors.
  7. The quality of life of individuals and societies is affected by energy choices.

There is a chapter on countering denialism, and a chapter on mainstream activism.

Mark McCaffrey is the Programs and Policy Director for these topics at the National Center for Science Education, and this book is an NCSE project. McCaffrey has blogged about the contents of the book on the NCSE blog; his first entry is here. In his own words:

…if well presented and handled with creativity and care, climate and energy issues are ideal interdisciplinary and integrating themes, potentially linking the sciences with mathematics, language arts, geography, history, arts, social studies and civics, and at the college level, bringing in psychology, sociology, writing and rhetoric, philosophy, business…. You get the picture.

Most importantly, climate and energy are topics that are imperative to teach if we are going to effectively respond to these challenges, and make informed climate and energy decisions.

Climate Smart & Energy Wise: Advancing Science Literacy, Knowledge, and Know-How is well written, well laid out, a good read but also an excellent on-the-shelf reference book for educators designing or updating courses. It is coming out later this month and costs only $25.00. A great gift for your favorite teacher!

The figure at the top of the post is from the book.

Most Efficient Tornado Hunt Ever

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Al Franken likes to joke about having run the most efficient campaign for Senate ever, referring to when he beat incumbent Norm Coleman by just a couple of hundred votes (on the first count … the number went up during the grueling recount). Now, we have an example of the most efficient ever tornado hunt.

This is in Russia where, apparently, every single vehicle has a dash cam just in case something interesting happens. You see the guy back out of his garage, see the tornado coming down the street, and when he tries to drive back into his garage for safety … well, just have a look:

Hat tip Paul Douglas, source of video here.

Penguins: The Ultimate Guide

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There is a new book out on Penguins: Penguins: The Ultimate Guide written and edited by Tui De Roy, Mark Jones, and Julie Cornthwaite.

It is a beautiful coffee table style book full of information. All of the world’s species are covered (amazingly there are only 18 of them) and there are more than 400 excellent photos. The book covers penguin science (science about them, not by them). There is also quite a bit about their conservation.

The layout of the book is interesting. The last section of the book, by Julie Cornthwaite includes portraits of each species, and a compendium of interesting facts such as which is the fastest penguin, strange things about their bills, their odd moulting behavior, interesting color variants, how they “fly”, interesting mating facts, and what threatens them. Then there is a table organized taxonomically giving their status, population estimates, ranges, and main threats. Following this is a two page bird-guide type spread on each species, with a range map, photos, descriptions, information about their voice, breeding behavior, feeding behavior, etc. That is what you would expect in a book about penguins.

But the first, and largest, part(s) of the book provides its uniqueness. The first section, by Dui De Roy, covers penguins generally, or specific exemplar species or groups of species, to provide an overview of what penguin-ness is all about. The second section, edited by Mark Jones, consists of 17 essays by various experts on specific topics, such as how penguins store food, how they are tracked at sea, and penguin-human interaction. I would like to have seen more about penguin evolution (which is interesting) but the sparsity of coverage of that topic does not detract from the book’s overall quality.

If you are into birds, you probably don’t have a penguin book, so this will fill the bill. As it were. This is also one of those books that totally qualifies as a great present to give someone you know who has an interest in birds generally, or penguins in particular. I should also mention that there are a couple of pages in the back on where to see penguins. Warning: They don’t smell very good.

I recommend the book. The following video has nothing to do with the book, but there are penguins in it:

Don't Even Think About #ClimateChange (ADDED: Free Chapter)

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Climate change is emotional, especially when the effects are disastrous and people’s lives are ruined. It is vague, sometimes. For example, bad weather happens and always has happened, so an increase in frequency or severity of bad weather isn’t necessarily qualitatively novel, and can be hard to put one’s finger on. Although the negative effects of climate change are already here, more serious effects are in our future. So, climate change has a component that is mysterious and hard to relate to, because it is in the future. Climate change is global, but spotty on a given day or in a given month. So, you may spend a long period of time between direct bouts with the phenomenon and forget about it or write it off as an “it can’t happen here” sort of thing. Climate change is scary or depressing, or both, so it is one of those things one tends to avoid thinking about. Climate change is complex, and climate change includes variation that is hard to understand.

