Weather and climate change aren’t the same

This is a quick one. Plenty of people have been saying that this winter’s very cold temperatures are proof that global warming is not happening. Of course, if one engages in five minutes of study of global warming, one learns that global warming doesn’t predict local weather events, like hurricanes or heat waves or cold snaps. It predicts rising temperatures, on average, over time, which might lead to greater weather volatility, and less polar ice. Global warming models have about as much to do with weather prediction as your 401k has to do with intra-day stock trades and short-term commodities speculation. Very little.

But here’s an interesting article about arctic oscillation, the source of our current cold weather in the northern hemisphere. Unfortunately, this cold weather in our temperate latitudes comes with higher temperatures in the Arctic. Doh! The effects on sea-levels, however, are unclear, because the attendant wind currents might prevent some of the arctic ice from drifting south to melt.

Let us be more informed, and not base what we think about global warming on the weather we experience day-to-day.

Swing your hips to the Apocalypto beat!

I’d like to admit upfront that much of this encapsulates an article in the Washington Post.  That said…

Kapow! It feels like a 1954 comic book, because I get to write about a group of people calling themselves “Atomic Scientists.” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group of people who don’t want the world to end, despite their invention of a technology that makes just such a thing possible, have set the Doomsday Clock back by one minute, from 11:55 to 11:54 pm. We are now 6 minutes away from annihilation, instead of 5.  But doesn’t it feel like more? I mean, if I have 5 minutes left until a meeting, I don’t think I can get nearly as much done as if I have 6 minutes left.

I can’t help but wonder if this is more of the same irrational exuberance (or maybe call it afterglow) about Bush leaving office that led to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama. But it’s still nice to know that somebody thinks things are getting better.

Of course, there are also many people who really do want the world to end in fire and brimstone, soon, because they assume such an event would validate their theological paradigm, and also because they’d get to go to heaven. As you probably guessed, they aren’t buying the Atomic Scientists’ line that we’ve taken a tiny step back from the brink.  Nobody likes to be wrong, do we? On their scorecard, which is much more thorough than a simple clock metaphor, but also much less snappy, we’re 1 point closer to Armageddon (on a 225 pt scale). This is because civil rights have been eroded by attempts to thwart terrorism. I guess if the TSA can see your junk on a x-ray machine, the end is nigh.  Strangely, the Large Hadron Collider doesn’t make the RaptureReady list of factors.

Do you have an apocalypse-predictive tool that you prefer to use?  Let me know about it in the comments.

Getting in deeper and deeper over my head

If you, like me, are a layperson with a geek’s interest in science and access to the internet, you have probably heard about the latest antics of the Higgs boson.  Apparently, this self-hating god particle is travelling backward through time to our present in order to kill (or save) its grandfather with a baguette.  The good news is, we might be able to divine the will of the Higgs using a million-card deck, and save it the effort.  I’m not sure why we wouldn’t just take the next step and use a ouija board, but I guess that’s why I’m not a high-energy physicist.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, start here.  More on the baguette here.  Two interesting coincidences (or ARE they?) to note: the LHC was shut down last year after Holger Nielsen and Masao Ninomiya wrote the first paper suggesting it might never work because this universe will not allow it; and the baguette thing just happened last week.

What I find bizarre is how much the idea that nature-abhors-the-Higgs-boson-enough-to-prevent-its-discovery upsets other scientists.  Many seem to think it is just a hoax.  Some seem to think we’re devolving to reading entrails, and calling it science.  I guess it is likely that Nielsen and Ninomiya are not entirely serious.  Perhaps they wrote it to entertain us while they’ve been sitting around, waiting for something interesting to happen in particle physics, intending to sell the rights to Hollywood.  The title of the paper on arXiv.org brings to mind the recent, and brilliant, Onion satire of supposed Chinese industrial fasicsm.  But in the midst of the maelstrom of indignation from concerned physicists, and the background noise from relative (it’s all relative) beta-plusses like me, one Caltech physicist has the courage to ask us all to calm down.  And he has the cleverness to explain the concept in a way that I can almost understand.  Sean Carroll, I salute you for competing with phrasemongers.

Superfreaks

You’ve probably heard of Freakonomics, a great popular economics book (and there are an awful lot of those out nowadays, aren’t there?) and you’ve likely heard of the follow-up, Superfreakonomics.  Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner wrote these books.  Steven Levitt teaches at my school, but I’ve never taken his class.  Either he or the school administration is not interested in offering his class to evening students.  Thanks.  Jerks.

This is not a review of Superfreakonomics.  I loved the first book, but have yet to get my hands on the new one.  I’m mentioning it, because the last chapter on global warming has kicked off quite an energetic volley of phrasemongering.  Dubner & Levitt wrote a chapter that essentially offers some alternate opinions on what we should do about global warming, compared to the currently dominant Al Gore solution.  (For the record I’m all for CFL’s.  Just not in the bedroom–they’re not effectively dimmable.)

