In 1968, Paul R. Ehrlich wrote a book called The Population Bomb, in which he predicted an explosive rise in the world's population would outstrip the world's food supply, causing unprecedented famine and conflict over resources. Well, it's 42 years later, and his prediction did not come to pass. Instead, the world's population is beginning to stabilize. Check this video from The Economist:
Dr. Ehrlich made predictions based on extrapolating the statistics of the day, without a deep understanding of the underlying processes behind the statistics. And indeed, some of those underlying processes weren't clear to anyone until a couple of decades later.
If you are wondering why the population is stabilizing, it may be because people realize that they are now living longer and can therefore delay child-bearing: take a look at this data.
Anyway, the global emergency of the 1960's was pollution, the 1970's was population, and now it's climate change. Shall this, too, pass?
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
17 December 2010
01 November 2010
Nukes and the Climate
The other day I went to another seminar on Uncertainty Quantification. This time, it was on the "UQ Pipeline," the software suite that runs the multi-physics simulation codes hundreds of times, mapping out the solution space and determining to which input parameters the codes are most sensitive, and how sensitive they are. This information then points the way to research that knocks down the uncertainty in those most sensitive parameters, so we can then have more confidence in the codes' predictions.
Except this time, the topic was not climate modeling. It was nuclear weapons modeling, which is what the UQ methodology was originally designed for. In other words, one of the most important aspects of global climate modeling is a spin-off of the nuclear weapons design program. In fact, the climate modeling program at my lab was itself started as a spin-off from the weapons program, when a number of weapons designers, code physicists and computer scientists left the older program to start up the newer one about 20 years ago.
But climate modeling and nuclear weapons modeling differ in many respects, of which one is crucial to remember: humans have done hundreds of nuclear weapons tests, but we have only one real test of our climate models, and it is still ongoing.
Except this time, the topic was not climate modeling. It was nuclear weapons modeling, which is what the UQ methodology was originally designed for. In other words, one of the most important aspects of global climate modeling is a spin-off of the nuclear weapons design program. In fact, the climate modeling program at my lab was itself started as a spin-off from the weapons program, when a number of weapons designers, code physicists and computer scientists left the older program to start up the newer one about 20 years ago.
But climate modeling and nuclear weapons modeling differ in many respects, of which one is crucial to remember: humans have done hundreds of nuclear weapons tests, but we have only one real test of our climate models, and it is still ongoing.
19 October 2010
The Real Climate Gate
Today I attended a seminar given by the good folks at PCMDI, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison. It was about Uncertainty Quantification of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IGPCC) Community Atmospheric Model (CAM).
What that really means is that the CAM has lots of sub-models inside it - for things like cloud formation, for example. Now cloud formation is a physical process, but the CAM can't afford to model the physics of each and every individual cloud on earth. In order to run in a reasonable time (say 7 hours on a thousand-processor supercomputer) CAM has to use an approximate model that says what density of cloudiness will occur in every 2-degree by 2-degree square patch of atmosphere based on the relative humidity of that patch at each of 26 levels of altitude. The cloudiness will determine how much sunlight gets to the ground and how much is reflected back to space, which helps determine the temperature of the earth under that patch for that day.
But there is an adjustable parameter in the cloudiness model that determines whether water vapor will be deemed to have condensed into cloud at what percentage of relative humidity. And that's just one adjustable parameter. It turns out that the CAM has hundreds of such parameters, as indeed it should. The point of Uncertainty Quantification is to determine how sensitive the CAM is to these parameter settings.
So, the PCMDI folks ran CAM about a thousand times, keeping the same input data (sea surface temperatures) for each run, and varying only the parameters in the sub-models. They used the latest statistical sampling techniques, including Morris One-At-a-Time (MOAT) and others to construct response hyper-surfaces for the most important parameters - the ones that cause the greatest variation in predicted global temperatures 12 years into the future in this case.
Near the beginning of this, however, they noticed a flaw. They ran the code twice with exactly the same model parameters and didn't get the same answer. After a lot of digging they found a subtle round-off error in one of the processors. When it was taken out of service, the flaw disappeared. To give you some idea of how sensitive CAM can be, that one processor's round-off error gave a 3-degree variation in some regional surface temperatures. That's about the same size of the regional variation caused by changing the level of humidity at which clouds form by 10%.
Now that's one of the results of running CAM with sea surface temperatures as a fixed input. Next year they want to run CAM with a "slab-ocean" model, in which the ocean can exchange heat and water vapor with the atmosphere, but can't circulate. Then, the year after next, they want to investigate model sensitivity when CAM is coupled to an Ocean General Circulation Model.