NEW: Get your free chapter of this great book from the NCSE. Click here!

When we look at how the human mind works, using the tools of anthropology, psychology, or any of your favorite ways to study the human condition, we find that we are better at some things than others. All those things I just said about climate change are things we humans tend to be bad at, find hard to comprehend, evaluate, understand, or explain.

Therefore, climate change has two very important characteristics. 1) It is very important, representing an existential threat that we must deal with; and 2) we are cognitively, emotionally, intellectually, pragmatically, unable to deal with it. Or, one would hope, unable to deal with it easily. Hopefully we will get past that.

George Marshall’s Don’t Even Think about It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change is a must-read book for anyone interested in messaging and communication about climate change. You may know of George Marshall’s work; he’s the guy who made that great video on “How to talk to a climate change denier” (I’ve pasted it below).

If you know even a modest amount about climate change, and if you are likely to accept scientific consensus as valid (and the consensus on climate change is nearly 100% and is quite valid), then you may wonder how the heck people actively deny it. Less mysterious but still enigmatic is how people not actively engaged in denial don’t just accept the science. There is a handful of easy answers to these wonderments. Ignorance, financial incentive, getting bad information by a well funded and very active denialist industry, probably account for much of this. But just as climate change is something we address in science, denial of climate change, or refusal to engage in the issue, can also be addressed with science. Marshall’s book does this.

Marshall examines why people who aren’t worried about climate change do worry about being hit by asteroids or killed by terrorists. He examines the enigmatic fact that having children, who will certainly be more affected by climate change than the parents will be, makes it more likely to deny the reality of the phenomenon. He talks about the role of myth, fiction, and stories in shaping people’s belief, as opposed to science. He looks at why victims of climate change, such as those who lost everything in a major flood or terrible storm, exhibit a personal denial of the salient facts underlying their plight.

I have been dealing with science denial of one form or another for many years, much of that time surrounding the issue of evolution (as opposed to creationism). There are two things I’ve observed that relate to Marshall’s book. First, the patterns of cause of denialism are rarely simple. There tends to be a political cause, in some cases there tends to be a religious cause (especially with respect to evolution), there tends to be a money-related cause, and so on. But it is unrealistic to attribute denial to a simple causal agent, and one does so at one’s peril. The other observation is the commonness of well meaning people who look at denial think about if for a moment and come up with a simple fix. There isn’t a simple fix for such a complex thing. This is why Don’t Even Think about It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change is a must-read book for anyone interested in messaging and communication about climate change.

I strongly recommend this book.

Marshall has a post on his book here. Andy Skuce has reviewed it here. The Facebook Page for the book is here. The video I promised you is here:

Don’t Even Think About It: Why our Brains are Wired to Ignore Climate Change—a book review

Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader's Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis.

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According to John Berger, author of the newly released book Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader’s Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis, time is running out. The climate is changing in ways that will bring unwanted results, and we as a species are slow off the mark to do something about it.

Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader’s Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis begins with a description of the global climate in the not too distant future, 2100. It is of course a guess, perhaps fiction. But Berger’s description of the world in 2100 is plausible, and much of it probable. We don’t know, of course which parts are more vs. less likely. Killer heat waves are common. Forest are dying. Wildfires are frequent and abnormally large. Natural habitats, all of them, are being destroyed by changing conditions, causing widespread species extinctions. Serious diseases well ensconced in the tropics have spread widely. Island nations and low lying continental regions are being flooded, or are already destroyed by rising seas. And more.

By 2100, the Arctic Ocean is virtually ice-free. That amplifies global warming, because the reflective ice is replaced by darker water, which absorbs more heat. Without the ice, walruses are virtually gone. The huge shoals of shrimp-like krill that swarmed and bred beneath the margins of the ice shelves are gone.The whales that strained tons of krill have starved. So have the krill-eating fish and seals that had eaten the fish—and that needed ice during breeding and pupping season. Polar bears that depended on the seals and that bore their young on ice have become very scarce.A small population remains on land where they interbred with grizzlies…

With water so scarce and costly, many farms over the past decades had first fallowed their fields and, when the rains failed, had finally gone out of business.Then food prices had shot up. … Many people simply left the region. Farm economies unraveled…

Skeletal remains of shorefront buildings and walls protruded from the surf. A congealed mass of plastic flotsam and jetsam identified the high-water mark. …

And that is just a sampling. And, again, there is nothing in Berger’s alarming description that is “alarmist” in the sense science denialists usually use the term. Alarming, yes. Alarmist, no. Just realistic.

