Many property owners in Istanbul fit their buildings with horizontal metal-grille shelves sticking out from the facade above the first floor. This keeps bits of a building from falling onto the tourists frequenting the street-level shops that pay the rent. The grilles and their installation must cost a pretty penny. Still owners prefer them to putting the money into renovation.

Again, I wonder about the economics of this. Is the dilapidation a result of some poorly worded rule intended to protect historic buildings? Are the property owners waiting for the old buildings to collapse so they can legitimately tear the remains down and build higher and more profitable structures?

Or is there insufficient demand for housing and office space in central Istanbul, so that the only parts of the buildings that actually pay for themselves are the ones catering to tourists?

Then I thought maybe the problem with getting property owners to pay for upkeep isn’t insufficient carrot, but insufficient whip. Perhaps the reason no Stockholm property owner behaves like this is that if she does, she will get her ass kicked by the authorities. So I asked the city planning office of Stockholm municipality, stadsbyggnadskontoret. And they kindly explained that there are two levels of whip on these issues in Stockholm. The Planning Code demands that you keep your property in good shape: if you don’t, the city planning office will tell you to either get the problem fixed or pay a fine. And if, as is common in Istanbul, your building becomes so decrepit that it’s dangerous to people in or near it, you will no longer be allowed to use your building, for instance by letting out shop space in it.

Or maybe it’s neither carrot nor whip, but a culturally established readiness to see buildings in severe disrepair, combined with a unwillingness or inability to invest now for long-term profit.

“The Milky Way is nothing else but a mass of innumerable stars planted together in clusters.” -Galileo Galilei

Welcome back to another Messier Monday here on Starts With a Bang! With 110 deep-sky objects making it up, the Messier Catalogue is the first comprehensive, accurate catalogue of faint (but not too faint) fixtures in the night sky. Each object tells its own unique tale, and is visible to amateur and professional skywatchers alike with even the simplest of equipment. Many of these objects were discovered by Charles Messier himself (or his assistant, Pierre Méchain), while others go all the way back to antiquity!

Image credit: SEDS compilation of all 110 Messier objects, via http://messier.seds.org/.

Today, we’re taking a look at just the fifth object in his catalogue, the globular cluster Messier 5. Discovered in 1702 by Gottfried Kirch and Maria Margarethe, it’s a collection of some 100,000 stars contained within a radius of around 100 light years, like all globular clusters. However, Messier 5 is unlike the majority of globulars for a number of reasons, which you can marvel at every time you take a look at it. Here’s how to easily find this wonder of the night sky.

Image credit: Me, using the free software Stellarium, via http://stellarium.org/.

The brightest star in the northern hemisphere, Arcturus, is one of the easiest to find: just follow the “arc” of the Big Dipper’s handle and you can’t miss this orange giant! You can “speed on” to Spica, a bright blue star, and find yellowish Saturn just a few degrees away for the rest of the year. But if you look to the left of Arcturus and Spica, you’ll find a fainter but still bright star called Unukalhai (or α Serpentis), the brightest star in the constellation of Serpens.

If you look back towards Spica a few degrees, you’ll see the faint, naked-eye star 5 Serpentis, and if you train your binoculars or telescope on that star, you can’t miss Messier 5, less than half-a-degree away.

Image credit: Me, using Stellarium.

Being a globular cluster, M5 looks like a dense, fuzzy ball that’s brighter towards the center and gradually fainter the farther you move away from the core. Like most globulars, it’s very old — more than 10 billion years for certain and possibly up to 13 billion, as dated from its Hertzsprung-Russell diagram — and metal-poor, with its stars containing less than 10% of the elements heavier than hydrogen and helium that the Sun has.

Image credit: Eduardo Mariño, via his flickr photostream.

But unlike most globulars, there are virtually no bright stars in M5; the brightest star in there is only of magnitude 12.2, meaning that (realistically) you need at least a 6″ (15 cm) telescope to actually tell that this fuzzball is made of stars! Messier himself wrote that it’s a round nebula that doesn’t contain any stars, which is exactly what I see with my own equipment.

But even many casual amateurs have far better equipment than Messier did in the latter-half of the 18^th Century.

Image credit: CN member 2020BC, via Charlie Hein of http://www.cloudynights.com/.

There are a number of features that make this globular cluster really stand out:

1. It’s very close (20′ to be precise) to a naked-eye star, something that’s true for only a small minority of deep-sky objects,
2. It’s got a very dense nucleus where individual stars become very difficult to resolve, and yet also is a very extended globular cluster, with a radius approaching 200 light-years,
3. And, as you may have already been able to tell (but it’s abundantly clear in the image below), this cluster is ellipsoidal, rather than spherical!

See for yourself!

Image credit: Robert (Bob) J. Vanderbei of Princeton University.

Because this globular cluster is — like most globulars — so old, the very bright blue stars you can see are blue stragglers, or stars that were created relatively recently from the merger of smaller stars, and the bright yellow/orange stars are Sun-like stars that have evolved into giant stars, something that will be our star’s fate when it’s as old as Messier 5 is now!

But what you might not realize is that this globular cluster is full of a special class of low-mass variable stars known as RR Lyrae stars. What you see actually depends slightly on when you look!

Image credit: Robert (Bob) J. Vanderbei of Princeton University, once again.

With at least 105 known variable stars in it, Messier 5 is one of the most prolific globular clusters in this sense! It’s also one of the larger ones, with some estimates of the total number of stars in M5 reaching 500,000! (This makes sense, since one out of every few thousand stars is known to be a variable-type star.) It’s located a distance of 25,000 light-years away, moving away from us at about 52 km/sec.

Image credit: © 2006 – 2012 by Siegfried Kohlert of http://www.astroimages.de/.

The closer you can look into the core, the higher the concentration of blue stars becomes. This is a relatively common feature in globular clusters, as mergers and mass-transfer becomes more common in the densest regions of a cluster. This beautiful image by Adam Block really showcases just what’s going on in terms of star color and how it changes with radius.

Image credit: Adam Block, Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, University of Arizona.

As always, however, the best image of the core of this globular cluster comes from the Hubble Space Telescope, whose resolving power is really unparalleled when it comes to separating out individual stars in dense, distant regions. The central core here is only 6 light-years in diameter, or just 50 arc-seconds across as seen from our point-of-view.

Image credit: ESA / Hubble & NASA.

Because I’m a sucker for it, let’s take a full-resolution trip through the inner core of Messier 5, just to show you how spectacularly (and how quickly) the star density rises-and-falls as you pass through the very central region!

Image credit: ESA / Hubble & NASA.

Remember, there are 29 globular clusters in Messier’s catalogue and some 200 total in the halo of our galaxy, but each one is a unique collection of ancient stars with its own history, and I’m pleased to get to share this one with you today, on Messier Monday!

