India’s plummeting birth rates illustrate the coming population decline

May 9, 2013

Fertility rates are dropping sharply across the world and simple arithmetic tells us that by 2100 world population will be steady or declining slightly. In fact, rather than facing a population explosion and food shortages we will be facing the demographic challenges of a stable or declining population together with an increase in longevity. A new flexibility in the patterns of working will be needed as the populations in work reduce in proportion to those beyond retirement age. Retirement age itself will have to increase.

Yet it seems to me that the utterly alarmist, Malthusian, catastrophe scenarios for world population put forward in the 1970’s and 80’s by the Club of Rome, Ehrlich and other doom-mongers still prevail as “conventional wisdom” – even though it has long been established that their basic assumptions were plain wrong. For some reason environmentalists are the most ardent deniers of what the arithmetic says. They are the first to proclaim the dangers of population explosions yet are extremely loth to abandon catastrophe scenarios they have espoused when they are shown to be exaggerated or false.

I was therefore glad to see the subject getting attention in GeoCurrents where Martin W Lewis addresses and presents the sharply falling fertility rates around the world and in the various States in India. His maps are particularly well put together. The average fertlity rate in India is now down to 2.5 but many of the States fall well below the “replacement rate” of 2.2. The variation of fertility rates is impacted by the “usual suspects”; GDP, female literacy, proportion of urban dwellers, life expectancy, the Human Development Index (HDI) and the availability of electricity. But as Lewis shows there is also a striking correlation between fertility and TV ownership (seems plausible) and between fertility rates and the exposure of women to the media (also very plausible).

India’s Plummeting Birthrate: A Television-Induced Transformation?

…. It can be deceptive, however, to view India as an undivided whole. As shown on the map posted here, fertility figures for half of India are actually below replacement level. Were it not for the Hindi-speaking heartland, India would already be looking at population stabilization and even decline. All the states of southern India post TFR figures below 1.9. A number of states in the far north and the northeast boast similarly low fertility levels, including West Bengal, noted for its swarming metropolis of Calcutta (Kolkata).

(from GeoCurrents)

India’s geographical birthrate disparities, coupled with the country’s admirable ability to collect socio-economic data, allow us to carefully examine ideas about fertility decline. The remainder of this post will do so through cartography, comparing the Indian fertility-rate map with maps of other social and economic indicators. ……. 

……

Some scholars have argued that recent fertility decreases in India and elsewhere in the Third World are more specifically linked to one technological innovation: television. The TV hypothesis is well-known in the field, discussed, for example, in the LiveScience article on the African population explosion mentioned above. In regard to India, Robert Jensen and Emily Oster argue persuasively that television works this magic mostly by enhancing the social position of women. As they state in their abstract:

This paper explores the effect of the introduction of cable television on women’s status in rural India. Using a three-year, individual-level panel dataset, we find that the introduction of cable television is associated with significant decreases in the reported acceptability of domestic violence towards women and son preference, as well as increases in women’s autonomy and decreases in fertility. We also find suggestive evidence that exposure to cable increases school enrollment for younger children, perhaps through increased participation of women in household decision-making. We argue that the results are not driven by pre-existing differential trends.

As it turns out, the map of television ownership in India does bear a particularly close resemblance to the fertility map. Two anomalously low-fertility states with low levels of female education, Andhra Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, score relatively high on TV penetration, as does West Bengal, which lags on several other important socio-economic indicators. The correlation is far from perfect: Mizoram ranks higher on the TV chart than its fertility figures would indicate, whereas Odisha and Assam rank lower. Odisha and Assam turn out to be a bit less exceptional in a related but broader and more gender-focused metric, that of “female exposure to media.” These figures, which include a television component, seem to provide the best overall correlation with the spatial patterns of Indian fertility.

(from GeoCurrents)

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Cheers (hic)! Champagne research at the University of Reading.

