Quotulatiousness

October 14, 2009

IPCC to US: stop breathing

Filed under: Environment, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:50

Ace of Spades reports on the latest “modest suggestion” from those whacky folks at the IPCC:

The IPCC says that rich industrial countries must cut emissions 25 to 40 percent by 2020 (from 1990 levels) if the world is to have a fair chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. By contrast, the WBGU study says the United States must cut emissions 100 percent by 2020—i.e., quit carbon entirely within ten years. Germany, Italy and other industrial nations must do the same by 2025 to 2030. China only has until 2035, and the world as a whole must be carbon-free by 2050. The study adds that big polluters can delay their day of reckoning by “buying” emissions rights from developing countries, a step the study estimates would extend some countries’ deadlines by a decade or so.

Emphasis mine.

October 10, 2009

Fascinating – bullet impacts at a million frames per second

Filed under: Science — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:04

H/T to Patrick Vera for the link.

October 9, 2009

Consciously “green” consumers more likely to cheat, says study

Filed under: Cancon, Environment — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:03

The Register has an interesting summary of a recent University of Toronto study:

Psychologists in Canada have revealed new research suggesting that people who become eco-conscious “green consumers” are “more likely to steal and lie” than others.

The new study comes from professor Nina Mazar of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and her colleague Chen-Bo Zhong.

“Those lyin’, cheatin’ green consumers,” begins the statement from the university. “Buying products that claim to be made with low environmental impact can set up ‘moral credentials’ in people’s minds that give license to selfish or questionable behavior.”

[. . .]

So there you have it: People who buy green — who offset their carbon, who purchase greened-up electricity, who put windmills on their roofs etc etc — are in the main thieving, lying, holier-than-thou scumbags. The old adage is right: You can never trust a hippy.

Much as we’d love to believe it, though, the whole study — like all of its News McNugget fast-food psychobabble kind — has caused the needle on our bullshit meter to flick far across into the brown zone. Green consumers, we’d suggest, are far more likely to be ripped off by unscrupulous charlatans than they are to be charlatans themselves.

October 8, 2009

Not quite the solution they were looking for

Filed under: Health, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:40

Jacob Sullum looks at a not-very impressive result in clinical testing:

A study reported this week in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that an experimental “cocaine vaccine” was mostly ineffective at reducing consumption of the drug. Less than two-fifths of the subjects injected with the vaccine, which is supposed to stimulate production of antibodies that bind to cocaine molecules and prevent them from reaching the brain, had enough of an immune system response to significantly reduce their cocaine use (as measured by urine tests). Even among those subjects, only half cut back on cocaine by 50 percent or more.

[. . .]

Vaccine boosters think the real money lies in an effective anti-nicotine treatment, which they believe would attract “inveterate smokers” who have repeatedly tried to quit with other methods. But as The New York Times notes (in the headline, no less), such a vaccine “does not keep users from wanting the drug.” If all goes well, their cravings are not diminished in the slightest; they just can no longer satisfy them. And that’s assuming the vaccine is fully effective (as opposed to maybe 10 percent effective, like the one in the study); if not, it could actually increase consumption by neutralizing a percentage of each dose. A partially effective nicotine vaccine could be hazardous to smokers’ health if it encouraged them to smoke more so as to achieve the effect to which they’re accustomed. In any case, it’s not clear how appealing the idea of biochemically taking the fun out of smoking will be; the success of such a product hinges on consumers looking for a way to frustrate themselves.

If you take the cynical view, it’s a perfect Puritan drug: take away the benefit without reducing the desire. That way, you see, the sinners would still get all the suffering they’re entitled to without any satisfaction at all. Hell on earth, just the way Puritans like it.

A solid reason I wouldn’t want to move to Edmonton

Filed under: Cancon, Environment — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:28

Colby Cosh does the spreadsheet thing to prove that I, un-winterized Canadian that I am, would fare poorly in extra-early permanent snowfall Edmonton.