Including today’s entry, we’ve taken a look at the following Messier objects:

• M1, The Crab Nebula: October 22, 2012
• M5, A Hyper-Smooth Globular Cluster: May 20, 2013
• M8, The Lagoon Nebula: November 5, 2012
• M13, The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules: December 31, 2012
• M15, An Ancient Globular Cluster: November 12, 2012
• M20, The Youngest Star-Forming Region, The Trifid Nebula: May 6, 2013
• M25, A Dusty Open Cluster for Everyone: April 8, 2013
• M30, A Straggling Globular Cluster: November 26, 2012
• M33, The Triangulum Galaxy: February 25, 2013
• M37, A Rich Open Star Cluster: December 3, 2012
• M38, A Real-Life Pi-in-the-Sky Cluster: April 29, 2013
• M40, Messier’s Greatest Mistake: April 1, 2013
• M41, The Dog Star’s Secret Neighbor: January 7, 2013
• M44, The Beehive Cluster / Praesepe: December 24, 2012
• M45, The Pleiades: October 29, 2012
• M48, A Lost-and-Found Star Cluster: February 11, 2013
• M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy: April 15th, 2013
• M52, A Star Cluster on the Bubble: March 4, 2013
• M53, The Most Northern Galactic Globular: February 18, 2013
• M60, The Gateway Galaxy to Virgo: February 4, 2013
• M65, The First Messier Supernova of 2013: March 25, 2013
• M67, Messier’s Oldest Open Cluster: January 14, 2013
• M72, A Diffuse, Distant Globular at the End-of-the-Marathon: March 18, 2013
• M74, The Phantom Galaxy at the Beginning-of-the-Marathon: March 11, 2013
• M78, A Reflection Nebula: December 10, 2012
• M81, Bode’s Galaxy: November 19, 2012
• M82, The Cigar Galaxy: May 13, 2013
• M83, The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, January 21, 2013
• M92, The Second Greatest Globular in Hercules, April 22, 2013
• M97, The Owl Nebula, January 28, 2013
• M102, A Great Galactic Controversy: December 17, 2012

Come back next week, where we’ll take a look at one of the rare “late additions” to Messier’s catalogue and explore another one of these deep-sky wonders, only here on Messier Monday!

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” -Albert Einstein

Back when Einstein first proposed his theory of General Relativity, his revolutionary picture of the Universe was met with a mix of curiosity, awe, and intense skepticism. It isn’t every day that your most cherished of all physical theories — the theory of Newtonian Gravity that had ruled the cosmos for nearly two-and-a-half centuries — gets challenged by a newcomer.

Image credit: Brooks/Cole – Thomson publishing, 2005.

And yet, that’s exactly what Einstein did when he proposed General Relativity at the end of 1915, nearly a century ago. Newtonian gravity, according to Einstein, was just an illusion. Objects didn’t really exert gravitational forces on one another, which in turn caused accelerations/changes in momentum, but rather the entire Universe existed in a framework known as spacetime, and the presence of matter-and-energy curved the fabric of that spacetime, causing objects to move as they do.

Image credit: WGBH Boston, retrieved from http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/.

Einstein’s theory not only reduced to Newtonian gravity when gravitational fields were weak, it also predicted the orbital anomaly of Mercury, something that had puzzled astronomers and physicists alike for nearly 50 years. When the 1919 eclipse was observed, and distant starlight was observed to have bent in agreement with General Relativity (and not in agreement with any interpretation of Newton’s laws), our picture of the Universe was revolutionized.

Image credit: 22 November 1919 edition of the Illustrated London News.

Before any of this happened, however, Einstein was very much bothered by an aspect of his theory. You see, it was assumed at the time that the Universe was made up of stars, whose distribution was relatively uniform throughout space. This was furthermore assumed to be stable, and not something that had either changed much with time or that was likely to change into the far future. The stars were assumed to be long-lived, and evenly distributed around us in all directions.

Image credit: Bill Keel of University of Alabama, via http://www.astr.ua.edu/.

In general, this type of solution presented a grave problem for Einstein: it is an unstable solution! If you have a roughly (but not perfectly) uniform distribution of matter, then spacetime is going to curve due to the presence of that matter. And once spacetime is curved, those regions with slightly more matter than others are going to preferentially attract more and more matter, and will grow over time!

What’s even worse is that the fate of all such configurations of mass like this, regardless of what shape they start off in, wind up creating a black hole!

Image credit: “Black Holes: Portals into the Unknown”, © 1997-2001 Benjamin, via http://library.thinkquest.org/.

This clearly isn’t the case for our Universe! And Einstein knew this wasn’t the case for our Universe, so what was actually happening?

The laws of gravity weren’t lying, but there must’ve been something that wasn’t properly accounted for. As far as Einstein could tell, stars pretty much stayed where they were over time, and extended out maybe on the order of thousands of light-years in all directions. Because they weren’t all collapsing towards a point or region, Einstein reasoned that there had to be something fighting gravity on these large, interstellar scales.

Image credit: Natalie Roe for the SNAP collaboration, via http://snap.lbl.gov/.

He proposed that there was an intrinsic energy to space itself, a cosmological constant, responsible for this. This cosmological constant would push back with exactly the force needed to counteract gravity on these large scales, and would lead to the Universe being static.

Now, we can fast-forward almost 100 years, to our modern picture of the Universe.

Image credit: ESA and the Planck Collaboration.

The Universe is not, in fact, static, but has been expanding for billions of years. What Einstein missed is that our Universe extends far beyond our own galaxy, and in fact contains many hundreds of billions of galaxies comparable to our own. This wasn’t discovered observationally until years after General Relativity was proposed, so Einstein could hardly be faulted, and yet he was frustrated at himself for not finding the solution in General Relativity that admits an expanding Universe. Perhaps apocryphally, he’s credited with calling his introduction of the cosmological constant his “greatest blunder.”

Had he found the solutions later found by Friedmann, Lemaitre, Robertson and Walker, he might have proposed that the Universe was expanding, and never suggested the ad hoc cosmological constant at all.

Image credit: S. Perlmutter et al. (Supernova Cosmology Project).

And yet, since the late 1990s, we’ve realized that the Universe does in fact have a non-zero cosmological constant: that’s what we call dark energy, and use to explain the accelerated expansion of the Universe!

Image credit: NASA.

You might think that, because the cosmological constant does turn out to exist, and be non-zero, and because there is an intrinsic energy to space itself, that perhaps Einstein didn’t make a mistake after all.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In physics, we propose novel theoretical mechanisms to both explain observed phenomena and to predict new, hitherto unobserved phenomena. That’s what theoretical physics is all about.

And I hate to break it to you, but Einstein’s cosmological constant utterly failed on both of those counts.

Image credit: Sheldon Faworski and Sean Walker, via http://www.astropix.com/.

Not only did he not successfully explain why the stars in our galaxy remain in a roughly stable configuration — because they’re in quasi-stable orbits around the galaxy — but he also failed to predict the phenomena of the expanding Universe.

Had he gone with the expanding Universe solution instead of the cosmological constant solution to the problem of a Universe that hadn’t yet collapsed into a black hole, that would’ve been correct.

Image credit: retrieved from http://izquotes.com/.

Einstein, to his great credit, was smart enough to admit to himself, and to the world, that his solution was not the right one.

