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Portugal moves closer to a Red Euro

April 7, 2013

The common thread running through the countries which are now in or entering the Red Euro zone  is that they have reached their current positions because they have all been incredibly profligate in their public sector while being incredibly lax in controlling the excesses of a rampant private banking sector. Of course the private sector “cowboys” have made obscene amounts of money and ridden off into the sunset. But a large number of public sector employees also made economically unjustified gains in the form of increased salaries and inflated pensions and reduced working hours. Now the piper has to be paid and of course those doing the paying are not necessarily those who gained the benefits. There is a pervading sense of the unfairness of it all.

It is only to be expected that those bearing the brunt of the consequences will fight to retain what they have. Portugal has been teetering on the brink of falling into the Red Euro zone and has been struggling to implement the austerity measures that are deemed necessary. Most of the austerity measures in Greece and Italy and Portugal postpone the day of reckoning but don’t really correct for the previous profligacy. Now Portugal’s Constitutional Court has rejected some of the measures for public sector salary and pension reductions as being “unfair”. Portugal continues “muddling through”  and Government sources are playing down the impact of the Court’s rejections but Portugal is one step closer to the Red Euro. There is an argument that formally establishing the Red Euro zone with a lower value than the Blue Euro rather than “muddling through” with all the Euro constraints, would be a better way to go.

(Reuters) – Portugal’s constitutional court on Friday rejected four out of nine contested austerity measures in this year’s budget in a ruling that deals a blow to government finances but is unlikely to derail reforms two years after the country’s bailout.

The measures rejected by the court should deprive the country of at least 900 million euros ($1.17 billion) in net revenues and savings, according to preliminary estimates by economists.

…  Debt-ridden Portugal agreed to a 78 billion euro bailout in 2011 from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. The entire package of austerity measures introduced by the 2013 budget is worth about 5 billion euros and includes the largest tax hikes in living memory, which were mostly upheld.

“It’s a lesser evil. … Putting it into perspective, a good manager and leader should not have difficulty finding room in a budget to accommodate this cut,” said Joao Cantiga Esteves, economist at the Lisbon Technical University.

…. The government has called a Cabinet meeting on Saturday, and would not provide any immediate comment. It has to cut the budget deficit to 5.5 percent of GDP this year from 6.4 percent in 2012, when it missed the goal but was still lauded by its EU and IMF lenders for its austerity efforts.

Analysts consider the outcome manageable and say the government should be able to cover the shortfall with additional spending cuts it has been working on at the request of lenders. Analysts say the lenders could also give Portugal more leeway in terms of budget targets. 

…… On Wednesday, the government easily defeated a motion of no confidence, but the move united all the opposition in parliament against it. Socialist opposition leader Antonio Seguro said on Friday the court’s ruling “reinforces our position in d..emanding the government’s resignation.”

…… The 13 constitutional court judges have been scrutinizing articles of the 2013 budget since January when opposition parties argued that cuts to pensions and welfare benefits undermined workers’ basic rights.

The court rejected cuts in pensioners’ and public servants’ holiday bonuses, as well as reductions to sickness leave and unemployment benefits. They upheld tougher measures such as a reduction in the number of tax brackets, which alone brings in an estimated revenue of more than 2 billion euros.

Last year, the court also dealt a blow to government plans for more public-sector wage cuts, forcing it to resort to tax hikes instead. The austerity has provoked mass protests, but rallies in Portugal have been much more peaceful than in countries like Greece or Italy.

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Posted in Behaviour, Economy, Politics, Portugal | Comments Off on Portugal moves closer to a Red Euro

Idiot science? Urban vegetation decreases violent crime but not theft!

April 6, 2013

Correlation and causation again! Correlation does not necessarily mean causation and even real causation may not give any correlation.

The authors are from the Department of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University, United States. And they get paid for this?

Does vegetation encourage or suppress urban crime? Evidence from Philadelphia, PA, Mary K. Wolfe and Jeremy Mennis, Landscape and Urban Planning, Volume 108, Issues 2–4, November–December 2012, Pages 112–122, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2012.08.006

(emphasis added)

Abstract: There is longstanding belief that vegetation encourages crime as it can conceal criminal activity. Other studies, however, have shown that urban residential areas with well-maintained vegetation experience lower rates of certain crime types due to increased surveillance in vegetated spaces as well as the therapeutic effects ascribed to vegetated landscapes. The present research analyzes the association of vegetation with crime in a case study of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We examine rates of assaults, robberies, burglaries, and thefts in relation to remotely sensed vegetation abundance at the Census tract level. We employ choropleth mapping, correlation, ordinary least squares regression, and spatial econometric modeling to examine the influence of vegetation on various crime types while controlling for tract-level socioeconomic indicators. Results indicate that vegetation abundance is significantly associated with lower rates of assault, robbery, and burglary, but not theft. This research has implications for urban planning policy, especially as cities are moving towards ‘green’ growth plans and must look to incorporate sustainable methods of crime prevention into city planning.