Toronto may not really be the centre of the universe, but at least it’s not like most of Canada, snow-and-winter-cold-wise.

October 6, 2009

Another bulletin from the “Institute of Obvious Findings”

Filed under: Food, Health, Law, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 16:02

New York City has the most “progressive” laws on the books for labelling fast food menu items. The intent was to ensure that customers would be aware of the calorie and nutrition values of food before ordering, with the hope being that people would deny their tastebuds and order less fattening foods. A recent study found — to nobody’s surprise — that this hasn’t been working:

A study of New York City’s pioneering law on posting calories in restaurant chains suggests that when it comes to deciding what to order, people’s stomachs are more powerful than their brains.

The study, by several professors at New York University and Yale, tracked customers at four fast-food chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken — in poor neighborhoods of New York City where there are high rates of obesity.

It found that about half the customers noticed the calorie counts, which were prominently posted on menu boards. About 28 percent of those who noticed them said the information had influenced their ordering, and 9 out of 10 of those said they had made healthier choices as a result.

But when the researchers checked receipts afterward, they found that people had, in fact, ordered slightly more calories than the typical customer had before the labeling law went into effect, in July 2008.

The laws were changed because paternalists in power thought that consumers were being gulled against their better instincts, and that merely pointing out the information in a hard-to-miss fashion would assist these poor, weak-willed eaters to trim back on calories and fat. It doesn’t work because people like eating food that’s calorie-rich and fattening. You’re not going to change that without instituting literal rationing: and don’t think they haven’t considered it.

October 2, 2009

Environmental warning from . . . Olympic bid committee chairman?

Filed under: Environment, Japan, Sports — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:05

I guess Japan’s Shintaro Ishihara had to say something to counteract the presence of US President Barack Obama:

Ishihara, who was celebrating his 77th birthday, is the president of the Tokyo bid to win the right to host the 2016 Games which will be voted on by the 100-plus International Olympic Committee (IOC) members here on Friday.

Ishihara, who won won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for the best young author for his novel ‘Season of the Sun’ before he had graduated from university in 1956, said that unless the world took note of what was happening to the environment and global warming the Olympic Games faced a bleak future.

“I think this (the 2016 Games) could be the last for mankind,” he said at a reception for the bid, though, his opinion will come as a shock to his fellow bid members as they have been speaking of leaving a legacy that will last for at least the rest of the century should they host the Games.

“However, more realistically we have to come up with measures without which the Olympics cannot last long. [. . .] Tokyo is prepared to do everything to create the best conditions for the athletes environmentally speaking. [. . .] But if things are left unattended the Olympic Games will not continue for long. [. . .] I want people to make choices with consideration for the environment. [. . .] Global warming is getting worse. Scientists have said that the earth has passed the point of no return,” added Ishihara, whose focus on the environment is one of the major priorities in Tokyo’s bid.

So, since “the earth has passed the point of no return”, you’re devoting your time and effort to win the Olympic bid for your home city? Because it’s the best contribution towards averting this disaster you’re certain will strike? Doesn’t that seem a bit, you know, inappropriate? Thousands of athletes and their trainers/organizers/family/friends flying to Tokyo will add how many tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere? Building all the necessary facilities for the games will divert materials and labour away from other activities, yes?

Or are you just trying to take media attention away from Barack Obama?

For the record, I think the notion of returning the Olympics to Greece permanently would be a better idea than the every-four-years circus of cities and regions prostituting themselves to the International Olympic Committee. Greece could use the tourist income, and it would save untold billions of dollars being taxed from residents of the various “winning” cities. A win all-round.

Update: Looks like even trying to out-Gore Al didn’t help Tokyo win their bid. But even more surprising, Chicago was out on the very first ballot:

Rio de Janeiro and Madrid are vying to be the host of the 2016 Olympic Games, after Chicago and Tokyo were eliminated by the International Olympic Committee.