Even today, looking back and recognizing that there is, in fact, a cosmological constant / dark energy component to the Universe, Einstein was still wrong!

It isn’t enough to get the right answer in physics, or in science in general. You need to get the right answer for the right reasons, otherwise you are doomed to lead yourself astray.

Image credit: Sean Carroll, via Steve Hsu of http://infoproc.blogspot.com/.

The cosmological constant may have come back, but it has nothing to do with the reasons Einstein proposed for its existence, nor is it of anywhere near the same magnitude that Einstein suggested. Sometimes old ideas come back in new forms to solve new puzzles.

Why do I tell you this? Because it’s tempting to revise history, to make our heroes even more heroic and to give them credit for discoveries that they themselves did not make. It’s also all too easy to fool ourselves, and to discount our own actual mistakes because there was a somewhat-related success down the road.

Image credit: European Space Agency.

It’s okay to be wrong; being wrong is evidence that you were trying, and also evidence that you were honest with yourself. The important thing is to get it right in the end. We’re going to be wrong about an awful lot of things going forward; of that I’m certain.

What will separate those of us who are good scientists about it will be our willingness to let go of ideas that no longer agree with the data, admit we were wrong, and embrace the theoretical ideas that are in accord with what we observe. We may even wind up reviving old ideas and finding new ways that they apply to our Universe as we learn more about it. (It doesn’t mean the old ideas were right all along, though!)

This is science, where every day we come a little closer to getting it right. Thanks for coming along on the journey with me.

I mention this not to put myself in Feynman’s category, but just as a reminder of the universal tenddency of physicists to get caught up in looking at silly, simple problems in more detail than is really required. Such as, for example, the several hours I spent this week simulating the motion of a pendulum in VPython.

Like a lot of things these days, this came out of a passing mention on Twitter: Andrew Morrison was asking about using a pendulum in a lab as a demonstration of conservation of energy, and I got brought into the conversation. This, in turn, got me thinking about simulating a pendulum, something I’ve wondered about in the past, particularly when I was doing a seminar on timekeeping.

I had toyed with the idea of using a simulation to demonstrate the physics of a pendulum, and how its period depends on the angle, as this is a big issue for making accurate pendulum-based clocks. If you use a really wide swing for a pendulum, it takes longer to complete an oscillation than you would expect from a simple model. You can calculate approximately how much it varies, but the math is kind of hairy, and a simulation is probably more engaging, anyway.

I ended up not doing it because when I started thinking about it, the obvious way to do it was to just stick in the necessary force, which I can easily calculate– the “string” of the pendulum needs to pull on the bob with a force equal to to outward component of gravity plus the centripetal force needed to keep it on the right arc. The problem is, that seems like a cheat– I’ve calculated the force needed before doing the simulation, which defeats the purpose of the simulation, and brings in a bunch of physics that goes beyond what I wanted to deal with.

As usual, I was being an idiot, and when the Twitter conversation got me thinking about this again, I realized that the Matter and Interactions textbook that got me into simulating things in VPython in the first place also provides an explanation for how to calculate the motion of a pendulum without putting the force in by hand. The book spends a whole bunch of time on a microscopic model of material objects as balls (atoms) connected by springs (chemical bonds). So, the solution is simple: treat the string of the simulated pendulum as a spring. The idealized version of a pendulum, after all, that provides whatever force it needs to to keep the ball on a set path, is just a spring with an infinite spring constant, giving a finite force for an infinitesimal stretch.

Once you do that, it’s easy to code up, and doesn’t require any prior knowledge of the path. Of course, you need some idea of what to use for a spring constant, but then the beauty of this method is that you can just stick in any value you like, and see what happens. The screen shot at the top is for a spring constant of 100 N/m (not all that strong) and a starting angle of 37 degrees (which is close to the small angle of a 3-4-5 triangle). The program assumes the spring-string is at its relaxed length to start, so providing no force, and the red trace in that image shows the resulting path, which makes a cool pattern.

That motion can be broken down into two pieces: there’s a mass-on-a-spring oscillation in and out, as the spring-string stretches and compresses; the period of that is pretty much exactly what you expect for the spring constant and mass in the simulation. Then there’s the back-and-forth oscillation of the pendulum on a mostly circular arc. For this particular choice of parameters, these periods are close to commensurate, so the pendulum more or less retraces its own path, giving a nifty pattern. For a different choice of angle, the path sort of smears out into a broad band after several oscillations.

Of course, the interesting thing to do with this is to look at how the period depends on angle, as I toyed with doing back when I taught about timekeeping. Measuring the period for a bunch of different angles gives the following graph:

Period vs. angle for a VPython simulation of a pendulum

The red points here represent the simulation for a spring constant of 100 N/m, as in the above screen shot. You can see that, as you expect, the period increases slightly as you go to larger angles. The theoretical value for an ideal pendulum is 2.0071s, and all of these points are higher than that, presumably because the stretching of the pendulum increases the effective length as it swings.

There are three other sets plotted here, as well, though it’s hard to see them. There are black circles, labeled “cheat” for the simulation where I put in the formula for the right force by hand. These are almost impossible to see, because they’re under the yellow triangles from the simulation for a spring constant of 10,000 N/m; almost all of these are within 0.0001s of the “cheat” values. There are also green triangles, for a spring constant of 1,000 N/m (half as many, because I got tired of copying down values), which are very slightly higher than the 10,000 N/m points, but not by all that much.

So, this does exactly what you would expect: as you increase the spring constant, the period value approaches the “ideal” case of a string that doesn’t stretch at all. Physics works, hooray!

It’s sort of interesting to look at how that approach happens, so here’s another graph:

Period vs. spring constant for a VPython simulation of a pendulum.

This shows the period for a single starting angle– 37 degrees– for a bunch of different spring constants. Note that the horizontal scale is logarithmic, so this spans a range from 10 N/m to 100,000 N/m. The dashed horizontal line is the “cheat” value of 2.0610s. This is a few hundredths of a percent from the approximate theoretical value for that angle, so again: physics works, hooray! I don’t have a particular expectation for what the approach to the ideal value should look like, mathematically, or I’d fit a function to those points. This looks pretty reasonable, though.

So, the upshot here is that it is, in fact, possible to simulate the motion of a simple pendulum very well without knowing the right answer in advance. This also produces a slightly surprising result, namely that the force on the string oscillates rapidly during the whole swing, as the spring-string stretches and compresses. At any given instant, the force can be substantially less or substantially more than the theoretical value for the “cheat” version. This isn’t something you’d necessarily anticipate, but it does make sense when you think about the underlying physics. I didn’t make graphs of this, but did look at the ratio of the maximum force measured through the swing and the “theoretical” maximum that you expect from the “cheat” model. These numbers were very consistent across the different spring constants, and varied with the angle in a kind of interesting way: the larger the starting angle, the smaller the ratio of the two.