If you haven't seen it coming by now, then here it is: We are only just beginning to understand which are the most sensitive parameters in our Climate Models, and to plan research efforts to minimize the uncertainties to which those most sensitive parameters are known. In other words, our Climate Models are still being tuned.
While prudence would indicate that we should reduce anthropogenic carbon emissions, and geopolitics would indicate that we should reduce fossil fuel consumption, it just doesn't make sense to institute draconian measures based on work at its current level of maturity.
Nevertheless, observational data indicate that the earth is getting warmer, and part of the change is due to anthropogenic emissions, but we don't know how much change to expect and what part of it will have been caused by humans. Anthropogenic Global Warming may be "settled science." But the phrase, "settled science," is political, not scientific jargon.
What that really means is that the CAM has lots of sub-models inside it - for things like cloud formation, for example. Now cloud formation is a physical process, but the CAM can't afford to model the physics of each and every individual cloud on earth. In order to run in a reasonable time (say 7 hours on a thousand-processor supercomputer) CAM has to use an approximate model that says what density of cloudiness will occur in every 2-degree by 2-degree square patch of atmosphere based on the relative humidity of that patch at each of 26 levels of altitude. The cloudiness will determine how much sunlight gets to the ground and how much is reflected back to space, which helps determine the temperature of the earth under that patch for that day.
But there is an adjustable parameter in the cloudiness model that determines whether water vapor will be deemed to have condensed into cloud at what percentage of relative humidity. And that's just one adjustable parameter. It turns out that the CAM has hundreds of such parameters, as indeed it should. The point of Uncertainty Quantification is to determine how sensitive the CAM is to these parameter settings.
So, the PCMDI folks ran CAM about a thousand times, keeping the same input data (sea surface temperatures) for each run, and varying only the parameters in the sub-models. They used the latest statistical sampling techniques, including Morris One-At-a-Time (MOAT) and others to construct response hyper-surfaces for the most important parameters - the ones that cause the greatest variation in predicted global temperatures 12 years into the future in this case.
Near the beginning of this, however, they noticed a flaw. They ran the code twice with exactly the same model parameters and didn't get the same answer. After a lot of digging they found a subtle round-off error in one of the processors. When it was taken out of service, the flaw disappeared. To give you some idea of how sensitive CAM can be, that one processor's round-off error gave a 3-degree variation in some regional surface temperatures. That's about the same size of the regional variation caused by changing the level of humidity at which clouds form by 10%.
Now that's one of the results of running CAM with sea surface temperatures as a fixed input. Next year they want to run CAM with a "slab-ocean" model, in which the ocean can exchange heat and water vapor with the atmosphere, but can't circulate. Then, the year after next, they want to investigate model sensitivity when CAM is coupled to an Ocean General Circulation Model.
If you haven't seen it coming by now, then here it is: We are only just beginning to understand which are the most sensitive parameters in our Climate Models, and to plan research efforts to minimize the uncertainties to which those most sensitive parameters are known. In other words, our Climate Models are still being tuned.
While prudence would indicate that we should reduce anthropogenic carbon emissions, and geopolitics would indicate that we should reduce fossil fuel consumption, it just doesn't make sense to institute draconian measures based on work at its current level of maturity.
Nevertheless, observational data indicate that the earth is getting warmer, and part of the change is due to anthropogenic emissions, but we don't know how much change to expect and what part of it will have been caused by humans. Anthropogenic Global Warming may be "settled science." But the phrase, "settled science," is political, not scientific jargon.
13 January 2009
Energy, Wealth and Money
Wealth is energy.
Let's say you buy a potato. The potato was produced by energy - the energy of the person who planted, tended, and harvested the potato, the energy of the sunlight on the potato vine's leaves that enabled it to grow, the energy of sunlight on the earth and oceans that evaporated the water that condensed into clouds that rained on the potato vine and watered it. Add to that the energy used by vehicles that transported the potato to the market, and the energy that you used getting yourself to market as well.
In other words, the potato is made of energy. And what is true of the potato is true of everything else. Wealth is energy, or rather the ability to command or use energy to do, to make, or to bring you whatever it is that you need or want.
There are those who claim that the nations of the world should use less energy, which they hope to achieve by economic contraction. If you get poorer, you use less energy.
But it is also true that if societies use less energy, they get poorer. They can get more efficient in their energy use, but eventually as human populations grow, they will get poorer unless more energy can be made available.