Tokyo secured the fewest of the 95 votes available in the second round at the meeting in Copenhagen. Chicago was knocked out in the first round vote.

Cities will be eliminated until one secures a majority with the winner set to be announced after 1730 BST.

Chicago’s early exit was a surprise, with bookmakers making them favourites.

Update, the second: Rio de Janeiro wins the bid, eliminating Madrid. BBC News story here.

You’d really want to get in out of the rain on COROT-7b

Filed under: Science, Space — Tags: — Nicholas @ 00:03

According to scientists, the recently discovered exoplanet known as COROT-7b is so close to its primary that it rains molten rock:

To find out what COROT-7b’s atmosphere might be like, Fegley and his colleagues modeled it. They found that COROT-7b’s atmosphere is made up of the ingredients of rocks and when “a front moves in,” pebbles condense out of the air and rain into lakes of molten lava below.

“Sodium, potassium, silicon monoxide and then oxygen — either atomic or molecular oxygen — make up most of the atmosphere,” Fegley said. But there are also smaller amounts of the other elements found in silicate rock, such as magnesium, aluminum, calcium and iron.

The rock rains form similarly to Earth’s watery weather: “As you go higher the atmosphere gets cooler and eventually you get saturated with different types of ‘rock’ the way you get saturated with water in the atmosphere of Earth,” Fegley explained. “But instead of a water cloud forming and then raining water droplets, you get a ‘rock cloud’ forming and it starts raining out little pebbles of different types of rock.”

It’d make hell seem like a holiday cottage in the Poconos.

October 1, 2009

Back to the ’70s . . . it’s the return of the Population Bomb!

Filed under: Environment — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:41

Ronald Bailey addresses the most recent outbreak of Globally Terminal Malthusianism from the Wall Street Journal‘s Paul B. Farrell:

Every so often, the overpopulation meme erupts into public discourse and imminent doom is declared again. A particularly overwrought example of the overpopulation meme and its alleged problems appeared recently in the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch in a piece by regular financial columnist Paul B. Farrell.

Farrell asserts that overpopulation is “the biggest time-bomb for Obama, America, capitalism, the world.” Bigger than global warming, poverty, or peak oil. Overpopulation will end capitalism and maybe even destroy modern civilization. As evidence, Farrell cites what he calls neo-Malthusian biologist Jared Diamond’s 12-factor equation of population doom.

It turns out that Farrell is wrong or misleading about the environmental and human effects of all 12 factors he cites. Let’s take them one by one.

But, in the same way that bad news always crowds out good news for headline space or television minutes, looming disaster stories will always attract attention . . . especially when they’re wrong.

Canada as prescription drug “parasite”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Health, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:07

I guess the discussion on medical costs got boring without bringing international issues into play. Senator Bob Corker got into it with Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett:

An American legislator called Canada “parasitic” on Wednesday for siphoning U.S. dollars to Canada with low prescription drug prices while his country does “all the innovation.”

Canada benefits financially from America’s role as a world leader in medical advances, Republican Sen. Bob Corker charged in an exchange with a Liberal MP as she testified before a U.S. Senate committee.

“One of the things that has troubled me greatly about our system is the fact that we pay more for pharmaceuticals and devices than other countries, and yet it’s not really our country so much that’s the problem, it’s the parasitic relationship that Canada and France and other countries have towards us,” the Tennessee lawmaker told Carolyn Bennett.

Canadian provinces have a financial lever that is a direct result of the single-payer model: if you want to sell your drug in Canada, you have to sell to the government monopoly for each province. The market is small, and there are only a limited number of buyers, so the best price you can get for your product will end up being the price all of the geographical monopolies are willing to pay . . . or you don’t sell into that market at all. Under the circumstances, it’s rational for the companies to sell at close to cost: the bulk of their costs are already sunk in the R&D effort and the regulatory effort to get the drug on to the domestic market.