And Discover Magazine comments (comments?)

The explanation, the authors say, is twofold: One, green spaces encourage people to spend more time socially outdoors, which discourages crime. It’s especially helpful for crime control when young and old people mix together in public places. And two, the presence of plants has a therapeutic effect. Vegetation decreases mental fatigue and its associated symptoms, such as irritability and decreased impulse control, both considered to be precursors to violence.

This “plant therapy” mechanism is bolstered by the Philadelphia findings. The most violent of the crimes studied, aggravated assault, was most strongly correlated with a neighborhood’s degree of greenness, while the least violent crime, theft, showed no association. This could indicate that it’s a violent mentality itself that green spaces are discouraging.

That hypothesis needs further study.

And that last line is the giveaway.

No, every idiot hypothesis does not need further study! 

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Revisiting Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki 50 years on

April 6, 2013

Last night we saw the new Kon-Tiki movie at our local cinema. A full-fledged action/adventure film it relates the story of Thor Heyerdahl and his 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition. It is the most expensive film ever to have been made in Norway and was a nominee for Best Foreign Film at this year’s Oscars (which it did not win). The film is directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg and the role of Thor Heyerdahl is played by Pål Sverre Valheim Hagen.

English: Kon-Tiki raft

Kon-Tiki raft (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I enjoyed every minute of this 2 hour movie. Stunning visuals and a clear demonstration, I think , that understatement is far more effective than “sound and fury” in sustaining excitement. It took me back some 50 years to 1962 when I first saw Heyerdahl’s own documentary movie about his expedition (which did win an Oscar in 1951). Ever since then I have eagerly followed Heyerdahl’s various expeditions and theories of the migrations of ancient peoples (Ra and Tigris and The Search for Odin among others). And my current fascination with anthropology is in no small measure due to Heyerdahl’s injection of adventure and wonder and a kind of “romance” into the long-dead past of our ancestors. It does not matter that his theories were heavily criticised and may not have been correct. It does not matter either that our theories about the past may no longer be capable  of being “proven” conclusively. Imagining how our ancestors – just 100 or so generations ago – could have behaved and acted is what I find absolutely compelling. And Heyerdahl’s adherence to the materials and tools of the past adds credibility at least to imagining what our fore-fathers could have accomplished – if not necessarily to his own theories.

Back in 1962 when I first saw Heyerdahl’s documentary I had not fully appreciated the enormity of what Heyerdahl and his “glad amateurs” were trying to do. While he had an absolute belief in the migration of people from South America to Polynesia, his companions were only there either because he was or because they were seeking some intense adventure after the war. While the success of the Kon-Tiki could not prove that this migration had actually taken place it certainly proved that it could have. Heyerdahl’s theory received much criticism from the establishment view that Polynesia had been populated solely from Asia. But what all this “establishment criticism” sometimes forgets is their sense of wonder and that Heyerdahl does actually prove that it could have happened. This criticism continued well into the 1990’s but the latest genetic studies now show that Heyerdahl was in fact partly correct.

Heyerdahl’s theory of Polynesian origins never gained acceptance among anthropologists. Physical and cultural evidence had long suggested that Polynesia was settled from west to east, migration having begun from the Asian mainland, not South America. In the late 1990s, genetic testing found that the mitochondrial DNA of the Polynesians is more similar to people from southeast Asia than to people from South America, showing that their ancestors most likely came from Asia. Easter Islanders are of Polynesian descent. Anthropologist Robert Carl Suggs included a chapter titled “The Kon-Tiki Myth” in his book on Polynesia, concluding that “The Kon-Tiki theory is about as plausible as the tales of Atlantis, Mu, and ‘Children of the Sun.’ Like most such theories it makes exciting light reading, but as an example of scientific method it fares quite poorly.” Anthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis also criticised Heyerdahl’s theory in his book The Wayfinders, which explores the history of Polynesia. Davis says that Heyerdahl “ignored the overwhelming body of linguistic, ethnographic, and ethnobotanical evidence, augmented today by genetic and archaeological data, indicating that he was patently wrong.”

But that is changing as advanced genetic studies show that there is some clear admixture from South America.

Now – 64 years later- new research has finally proved the adventurer was at least partly right after all. A team of scientists have tested the genetic make up of descendants of the original islanders and found it includes DNA that could have only come from native Americans.

That means that some time before the remote islands – including Easter Island – were colonised by Europeans the locals had interbred with people from South America. …. 

The established theory has always been that Polynesia was colonised via Asia around 5,500 years ago. This has been backed up by archaeology, linguistics and some genetic studies. But in 1947, Heyerdahl controversially claimed that Easter Island’s famous statues were similar to those at Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, and sailed a raft from Peru to French Polynesia to prove it could have been colonised from America.