Berger describes climate change and its mechanism, gives some history as to how we know what we know, and discusses the perils of climate change in several major categories: That pertaining to the United States in particular, though he also discusses the situation across the globe; economic perils, health related perils, extreme weather, extinction, and bad things that happen to the ocean.

The hardest chapter to write, the one that is most likely wrong in detail, and at the same time, the most important, is on “Tipping Point Perils.” There is presently a discussion on the internet about one tipping point that is probably not realistic: the rapid extinction-event level warming induced by the release of large amounts of Methane from beneath the Arctic sea (and nearby land areas). Berger goes out on a limb a ways with his discussion of Methane, as do many others, and we hope there is not really a “Methane Bomb.” For the most part, though, he addresses the Arctic Methane problem fairly realistically, pointing out evidence on all sides of the issue.

Most of Berger’s tipping points are more realistic and still quite serious, including his discussion of methane. For the most part, a “tipping point” is an out of control positive feedback, where warming induces the rapid increase of some effect which in turn increases warming. Like melting permanent ice and snow, which normally sends an important quantity of the Sun’s energy back into space. Another is the qualitative change in climate systems, such as changes to large scale oceanic currents which contribute greatly to how heat is distributed across the planet. Obviously, glacial melt is on this list as well.

Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader’s Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis is a fun read. If, you know, you like non-fiction apocalyptic stories.

An important point is this: Berger does not say the game is over. He advocates taking action and makes the claim that these perils can be addressed, and of course, must be addressed.

Fortunately, many global studies confirm that we have the technology, financial capability, and renewable energy resources to successfully transition to an energy economy largely free of fossil fuels. But this will require some hard technological and political choices.Very large global programmatic investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy technology, agriculture, forestry, as well as carbon capture and storage will be needed to protect the climate…

Unfortunately, the movement for climate protection and clean energy does not have 50 years to put clean energy proponents in high offices and end business-as-usual energy policies. Fortunately, grassroots political activism plus new technology sometimes produces faster results. President Obama himself used grassroots organizing and social media to gain the White House in 2008. Social media was also indispensable to the Arab Spring revolutions that began in Tunisia in 2010. But whereas many climate organizations are already active on the web, their initiatives are often lost in internet cacophony, much of it created by powerful commercial interests.

The book has a foreword by Benjamin Santer, and an introduction by Paul and Anne Ehrlich.

Berger has a PhD in Ecology and has been involved in environmental issues in a number of ways, including advising for the National Research Council.

Bruce Levenson's Racism In Broader Context: We need to be smarter.

Race and Racism, ,

Donald Sterling appears to be a hard core racist, and this, appropriately, got him in trouble. Recently, Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson released an email he had written some time back, which discusses race related issues vis-a-vis the Hawks, and announced that he was bowing out of ownership from the team because of this racist email.

The media reaction to this has been fairly uniform, and includes an aspect that I think should be examined more closely. Bruce Levenson, and his statement, have been placed in the same category as Donald Sterling and his statements. But they should not be. Given the relatively high degree of personal and institutional racism found in professional sports in the US, one could argue that Levenson’s racism is mild. One could even go further and say that he indicates a disdain for racism, and this disdain is reflected in the offending email.

The reason this is important is that racism is important, and racism associated with a major American institution like sports is very important. A child who brings a switchblade to school is treated in the same way, by school regulations, as a child that brings a plastic knife to school to make it easier to eat his apple, in some districts, because both are seen as the same thing by an unthinking (or, worse, pre-thinking, let the rules do your thinking for you style thinking) policy. The equation of Levenson and Sterling is a similar phenomenon. The discussion about race and racism in America and in sports needs to be smarter than this.