Again, this makes some sense if you think about the underlying physics: the initial condition of the model is that the spring-string is unstretched, and thus exerting zero force at the starting point. This is a good fit at large angles– the “cheat” model would give zero force for an angle of 90 degrees. At smaller angles, though, this is a very bad approximation, so you would expect the simulation to deviate from the ideal by a larger amount. At 85 degrees, the maximum force is about 3% more than the “cheat” version, while at 5 degrees it’s close to a factor of two larger.

You can also do a time-average of the force over one of the radial oscillations (basically adding up the force for each time step between reversals of the velocity along the string, then dividing by the number of time steps), and look at that. As you might well expect, this tracks the “cheat” value reasonably well, coming within a few percent for most of the oscillation. It tends to come in a little low, which might just be a numerical artifact due to the fact that I’m a lousy programmer.

The obvious extension of this is to correct the zero-force assumption at the starting point– in reality, if you start a pendulum, you stretch the spring so it’s under a slight tension, so the string is taut. In principle, I think there should be a position where the spring-string ought to smoothly stretch to always be exactly the length it needs to be to supply the necessary centripetal force. It’s not obvious how to calculate the right starting position, though, and I’ve spent enough time futzing around with this is it is, so let’s just leave that as a homework exercise for the interested reader. (If I get bored enough in the near future, I may try to trial-and-error my way to the right value…)

So, anyway, there’s the latest in my open-ended series of overthinking the physics of simple systems. I’m not sure this will actually be any use in a class, unless I end up teaching our intermediate mechanics course– the issues involved in this end up going well beyond the content of our introductory courses (even though it was Matter and Interactions that kicked the whole thing off…). But it was fun to work up, and good enough for a blog post…

I had just arrived at the research camp in the Ituri Forest, then Zaire and now the Congo, after a rather long and harrowing journey that took me from Boston to New York to London to Lagos to Kinshasa to Kisingani to Isiro, all by plane, then over 250 kilometers of increasingly less road-like road, to the world’s most “remote” research site to be found among human settlements anywhere on the planet. Jack’s research involved looking at what happened to Efe Pygmy “camps” after they were abandoned. The Efe hunter-gatherers were known to move camp an average of once every two weeks or so. An archaeologist would want to know what happens to a camp once it is abandoned because many of the ancient sites we excavate are exactly that, abandoned settlements. Jack had been tracking Efe movement and camp abandonment patterns for one year, and the expectation was that I would continue his data collection for another year, as he and his wife returned to Montana to write up their results.

A typical Efe forest camp.

“Oh, excuse, me have you moved yet? No? OK, see you tomorrow.”

When we arrived at the camp, which was located very near the Lese villages … the Lese are the farming people who with an overlapping culture and economy with the Efe … there were a lot of people there. This was a camp with several adult couples and a number of kids of all ages from baby up to nearly teenage. Since this was Jack and Helen’s last visit, they brought gifts to give to the people who had helped them out for the previous year. Project regulations and ethics required that any gifts be irrelevant to diet or economics, not usable as tools of poaching, not likely to change people’s status, and be likely to be used up or worn out quickly. So, everybody got plastic green sunglasses, the really cheap kind you buy by the dozen at a party store to use as favors.

A typical Lese village.

It was a party, a good time, lots of conversation, some weeping over the fact that the much beloved Jack and Helen would be moving back to the States, lots of fun with the green sunglasses, lots of data collected. Then, we left, and the next day we returned to map in the locations of the small dome shaped leaf-covered huts and other structures, fire hearths, stick chairs, drying racks, midden piles, trampled central-use areas, and so on and so forth. This is what the abandoned camp of a people known in the literature, and generally to outsiders, as “nomads” looked like. There was lots of stuff there, but all of it was made from materials available on the spot, transformed from wild growing plants to architecture and kitchen furniture, but eventually thrown out or left behind. Everything else was carried by the Efe, in one trip, to the next camp they would build from natural materials. Or almost everything.

Saying goodbye to Jack and Helen.

Collecting data from an abandoned camp.

And the forest had it’s seasonal cycle as well. During the dry season, which lasted several weeks around November and December, certain animals were easier to hunt because the streams they hid in, or that would impair hunter’s movement through the forest, were very low. Staring in late June and running into August, the famous African Killer Honey Bees (the wild version of our own domesticated honey bee) produced copious honey in nests about 100 feet up in the forest canopy. The Efe men were very dedicated to harvesting this honey.

If you think about that information for a bit you’ll notice possible conflict. For example, the Efe are drawn to the deep forest for Honey Season, but this overlaps with the mid-year harvest and planting. The November harvest and planting overlapped and conflicted with the dry season hunting. You might guess that men and women would have different opinions about where to reside during these periods of conflicts. The women would never stay overnight in a farm village during harvest; they moved each day by foot from the Efe camp to the gardens and back. But as it became more desirable to camp farther and farther into the forest, that commute became longer and longer. We say (usually tongue in cheek) that Western couples fight over certain things, like money or how to raise the kids or what channel to watch on TV. Efe couples argue over where to put the camp in relation to the horticultural villages vs. the deep forest.

I ended up never continuing Jack and Helen’s data collection project. That I would spend a year doing Part II of another graduate student’s thesis was an idea cooked up by our shared advisor, but neither Jack nor I saw the benefit in doing that. He had enough data, I had other things to do. So, instead, I studied the larger scale structure of Efe nomadism, of their movements across the landscape and their use of forest resources.

I discovered that each Efe group possessed (and that is a carefully chosen word) rights to a trail, usually one single trail but sometimes something a bit more complicated, that ran from the villages out into the forest. Along this trail, at intervals of almost exactly 1.5 kilometers, was a potential camp site. Of these camp sites, a handful were used again and again as the Efe moved through their seasonal cycle. Some of the other camps were used only occasionally. This was interesting, because it meant that even though the efe might move over 20 times a year, the part of their movement in the deep forest had them return to the same exact four or five camps again and again for years. They would also repeatedly use the same camps near the villages, but since village farmers often moved their swidden gardens, wiping out grown-over sections of the forest in one area and abandoning a garden elsewhere, the Efe “village camps” … the camps used during planting and harvest seasons … were often destroyed or otherwise became inconvenient.

Efe hunter. As a general rule, if you don’t know at least approximately where something is in the forest before you go looking for it, you’re not likely to find it.

And now we come to the interesting anthropological lesson that emerges when we look at other cultures, in this case, the Efe and Lese. In books and articles about the Pygmies of the Central African rain forest, the Pygmies (including the Efe as well as other groups with different names) are often called “nomads.” Nomads, we all know, are people who move a lot. The term also invokes, for many, a certain amount of randomness, or at least, uncertainty in where one might be moving next. There is indeed uncertainty, of a sort, among the Efe as to when they are going to move and where to. But this is simply because one does not need to decide when or where until it is time to do so. There is a constant negotiation happening between members of a particular group as to when to move, and which camp to move to. If there is a big enough difference between different families in a camp, they can easily move to two different locations for a while, or one group can stay and others leave. But these differences never lead to the men going one place while the women go elsewhere, even though the biggest conflict is usually between men and women. The point is, their movement is not random, but well considered and systematic, yet in at the scale of days or weeks in advance, not very predictable at any level of detail.