Now Professor Erik Thorsby of the University of Oslo in Norway has found clear evidence to support elements of Heyerdahl’s hypothesis.

The Polynesian gene pool: an early contribution by Amerindians to Easter Island, Erik Thorsby, Published 6 February 2012, doi:10.1098/rstb.2011.0319, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 19 March 2012 vol. 367 no. 1590 812-819 (full text pdf)

Abstract: It is now generally accepted that Polynesia was first settled by peoples from southeast Asia. An alternative that eastern parts of Polynesia were first inhabited by Amerindians has found little support. There are, however, many indications of a ‘prehistoric’ (i.e. before Polynesia was discovered by Europeans) contact between Polynesia and the Americas, but genetic evidence of a prehistoric Amerindian contribution to the Polynesian gene pool has been lacking. We recently carried out genomic HLA (human leucocyte antigen) typing as well as typing for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome markers of blood samples collected in 1971 and 2008 from reputedly non-admixed Easter Islanders. All individuals carried HLA alleles and mtDNA types previously found in Polynesia, and most of the males carried Y chromosome markers of Polynesian origin (a few had European Y chromosome markers), further supporting an initial Polynesian population on Easter Island. The HLA investigations revealed, however, that some individuals also carried HLA alleles which have previously almost only been found in Amerindians. We could trace the introduction of these Amerindian alleles to before the Peruvian slave trades, i.e. before the 1860s, and provide suggestive evidence that they were introduced already in prehistoric time. Our results demonstrate an early Amerindian contribution to the Polynesian gene pool on Easter Island, and illustrate the usefulness of typing for immunogenetic markers such as HLA to complement mtDNA and Y chromosome analyses in anthropological investigations.

 

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Posted in Anthropology, Behaviour, Norway, Science | 1 Comment »

When the law is an ass

April 4, 2013

“‘You were present on the occasion…and, indeed, you are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.

“‘If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, ‘the law is a ass — a idiot. If that’s the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience.'”  Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens

Of course any society can make any law it likes to ensure the proper functioning of that society. And such laws are nothing more than rules made by the majority of that time for the functioning of the society of that time. Systems of law are thus just exercises in pragmatism for the current time. But there is an implied “sanctity” and “immutability”  to systems of law which is neither justified nor rational. They are never laws in the sense of the Natural Laws which are not time-dependent and where compliance is inherent in the formulation of the law. Even the laws of God depend upon which religion one chooses to follow and when that religion was invented. The Big Ten as handed down to Moses no longer all apply. Times change, societies change and the laws of man (and those of God as formulated by man) must follow – but they don’t. It should not be beyond the wit of man to make such laws subject to the common sense of the time. Perhaps every law made by man should also have a term of validity. But that would be asking too much. And time and time again “the law is an ass” in its formulation or in its application!

“It is a rule of evidence deduced from the experience of mankind and supported by reason and authority that positive testimony is entitled to more weight than negative testimony but by the latter term is meant negative testimony in it’s true sense and not positive evidence of a negative, because testimony in support of a negative may be as positive as that in support of an affirmative…” Blackburn v. State, 254 Pac. 467, 472 (Ariz. 1927)

Just 3 examples from today’s news.

  1. The Independent: A Dutch appeals court has lifted a ban on an organisation which lobbies for the legalisation of sex between adults and children, after finding that the group was not breaking any laws in The Netherlands. ….. an appeals court in Leeuwarden has ruled that the group, which claims it does not promote sexual abuse and insists it is “a platform for discussion of paedophilia”, could not be outlawed because its existence did not threaten society, the Dutch News website reported.
  2. (Reuters) – Amnesty International has condemned a reported Saudi Arabian court ruling that a young man should be paralyzed as punishment for a crime he committed 10 years ago which resulted in the victim being confined to a wheelchair. The London-based human rights group said Ali al-Khawaher, 24, was reported to have spent 10 years in jail waiting to be paralyzed surgically unless his family pays one million Saudi riyals ($270,000) to the victim.
  3. RollingStone: …. Despite the passage in late 2012 of a new state ballot initiative that prevents California from ever again giving out life sentences to anyone whose “third strike” is not a serious crime, thousands of people – the overwhelming majority of them poor and nonwhite – remain imprisoned for a variety of offenses so absurd that any list of the unluckiest offenders reads like a macabre joke, a surrealistic comedy routine. Have you heard the one about the guy who got life for stealing a slice of pizza? Or the guy who went away forever for lifting a pair of baby shoes? Or the one who got 50 to life for helping himself to five children’s videotapes from Kmart? How about the guy who got life for possessing 0.14 grams of meth? ….