That doesn’t make the charge any more palatable, but there’s some justice to making it.

September 30, 2009

Artificial skin

Filed under: Science — Tags: — Nicholas @ 12:53

Victor is doing some research on artificial skin for a school project, and he found this link, which he sent along to me, writing “Ghost in the Shell: Closer than we think?”.

What we’re trying to do is to interface electronic components with the human body. One of the challenges is that conventional electronics is typically made on very hard and flat surfaces. If you look at our own body we are a 3D object that is moving all around. The challenge is not only electrical but also mechanical because we need to find ways to make electronic things that can conform the body and therefore use materials that are no longer hard and brittle but materials that can be elastic, similar to our own skin, for example.

[. . .]

This is the second aspect of the project. In my group we’re looking at ways to make these prosthetic skins but there’s also this application where we’re looking at a way to use these very soft electronic devices to interface everything with the nervous system. Because the human body and particularly the nervous system is made of extremely compliant material we cannot use a silicon chip to interface directly with your nerve for a long time. What we’re doing is to use this polymer and elastomer substrate with embedded electrodes in it to connect directly with a peripheral nerve — so a nerve which is in the limb, not in the spinal cord or the brain — really in the limb, from the electrical signal from the neurons. Once we can do that then the idea would be to connect these peripheral implant directly to the prosthetic skin so that we could take the signals that are coming out of the prosthetic skin and convert them into a neuron format and feed that directly into the implant which would then communicate to the nerve and back to the brain.

More background on that broken hockey stick

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Environment, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:53

I don’t want to sound like a climate crank — there are more than enough of them out there, on both sides of the issue — and I’m still very much of the opinion that the question of anthropogenic global warming/climate change still needs a lot of work to answer. If human activities are causing the planet’s atmosphere to warm up in excess of what the natural feedback systems of the planet can handle, then we do need to look at ways to reduce our contribution to that warming.

Politicians and power-seeking bureaucrats jumping up and down in front of the cameras, insisting that the crisis is upon us and we need to do something now are in no way to be trusted with additional powers: without sufficient scientific evidence, we’d just be installing petty dictators over all sorts of different areas of our lives.

The specific piece of “evidence” most useful to the “do something now” faction has been the famous Hockey Stick Graph, which has been debunked. The data was carefully selected to support pre-decided conclusions. Everyone who took high school science knows the temptation . . . you know how the experiment is supposed to turn out, and who’ll know if you just write it up as if you got textbook results? The answer is . . . that’s why you do the experiment: to determine if the result matches the expectation. Skipping the whole “do the experiment” step saves time, but it’s not science.

Bishop Hill explains how the hockey stick became the best-known case of junk science in decades:

The story of Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick reconstruction, its statistical bias and the influence of the bristlecone pines is well known. McIntyre’s research into the other reconstructions has received less publicity, however. The story of the Yamal chronology may change that.

The bristlecone pines that created the shape of the Hockey Stick graph are used in nearly every millennial temperature reconstruction around today, but there are also a handful of other tree ring series that are nearly as common and just as influential on the results. Back at the start of McIntyre’s research into the area of paleoclimate, one of the most significant of these was called Polar Urals, a chronology first published by Keith Briffa of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. At the time, it was used in pretty much every temperature reconstruction around. In his paper, Briffa made the startling claim that the coldest year of the millennium was AD 1032, a statement that, if true, would have completely overturned the idea of the Medieval Warm Period. It is not hard to see why paleoclimatologists found the series so alluring.

Some of McIntyre’s research into Polar Urals deserves a story in its own right, but it is one that will have to wait for another day. We can pick up the narrative again in 2005, when McIntyre discovered that an update to the Polar Urals series had been collected in 1999. Through a contact he was able to obtain a copy of the revised series. Remarkably, in the update the eleventh century appeared to be much warmer than in the original – in fact it was higher even than the twentieth century. This must have been a severe blow to paleoclimatologists, a supposition that is borne out by what happened next, or rather what didn’t: the update to the Polar Urals was not published, it was not archived and it was almost never seen again.