Yet, at the same time, the Efe are the opposite of nomadic. Consider their Lese village farmer neighbors. They live in permanent villages. But, over time, the Lese use up garden space and firewood in the vicinity of their village. Also, a mini-epidemic of disease in a given village will cause people to not want to live there any more. So, over the course of a person’s life, say a person who lives to 70 years old, one might move seven or eight times from one village to another just in service to the agricultural cycle.

But wait, there’s more. Among the villagers, men and women, when they are married, move to one parent’s village or another for a while, then try to start their own village, and that sometimes does not work out, so they move again. So, around the age of marriage, a person may move three or four times in two or three years. A young man might spend two or three years working at a plantation far from their village, or spend some time in the army. A woman and her children might move to near a chief’s village if her husband is caught doing something wrong and forced into indentured service for a few months. Every now and then the government comes along and moves any village that is too far out in the forest closer to the road so it is easier to tax them. Then later, the government disappears (remember, this is a remote area) and everyone moves back. If grandma gets really sick part of the family might move far away to a mission hospital, because the family is required to supply food and labor to support grandma’s stay in what amounts to a hospice. And so on and so forth.

Betweeen all of these factors, Lese farmers might move 20 times in their life.

Let’s view “nomadism” among the Efe hunter gatherers and the Lese villagers from a slightly different perspective. Let’s ask the question: How many different places have you slept a total of 100 nights or more? That eliminates short forays, fishing trips, very short marriages, etc. Or, putting it a slightly different way, let’s look at the list of places one lives ranked by how many nights one has slept there in a lifetime. Nomads, given our usual conception of them, should have a very long list with a small number of nights at each place, while settled people should have a list with a short number of localities each associated with hundreds or thousands of nights, even if there is a tail of several places with a small number of nights each down hear the bottom of the list.

If we look at the “nomadic” hunter gatherers of the Ituri Forest, the Efe, their list will have five or six places that account for 80% or more of their nights, if we adjust for the frequently destroyed camps in or near the gardens. The Lese farmers, on the other hand, will have over a dozen localities with a several hundred nights in each. By that reckoning, the Lese are more nomadic over a lifetime, even if the Efe are constantly moving.

Minnesotans who go away for college and whose families have a cabin (maybe a series of cabins over time) up north and who spend part of their lives moving opportunistically from apartment to apartment in South Minneapolis are pretty nomadic too. I myself moved once before the age of 16, then about every six months for the next 15 years, chasing relationships, jobs, schools, and doing field work.

Finally, let’s look at nomadism in one more way. If you move every several years, occasionally more often such as around the time of marriage, then at any given time the landscape you know is the landscape you live in, and the memories of details of the landscape of your childhood or other times gone by both fades and becomes obsolete. But if you move constantly, but over the same exact landscape all the time like the Efe do, then your knowledge of every bit of the landscape is detailed an intense and constantly updated and renewed. The Efe know every root that ever tripped them and every rocky pile that ever harbored a small forest animal procurable for dinner and every mature fruit tree and every patch of tasty forest yams in the place they live. The other part of my research, looking at Efe diet, came to this conclusion: There is a fair amount of food in the rain forest, but the only way to find any of it is to know in advance where it is located. Otherwise, the costs in time and energy to discover it excede its caloric value.

The Efe are not nomadic. They are, rather, constant inspectors of their rather large home, centered on their traditionally used trail, consisting of a half dozen venues to sleep and live.

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More stuff about the Congo

A while back I wrote a Novella, as a fundraising effort for the Secular Student Alliance, set in the eastern Congo. A cleaned up version of it is available here: Sungudogo

You can read the harrowing real life story of a season of field research in the same region, in a series of blog posts, by clicking HERE (then click through to the next blog post, and the next, and the next, until you’ve read them all!).

And, THIS LINK will get you to a selection of other stories set in the region.

Jack’s research was written up here:

Ethnoarchaeology Among the Efe Pygmies, Zaire: Spatial Organization of Campsites, by J. W. Fisher, Jr. and H. C. Strickland. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 78:473–484.

The issue at hand is this: What is the level of agreement in the scientific community about the reality of climate change and about the human role in climate change? The new paper, Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, address this question and the answer is very clear. The number of climate scientists who question the reality of global warming or the human role in global warming is vanishingly small.

This is not the first study to look at this question, but it is the most thorough effort. This should, however, be the last paper to report this kind of research because, really, we’re there; climate scientists are in very strong agreement about this issue and with this landmark study further demonstration of this fact is superfluous. (John Keegan discusses the merits of this paper relative to other similar efforts and closely examines issues such as sample size and bias here.)

How do we know there a consensus among scientists about human-caused climate change?

The research team, John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli, Sarah Green, Mark Richardson, Barbel Winkler, Rob Painting, Robert Way, Peter Jacobs and Andrew Skuce, examined 11,944 abstracts published in peer reviewed scientific journals from 1991–2011 that covered the topics “Global Climate Change” or “Global Warming.” They coded the abstracts to signify the apparent position on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and found that 66.4% expressed no position, 32.4% indicated acceptance of AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% expressed uncertainty as to the cause of warming.

Removing those papers that did not express an opinion, 97.1% “endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”

The paper also looks at change over time in scientific consensus. The bottom line is that there isn’t much; consensus is not especially new. But there is a small trend, discussed by lead author John Cook in the video I provide below. Also, a look at the “reject AGW” papers shows that there are some patterns. Most are looking at large scale (known) change or cosmic sources of climate change, and they tend to be dated to the earlier part of the time range. Rabbet Run lists them here.

Consensus is often implied and not stated in peer reviewed papers

The researchers then invited the authors to rate the papers they had published. When this was done, the number of papers indicating no position on AGW dropped precipitously to 35.5%. In this rating system, 97.2% of papers endorse the consensus on AGW.

This is important for a couple of reasons. For one, it is an indication that the original coding was conservative, and did not involve assumptions about what the authors may have been thinking. It also shows something about how the scientific process works. If you look at any major scientific concept in the literature, you may find very little explicit endorsement of the overarching theoretical construct or model (like “Natural Selection” or “Germ Theory”) if that concept is fully established. Early writings on a particular major concept often refer to the concept itself and may cite early authors. For example one might see something like “Darwin’s concept of Natural Selection is being increasingly applied to understand the physical features of butterflies” with a reference to The Origin of Species. But after a while scientists stop mentioning the no-longer-novel overarching consensus and stop citing the seminal works. Climate science has moved into this state with respect to the human-caused warming of the earth because of the preponderance of evidence of AGW.

The Climate Change Consensus Gap

Depending on which poll you look at, and when the poll was taken, somewhat more than half of Americans either reject global warming as even being real, reject the human role, or simply don’t know about it. Given the scientific consensus, this is a little like saying that over half of Americans don’t accept Evolution as a valid set of theories and observations, despite the preponderance of evidence for that! (Hey, wait a minute…)

The point is, the gap between scientific consensus and public opinion is real, and very important. The consensus gap causes bad things to happen. For instance, it is quite reasonable for a government agency to fund or support public service announcements on drunk driving. There is a consensus that drunk driving causes deaths, injuries, and accidents. There is not a consensus gap in that area. But global warming also causes misery and mayhem. Shouldn’t there be public service announcements on saving energy and using alternative sources? The consensus gap means that there can’t be.