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Posted in Behaviour, Social Science | 1 Comment »

Middle managers are like monkeys

April 3, 2013

Middle managers are the ones with the fewest “degrees of freedom”. They have the least space to escape from pressure from their superiors because of the demands from their subordinates. Conflict situations in the work place  can generally be avoided by those at the lowest hierarchical levels and can be unilaterally resolved by those at the highest. But those in the middle have no place to run. It seems to be an inherent characteristic of all human organisations. Which is why conventional wisdom tells us that it is middle managers who are subjected to the highest levels of stress and run the highest risk of stress-related disabilities.

Now a new paper shows that it is an organisational characteristic which can also be observed in the hierarchical structure of troops of monkeys. Monkeys in the middle experience the greatest stress. Perhaps it is in our genes? How we (or monkeys) organise  is a natural consequence of the need to cooperate. And it is probably our genes which have given us the propensity to cooperate.

Katie L. Edwards, Susan L. Walker, Rebecca F. Bodenham, Harald Ritchie, Susanne Shultz. Associations between social behaviour and adrenal activity in female Barbary macaques: Consequences of study design. General and Comparative Endocrinology, 2013; 186: 72 DOI: 10.1016/j.ygcen.2013.02.023

From the Manchester University press release:

A study by the universities of Manchester and Liverpool observing monkeys has found that those in the middle hierarchy suffer the most social stress. Their work suggests that the source of this stress is social conflict and may help explain studies in humans that have found that middle managers suffer the most stress at work.

Female Barbary macaques at Trentham Monkey Forest

Female Barbary macaques at Trentham Monkey Forest

Katie Edwards from Liverpool’s Institute of Integrative Biology spent nearly 600 hours watching female Barbary macaques at Trentham Monkey Forest in Staffordshire. Her research involved monitoring a single female over one day, recording all incidences of social behaviour. These included agonistic behaviour like threats, chases and slaps, submissive behaviour like displacing, screaming, grimacing and hind-quarter presentation and affiliative behaviour such as teeth chatter, embracing and grooming. 

The following day faecal samples from the same female were collected and analysed for levels of stress hormones at Chester Zoo’s wildlife endocrinology laboratory.  

Katie explains what she found: “Not unsurprisingly we recorded the highest level of stress hormones on the days following agonistic behaviour. However, we didn’t find a link between  lower stress hormone levels and affiliative behaviour such as grooming.”  

She continues: “Unlike previous studies that follow a group over a period of time and look at average behaviours and hormone levels, this study allowed us to link the observed behaviour of specific monkeys with their individual hormone samples from the period when they were displaying that behaviour.”  

Another key aspect of the research was noting where the observed monkey ranked in the social hierarchy of the group. The researchers found that monkeys from the middle order had the highest recorded levels of stress hormones.  

Dr Susanne Shultz, a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Faculty of Life Sciences at The University of Manchester oversaw the study: “What we found was that monkeys in the middle of the hierarchy are involved with conflict from those below them as well as from above, whereas those in the bottom of the hierarchy distance themselves from conflict. The middle ranking macaques are more likely to challenge, and be challenged by, those higher on the social ladder.”  

Katie says the results could also be applied to human behaviour: “It’s possible to apply these findings to other social species too, including human hierarchies. People working in middle management might have higher levels of stress hormones compared to their boss at the top or the workers they manage. These ambitious mid-ranking people may want to access the higher-ranking lifestyle which could mean facing more challenges, whilst also having to maintain their authority over lower-ranking workers.”   

The research findings have been published in the journal General and Comparative Endocrinology.   

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Posted in Behaviour, Evolution, Management | 1 Comment »

Indian surrogate mother dies after delivery of child for a Norwegian couple

April 2, 2013

UPDATE – from the Norwegian press—

The surrogate mother bore twins but one of them died after birth.

The Norwegian Embassy in India confirmed that preparations were underway for the other child to be taken to Norway.

The surrogate mother was apparently paid 31,000 Norwegian Kronor (about $6,000) (corrected below)

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This report in the Svenska Dagbladet today is disturbing not because there is anything inherently wrong with surrogacy but because it smacks of exploitation – of wealth being used to pass on the risks of childbirth to a “poor” surrogate mother. There are some very gray ethics involved in a “rich” Norwegian couple exploiting the poverty of a “poor” surrogate mother who dies – especially in doing something not permitted in Norway. No doubt the surrogate was paid the “going rate” for surrogacy (about $6,000). But I doubt the surrogate had made any real assessment of the risk of losing her life or that the “contract” had a clause to cover for the death of the surrogate.

Svenska Dagbladet: An Indian woman who was the surrogate for a Norwegian couple died shortly after birth. The woman, who was married and had children of  her own developed Hepatitis E during the pregnancy. 

“Pregnancy and childbirth is unpredictable for us all. Unforseen things can happen and the surrogate contract and the parties should take this into account”, says anthropologist Kristin Engh Førde.

Surrogates are not allowed in Norway and Norwegians make use of egg donation abroad.