On the other hand, if more energy can be made available to humankind, we may eventually achieve the kind of utopian, moneyless economy envisioned in the old television series Star Trek. In Star Trek any character could walk up to a matter-dispenser, and get anything he or she requested, made from energy congealed into matter and re-constituted according to a pattern of information stored in the associated computer's limitless memory. To do this in the real world would take an enormous amount of energy, probably the equivalent of the output of a star for each person's lifetime.
But the economy of plenty eliminates money. Of what use is money when everyone has access to unlimited energy, i.e., unlimited wealth? If the tyranny of money galls you, then there is only one constructive solution - create so much wealth, create access to so much energy, that money is no longer useful or meaningful.
Notice that I said create access to energy, but I did not say create energy itself. All energy on earth comes from the sun, and all the energy in the sun comes from thermonuclear fusion of the sub-atomic particles created in the Big Bang with which our universe began. All energy "generation" is just finding ways to unlock the energy stored in little caches throughout the universe from that primordial event.
So the path to a utopian economy is not via using less energy, but more. By unlocking the energy in the little batteries left throughout our universe when it was created. By more technology, not less, by nuclear energy and whatever we can discover to succeed it. Sure, we need to avoid wasting energy, and we need to be careful how we "generate" energy and how that impacts our environment. But more is the ultimate path, not less. Not unless you think universal poverty is good.
Your wealth, your ability to use your energy can be dissipated by your culture or amplified by it. In the United States, it is normally amplified by the infrastructure in which we have invested, as well as by the relatively high level of trust we have in each other and in our institutions. In Mexico and Russia just to mention two examples, your energy is typically dissipated by lack of infrastructure and endemic corruption. But that is another story.
Let's say you buy a potato. The potato was produced by energy - the energy of the person who planted, tended, and harvested the potato, the energy of the sunlight on the potato vine's leaves that enabled it to grow, the energy of sunlight on the earth and oceans that evaporated the water that condensed into clouds that rained on the potato vine and watered it. Add to that the energy used by vehicles that transported the potato to the market, and the energy that you used getting yourself to market as well.
In other words, the potato is made of energy. And what is true of the potato is true of everything else. Wealth is energy, or rather the ability to command or use energy to do, to make, or to bring you whatever it is that you need or want.
There are those who claim that the nations of the world should use less energy, which they hope to achieve by economic contraction. If you get poorer, you use less energy.
But it is also true that if societies use less energy, they get poorer. They can get more efficient in their energy use, but eventually as human populations grow, they will get poorer unless more energy can be made available.
On the other hand, if more energy can be made available to humankind, we may eventually achieve the kind of utopian, moneyless economy envisioned in the old television series Star Trek. In Star Trek any character could walk up to a matter-dispenser, and get anything he or she requested, made from energy congealed into matter and re-constituted according to a pattern of information stored in the associated computer's limitless memory. To do this in the real world would take an enormous amount of energy, probably the equivalent of the output of a star for each person's lifetime.
But the economy of plenty eliminates money. Of what use is money when everyone has access to unlimited energy, i.e., unlimited wealth? If the tyranny of money galls you, then there is only one constructive solution - create so much wealth, create access to so much energy, that money is no longer useful or meaningful.
Notice that I said create access to energy, but I did not say create energy itself. All energy on earth comes from the sun, and all the energy in the sun comes from thermonuclear fusion of the sub-atomic particles created in the Big Bang with which our universe began. All energy "generation" is just finding ways to unlock the energy stored in little caches throughout the universe from that primordial event.
So the path to a utopian economy is not via using less energy, but more. By unlocking the energy in the little batteries left throughout our universe when it was created. By more technology, not less, by nuclear energy and whatever we can discover to succeed it. Sure, we need to avoid wasting energy, and we need to be careful how we "generate" energy and how that impacts our environment. But more is the ultimate path, not less. Not unless you think universal poverty is good.
Your wealth, your ability to use your energy can be dissipated by your culture or amplified by it. In the United States, it is normally amplified by the infrastructure in which we have invested, as well as by the relatively high level of trust we have in each other and in our institutions. In Mexico and Russia just to mention two examples, your energy is typically dissipated by lack of infrastructure and endemic corruption. But that is another story.
06 November 2008
VCBC's Political Platform
A Work in Progress
2004, revised 2008
It is not enough to criticize
Republicans (the party of rural districts) and Democrats (the party of
urban districts). One must offer a positive agenda. I steal from both
camps to gather the planks our DogPAC Political Platform, which I offer
to any party that has the imagination to take them on.
Abortion.
Write and pass a law providing limited use of abortion similar to the
provisions of the Roe v Wade decision. This would move abortion out of
the realm of mere judicial opinion, and free up the minds of Congress,
the President, and the public to examine other criteria in the appointment of federal judges.