May 9, 2013

Back in 2009, Dr Jeremy Spencer from the University of Reading published a paper in the British Journal of Nutrition about how drinking champagne was good for your heart.

image – LiveScience

Research from the University of Reading suggests that two glasses of Champagne a day may be good for your heart and circulation. The researchers have found that drinking Champagne wine daily in moderate amounts causes improvements in the way blood vessels function. …… 

….. Dr Jeremy Spencer, from the Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences said: “Our research has shown that drinking around two glasses of Champagne can have beneficial effects on the way blood vessels function, in a similar way to that observed with red wine. We always encourage a responsible approach to alcohol consumption, but the fact that drinking Champagne has the potential to reduce the risks of suffering from cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and stroke, is very exciting news.” 

University of Reading

Four years on he is now Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry and Medicine and – presumably – many cases of champagne later, he has just published another paper on the benefits of champagne in improving memory and holding back dementia .

New research shows that drinking one to three glasses of champagne a week may counteract the memory loss associated with ageing, and could help delay the onset of degenerative brain disorders, such as dementia.

Scientists at the University of Reading have shown that the phenolic compounds found in champagne can improve spatial memory, which is responsible for recording information about one’s environment, and storing the information for future navigation. …. 

….. Professor Jeremy Spencer, Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, University of Reading, said: “These exciting results illustrate for the first time that the moderate consumption of champagne has the potential to influence cognitive functioning, such as memory.  Such observations have previously been reported with red wine, through the actions of flavonoids contained within it. 

“However, our research shows that champagne, which lacks flavonoids, is also capable of influencing brain function through the actions of smaller phenolic compounds, previously thought to lack biological activity. …

The paper is published in Antioxidants and Redox Signalling.

I have a very clear “vision” of what Professor Spencer’s lab might look like. A lot more genteel than a pub or a bar — since it’s champagne! I don’t suppose Prof. Spencer has much difficulty in recruiting post-grads and post-docs (whose alcohol consumption capacity is legendary and insatiable). The Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences boasts that it has over 100 PhD and MPhil students!

We currently have over 100 PhD and MPhil students, who each belong to one or more of our 3 research groups:

  • Food and Bioprocessing Sciences
  • Food Microbial Sciences
  • Human Nutrition

Since 1998, we have enjoyed a 97-100% pass rate. Sponsorship comes from research councils, Government departments, the European Union, charities, industry, the Reading Endowment Trust Fund and overseas scholarships.

Note — a 97 – 100% pass rate!

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Posted in Behaviour, Medicine, Memory, Science | 2 Comments »

Snapshot of the world economy

May 9, 2013

Nothing much new here but some nice graphics.

Growth is shifting to Africa but the African economy is not sufficiently large as yet to act as the motor for the world.

Figure 1. World: 2013 GDP Growth Forecast

World: 2013 GDP Growth Forecast (IMF)

 

GDP Per Capita vs Median Age

GDP Per Capita vs Median Age (FT Data)

 

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Sense and nonsense : The Aquatic Ape Theory

May 9, 2013

The Aquatic Ape Theory is one that the mainstream loves to lampoon and ridicule (here and here for example). For the first time in some 50 years a conference on the subject is being currently held in London — much to the disgust of main-stream evolutionists.

But for all the ridicule, the fact remains that we do not yet have a satisfactory explanation for how modern humans came to shed their fur, developed bi-pedalism and developed a layer of fat under our skins. The “consensus” theory that climate change caused forests to change to savannahs and forced primates to leave the trees, walk on two legs to use their hands, start running to catch prey,  discard their fur to stay cool and develop sweat glands to get rid of the heat generated, actually has almost as many holes as the Aquatic Theory.

Maybe some integration of these theories is necessary. Or perhaps there is a better theory waiting to be found. In any event, I have a natural suspicion of all science which has to invoke a “consensus” to justify itself.  But more importantly I just like the idea of some idyllic, aquatic interlude in our ancient past.

But whatever the truth of it,  Elaine Morgan is always entertaining and well worth listening to. As she puts it  “You cannot stave off the Aquatic Theory to protect a vacuum. … History is strewn with cases when we have all got it wrong!”

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Posted in Evolution | 1 Comment »

Peer review for funding is different to that for publication

May 8, 2013

I note that battle lines are being drawn in the US between the parties concerning peer review and the NSF. The Republicans are questioning a number of NSF grants and demanding some justification of the review process for funding awards.  The Democrats are taking this as an heretical attack on SCIENCE. But I also note that one important distinction is not being drawn.