So, this has kicked up quite a storm of controversy.  A dusty, dusty storm that threatens to block out the sun.  That wouldn’t be so bad, if you believe in geoengineering as a way to initiate global cooling.  But a lot of the criticism, as you can probably guess, is shrill and nasty and condescending.  And, of course, it is the nastiest stuff that travels across the internet fastest. 

Thankfully, there is some in-depth discussion available.  Arguing for the  freakonomists is Nathan Myhrvold.  Myhrvold is probably used to telling people to slow down and listen for a second, just because of how his name is spelled.  He was interviewed in the book, talking about the limitations of solar-cell infrastructure, among other things.  He has some confidence that there are some cheap geoengineering possibilities, that might become solutions.  I won’t go into his bio, because you can read it on the Freakonomics NYT blog, where he’s responded to some of the criticism.  I hope you do read his response to his critics, because contextualization is badly needed when people start slinging mud.

Arguing capably and reasonably against the global cooling chapter in the book (and particularly, against geoengineering) is Real Climate.  What I love about their argument is that they go right after the sound-bite logic that Levitt and Dubner have deployed to simplify their case.  It’s funny to me that many commentators start by praising the first book, then saying this one is garbage.  My guess is they weren’t subject matter experts on any of the chapters in the first book, so they couldn’t dismiss any of it as overly simplistic.

Of course, Levitt and Dubner wrote what was intended to be a popular book.  Of course they’re phrasemongers.  That’s what they set out to be.  But we don’t need to act like children about it, do we, Joe Romm?

[UPDATE: the comments on The Economist website frequently contain excellent information and analysis.  Such is the case with The Economist's review of SuperFreakonomics.]

Following this discussion?  What useful contributions have you found?

It takes sour grapes to make good whine

Let me start by promoting a really good idea. Summer Advantage is a nonprofit, yet entrepreneurial, summer learning program designed to arrest and reverse the summer slide, the 3 month math and reading decline that puts low income kids further and further behind their middle class counterparts every year. Not only does Summer Advantage prevent the slide, the Scholars in the 2009 Indiana pilot gained 3 months! When a child goes from a 3 month loss to a 3 month gain, that adds up to 6 months of impact. Earl Phalen, the founder and CEO, is dedicated to Summer Advantage’s replication, at speed, throughout the nation. So you will probably hear about Summer Advantage again.

I heard about it because it was the protagonist of an education innovation case competition sponsored this weekend by the Kellogg School of Management. As a biased reporter, I’m happy to confirm that a University of Chicago Booth School of Business team won the competition. But not my team. There were three Chicago Booth teams in competition, out of nine, which I think is an excellent refutation of certain stereotypes about our MBA program.

My teammates and I didn’t get far because we fell into an analysis trap. Since a passion for in-depth analysis is the reason I started this blog, I’m sharing this “teachable moment.” We spent hours upon hours scouring the details, comparing poverty rates and funding levels between cities, heatedly arguing the fine points, and applying our well-taught theoretical frameworks. We really, really thought through the thing. And we really believe our recommendation is solid and achievable. And then we over-worked our slides, didn’t get enough sleep, didn’t rehearse, and didn’t present very well. I spent about a week on financial analysis that was greeted by blank stares. Maybe it was my stumbling speech and grouchy staring. Not sure.

In the end, we would have done a lot better in competition if we’d cut off the analysis a day earlier and just focused purely on our presentation and getting enough sleep. But we would not have come up with a better recommendation. So, I could sit on my high horse and complain about this. It would feel good. But our recommendation failed to impress because we did not do a good job communicating it. We could have been proving the feasibility of cold fusion, and nobody would have known. And it wasn’t just a competition. Earl Phalen, and his funders, colleagues and advisors, were right there, listening to us, looking for answers to difficult questions. It chafes to have been given that opportunity, and to have wasted it.

The presentation is not everything. But without strong presentation, the merits of one’s argument get lost. When competing with phrasemongers, you have to be smarter AND slicker.

She asked him why did he not write out his thoughts.

She asked him why did he not write out his thoughts.  For what, he asked her, with careful scorn.  To compete with phrasemongers, incapable of thinking consecutively for sixty seconds?  To submit himself to the criticisms of an obtuse middle class which entrusted its morality to policemen and its fine arts to impresarios?  
- James Joyce, A Painful Case

The above is a cultural reaction to which many of us can no doubt relate.  Joyce seems (again) particularly prescient, as we find that a thought lasting longer than 60 seconds is a terribly rare and precious commodity in our brave new millennium.  Of course, as Joyce’s idealist discovers, the ivory purity of self-imposed exile is neither satisfying nor free of consequence.

So hey guess what I decided to blog.  Original, I know.  I find myself increasingly frustrated with the very poor quality of analysis and discourse in the public sphere, which, thankfully, does not make me unique.  I don’t flatter myself to think I can change this, but I suppose that I must make my own case for deep analysis and applied reason, with the goal of greater insight.

If you’re reading this initial post, you are most likely a friend of mine already.  So I hope you’ll forgive me when I don’t post in the most regular fashion.  I’ll do my best, and I will avoid filler.

Feel free to leave a shoutout in the comments.

Aaron