Richard Gayle's Old Blog

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Innovating with elephants - SpreadingScience

Energy, innovation and elephants:
[Via Andrew Hargadon]

There's nothing like money to bring out the dogma in people, and there's nothing, if not money, in the $150B energy innovation plan of the Obama administration.

The ensuing dogma surfaces around how to best spend that money. On the one side are those arguing that we need to invest in deploying existing technologies (the latest in solar, wind, and energy efficiency)[~]on the other side are those arguing such federal investments in existing technologies would starve the basic research activities that will bring us the truly breakthrough technologies we need. Nowhere is this debate more starkly represented than in the (barely) civil dialog between Joe Romm and the Breakthrough Institute. Andy Revkin, of the NYT and his blog, Dot Earth, describes this debate:

[More]

A really nice discussion of two important viewpoints. And the metaphor of the blind men and the elephant is one of my favorites.

Because collaboration can help us gain a truer understanding of the world than a single view. If the blind men talked with each other, then they could actually describe an elephant. Just as more open discussion could provide a better understanding of where to put the money.

But respect for other views is a requirement for this to work. If the blind men went around saying all the other views were full of crap, then no real understanding could occur. Same with these sorts of discussions.

Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0

comment []4:18:13 PM

Bad news - A Man With A PhD

by nick_russill
Newsweek's Science Editor explains why climate change is even worse than we feared and howa consensus has developed during IPY that the Greenland ice sheet will disappear.:

[Via Climate Progress]

'Among the phrases you really, really do not want to hear from climate scientists are: "that really shocked us," "we had no idea how bad it was," and "reality is well ahead of the climate models." Yet in speaking to researchers who focus on the Arctic, you hear comments like these so regularly they begin to sound like the thumping refrain from Jaws: annoying harbingers of something that you really, really wish would go away.'

So writes Newsweek's Sharon Begley in one of the most thoughtful climate pieces ever to appear in a major national publication. She makes the very case I did in my recent post (except without the hyperlinks - the Achilles Heel of MSM science writing). For more on the International Polar Year, see The IPY: Arctic sea ice will probably not recover and their website.

[More]

One thing mentioned in the article is the much larger amount of methane held in the Arctic tundra than previously believed. When warmed up, this methane enters the atmosphere, increasing global warming. Although this is a 'natural' effect (so expect to hear deniers try to claim that man is not responsible for warming - it is the natural release from the tundra.), it is only happening due to the increased temperatures of anthropogenic production of greenhouse gases.

[More at A Man With A PhD]

Technorati Tags: Environment, Science

comment []4:17:28 PM

Not good news - A Path to Sustainable

Rapid, accelerating glacier melt:
[Via InvestigateWest]

Really bad news for North American glaciers today in a report in the Los Angeles Times. Global warming has melted glaciers in the United States at a rapid and accelerating rate over the last half-century, increasing drought risks and contributing to rising sea levels, the federal government will report today based on data from a 50-year study of glaciers in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, reporter Jim Tankersley writes. The study focused on three benchmark glaciers, the Wolverine and Gulkana in Alaska and the South Cascade Glacier in Washington, which are representative of thousands of other glaciers across the continent.

[More]

Glaciers and their runoff have been a relatively stable source of water, providing a necessary buffer against the fickleness of rainfall. But this buffer is rapidly disappearing. The South Cascade Glacier has lost 25% of its mass since the 50s.

You can read the report online with the somewhat boring title Fifty-Year Record of Glacier Change Reveals Shifting Climate in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, USA.

Look at this series of the South Cascade Glacier:

South Casacde Glacier

The USGS has been measuring the net accumulation of snow and the net loss of ice. Of interest are the two coastal glaciers, the Wolverine and the South Cascade. Both require high amount of precipitation to grow because their relatively low elevations opens them up to summer heating. Interestingly because of their locations in Alaska and Washington respectively, they tend to have negatively correlated accumulations.

[More at Path to Sustainable]

Innovating with elephants - SpreadingScience

Bad news - A Man With A PhD

Not good news - A Path to Sustainable

My cv