The article does not report on the condition of the baby nor on the condition of the surrogate’s own children.

I hope the Norwegian couple get their child — but what is their responsibility for those other children?

I am not sure if the quote from anthropologist Kristin Engh Førde is meant to imply – and I hope it does not – that it is the responsibility of every surrogate mother to accept the risk of dying and contract accordingly.

Would the surrogate have died if she had been giving birth at a Norwegian hospital? Would her Hepatitis E have been treated in time?

Mortality rates are generally low, for hepatitis E is a “self-limiting” disease. …  However, during the duration of the infection (usually several weeks), the disease severely impairs a person’s ability to work, care for family members, and obtain food. Hepatitis E occasionally develops into an acute, severe liver disease, and is fatal in about 2% of all cases. Clinically, it is comparable to hepatitis A, but in pregnant women the disease is more often severe and is associated with a clinical syndrome called fulminant hepatic failure. Pregnant women, especially those in the third trimester, suffer an elevated mortality rate from the disease of around 20%.

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Posted in Behaviour, India, Medicine, Norway | 1 Comment »

James Hansen’s exit strategy unfolding as he retires from NASA

April 2, 2013

It was just last week that I asked “Are global warmists preparing exit strategies?”, about warmists in general and about James Hansen in particular.

And today the New York Times reports that Hansen is to retire from NASA – ostensibly to free his hands as an activist. But it has been his association with NASA which has given him the pondus he has had in the global warming priesthood. He has been an embarrassment to NASA for some time but he is 72 and is surely ripe for retirement. I suspect he actually did resign (rather than being required to resign) and his “exit strategy” is playing out. It will allow him to fade quietly out of the alarmist picture he helped create before it is erased completely.

New York Times: James E. Hansen, the climate scientist who issued the clearest warning of the 20th century about the dangers of global warming, will retire from NASA this week, giving himself more freedom to pursue political and legal efforts to limit greenhouse gases.

….. At the same time, retirement will allow Dr. Hansen to press his cause in court. He plans to take a more active role in lawsuits challenging the federal and state governments over their failure to limit emissions, for instance, as well as in fighting the development in Canada of a particularly dirty form of oil extracted from tar sands.

“As a government employee, you can’t testify against the government,” he said in an interview.

Dr. Hansen had already become an activist in recent years, taking vacation time from NASA to appear at climate protests and allowing himself to be arrested or cited a half-dozen times.

But those activities, going well beyond the usual role of government scientists, had raised eyebrows at NASA headquarters in Washington. “It was becoming clear that there were people in NASA who would be much happier if the ‘sideshow’ would exit,” Dr. Hansen said in an e-mail.

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The return of Eugenics

March 30, 2013

It is the association of the practice of Eugenics with Adolf Hitler and his Nazis and the stigma which that brings which makes it – at least overtly – politically incorrect and tabu. But it was formally practiced by many governments through the 1900’s and as late as 1975 in Sweden.  But Hitler was also a vegetarian, a teetotaler and a non-smoker. So something more than a “Hitler connection” is needed when discussing eugenics. This recent tweet from Richard Dawkins  together with all the recent developments in genetics and IVF and pre-natal screening got me to wondering as to why there is a perception in some quarters that eugenics is “evil”.

Richard Dawkins@RichardDawkins  “Eugenics”: What’s wrong with a nonrandom choice of a gene your child COULD have got from you at random, anyway, by normal genetic lottery? 9:18 AM – 17 Mar 13

Definition of eugenics: noun [treated as singular]

the science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics.

The application of eugenics included genetic screening, birth control, promoting differential birth rates, marriage restrictions, segregation, compulsory sterilization, forced abortions or forced pregnancies and genocide. But the history of the practice of eugenics goes back to infanticide in pre-historic times and we apply it every day without any objections in the management of domestic and wild animals. In the days when we were hunter gatherers – it is thought – infanticide was commonly prevalent:

Joseph Birdsell believed that infanticide rates in prehistoric times were between 15% and 50% of the total number of births, while Laila Williamson estimated a lower rate ranging from 15% to 20%. Both anthropologists believed that these high rates of infanticide persisted until the development of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution. Comparative anthropologists have calculated that 50% of female newborn babies were killed by their parents during the Paleolithic era. Decapitated skeletons of hominid children have been found with evidence of cannibalism.

The Hitler and the Nazi connotation is certainly part of it but is it primarily the application of coercive measures which today gives eugenics its unsavoury reputation? As practiced in the early 20th century eugenics was applied to humans pretty much as it was for animals – effectively by promoting certain types of matings, preventing others and culling unwanted individuals. I suspect that it is not just the Hitler connection and the coercive treatment of humans which is so objectionable but also that groups of humans were treated en masse as animals for the sake of improvement of the herd.