To expand on this idea I’ve Fisked Levenson’s letter (leaving off the first part). My objective is to give Levenson something of a break in considering his written words, pointing out where he is actually being anti-racist. Having said that, it is true that the email is insufficiently critical of certain aspects of the Hawks’ situation, and makes some assumptions that are probably incorrect and essentially racist, by someone who is not a trained sociologist or anthropologist. But, it is just an internal memo expressing thoughts for consideration, so to some extent that can be understood.

I don’t want to say that Levenson should or should not own the Hawks. I do want to say, though, that equating and placing in the same narrow category Levenson and what he has said and done, and Sterling and what he has said and done dumbs down the conversation too much.

From: Bruce Levenson
To: Ferry, Danny
CC: Foreman, Todd (ucg.com); Peskowitz, Ed (ucg.com)
Sent: 8/25/2012 11:47:02 PM
Subject: Re: Business/Game ops

…4. Regarding game ops, i need to start with some background. for the first couple of years we owned the team, i didn’t much focus on game ops. then one day a light bulb went off. when digging into why our season ticket base is so small, i was told it is because we can’t get 35–55 white males and corporations to buy season tixs and they are the primary demo for season tickets around the league….

This is not a racist statement per se. It is probably true that wealthier white males and traditional corporations (owned and operated mainly by wealthier white males) are the market for season tickets for major professional sports. This reflects many aspects of how our society works, and therein certainly lies racism. But pointing it out as the guy trying to sell the tickets is a simple observation.

when i pushed further, folks generally shrugged their shoulders. then i start looking around our arena during games and notice the following:

– it’s 70 pct black
– the cheerleaders are black
– the music is hip hop
– at the bars it’s 90 pct black
– there are few fathers and sons at the games
– we are doing after game concerts to attract more fans and the concerts are either hip hop or gospel.

Then i start looking around at other arenas. It is completely different. Even DC with its affluent black community never has more than 15 pct black audience.

Before we bought the hawks and for those couple years immediately after in an effort to make the arena look full (at the nba’s urging) thousands and thousands of tickets were being giving away, predominantly in the black community, adding to the overwhelming black audience.

These statements can be taken as observation, not a judgement. One might ask for verification or more information, but the author of these observations has not said here if this is a good or a bad thing intrinsically, but rather, is simply pointing it out as background. The equation of various observations with a race-based trope is potentially problematic. Also, this is a laundry list of things to blame for bad sales, and that is more than a little uncomfortable. But this is a memo about bad sales.

My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a signficant season ticket base. Please dont get me wrong. There was nothing threatening going on in the arean back then. i never felt uncomfortable, but i think southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority. On fan sites i would read comments about how dangerous it is around philips yet in our 9 years, i don’t know of a mugging or even a pick pocket incident.

There is simply no way to interpret this analysis as blatantly racist. It is quite the opposite. Levenson is pointing out that there seems to be racism among the fans, and that a threshold of sorts has been crossed making racist white male potential fans less likely to go to the arena.

This was just racist garbage. When I hear some people saying the arena is in the wrong place I think it is code for there are too many blacks at the games.

This is a very important statement. He is expressing disdain for racist attitudes about the venue.

I have been open with our executive team about these concerns. I have told them I want some white cheerleaders and while i don’t care what the color of the artist is, i want the music to be music familiar to a 40 year old white guy if that’s our season tixs demo. i have also balked when every fan picked out of crowd to shoot shots in some time out contest is black. I have even bitched that the kiss cam is too black.

One could argue over what the best approach to handling the lack of high price ticket sales is, but if that is the goal, appealing to a white audience by including among some of the amenities and concurrent events more white is the same as appealing to any effort at diversity.

The problem with this is the intent to undue what appears to be an overwhelming interest by African Americans in this particular team and venu. Saying that these components of the experience is “too black” certainly seems racist, but it is also couched in terms of the goal of “increasing diversity” (in this case white male country western listening potential ticket buyers, which is not the sort of diversity we are usually concerned with). A better statement might have been to express an interest in maintaining what appears to be a very successful inclusion of the African American community which is apparently predominant at the location of the venue while at the same time encouraging others to engage. In other words, it looks like the idea is to “undo” a shift towards a strong African American fan base.

Gradually things have changed. My unscientific guess is that our crowd is 40 pct black now, still four to five times all other teams. And my further guess is that 40 pct still feels like 70 pet to some whites at our games. Our bars are still overwhelmingly black.