Affirmative Action. Bring it back, but base it on socio-economic class rather than race. This makes it fair, broadens its base of support, and plays to the American spirit of wanting to give the poor of any race, both native-born and immigrant, a leg-up into the middle class. To the extent that it works, it will also help poor people "buy into" middle-class American values.
Balanced Budget. Establish a feedback system for Congress and the White House in which the elected officials and their staffs forgo their pay when appropriations bills are late, and get pay cuts or bonuses depending on whether the federal budget shows a deficit or a surplus.
Bi-lingual Education. Bring it back, too, but stand it on its head. Require that every school-child demonstrate competency in at least two living natural spoken languages, one of which must be English, in order to advance beyond 6th grade. (If an immigrant kid is older than 6th grade, require that he or she demonstrate competency in English to advance beyond whatever grade he or she is in.) Use English-Immersion to teach immigrant kids (because it works best with most kids), with English-as-a-Second-Language classes available for those who want it. This will make America more immigrant-friendly: if you need a translator, just ask a kid. It will also make America more cosmopolitan — our whole population will be able to listen to and read non-English news broadcasts. We will also gain a broader class of international business people, and more people to work in foreign intelligence and defense for national security.
Defense. We need to execute the next revolution in military affairs — we need to build Thomas Barnett's "sysadmin" force that can move in and run a country after our Rumsfeldian fast strike force has knocked down its military and government. And we need to augment that force with a policy change — leave as many employees and administrators of the old system in place as possible, and supervise their training of replacements for the people that can't be left in place. We also need to change our policy of war and peace: we need to get involved in fewer wars, and to be much more forceful when we do get involved. Ever since WWII the US has fought wars by doing the moral equivalent of punching a man in the face hard enough to knock him down, and then helping him get up and waiting around until he hits us back. We need to do the equivalent of stepping on his neck, and then telling him to do what we say. This will be expensive, because we will have to invest in people - both in terms of a larger military and in terms of paying the locals until their tax base can support them.
Energy and Environment. Create a long-term bipartisan energy policy that provides progressively more energy for more Americans with fewer environmental consequences. Part of this means an all-out effort to solve two problems: the efficient conversion of sunlight to electricity, and the efficient, safe, and economical storage of hydrogen as a pollution-free fuel to power cars. How to distribute hydrogen? Don't! Distribute electricity generated from nuclear and solar power and use it to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen at the pump. That way we can cut pollution, decrease the human contribution to global climate change, and get the price of oil to fall — and as the price of oil goes down, the level of freedom in the Arab world will go up (because the governments there will have to turn to their populaces for money), which in turn will improve the quality of Islam and the peace of the world.
Free Trade. US jobs go overseas not because US wages are too high, but because non-US wages are too low. The American Labor Movement needs to internationalize itself and organize labor worldwide. The US government may be able to smooth the way a little, but the drive must come from labor itself.
Health care. Streamline the laws, regulations and procedures in order to reduce the administrative overhead costs of health care, and to reduce the time and cost of the process to develop, approve and distribute new medications. We need to develop a free market in health care by making most health-care outcome statistics (by facility, by practitioner) easily accessible public knowledge. We also need to develop an "assigned risk pool" in which all health-care insurers must participate in order to do business in this country. And yes, it needs to cover the cost of health care and mental health care for the indigent, the working poor, and aliens, legal and otherwise. It's just bad public health policy to let groups of people be sick — i.e., reservoirs for emerging diseases. We should also develop a list of diseases endemic to the developing world, that major pharmaceutical companies must work to cure or prevent, in order to participate in the US market, and encourage all other countries to do the same. Also, a technical detail: we need to develop a uniform electronic medical care record that will follow a person anywhere in the world.
Homeland Security. Let's encourage cities to figure out how to help neighborhoods defend themselves (with the aid of the police and other departments) and use federal funds to propagate the successful models (community policing, Neighborhood Watch, etc.). Let us reinforce the practice of busting local criminals on local charges who may be involved in supporting or committing terrorism. We also need to leverage work to reduce the consequences of natural disasters (epidemics, etc.) to "shrink the targets" we present to international terrorists.
Homelessness. Put more money and people into setting up and running group homes with psychiatric and social services. This is what we said we would do in the 1950s when we began shutting down large state-run mental institutions. We did not follow through. The result was a surge in both the homeless and the prison populations. Of course we would need to require that residents get and stay clean of drugs and alcohol.
Illegal Drugs. Legalize them just like we legalized alcohol, in order to drain the profit out of the drug trade. But create a "bottom tier" of health care for people who are addicted to them. This would emphasize drug and alcohol rehab and palliative care, the goal being to minimize the lifetime cost of care.