In today’s world it is perfectly acceptable for couples using IVF to choose – so far as is possible – desirable genetic characteristics of the sperm or egg donor or both. Genetic pre-natal screening can and does lead to abortions if certain criteria are met or others are found wanting. It is effectively culling before birth. Potential surrogate mothers are genetically screened before selection. Genocide and mass rape still take place in conflict situations (Kosovo, Rwanda…) but are universally condemned. We find it perfectly acceptable however that these choices be made by individuals or couples about “their” child. It is taken to be a proper expression of individual rights – though the consequences are mainly borne by the child yet to be born (or not born). But we would find it quite unacceptable today if any government or society would impose these choices on any individual.

It would seem therefore that eugenics is here to stay. As a preventative health measure it is already acceptable if practiced voluntarily by the individuals involved. Selective breeding practiced voluntarily by individuals is also acceptable but is unacceptable if imposed by coercive decree. Enforced sterilisation of those considered mentally or physically defective was a major part of the Eugenics programs in Europe and the US and Australia but the sterilisation of the mentally ill is much rarer now. It seems inevitable that as physical or behavioural or mental characteristics can be connected to specific genes or groups of genes that these characteristics will become part of the criteria for selecting sperm or eggs or for continuing with a pregnancy or not. And even if “voluntary” individual eugenics is already in place today, I am afraid that it is not unthinkable that governments and societies will once again insist on specifying the criteria to be used to improve the common condition. I conclude therefore that it cannot be eugenics which is evil but it is the manner in which it is practiced which can.

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Posted in Behaviour, Evolution, Medicine, Politics | 2 Comments »

We learn about climate only when the models are wrong!

March 29, 2013

When a forecast based on a mathematical model is correct, we learn nothing.

A mathematical model is merely a theory, a simplification of reality or an approximation to the real world. By definition a mathematical model is a hypothesis.  When forecasts are incorrect, we can return to our model and improve it and make a new hypothesis. A forecast is then a test of the model but in just one particular set of circumstances. Being correct does not prove the theory behind the model. It does of course add to the body of evidence that the model may be a satisfactory representation of reality and it does allow further forecasts to be made without tweaking the model. For learning to take place the mathematical model must be the falsifiable hypothesis of the scientific method.

It seems to me that Solar Science has a much healthier (scientifically) attitude to models and forecasts than “Climate Science”. When observations don’t match a climate forecast, the observations are impugned rather than the models being improved. This is, I think, because the forecast climate results have been used to establish huge revenue flows in the political arena (whether as taxes or carbon credits or just as research funding). There has been a vested interest in denying the observations and calling the science “settled”. Once the science is “settled”  the climate forecast and its underlying model become sacrosanct and take on the certainty of prophecy. Instead of being falsifiable hypotheses, climate model forecasts have taken on the character of unfalsifiable prophecies!

No scientist would presume to claim that we know or understand all solar effects. Or that we know and understand the role of the oceans or of the water vapour and dust and aerosols in the atmosphere. “Climate” is contained in the thin, chaotic layer of atmosphere which surrounds us. Yet “Climate Science” makes the arrogant assumption that the effect of trace amounts of carbon dioxide on climate is known definitively. Filling a real greenhouse with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide does not make that greenhouse any warmer than one filled with normal air – but the plants do grow faster with access to the additional CO2!! But – claim the climate priesthood –  in the real atmosphere, carbon dioxide causes other forcings (clouds? aerosols? precipitation effects?) which maximise warming which means that our model is still valid. Why not just admit that we don’t know what we don’t know?

The behavioural issue of course is whether it is worth trying to control something as poorly understood as climate rather than ensuring that we have the wherewithal to adapt to whatever changes may come. Another ice age will surely come whether in 10 years or a 100 years or 2,000. It will then be our ability to harness all available energy sources around us which will determine our capacity to adapt.

Learning from forecasts when they are wrong – not just in science but also in business and project management and technology development – has long been a hobby-horse of mine and is why forecasts need to be wrong.

When there is no difference there is no learning.

  • I take prophecies to be a promise about the future  based primarily on faith and made by prophets , witchdoctors, soothsayers and politicians such as ”You will be doomed to eternal damnation if you don’t do as I say”,
  • I take “forecasts” to be an estimate of future conditions based on known data with the use of calculations, logic, judgement, some intuition and even some faith. They are extrapolations of historical conditions to anticipate – and thereby plan for -future conditions.

……. Over the last 30 years I have spent of a lot of time conducting and participating in reviews. Reviews of research projects, of construction projects, of organisations and processes, of designs, of strategies and action plans, of businesses and of companies. The common features  in all these different reviews, that I have found the most penetrating, have been the comparisons not only between forecast values  and actual values, (which may be any values indicating performance and capable of being extrapolated), but also between past forecasts and current forecasts.