This is obviously a sensitive topic, but sadly i think it is far and way the number one reason our season ticket base is so low.

This is a potentially important statement because it reveals Levenson’s feelings about the situation. He acknowledges the racist nature of the situation and the discussion, and expresses a dislike for the apparent fact that “too many” black people scares away white people.

And many of our black fans don’t have the spendable income which explains why our f&b and merchandise sales are so low. At all white thrasher games sales were nearly triple what they are at hawks games (the extra intermission explains some of that but not all).

Regardless of what time a game starts, we have the latest arriving crowd in the league. It often looks and sounds empty when the team takes the floor.

In the past two years, we have created a section of rowdy college students that has been a big plus. And we do a lot of very clever stuff during time outs to entertain the crowd. Our kiss cam is better done than any in the league.

We have all the same halftime acts that other arenas have but i question whether they make sense. people are on their cell phones during half time. i wonder if flashing on the scoreboard “$2 off on hot dogs during halftime tonight” just as the half ends would be a better use of our halftime dollars and make the fans happier.

We do all the usual giveways and the fans are usually their loudest when our spirit crew takes the floor to give away t-shirts. It pisses me off that they will yell louder for a t-shirt then for our players.

These are all context-free observations about how the games are sold together with an observation about late arriving fans and cell phone use. These issues may be generally true across sports, or the league, when a team is not generating enough excitement.

Our player intro is flat. We manufacture a lot of noise but because of the late arriving crowd and the fact that a lot of blacks dont seem to go as crazy cheering (another one of my theories) as whites, it is not great. Even when we have just returned from winnng four straight on the road, i am one of the few people in the arena standing and cheering when our team takes the floor. Bob has kicked around ideas like having the starters coming down aisles rather than off the bench during intros. Sounds cool but may highlight all the empty seats at the start of games.

This is more about the nature of the games and lack of excitement, but embedded within it is a statement about “blacks” behavior at games … less crazy cheering than white people. I have no idea what to make of that. This may be mainly an unexamined bias in observation or attribution of a lack of enthusiasm because the team does not generate it to being explained as a “black” trait. One gets the feeling more focus should be placed on the team and its ability to generate enthusiasm.

Not enough of our fans wear hawks jerseys to games. i have just begun to push for ideas like discount food lines for folks wearing jerseys, special entrances, etc. I think we need a committed and perhaps incentivized fan club. We need to realize atl is simply different than every other city. Just adopting nba best practices is not enough. we have to create our own.

If this team, this city, has a local culture, it would be just like a lot of other urban sports venues. Only Wisconsinites wear cheese on their heads. Saint’s fans (NFL) seem to like to watch their team beat up the other team. And so on. It is not unreasonable to address the local culture no matter what it is or how it might arise, though obviously a more careful analysis would be preferred.

I am rambling and could probably go on forever. If you have any specific areas you would like my thoughts on, let me know.

Best,
Bruce

ps – I have cc’d todd and ed so they can chime in with additional or different thoughts.

Sent from my iPad

In the end, Levenson decided that he was too much like Donald Sterling to own the team and gave up ownership. He stated “If you’re angry about what I wrote, you should be. I’m angry at myself too."

That is a lot more than Donald Sterling ever did.

There is an entirely different perspective out there that has to do with Levenson’s motivations vis-a-vis his career and business. I don’t accept that as an alternative to the race-related narrative. Levenson’s memo exists and is a discussion of race in relation to business, regardless of whether he fabricated it from thin air or really thought these thoughts. Nonetheless, the it’s business viewpoint does have a ring of reality to it. So I’ll end by quoting Mo Ivory who is one of the commenters who has suggested this, and who lives in Atlanta (though she is originally from New York and is not a Hawks fan):

So, like all other non-Atlanta natives living in Atlanta long term, when the Hawks play the New York Knicks, this native New Yorker whips out her Carmelo Anthony jersey and heads to Phillips Arena. The reason Bruce Levenson could not make the Hawks profitable is not because black people don’t buy season tickets, or arrive at games late, or spend all their time at the bar, or black fathers don’t bring black sons to the games. It’s because the Hawks suck. They have no marquee players and they don’t win games!