Immigration. We need to work with the government of Mexico to create a special status that recognizes and helps the population that washes back and forth across the US-Mexico border. We also need to work with US and Mexican employment agencies to arrange transportation, housing and employment for temporary (or guest) workers. That way the employment agencies pocket the money that currently goes to criminal organizations that smuggle people into the US. In other words, we should try to regulate the flow of immigration, which could be profitable for all concerned, rather than to stop it, which could be both costly and impossible.
Nuclear Weapons. We need to recognize that the abolition of nuclear weapons will not make peace, rather, making peace will lead to the abolition of nuclear weapons. To test this proposition, let's start by working to end the decades old state of war on the Korean peninsula. And until there is peace on earth, let us commit to keeping the US nuclear arsenal safe, secure, and sustainable.
Space. Return the US space program to exploring our solar system using robots and space-based robotic telescopes. Redirect the manned space program to spend most of its efort developing (both internally at NASA and externally by means of grants and competitions) a way to get humans safely to Low Earth Orbit and back to the ground for less than $100 US per pound of body weight. This would re-vitalize space science, spur developments in robotics, and make manned space exploration commercially viable.
Welfare to Work. Its a great idea for many people, but let's streamline it so that it gets people on their economic feet without wasting their time trying to figure out the bureaucracy. Let's also make sure that the bureaucracy provides "one-stop-shopping" for access to all the support a prospective or beginning wage-earner needs: including but not limited to child and elder care, health care, help with managing and planning finances, arranging transportation, social services, psychological services, marriage counseling, parenting counseling, drug rehabilitation services, etc. Let's remove all disincentives to getting and staying married, while we are at it.
Affirmative Action. Bring it back, but base it on socio-economic class rather than race. This makes it fair, broadens its base of support, and plays to the American spirit of wanting to give the poor of any race, both native-born and immigrant, a leg-up into the middle class. To the extent that it works, it will also help poor people "buy into" middle-class American values.
Balanced Budget. Establish a feedback system for Congress and the White House in which the elected officials and their staffs forgo their pay when appropriations bills are late, and get pay cuts or bonuses depending on whether the federal budget shows a deficit or a surplus.
Bi-lingual Education. Bring it back, too, but stand it on its head. Require that every school-child demonstrate competency in at least two living natural spoken languages, one of which must be English, in order to advance beyond 6th grade. (If an immigrant kid is older than 6th grade, require that he or she demonstrate competency in English to advance beyond whatever grade he or she is in.) Use English-Immersion to teach immigrant kids (because it works best with most kids), with English-as-a-Second-Language classes available for those who want it. This will make America more immigrant-friendly: if you need a translator, just ask a kid. It will also make America more cosmopolitan — our whole population will be able to listen to and read non-English news broadcasts. We will also gain a broader class of international business people, and more people to work in foreign intelligence and defense for national security.
Defense. We need to execute the next revolution in military affairs — we need to build Thomas Barnett's "sysadmin" force that can move in and run a country after our Rumsfeldian fast strike force has knocked down its military and government. And we need to augment that force with a policy change — leave as many employees and administrators of the old system in place as possible, and supervise their training of replacements for the people that can't be left in place. We also need to change our policy of war and peace: we need to get involved in fewer wars, and to be much more forceful when we do get involved. Ever since WWII the US has fought wars by doing the moral equivalent of punching a man in the face hard enough to knock him down, and then helping him get up and waiting around until he hits us back. We need to do the equivalent of stepping on his neck, and then telling him to do what we say. This will be expensive, because we will have to invest in people - both in terms of a larger military and in terms of paying the locals until their tax base can support them.
Energy and Environment. Create a long-term bipartisan energy policy that provides progressively more energy for more Americans with fewer environmental consequences. Part of this means an all-out effort to solve two problems: the efficient conversion of sunlight to electricity, and the efficient, safe, and economical storage of hydrogen as a pollution-free fuel to power cars. How to distribute hydrogen? Don't! Distribute electricity generated from nuclear and solar power and use it to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen at the pump. That way we can cut pollution, decrease the human contribution to global climate change, and get the price of oil to fall — and as the price of oil goes down, the level of freedom in the Arab world will go up (because the governments there will have to turn to their populaces for money), which in turn will improve the quality of Islam and the peace of the world.
Free Trade. US jobs go overseas not because US wages are too high, but because non-US wages are too low. The American Labor Movement needs to internationalize itself and organize labor worldwide. The US government may be able to smooth the way a little, but the drive must come from labor itself.