Whether considering construction progress or costs or sales figures or cash flow or profit or number of patents applied for, it is the differences between forecast and actual values, or values forecast before and values forecast later which have led to learning. In all these fields we are in the area of the behaviour of complex systems; and where people and their behaviour is involved any system is inevitably a complex system.

When a forecast is fulfilled there is usually an air of congratulation, satisfaction and self-adulation and this leads to a deadly complacency that everything is “settled science” and well understood. In any enterprise of any kind, that kind of complacency is the kiss of death. It is the differences which lead to questioning, to proper scientific scepticism, to further investigation and ultimately to an increase of understanding and – perhaps – a better forecast. (Of course, ignoring all such differences  and to merely “continue as before” can be equally fatal).

Which brings me to climate (which is not a science by any stretch of the imagination) and solar cycles. They are both in the realm not only of where “what we know is a great deal less than what we don’t know” but they are also both in the region where “we don’t even know what we don’t know”. We do not even know all the questions to be asked. They are both complex systems where – by definition – the complexity lies in the multitude of the processes involved and their interactions.

When climate – which is contained in the 100 m of ocean and 20 or so km thick, turbulent and chaotic atmospheric layer (and which is dimensionally miniscule in relation to the 140 million km of the earth-to-sun system) – is so complacently considered to be “settled science” then we have shifted into the area of faith and soothsaying and prophecies. When climate modellers are smug enough to believe they have understood the climate system and believe that their models are complete, then the models produce outputs which are not forecasts but prophecies. (No doubt soothsayers and shamans have sometimes made accurate prophecies but I still would not buy a used car from one of them)! Weather is in the realm of forecast (though you could argue that the most accurate forecast is still that “the weather tomorrow will be like today”) but climate is not yet there.

This kind of “arrogance” which pervades some of the climate “scientists” is not so prevalent when it comes to the study of Solar Cycles. There is a clear understanding that “we don’t know what we don’t know”. In addition to the 11 year and 22 year cycles, other cycles are hypothesised for 87 years, 210 years, 2300 years (or maybe 2241 or 2500 years) and 6000 years. We have no idea what causes these cycles. Even the 11 year cycle which has been most studied produces  surprises every day but is properly in the area of “forecast” (and hopefully never again will be in the area of prophecy). ….

…… We seem to be in a solar minimum. We may be seeing a 210 year cycle – or maybe not. There are changes to the forecasts not only regarding the maximum level of sunspot activity but also about when it will occur and what the length of cycle 24 might be. There is speculation as to what effect the length of the solar cycle may have on climate – but we haven’t a clue as to what mechanisms may be involved.  This is not to say that there isn’t much speculation and hypothesising. There is a great deal of comment about the effect these changing forecasts may have on global warming or cooling or climate disruption.  In some quarters there is much glee that the forecasts have been “wrong”. Some comments question the intelligence of the forecasters.

But of course the forecasts themselves say nothing about how the behaviour of the sun may impact our climate. They do not pretend to be prophecies or to be statements of inevitable outcomes. All they do say is that we don’t know very much – yet – about the sun. But we do know enough to make some tentative forecasts.

But I am very glad that people continue to be brave enough to make forecasts and I am quite relieved that the forecasts are not spot on. That at least ensures we will continue learning.

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Posted in Behaviour, Climate, Science | Comments Off on We learn about climate only when the models are wrong!

Are global warmists preparing exit strategies?

March 28, 2013

Are global warmists preparing their arguments so that they can have exit strategies ready for when they have to abandon the global warming religion?

The purpose of an exit strategy is – as a minimum – to save face and minimise losses. In the best case it ends an engagement while realising potential benefits and protecting past gains. This is common enough in – and a necessary part of  – business and military planning. Politicians – at least the skilled ones – always have exit strategies in place when they choose to follow a particular “path of principle”. It is less likely that ideologues or religious leaders have prepared exits from dogmatic positions. However even they do have to change their colours from time to time. (Fanatics of course are not permitted exit strategies. They are expected to fall on their swords and die for their cause).

To escape from a discredited or outdated or bankrupt “faith-based” dogma usually requires some strong, visible reason for leaving a dogmatic position. A divine “revelation” is best though “new data” or  just “seeing the light” are also acceptable. This provides both a new faith as a destination and a reason for leaving the current position. A good exit strategy will also include a high profile “conversion” from one faith to another such that much credit can accrue, first for an”honourable” mea culpa for having followed the wrong path and then for the “principled and difficult” shift to the new path! Damage control may also require that the new converts repudiate their former “brothers of the faith”. In fact it is often “converts” who become the most fanatical about their new “religion”. The success of an exit strategy can be judged by how much baggage or stigma the ideologue or politician can avoid after the conversion.