Choosing projects for funding from the public purse is fundamentally a political process and requires justification in simple terms to the providers of that funding (the taxpayer). While peer review – for all its faults – may be used to select projects the reviewers cannot escape the responsibility to justify their selections to the funders (and not just to the funding organisation – NSF – set up to channel the funds). Of course the NSF would prefer that they have complete freedom in disbursing the funds allocated to them in any way they please – but that won’t wash. The acceptance of public funds demands public accountability.

Peer review for publication is a very different thing. This should be in – engineering terms – a “Quality gate”. It should be a check of the quality of the work done and its independence. But here reviewers also carry  a “fiduciary” responsibility which is not always met. The reviewers carry an obligation of trust and ethical propriety not only to the journals they serve but also to the readers and subscribers of that journal. Where funding is involved this “fiduciary” responsibility extends to the providers of the funds. Unlike reviewers for funding selection who – I think – must be able to justify their choices to a wider audience than the “in-crowd”, the publication reviewer does not need to provide explanations for his opinions. But his opinions cannot be secret opinions – and that requires that such reviewers not be anonymous and that their opinions be available. Journal editors have the final responsibility for what is published or not. But reviewers should not escape being held responsible and accountable for their share of such decisions. They cannot escape from ownership and consequences of their own opinions and judgements on which decisions to publish or reject may be based.

Financial auditors cannot escape their fiduciary responsibilities (though they often escape accountability). Can the scientific community continue to take – or appear to take –  less responsibility than the financial community? Accountability is quite another matter.

ScienceInsider: 

The new chair of the House of Representatives science committee has drafted a bill that, in effect, would replace peer review at the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a set of funding criteria chosen by Congress. For good measure, it would also set in motion a process to determine whether the same criteria should be adopted by every other federal science agency.

The legislation, being worked up by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), represents the latest—and bluntest—attack on NSF by congressional Republicans seeking to halt what they believe is frivolous and wasteful research being funded in the social sciences. Last month, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) successfully attached language to a 2013 spending bill that prohibits NSF from funding any political science research for the rest of the fiscal year unless its director certifies that it pertains to economic development or national security. Smith’s draft bill, called the “High Quality Research Act,” would apply similar language to NSF’s entire research portfolio across all the disciplines that it supports.

Nature: 

In a brief 15-minute speech today, US President Barack Obama championed independence for the peer-review process, in front of an audience of elite researchers at the 150th annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC.

“In order for us to maintain our edge, we’ve got to protect our rigorous peer review system,” Obama said. His support comes on the heels of draft legislation, dated 18 April, that ScienceInsider reports is being discussed by the chairman of the US House of Representatives Science Committee, Lamar Smith (Republican, Texas). That legislation would overhaul peer review of grants submitted to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and require the NSF director to certify each funded project as benefitting the economic or public health of the United States.

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Looking for the Entwives – new Berkeley model predicts forests will march polewards because of global warming

May 7, 2013

It is the Age of the Models.

Where physical experiments and real data are obsolete. Where experiments are virtual and data-sets are generated by Monte Carlo methods. Where a room with a computer is called a lab. Where outputs of one model become the inputs of another model – never to be sullied by real observations or data. Where the garbage in is never questioned and the garbage out  takes the place of reality.

When you have a model who needs data!

This is a press release (marketing bumf)  from Berkeley Labs to get publicity for a new paper: “Boreal carbon loss due to poleward shift in low-carbon ecosystems,”  published on Nature Geoscience’s website on May 5, 2013.

And when the Ents start marching Saru-Mann is doomed! (apologies to JRR T).

Press Release: 

…. New Berkeley Lab research offers a way to envision a warmer future. It maps how Earth’s myriad climates—and the ecosystems that depend on them—will move from one area to another as global temperatures rise.

The approach foresees big changes for one of the planet’s great carbon sponges. Boreal forests will likely shift north at a steady clip this century. Along the way, the vegetation will relinquish more trapped carbon than most current climate models predict.