Health care. Streamline the laws, regulations and procedures in order to reduce the administrative overhead costs of health care, and to reduce the time and cost of the process to develop, approve and distribute new medications. We need to develop a free market in health care by making most health-care outcome statistics (by facility, by practitioner) easily accessible public knowledge. We also need to develop an "assigned risk pool" in which all health-care insurers must participate in order to do business in this country. And yes, it needs to cover the cost of health care and mental health care for the indigent, the working poor, and aliens, legal and otherwise. It's just bad public health policy to let groups of people be sick — i.e., reservoirs for emerging diseases. We should also develop a list of diseases endemic to the developing world, that major pharmaceutical companies must work to cure or prevent, in order to participate in the US market, and encourage all other countries to do the same. Also, a technical detail: we need to develop a uniform electronic medical care record that will follow a person anywhere in the world.
Homeland Security. Let's encourage cities to figure out how to help neighborhoods defend themselves (with the aid of the police and other departments) and use federal funds to propagate the successful models (community policing, Neighborhood Watch, etc.). Let us reinforce the practice of busting local criminals on local charges who may be involved in supporting or committing terrorism. We also need to leverage work to reduce the consequences of natural disasters (epidemics, etc.) to "shrink the targets" we present to international terrorists.
Homelessness. Put more money and people into setting up and running group homes with psychiatric and social services. This is what we said we would do in the 1950s when we began shutting down large state-run mental institutions. We did not follow through. The result was a surge in both the homeless and the prison populations. Of course we would need to require that residents get and stay clean of drugs and alcohol.
Illegal Drugs. Legalize them just like we legalized alcohol, in order to drain the profit out of the drug trade. But create a "bottom tier" of health care for people who are addicted to them. This would emphasize drug and alcohol rehab and palliative care, the goal being to minimize the lifetime cost of care.
Immigration. We need to work with the government of Mexico to create a special status that recognizes and helps the population that washes back and forth across the US-Mexico border. We also need to work with US and Mexican employment agencies to arrange transportation, housing and employment for temporary (or guest) workers. That way the employment agencies pocket the money that currently goes to criminal organizations that smuggle people into the US. In other words, we should try to regulate the flow of immigration, which could be profitable for all concerned, rather than to stop it, which could be both costly and impossible.
Nuclear Weapons. We need to recognize that the abolition of nuclear weapons will not make peace, rather, making peace will lead to the abolition of nuclear weapons. To test this proposition, let's start by working to end the decades old state of war on the Korean peninsula. And until there is peace on earth, let us commit to keeping the US nuclear arsenal safe, secure, and sustainable.
Space. Return the US space program to exploring our solar system using robots and space-based robotic telescopes. Redirect the manned space program to spend most of its efort developing (both internally at NASA and externally by means of grants and competitions) a way to get humans safely to Low Earth Orbit and back to the ground for less than $100 US per pound of body weight. This would re-vitalize space science, spur developments in robotics, and make manned space exploration commercially viable.
Welfare to Work. Its a great idea for many people, but let's streamline it so that it gets people on their economic feet without wasting their time trying to figure out the bureaucracy. Let's also make sure that the bureaucracy provides "one-stop-shopping" for access to all the support a prospective or beginning wage-earner needs: including but not limited to child and elder care, health care, help with managing and planning finances, arranging transportation, social services, psychological services, marriage counseling, parenting counseling, drug rehabilitation services, etc. Let's remove all disincentives to getting and staying married, while we are at it.
17 February 2007
Teach the Boobs Economics
Now the poor in Mexico are facing hunger because the price of corn is rising on speculation, because the US is planning to up the percentage of ethanol (made from corn) in auto fuel. But that would require re-directing a substantial fraction of US corn production from food and animal feed to fuel. This in turn would raise corn prices. Moreover the demand for more corn acreage would displace other grains, like rice, and drive up the price of rice as well. And the poor of Mexico can't switch to wheat flour because they need the nutrients in corn flour to complement the rest of their diet. So, we are driving up the price of corn and rice worldwide, and pushing more poor people into malnutrition. Why?
The idea was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. But (duh!) to make ethanol you have to heat the corn mash using - you guessed it - fossil fuels. The net result is that the ethanol will have a bigger "carbon footprint" in the atmosphere than the gasoline it is supposed to replace.
In other words, we are starving people and polluting the air so that our legislators and regulators can make a show of caring for our environment. I'm tired of people who know nothing but politics trying to run our world when they don't understand how it works.
So here's a resolution for you: Let's require all newly elected federal and state officials to take a three week crash course in Economics and Energy before they assume office. Heck, let's make them retake the course every time they are re-elected.