James Hansen has been one of the most vocal and active proponents of the global warming hypothesis that it is caused by man-made emissions of carbon dioxide. He has been seen as one of the high priests of the global warming religion and qualifies as an ideologue:

Hansen is best known for his research in the field of climatology, his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in 1988 that helped raise broad awareness of global warming, and his advocacy of action to avoid dangerous climate change. In recent years, Hansen has become an activist for action to mitigate the effects of climate change, which on a few occasions has led to his arrest.

But he has a new (open access)  paper which makes me wonder whether he is preparing a position for the execution of an exit strategy when it becomes necessary.  He now admits that less of human made CO2 is entering the atmosphere than it should but that it is due to the increased use of coal which has increased aerosol particulates. He argues that this short term masking by aerosols of global warming will eventually have to appear and his doomsday messages have not changed. But he is adjusting his arguments quite fundamentally to account for the real life observations which he can no longer ignore. The “fertlisation of the biosphere” to account for man-made carbon dioxide not entering the atmosphere sounds a lot like back-pedalling to me. That the biosphere feeds on and relishes carbon dioxide is obvious. It does not much care  where it comes from.

James Hansen et al 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 011006 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/1/011006

Climate forcing growth rates: doubling down on our Faustian bargain

As The Hockey Schtick reports some of the contents are startling – coming from Hansen:

  • the effect [forcing] of man-made greenhouse gas emissions has fallen below IPCC projections, despite an increase in man-made CO2 emissions exceeding IPCC projections
  • the growth rate of the greenhouse gas forcing has “remained below the peak values reached in the 1970s and early 1980s, has been relatively stable for about 20 years, and is falling below IPCC (2001) scenarios (figure 5).”
  • the airborne fraction of CO2 [the ratio of observed atmospheric CO2 increase to fossil fuel CO2 emissions] has decreased over the past 50 years [figure 3], especially after the year 2000
  • Hansen believes the explanation for this conundrum is CO2 fertilization of the biosphere from “the surge of fossil fuel use, mainly coal.”
  • “the surge of fossil fuel emissions, especially from coal burning, along with the increasing atmospheric CO2 level is ‘fertilizing’ the biosphere, and thus limiting the growth of atmospheric CO2.”
  • “the rate of global warming seems to be less this decade than it has been during the prior quarter century”

From the paper:

The simple Keeling airborne fraction, clearly, is not increasing (figure 3). Thus the net ocean plus terrestrial sink for carbon emissions has increased by a factor of 3–4 since 1958, accommodating the emissions increase by that factor.

Figure 3.

Figure 3. Fossil fuel CO2 emissions (left scale) and airborne fraction, i.e., the ratio of observed atmospheric CO2 increase to fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Final three points are 5-, 3- and 1-year means.

Remarkably, and we will argue importantly, the airborne fraction has declined since 2000 (figure 3) during a period without any large volcanic eruptions. The 7-year running mean of the airborne fraction had remained close to 60% up to 2000, except for the period affected by Pinatubo. The airborne fraction is affected by factors other than the efficiency of carbon sinks, most notably by changes in the rate of fossil fuel emissions (Gloor et al 2010). However, it is the dependence of the airborne fraction on fossil fuel emission rate that makes the post-2000 downturn of the airborne fraction particularly striking. The change of emission rate in 2000 from 1.5% yr-1 to 3.1% yr-1 (figure 1), other things being equal, would have caused a sharp increase of the airborne fraction (the simple reason being that a rapid source increase provides less time for carbon to be moved downward out of the ocean’s upper layers). ……

…… We suggest that the surge of fossil fuel use, mainly coal, since 2000 is a basic cause of the large increase of carbon uptake by the combined terrestrial and ocean carbon sinks. One mechanism by which fossil fuel emissions increase carbon uptake is by fertilizing the biosphere via provision of nutrients essential for tissue building, especially nitrogen, which plays a critical role in controlling net primary productivity and is limited in many ecosystems (Gruber and Galloway 2008). Modeling (e.g., Thornton et al 2009) and field studies (Magnani et al 2007) confirm a major role of nitrogen deposition, working in concert with CO2 fertilization, in causing a large increase in net primary productivity of temperate and boreal forests. Sulfate aerosols from coal burning also might increase carbon uptake by increasing the proportion of diffuse insolation, as noted above for Pinatubo aerosols, even though the total solar radiation reaching the surface is reduced.

The paper concludes

The principal implication of our present analysis probably relates to the Faustian bargain. Increased short-term masking of greenhouse gas warming by fossil fuel particulate and nitrogen pollution represents a ‘doubling down’ of the Faustian bargain, an increase in the stakes. The more we allow the Faustian debt to build, the more unmanageable the eventual consequences will be. Yet globally there are plans to build more than 1000 coal-fired power plants (Yang and Cui 2012) and plans to develop some of the dirtiest oil sources on the planet (EIA 2011). These plans should be vigorously resisted. We are already in a deep hole—it is time to stop digging.

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Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Climate, Science | 7 Comments »

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