Boreal ecosystems encircle the planet’s high latitudes, covering swaths of Canada, Europe, and Russia in coniferous trees and wetlands. This vegetation stores vast amounts of carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere where it can contribute to climate change.

Scientists use incredibly complex computer simulations called Earth system models to predict the interactions between climate change and ecosystems such as boreal forests. These models show that boreal habitat will expand poleward in the coming decades as regions to their north become warmer and wetter. This means that boreal ecosystems are expected to store even more carbon than they do today. ….

But the Berkeley Lab research tells a different story. The planet’s boreal forests won’t expand poleward. Instead, they’ll shift poleward. The difference lies in the prediction that as boreal ecosystems follow the warming climate northward, their southern boundaries will be overtaken by even warmer and drier climates better suited for grassland.

And that’s a key difference. Grassland stores a lot of carbon in its soil, but it accumulates at a much slower rate than is lost from diminishing forests.

“I found that the boreal ecosystems ringing the globe will be pushed north and replaced in their current location by what’s currently to their south. In some places, that will be forest, but in other places it will be grassland,” says Charles Koven, a scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division who conducted the research.

“Most Earth system models don’t predict this, which means they overestimate the amount of carbon that high-latitude vegetation will store in the future,” he adds.

Treebeard the Ent

Wow! paraphrasing Dr. Koven — “All other models are crap. Mine is the real thing”.

Koven’s results come from a new way of tracking global warming’s impact on Earth’s mosaic of climates. The method is based on the premise that as temperatures rise, a location’s climate will be replaced by a similar but slightly warmer climate from a nearby area. The displaced climate will in turn shift to another nearby location with a slightly cooler climate. It’s as if climate change forces warmer climates to flow toward cooler areas, making everywhere warmer over time.

This approach can help determine where a given climate is going to in the future, and where a given climate will come from.

Koven applied this approach to 21 climate models. He used simulations that depict a middle-of-the-road climate change scenario, meaning the range of warming by the end of this century is 1.0°C to 2.6°C above a 1986 to 2005 baseline. …..

….. In general, he found that climates move toward the poles and up mountain slopes. In parts of South America, warmer climates march westward up the Andes. In the southern latitudes, warmer climates head south.

dancing tree woman i entwives and other beauties av

An Entwife? (from http://www.myspace.com)

But the most dramatic changes occur in the higher latitudes. Here, boreal ecosystems will have to race poleward in order to keep up with their climates. They’ll also be encroached by warmer climates from the south. By the end of this century, a forest near Alberta, Canada will have to move 100 miles north in order to maintain its climate. And it will gain a climate that is now located 100 miles to the south.

Forests can’t adapt this quickly, however, meaning that in the short-term they’ll be stressed. And in the long-term they’ll be forced to move north and give up their southern regions to grassland.

Only one of the Earth system models shows this precipitous loss of carbon in southern boreal forests. Koven says that’s because most models don’t account for random events such as fire, drought, and insects that kill already-stressed trees. His “climate analogue” approach does account for these events because they’re implicit in the spatial distribution of ecosystems.

In addition, Earth system models predict carbon loss by placing vegetation at a given point, and then changing various climate properties above it.

“But this approach misses the fact that the whole forest might shift to a different place,” says Koven.

So it is climate model outputs as input to his model to give Dr. Koven his marching boreal forests.  Garbage in and Garbage out. But not a word about the Entwives and where they are to be found.

Somehow I find JRR  T is a lot more readable  — and much more convincing.

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Posted in Alarmism, Trivia | 1 Comment »

Faking the rythm: infantile academic spat at Rutgers University

May 7, 2013

Oh Good Grief!

As if the field of psychology did not have enough scandal and fakery already.

A childish spat between academics at Rutgers and infantile behaviour by Robert Trivers, a Professor of Anthropology who ought to know better. His opponent is William Brown, now a Senior Lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire.  But in this infantile academic spat it does seem as if the “establishment” are circling the wagons. I suspect that Robert Trivers, and Nature and other psychology heavyweights will prevail — but only to the further discredit of the discipline and its narcissistic  “star performers”.