The effort on their part to learn the course material would be an act of loving their neighbors, namely us - the people they presume to govern.
The idea was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. But (duh!) to make ethanol you have to heat the corn mash using - you guessed it - fossil fuels. The net result is that the ethanol will have a bigger "carbon footprint" in the atmosphere than the gasoline it is supposed to replace.
In other words, we are starving people and polluting the air so that our legislators and regulators can make a show of caring for our environment. I'm tired of people who know nothing but politics trying to run our world when they don't understand how it works.
So here's a resolution for you: Let's require all newly elected federal and state officials to take a three week crash course in Economics and Energy before they assume office. Heck, let's make them retake the course every time they are re-elected.
The effort on their part to learn the course material would be an act of loving their neighbors, namely us - the people they presume to govern.
04 February 2007
Name Your Fear
Since the previous post mentioned fear, here is a post from my MySpace page.
The other evening, we got together with friends for a "Bring Your Own Barbecue." We talked about law school, career changes, psychotherapy, religion... And then we talked about the future. We must be in a time of great transition, because the dominant mood was not hope. It was fear.
I talked about how genetic engineering, implants, and other high tech "enhancements" could make the people of the future so different from us that they might not consider "non-enhanced" or "natural" people like us to be fully human. And how, by tinkering with human nature itself, we would undermine the basis of Natural Law.
Our host spoke of Global Warming, and how climate change could wipe out agriculture in some parts of the world, and sink coastal cities.
My wife talked about how the melting of the North Polar Icecap could decrease the salinity gradient in the North Atlantic that drives the Gulf Stream. If the Gulf Stream were to stop, that would almost shut down the transfer of heat from the equatorial to the polar regions. The result could be a rapid re-freezing of the northern latitudes resulting in a new Ice Age. In other words, our climate is metastable, with tipping points beyond which large and sudden changes may occur.
I suppose we could have mentioned asteroid impacts, and global thermonuclear war while we are at it. Or maybe the day some terrorist organization gets hold of a nuclear weapon and detonates where you would least like it.
So I'm just curious. Was it just us, or are other people having anxious thoughts about the future. What sort of thoughts?
The other evening, we got together with friends for a "Bring Your Own Barbecue." We talked about law school, career changes, psychotherapy, religion... And then we talked about the future. We must be in a time of great transition, because the dominant mood was not hope. It was fear.
I talked about how genetic engineering, implants, and other high tech "enhancements" could make the people of the future so different from us that they might not consider "non-enhanced" or "natural" people like us to be fully human. And how, by tinkering with human nature itself, we would undermine the basis of Natural Law.
Our host spoke of Global Warming, and how climate change could wipe out agriculture in some parts of the world, and sink coastal cities.
My wife talked about how the melting of the North Polar Icecap could decrease the salinity gradient in the North Atlantic that drives the Gulf Stream. If the Gulf Stream were to stop, that would almost shut down the transfer of heat from the equatorial to the polar regions. The result could be a rapid re-freezing of the northern latitudes resulting in a new Ice Age. In other words, our climate is metastable, with tipping points beyond which large and sudden changes may occur.
I suppose we could have mentioned asteroid impacts, and global thermonuclear war while we are at it. Or maybe the day some terrorist organization gets hold of a nuclear weapon and detonates where you would least like it.
So I'm just curious. Was it just us, or are other people having anxious thoughts about the future. What sort of thoughts?
18 August 2006
Forget Global Warming
Apparently Global Warming is not yet compelling enough to get the world to start using petroleum products for chemistry instead of fuel. How about guilt?
With the exception of Israel, all the governments of the Middle East, including Iran, are either despotisms or near-despotisms. They are propped up against the will of the majority of their peoples by one thing -- oil money. If we could dry up the supply of oil money, these governments would have to come to terms with their people, or fall. I'm betting on the despots' survival skills that they would manage a more or less orderly transition to something that the people would be more willing to support.
This would do two things. First it would remove domestic political oppression as a major source of grievance from the Muslim world. Second, it would replace the culture of dependency on foreign currency handouts (that's what oil money is, after all) with a culture of self-reliance as Muslim societies develop real economies. This would remove the sense of powerlessness (called humiliation in Islamofacist rhetoric) as a motivation for terrorism. Once these obstacles were removed, Islamic societies would either develop in a healthy manner, or would become impoverished. One way they would be less motivated, and the other way they would be less able to make perpetual war with their neighbors in this world.