This of course has a direct effect on public policy, as noted by Naomi Oreskes writing for Science Magazine:

Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, “As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change”. Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.

Leadership is when those with influence head directly for the truth, talk about the right thing to do, and help other people to do the right thing. Main Stream Media does not have that … that leadership thing. Main Stream Media does not look at the scientific consensus and then make judgements about what stories to cover and how to cover them on that basis. Rather, Main Stream Media looks at the range of public opinion and treats that as consensus (or lack of) and acts accordingly. Which, in turn, reinforces or even sometimes widens the gap.

This also causes problems in the liminal area of media commentary. Opinion editorials in major outlets like the Wall Street Journal often exploit the Consensus Gap, manufacturing uncertainty or attracting readers from among the misinformed part of the public, and again, reinforcing or even widening the gap and enhancing the level of public misunderstanding or just plain old ignorance. With respect to global warming, it is time for that to stop. As noted by Brendan DeMelle:

It does not get any clearer than this. It should finally put to rest the claims of climate deniers that there is a scientific debate about global warming. Of course, this bunch isn’t known for being reasonable or susceptible to facts. But maybe the mainstream media outlets that have given deniers a megaphone will finally stop.

Global Warming, Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster

Editorials in Main Stream Media that exploit the consensus gap could be compared to editorials at the New York Times or in the Scientific American or your local newspaper that demand more attention be given to the plight of Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster. The degree of scientific consensus that those creatures do not exist is about the same as the degree of consensus that AGW is real, though the public “belief” in crypto-critters is less than the public “belief” that AGW is not real. Why? Because Main Stream Media has not taken Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster seriously in quite some time.

Ten years from now it will be interesting to look back and see how Main Stream Media’s editorial writers who today are sticking with “the jury is still out” on AGW managed their reputations as they looked more and more like they belonged at the National Enquirer rather than a respected news outlet.

John Cook, the study’s lead author, has also blogged about it here and also has a video summarizing the paper, which he discusses some of the earlier research as well:

Dana Nuccitelli, another co-author, blogged about the research here and here.

This work was also covered by The Weather Channel.

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¹The embargo ended overnight last night, even though several climate science denialists failed to respect the embargo, thus, seemingly on purpose, violating a pretty standard ethical rule in academia.

The Consensus Project has a web site HERE and the twitter tag is #TCP

This is the paper:
Cook, J., Nuccitelli, D., Green, S., Richardson, M., Winkler, B., Painting, R., Way, R., Jacobs, P., & Skuce, A. (2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature Environmental Research Letters, 8 (2) DOI: 10.1088/1748–9326/8/2/024024

“Supposedly she’d died, but here she was again–somewhat changed, but you couldn’t kill her. Not when the truest part of her hadn’t even been born.” -Denis Johnson

Over the past 100 years, our picture of the Universe has changed dramatically, on both the largest scales and the smallest.

Image credit: Richard Payne.

On the large-scales, we’ve gone from a Newtonian Universe of unknown age populated only by the stars in our own Milky Way to a Universe governed by General Relativity, containing hundreds of billions of galaxies.

Image credit: Rhys Taylor, Cardiff University.

The age of this Universe is dated at 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang, the observable part of which is some 92 billion light-years in diameter, filled with normal matter (and not antimatter), dark matter, and dark energy.

On the small scales, the revolution has been just as dramatic.

Image credit: 2011 Encyclopaedia Britannica.

We’ve gone from a Universe made up of atomic nuclei, electrons and photons, where the only known forces were gravitational and electromagnetic, to a much more fundamental understanding of the smallest particles and interactions that make up the Universe. Nuclei are made up of protons and neutrons, which — in turn — are made up of quarks and gluons. There are two types of nuclear forces, the strong and the weak forces, and three generations of particles, including the leptons (electrons, neutrinos, and their heavier counterparts) and quarks (up, down, and their heavier counterparts). There are gauge bosons governing the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, and finally there’s the Higgs, bringing this all together under the framework of the Standard Model.

Image credit: Fermilab, modified by me.

And combining the Standard Model of particle physics with General Relativity and the standard model of modern cosmology means that we can nearly explain the entire physical Universe! By beginning with a Universe that had slightly more matter than antimatter, and starting just some 10^-10 seconds after the Big Bang, we can account for all of the observed phenomena using only the already-established laws of physics. We can reproduce — with simulations — a Universe that is, in all meaningful ways, physically indistinguishable from our own.

Images credit: 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (blue) and Millenium Simulation (red), which agree!

And yet, there are some very fundamental questions we still don’t understand. Among them are:

1. Why is there more matter than antimatter? Where did the asymmetry (of the observed magnitude) come from?
2. What is the nature of dark energy? What is the field/property responsible for it?
3. What is the nature of dark matter? What is the particle responsible for it?
4. We know that, at very high energies, the electromagnetic and the weak force unify, and are actually a manifestation of the electroweak force, whose symmetry is broken at low energies. Do the other forces — the strong force and maybe even gravity — unify at some even higher energy?
5. And finally, why do the fundamental particles — the ones in the Standard Model — have the masses that they do?

This last one is a problem known as the hierarchy problem in physics, and it goes something like this.

Image credit: © School of Physics UNSW.

There are a few fundamental constant in nature: the gravitational constant (G), Planck’s constant (h or ħ, which is h/2π), and the speed of light (c). There are different combinations of these constants we can create to get values for time, length, and mass; these are known as Planck units.

Image credit: Mass-Energy Scale, via http://universe-review.ca/.

If you were to predict the mass of the particles in the Standard Model from first principles, they ought to be on the order of the Planck mass, which has an energy of around 10²⁸ eV. The major problem is that this mass is 17 orders of magnitude, or a factor of 100,000,000,000,000,000 larger than the heaviest observed particle in the Universe. The Higgs boson, in particular, should have the Planck mass, and — since the Higgs field couples to the other particles, giving them mass — so should all the others.

Image credit: Matthew J. Dolan, Christoph Englert, and Michael Spannowsky, via JHEP 1210 (2012) 112.

So why, we ask, do the particles have the mass that they do, and not much, much larger ones? The best, most elegant solution is that there’s an extra symmetry that cancels out all those Planck-scale contributions, and protects the mass down to a much lower energy.

Image credit: wikimedia commons user VermillionBird.

That’s the idea behind Supersymmetry, known as SUSY for short. Supersymmetry makes the very bold prediction that every one of the Standard Model particles has a partner particle — a superpartner — that has nearly identical properties, except has a spin that’s different by a value of ‎±½ from its Standard Model counterpart.

Image credit: DESY at Hamburg.

This superpartner should protect the mass of all the particles — the Standard Model ones and the SUSY ones — all the way down to the scale at which SUSY is broken, at which point the superpartners acquire a heavier mass than the normal ones.

Image credit: © New Scientist.