With Polar Urals now unusable, paleclimatologists had a pressing need for a hockey stick shaped replacement and a solution appeared in the nick of time in the shape of a series from the nearby location of Yamal.

Yes, it’s long, and somewhat convoluted . . . but that is the point. Researchers were being deliberately obstructive to other researchers, concealing data necessary to reproduce the experimental results, yet publishing in numerous journals (who all should have enforced their own standards, but failed to do so) as if the data was impossible to refute.

And it was . . . because the raw data was kept out of the hands of other scientists. This is not science. It’s a deliberate fraud.

Update: JoNova adds to the story, including an image showing the relative locations of the sampled sites:

Busted_Hockey_Stick_locations

Update, the second: Tom Kelley corrects my use of the word “anthropogenic”, which I had idiotically written as “anthropomorphic”. Thanks, Tom.

A different approach to healthcare reform

Filed under: Government, Health, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:03

“John Galt” has a different suggestion for fixing what ails the American healthcare field:

We have some real problems: Bizarre incentives that have led to runaway costs. Rescission. An employer stranglehold over workers’ healthcare. Overuse in the form of care prescribed to protect doctors from lawyers, rather than protecting patients from illness. Arbitrary requirements to carry coverage for other people’s expensive risks.

The truth is that every one of those issues could be addressed — right now, and in a bipartisan fashion — without a single-payer system, a mandate, or any other form of “universal healthcare.” It wouldn’t even take a single massive “reform” bill — just a few simple bills, mostly repealing existing regulation.

But the left has settled on universal healthcare. The “public option.” No other reform is acceptable. No other reform will be permitted. Nothing can actually be fixed if it will lower the number of people who might benefit from a universal system, or if it will reduce national dissatisfaction with market-based care.

It’s quite true that there’s already massive government involvement in the health market, and that a lot of that consists of regulations that have dubious health benefits, but measurable detriments to patients, doctors, and hospitals.

The intersection of the War on Drugs with the government’s role in healthcare, for example, has led to a number of doctors being imprisoned for “inappropriate” prescriptions of painkillers to patients with chronic pain issues. It has also led to a huge number of doctors being afraid to prescribe what their patients actually need, for fear of being charged and convicted of “drug trafficking”. Many patients now suffer prolonged pain because they can’t get an adequate dose of painkillers and can’t find doctors to prescribe them.

All this, in pursuit of getting tough on illicit use of prescription medicine. Government at its finest.

September 29, 2009

Calling it “bubbly” is highly appropriate

Filed under: Science, Wine — Tags: — Nicholas @ 12:48

According to a recent study, the bubbles in Champagne do more than just tickle your nose:

Research shows there are up to 30 times more flavour-enhancing chemicals in the bubbles than in the rest of the drink.

Wine experts say the finding changes completely our understanding of the role of bubbles in sparkling drinks.

The study is reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Commenting on the research, Dr Jamie Goode, founder of wineanorak.com, said: “In the past, we thought that the carbon dioxide in the bubbles just gave the wine an acidic bite and a little tingle on the tongue, but this study shows that it is much more than this.”

A broken hockey stick graph

Filed under: Environment — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:12

The red line in the following graph should be familiar to you, if you’ve been following the Global Warming/Climate Change debate:

Busted_Hockey_Stick

The trick here is the black line:

A comparison of Yamal RCS chronologies. red — as archived with 12 picked cores; black — including Schweingruber’s Khadyta River, Yamal (russ035w) archive and excluding 12 picked cores. Both smoothed with 21-year gaussian smooth. y-axis is in dimensionless chronology units centered on 1 (as are subsequent graphs (but represent age-adjusted ring width).

The “blade” of the hockey stick was a data artifact of the careful selection of only twelve samples. Including a wider sample produces a very different picture, as you can see above.

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