In more succinct terms, the burning of petroleum products contributes directly to the oppression of Muslims (by both secular and Islamofacist despots). If President Bush wants to make a positive contribution to the future of all humankind would do better to take back his challenge to return Americans to the moon, and instead resolve to convert Americans to alternative fuels.
I favor hydrogen. We can make it at the pump from water and electricity (from solar, wind, or nuclear power). And it burns to create water-vapor. No more automotive pollution. No more smog. Yes, we have President Bush's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative funding some research. But let's do more than that. Let's make it our primary national priority until we achieve it.
Let's clean up our act, everyone. Burn hydrogen not oil! Free Islam!
With the exception of Israel, all the governments of the Middle East, including Iran, are either despotisms or near-despotisms. They are propped up against the will of the majority of their peoples by one thing -- oil money. If we could dry up the supply of oil money, these governments would have to come to terms with their people, or fall. I'm betting on the despots' survival skills that they would manage a more or less orderly transition to something that the people would be more willing to support.
This would do two things. First it would remove domestic political oppression as a major source of grievance from the Muslim world. Second, it would replace the culture of dependency on foreign currency handouts (that's what oil money is, after all) with a culture of self-reliance as Muslim societies develop real economies. This would remove the sense of powerlessness (called humiliation in Islamofacist rhetoric) as a motivation for terrorism. Once these obstacles were removed, Islamic societies would either develop in a healthy manner, or would become impoverished. One way they would be less motivated, and the other way they would be less able to make perpetual war with their neighbors in this world.
In more succinct terms, the burning of petroleum products contributes directly to the oppression of Muslims (by both secular and Islamofacist despots). If President Bush wants to make a positive contribution to the future of all humankind would do better to take back his challenge to return Americans to the moon, and instead resolve to convert Americans to alternative fuels.
I favor hydrogen. We can make it at the pump from water and electricity (from solar, wind, or nuclear power). And it burns to create water-vapor. No more automotive pollution. No more smog. Yes, we have President Bush's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative funding some research. But let's do more than that. Let's make it our primary national priority until we achieve it.
Let's clean up our act, everyone. Burn hydrogen not oil! Free Islam!
16 November 2005
AWOL from the 21st Century
France is burning, because well, even though the French are naturally more enlightened than the Americans, they aren't very good at assimilating new immigrants or providing jobs for their children or their children's children. The United States has shown that it does not run a Gulag - it contracts that work to Eastern European countries who have the infrastructure and experience to do the job properly. At the same time, America's mainstream media and much of its public opinion is behaving exactly as the insurgency in Iraq has been hoping. We are appalled at two thousand American military (volunteer military) casualties over a more than two year period, even though say the battle of Iwo Jima cost SEVEN thousand American lives. The insurgents have killed 26,000 Iraqis, and the Iraqis are not ready to given in.
So where have I been? Well, AWOL, I guess. I have finally finished the first three volumes of John P. Meier's A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. It has taken me over a year. To those who are interested, I offer you my review.
What else? The earth is getting warmer, and studies at my lab are getting increasingly precise at identifying the burning of fossil fuels as contributing to it. On the other hand, Mars is getting warmer, too. I could blame Halliburton, but I think a better explanation is that there may also be a solar forcing component to planetary warming.
In any event, the world is going to Hell in a handbasket, while I retreat into my books. I must be getting obsolete. On the other hand, maybe this is a good time to pause, and to think about whether there are such things as free will and human progress, Divine Providence and election, and the extent to which anything we think or do really matters. More on this in a future posting, I hope. Besides, the present problems are not unprecedented - the world has been going to Hell in a handbasket ever since the Old Testament prophets said it was. In other words, SNAFU, which is a military abbreviation for "Situation Normal: All F---ed Up."
So where have I been? Well, AWOL, I guess. I have finally finished the first three volumes of John P. Meier's A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. It has taken me over a year. To those who are interested, I offer you my review.
What else? The earth is getting warmer, and studies at my lab are getting increasingly precise at identifying the burning of fossil fuels as contributing to it. On the other hand, Mars is getting warmer, too. I could blame Halliburton, but I think a better explanation is that there may also be a solar forcing component to planetary warming.
In any event, the world is going to Hell in a handbasket, while I retreat into my books. I must be getting obsolete. On the other hand, maybe this is a good time to pause, and to think about whether there are such things as free will and human progress, Divine Providence and election, and the extent to which anything we think or do really matters. More on this in a future posting, I hope. Besides, the present problems are not unprecedented - the world has been going to Hell in a handbasket ever since the Old Testament prophets said it was. In other words, SNAFU, which is a military abbreviation for "Situation Normal: All F---ed Up."
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