If SUSY is broken at the right scale to solve the hierarchy problem, somewhere between 100 GeV and 1 TeV, then the lightest supersymmetric particles should be accessible by the LHC.

But there’s more.

There are a bunch of things that are known not to happen in the Standard Model to very high precision: baryon number isn’t violated, lepton number isn’t violated, and there are no flavor-changing neutral currents. In order to make these things also not happen in SUSY, you need a new symmetry called R-parity, which comes along with an added feature. If R-parity is real and SUSY is real, then the lightest supersymmetric particle is stable, which means, if enough of them are left over from the hot Big Bang, it could be the dark matter!

Image credit: CDMS experiment, Fermilab / Dept. of Energy, via http://www.fnal.gov/.

There’s even one more cool thing that happens: if you take all the particles in the standard model, and you look at the interaction strength of the three forces, you’ll find that the strength of the forces — parametrized by their coupling constants — changes with energy. They change in such as way that, in the Standard Model, they almost meet at some high energy (around 10¹⁵ GeV), but just miss, slightly, if you put them on a log-log scale. But if you add in supersymmetry, the addition of these new particles changes the way the coupling constants evolve. And therefore, if SUSY is right, it could indicate a place where the electromagnetic, weak and strong forces all unify at a high energy!

Image credit: CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2001. Via http://edu.pyhajoki.fi/.

In other words, there are three major problems that could all be solved by the existence of supersymmetry; it’s a great idea! (There are four if you count the problem of the Coleman-Mandula theorem, which many do, but I’m not one of them.)

But there’s also a few problems with each of these three problems that SUSY looks like it solves:

1. If it solves the hierarchy problem, then there should definitely be new supersymmetric particles discovered at the LHC. In fact, if the LHC doesn’t discover supersymmetric particles, then even if SUSY exists, there must be some other solution to the hierarchy problem, because SUSY alone won’t do it.
2. If the lightest supersymmetric particle is, in fact, the dark matter in the Universe, then experiments designed to see it, such as CDMS and XENON, ought to have seen it by now. In addition, SUSY dark matter should annihilate in a very particular way, which we haven’t seen. The null-detection status of these experiments (among others) is a big red flag against this. Plus, there are plenty of other good dark matter candidates as far as astrophysics is concerned; SUSY is hardly the only horse in the race.
3. The strong force may not unify with the other forces! There’s no reason, other than our predisposition towards liking more symmetric things, for that to be the case. There’s also the issue that if you put any three curves on a log-log scale and zoom out far enough, they will always look like a triangle where the three lines “just barely” miss coming together to a point.

But the biggest failures of SUSY are not theoretical ones; they’re experimental.

Image credit: Geoff Brumfiel from Nature.

And there are a lot of different ways of representing just how difficult it is to reconcile what SUSY expects with what we actually have — and haven’t — seen.

Image credit: Alessandro Strumia, via http://resonaances.blogspot.com/.

At the LHC, supersymmetric particles should have been detected by now, if they exist. There are plenty of theorists and experimentalists who are still optimistic about SUSY, but nearly all models that successfully solve the hierarchy problem have been ruled out.

Image credit: Particle Data Group (2012), O. Buchmueller and P. de Jong.

At this point in the game, based on what we’ve seen (and haven’t seen) so far, it would be shocking if the LHC turned up evidence for supersymmetry. As always, continued experimentation will be the ultimate arbiter of nature, but I think it’s fair to say that the only reason SUSY gets as much positive press as it does is for two simple reasons.

1. A lot of people have invested their entire careers in SUSY, and if it’s not a part of nature, then a lot of what they’ve invested in is nothing more than a blind alley. For example, if there is no SUSY in nature, at any energy scale, then string theory is wrong. Plain and simple.
2. There are no other good solutions to the hierarchy problem that are as satisfying as SUSY. If there’s no SUSY, then we have to admit that we have no idea why the masses of the standard model particles have the value that they do.

Which is to say, SUSY or not, physics still has a lot of explaining to do, and there’s work to be done. But the biggest problem is that SUSY predicts new particles, and it predicts their existence to occur in a fairly specific range of energies.

Image credit: Matt Strassler of http://profmattstrassler.com/.

If they’re not there, then this isn’t the right story. At this point, the theoretical hoops being jumped through to keep SUSY “viable” (and yes, that belongs in air quotes) given our experimental null results are getting progressively more and more extravagant. I’m not much of a betting man, but if I were, I’d say that SUSY is already dead. It’s just waiting for the coffin nails to be hammered in.

This is the boat.

One of the activists, Jay O’Hara, is tweeting from here: @oharjo and using the hashtag #coalisstupid

Here is a press release related to this event:

BREAKING NEWS: ACTIVISTS BLOCKING COAL SHIP “ENERGY ENTERPRISE” AT BRAYTON POINT COAL PLANT IN MASSACHUSETTS

Activists have begun a blockade of an incoming coal ship at the Brayton Point Power plant, outside Fall River, Massachusetts.

…

At 9 am this morning, environmental activists Ken Ward, 57 of Jamaica Plain, MA, and Jay O’Hara, 31, of Bourne,MA, anchored their 32’ lobster boat, the Henry David T, in the channel opposite the Brayton Point coal power plant.

They intend to block the “Energy Enterprise,” a coal tanker en route to deliver fuel to the power plant. The boat is transporting “mountain top removal coal” from Hampton, Roads, Virginia –and is expected to arrive later today.

Activists are calling for the immediate closure of BraytonPoint Power Station in order to avert catastrophic climate change.

“The world is teetering on the brink of climate chaos from which there will be no retreat,” said Jay O’Hara, captain of the Henry David T, a 1965 wooden lobster boat. “We know exactly what must be done to avoid the very worst. And the single most important action is to stop burning coal.”

The Brayton Point plant is the single largest coal polluter in New England.

In a separate announcement, members of 350 New Jersey and 350 Massachusetts today released a letter that was hand delivered to Dominion President and CEO, Thomas F. Farrell II and New Jersey-based Energy Capital Partners founder and Senior Partner Doug Kimmelman, opposing the sale of Brayton Point and calling on Dominion Energy to work with Massachuetts Governor Deval Patrick to close the plan.”

At 9:30 am, Ken Ward called the Somerset police to inform them, “We are conducting a peaceful nonviolent protest against the use of coal. We have anchored near the pier atBrayton Point.”

The men were inspired to take action by 350.org co-founder Bill Mckibben’s call for a summer of climate action, and galvanized by the proposed sale of the BraytonPoint Power Station by Dominion Energy to Energy Capital Partners.

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Image from the power station’s web site.

This is surprising enough to be worth a little discussion on the blog, so we’ll give this the Q&A treatment.

See! I told you, homework is evil! And these people have proved it with SCIENCE! OK, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here. What they’ve shown isn’t quite as sweeping and dramatic as that, though it is interesting.