Can’t they just both be spanked — in public? or put in the stocks?

A study featured in Nature in 2005 has drawn suspicion from university officials and one of its authors.

Nature: 

Few researchers have tried harder than Robert Trivers to retract one of their own papers. In 2005, Trivers, an evolutionary biologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, published an attention-grabbing finding: Jamaican teenagers with a high degree of body symmetry were more likely to be rated ‘good dancers’ by their peers than were those with less symmetrical bodies. The study, which suggested that dancing is a signal for sexual selection in humans, was featured on the cover of this journal (W. M. Brown et al. Nature 438, 1148–1150; 2005).

But two years later, Trivers began to suspect that the study data had been faked by one of his co-authors, William Brown, a postdoctoral researcher at the time. In seeking a retraction, Trivers self-published The Anatomy of a Fraud, a small book detailing what he saw as evidence of data fabrication. Later, Trivers had a verbal altercation over the matter with a close colleague and was temporarily banned from campus. 

An investigation of the case, completed by Rutgers and released publicly last month, now seems to validate Trivers’ allegations. Brown disputes the university’s finding, but it could help to clear the controversy that has clouded Trivers’ reputation as the author of several pioneering papers in the 1970s. For example, Trivers advanced an influential theory of ‘reciprocal altruism’, in which people behave unselfishly and hope that they will later be rewarded for their good deeds. He also analysed human sexuality in terms of the investments that mothers and fathers each make in child-rearing. …. 

In 2008, Trivers sought to retract the paper, but found the editors at Nature reluctant to do so. The paper remains unretracted, although a spokeswoman for Nature says that the case is under “active consideration”. (Information available to Nature’s research-manuscript editors is not generally shared with its reporters.) ….

…. Last year, the investigation concluded that there was “clear and convincing” evidence of fabrication by Brown, who it alleged had altered overall asymmetry measures of dancers to support the notion that better dancers were more symmetrical. The report was not published for more than a year, at which point Trivers posted it online. Rutgers has sent a copy to the NSF’s inspector-general, who is reviewing it to determine what action, if any, to take. ……

Brown, now a psychologist at the University of Bedfordshire, UK, denies fabricating the data. He criticizes the Rutgers investigation for comparing his data set with the one from Trivers’ group rather than the original hard copies of the source data.

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Reality bites as EU politicians slowly back away from costly energy policy

May 7, 2013

Reuters reports that EU politicians are to meet at a summit to reassess energy policy in the post-fracking world  (and  – but this is not to be admitted under pain of being shunned – a post-global-warming reality). I just note that politicians will be the most adept at changing direction aand taking credit for moving away from global warming orthodoxy. Many scientists will find their own exit strategies but many will find it difficult to find the rationale to move away from what has become their religion and their livelihood. The least adept at embracing the new reality will the “climate bureaucrats” whose comfortable existence depends upon the global warming religion continuing in force. And all those who have milked the EU subsidy regime for all its worth will not be pleased but they will just move on to the next scam.

(Reuters) – EU heads of state and government will seek ways to limit the impact of energy costs on European competitiveness at a summit this month, a draft document seen by Reuters showed.

European industry says it is disadvantaged because of the price it pays for energy compared with the United States, where the shale gas revolution has drastically lowered costs.

The document ahead of the May 22 EU summit, which has energy and taxation on the agenda, calls for examination of the impact of energy prices and costs and action to limit the effects.

One option is developing the European Union’s own shale gas resources, although this is not mentioned directly. Instead, the draft refers to safe and sustainable development of “indigenous sources of energy”.

Europe’s very different geography and land ownership would make it hard for the European Union to rival the United States in shale gas, but the executive European Commission is working on a framework to guide prospectors.

The leaders are expected to urge the Commission to analyze energy prices and costs in member states “with a particular focus on the EU’s competitiveness” against global rivals.

The draft also points to massive investment costs in boosting power generation and networks as likely to drive up energy prices.

Arguments over energy costs have featured prominently in political debate ahead of German elections and played a part in blocking a Commission proposal to boost carbon prices on the EU market.

The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), where carbon prices have sunk to record lows, is not on the draft agenda, but it could be debated on the sidelines of the summit, EU sources have said.

