Ignorance on parade

by bobster1985
Louisiana: even more doomed:
[Via Bad Astronomy]

Last year, when creationist/exorcist Governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindahl signed the creationist-enabling academic freedom bill into law, I said “Keep fighting, people. Because I guarantee this victory for the bad guys in Louisiana will embolden them.”

Man, I hate being right all the time.

This past week, Louisiana’s Board of Elementary and …
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Of course, what if one of the teachers wants to use outside materials to discuss the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its effects on biology. ‘His Noodliness was drunk when he created the world, thus explaining it flaws, like disco and the platypus. Any evidence disproving the FSM was put there in order to test the faith of Its followers. His noodly appendage is responsible for all the animals we see, even the stupid ones.’

Of course, the teacher will have to remove any explicit references to the FSM, since religion is not allowed. But then, it would be no different than what the creationists want. Unintelligent design could easily be taught.

I am sure that Louisiana’s academic freedom statutes will support any teacher who uses this, right? Because if it is only one specific set of outside teaching aids that is allowed, I think there will be some nice lawsuits awaiting.

I think that would be a fun lawsuit to watch.

Technorati Tags: Education, Science

Geeks in the White House

Unleashing the Geeks:
[Via Climate Progress]

There is good climate change and bad climate change. One of the very best types is the radical warming of the atmosphere for scientific inquiry we’re already feeling from the incoming Obama Administration.

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Okay, I loved this just for the picture. The post features a nice discussion of this Economist article, Blessed are the geeks, for they shall inherit the Earth. Two of them I have talked with personally, Harold Varmus and Eric Lander. Harold is the one holding the DNA molecule. I think the other one holding the DNA molecule is Eric but he looks much more wide-eyed than I have seen him.

These are two guys who have been involved in some very successful research. Varmus won a Nobel Prize and has been instrumental in making Open Access a part of the scientific landscape. Lander almost single-handedly made sure the government-sponsored Human Genome Project was competitive with commercial efforts. They are not people who would join the advisory panel so it looks good on their CV. They expect to say things that will be heard.

Just as we saw on the Hudson river yesterday what happens in dire circumstances with well-trained experts, I hope we will now see these experts help attack the dire circumstances we see ourselves in. As the head of the AAAS said, “we’ve never had a president surrounded in close proximity with so many well-known, top scientific minds.” Obama will need them. Hope he listens.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Science, Sustainability

Something to worry about

by spaceodissey
Something else for the deniers to deny: The ocean is absorbing less carbon dioxide:
[Via Climate Progress]

Premier among their many unscientific beliefs, deniers cling to the notion that some magical negative feedback will avert serious climate impacts. Sadly, we will need magic to save humanity if we foolishly decide to listen to the deniers and to keep ignoring the one negative feedback that science says can certainly save humanity – simply reducing greenhouse gas emisions.

The scientific reality based on actual observations (not to mention the paleoclimate record) is that the climate models are not underestimating negative feedbacks – the models are wildly underestimating the positive or amplifying feedbacks. Among the greatest concerns is the growing evidence that the major carbon sinks are saturating, that a greater and greater fraction of human emissions will end up in the atmosphere.
A new study in Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req’d), “Sudden, considerable reduction in recent uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the East/Japan Sea,” finds

The results presented in this paper indicate that the rate of CO2 accumulation in the deepest basin of the East/Japan Sea has considerably decreased over the transition period between 1992-1999 and 1999-2007.

The authors explain to the UK’s Guardian why this is an amplifying feedback, why warming is diminishing the ability of the ocean sink to absorb CO2:

The changes wrought by climate change are often occurring more rapidly than the models predict. In many cases this is due to the increase in positive feedback loops instead of the balancing negative feedback.

If you watch the temperature of a pot of water as you heat it, you discover that adding more heat increases the temperature. But all of a sudden, adding more heat no longer results in an increase of temperature. It stays the same, even though the pot is soaking up loads of heat.

This is because the water has reached the boiling point. The change in state from water to steam soaks up all the energy. As more energy is put into the system more steam is created. The water acts like a heat sink, removing energy from the surroundings but not increasing in temperature.

Only when all the water is converted into steam will the temperature start to rise again. But for that period of time while the water is changing state, it appears that there is no real effect on temperature even though lots of heat is entering the system. If we were not careful, we could fool ourselves that the pot could continue to soak up heat for a long time.

Like the pot of water, oceans can act as sinks, this time for CO2. They help maintain the equilibrium of our climate. For a time we can fool ourselves that the increasing addition of CO2 to the atmosphere will have no effect, since the oceans will help soak it all up. But if they become saturated and can no longer remove adequate amounts of CO2, then like the pot of water, things can change rapidly.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Sustainability