Efforts to repair that market are also a focus of attention for the European Parliament.

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Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Climate, Energy, Politics | 1 Comment »

“Climate science” now hunting for cooling effects – and finds the brightness of clouds

May 6, 2013

How is it that – for a settled science – all these new “cooling” mechanisms are suddenly being found? Could it have something to do with trying to rescue climate models which have failed to predict the slowdown in global warming? “Climate science” is now hunting for previously unidentified cooling effects to explain the warming that has not happened.

This time it is the brightness of clouds! Apparently manmade pollution in the form of organics can enhance the formation of clouds which happen to be brighter from above and which reflect more of the suns radiation. Voilà! An as yet unidentified cooling effect.

But this conclusion comes not from measurements but from yet another model!

From the University of Machester (via Alpha Galileo):

Organic vapours affect clouds leading to previously unidentified climate cooling

University of Manchester scientists, writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, have shown that natural emissions and manmade pollutants can both have an unexpected cooling effect on the world’s climate by making clouds brighter.

Clouds are made of water droplets, condensed on to tiny particles suspended in the air. When the air is humid enough, the particles swell into cloud droplets. It has been known for some decades that the number of these particles and their size control how bright the clouds appear from the top, controlling the efficiency with which clouds scatter sunlight back into space. A major challenge for climate science is to understand and quantify these effects which have a major impact in polluted regions.

The tiny seed particles can either be natural (for example, sea spray or dust) or manmade pollutants (from vehicle exhausts or industrial activity). These particles often contain a large amount of organic material and these compounds are quite volatile, so in warm conditions exist as a vapour (in much the same way as a perfume is liquid but gives off an aroma when it evaporates on warm skin).

The researchers found that the effect acts in reverse in the atmosphere as volatile organic compounds from pollution or from the biosphere evaporate and give off characteristic aromas, such as the pine smells from forest, but under moist cooler conditions where clouds form, the molecules prefer to be liquid and make larger particles that are more effective seeds for cloud droplets.

“We discovered that organic compounds such as those formed from forest emissions or from vehicle exhaust, affect the number of droplets in a cloud and hence its brightness, so affecting climate,” said study author Professor Gordon McFiggans, from the University of Manchester’s School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences.

“We developed a model and made predictions of a substantially enhanced number of cloud droplets from an atmospherically reasonable amount of organic gases.

“More cloud droplets lead to brighter cloud when viewed from above, reflecting more incoming sunlight. We did some calculations of the effects on climate and found that the cooling effect on global climate of the increase in cloud seed effectiveness is at least as great as the previously found entire uncertainty in the effect of pollution on clouds.”

  • ‘Cloud droplet number enhanced by co-condensation of organic papers,’ by Gordon McFiggans et al, will be published in Nature Geoscience on Sunday 5 May 2013.

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

Randy Andy FRS

May 5, 2013

Either the Royal Society has sold a Fellowship or perhaps they believe that HRH Prince Andrew, the Duke of York will bring great credit to the Society and the scientific community. A remarkable vote where only a “Yes” vote was permitted. No doubt we will hear that there was a clear consensus in favour and that his elevation was supported by – wait for it –  all those who supported him!

To put it mildly, Randy Andy has a rather spotted biography.

Either way it does little credit to the Royal Society or its Fellows.

The Guardian: 

After more than 350 years of largely happy association with assorted royalty Britain’s pre-eminent scientific institution, the Royal Society, faces unprecedented dissent from members after Prince Andrew was elected to become a fellow.

While the objections to the prince mainly centre on his slightly chequered career as a royal, a small number among the 1,450 or so Royal Societyfellowship are asking the wider question of whether it is time for an institution based on science to end the practice of honouring people on the basis of heredity.

The controversy has been fuelled by the way the prince was elected to be a royal fellow, a status he shares with Princes Philip, Charles and William, Princess Anne and the Duke of Kent, while the Queen is the organisation’s patron. The ballots sent out to ordinary fellows provided only one box to tick, supporting the measure. Those opposed had to write “no” themselves or otherwise mark or spoil the paper. … 

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