Killjoy. OK, what did they actually show? Well, they looked at a very large sample of students in the second term of introductory physics– a couple of years worth of classes with around 1000 students/year– and looked at the correlation between the amount of homework those students did and their scores on the exams for the course. They first separated the students into four groups based on “physics aptitude,” though, and looked at each group independently. For the highest-aptitude group, they found what you would expect: students who did more homework got higher scores on the exams. In the lowest-aptitude group, though, they found the opposite: students who did more homework got lower exam scores.

That’s… weird. But how do you sort students by aptitude in the first place? I mean, how do you know which students are good at physics before they take the exams? The aptitude sorting is based on grades in prerequisite classes. The specific course they looked at was the second term of intro physics, covering electricity and magnetism. Students taking that course needed to take two calculus courses and the first term of intro physics first, and the average grade in those three courses was the basis for the “aptitude” sorting. This average was reasonably well correlated with the grade in the second term of physics, and also with other measures of aptitude (SAT scores, conceptual test scores, etc.).

Couldn’t that just be a measure of general student skills, though? That is, students who get lousy grades in calculus also get lousy grades in physics because they have poor study skills in both? That’s one of the weaknesses, yes. If it were just a measure of poor attitude, though, you might expect the “low-aptitude” students to all blow off the homework, and that’s not what they see– the homework completion rates for all the groups are pretty similar. These appear to be students who are putting a reasonable amount of effort into the class, and just not doing well.

Speaking of which, shouldn’t you show us these results? You could look in the paper, you know.

Yeah, but then I’d have to click the mouse button two whole times. Just put a graph in the post, please? Fine, here you go:

Figure 1 from the arxiv preprint discussed in the text

This shows the cumulative exam score (three midterms and a final) on the vertical axis, with the percentage of the homework completed on the horizontal axis. The high-aptitude group is at the top, and the low-aptitude group is at the bottom.

Those points are kind of scattered all over the place, dude. Yeah, but that’s pretty good for social-science type data. And you can see a pretty clear trend indicated by the straight lines on each of those graphs. For the high-aptitude group, the line slopes up and to the right, indicating the more homework is correlated with a higher grade. In the low-aptitude group, the line slopes down and to the right, indicating that more homework is correlated with a lower grade.

How big an effect are we talking? Not all that big– very roughly, doing an additional 10% of the homework raised or lowered the exam total by about 2%. But it’s statistically significant, and the difference between groups is surprising.

Yeah, that’s definitely weird. What would cause that, or is this one of those “correlation is not causation” situations? Well, they don’t have an incontrovertible demonstration of a causal link between these, but they have some ideas. The education-jargon term for it is that doing more homework “placed an excessive cognitive load on low aptitude students.”

So,…. basically, “Mr. Osborne, my brain is full”? Not quite as pejorative as that, but yeah. The idea is that students who don’t have a solid framework for doing physics end up inventing ad hoc “schemas” for each homework problem they do, idiosyncratic ways of explaining how they got the answer. The more homework they do, the more of these they accumulate, and it becomes hard to sort out what, exactly, they’re supposed to be doing.

The higher-aptitude students, on the other hand, are in a better position to interpret the problems in terms of a smaller number of universal rules, and thus have an easier time keeping everything straight. When they confront a problem, they have a smaller set of more flexible tools to draw from, so finding the right approach is easier.

It’s a nice story, but is there any other suport for it? Sort of. They looked at each of the mid-term exams separately, and the correlation between doing the homework for the relevant section and the score on that exam (so, graphs like the above only plotting the grade on the first quarter of the class versus the percentage of the first quarter of the homework done, etc.). On the first couple of exams, the low-aptitude groups didn’t show much correlation between grades and homework at all, but on the third exam and the final, the negative correlation was very clear.

And how does that help anything? Well, the idea is that for the first few exams in intro E&M, they’re only dealing with electric fields, and the number of techniques that can come into play is very small. In the third quarter, they introduce magnetic fields, which follow different rules. In the “excessive cognitive load” picture, this introduces a problem because the low-aptitude students can get confused between electric and magnetic field approaches. There’s a significant increase in the number of techniques they need to know and use, and that triggers the “negative benefit” of doing more homework.

Couldn’t it just be that magnetic fields are harder to deal with? I mean, there’s all those cross products and stuff… That’s also a possibility. That probably wouldn’t produce a negative correlation with homework, though– if anything, you’d expect students to get better with practice.

Which brings up another thing: What does this mean for teaching? Should you stop making weak students do homework? That’s one of the frustrating things about this paper (and a lot of education research, for that matter)– they identify a problem, but don’t do much to suggest solutions. They do note that this finding seems to run counter to the usual advice– most of the time, we tell students who are struggling to do more homework, not less– but it’s kind of hard to tell what to do instead. To be fair, though, this is a surprising enough result that it’s worth publishing even without a suggested solution.

But is this going to change your approach? Not immediately. For one thing, the effect isn’t all that big, and I’d want to see it confirmed by somebody else. More than that, though, I’m not entirely sure that this is broadly applicable.

Why not? Well, this is a study based at the Air Force Academy, where all entering students are required to take two terms of physics. This includes the 40-ish percent of them who go on to major in non-scientific subjects.

While this is great from a sample size perspective– they’re teaching 1000 students a year in intro physics, so it’s easy to get statistical power in only a few years of testing– it might mean that their sample doesn’t generalize. Their lowest tier of physics aptitude is going to include a bunch of non-scientists who probably wouldn’t take physics at all at most other schools. The students I see in Union’s intro classes might not include any from the population showing the strongest negative effect in this study.

So, in the end, I think this is probably saying something interesting about the way students learn physics, but might not have that much practical application. Then again, a different approach to homework that turned the negative correlation around for the weakest students might well produce a dramatic improvement in the stronger students, as well. Which would be worthwhile.

As there isn’t any such approach on offer yet, though, I’m going to hold off on making changes until somebody suggests one. This is definitely something to keep an eye on, though.

And, as a nice bonus, it’s a great excuse for not doing my physics homework! I’m making a rational strategic decision to improve my grade! Well, as long as you’re happy with thinking of yourself as a low-aptitude student, that is.

Oh, yeah. Good point. I guess my ego does demand that I do my homework, after all. Vanity: a powerful force for good. In physics education, anyway…

F. J. Kontur, & N. B. Terry (2013). The benefits of completing homework for students with different
aptitudes in an introductory physics course Physics Education arXiv: 1305.2213v1

This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week’s Global Warming news roundup

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Information is not Knowledge…Knowledge is not Wisdom

May 12, 2013

• Chuckles, Beauty, COP19+, G8, Red Lists, 400 ppmv
• Lake El’gygytgyn, CCAC, Unburnable , Pricing Nature, Cook
• Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers
• Melting Arctic, Arctic Fox, Methane, Geopolitics
• Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production
• Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, GHGs, Temperatures, Aerosols, ENSO
• Climate Sensitivity, Ocean Currents, Oceans, Biosphere, Extinctions, Bees & CCD, Satellites
• Impacts, Forests, Disease, Phenology, Tornadoes, Wildfires
• Corals, Acidification, Glaciers, Sea Levels, Floods & Droughts
• Mitigation, Transportation, Buildings, Geoengineering, Conservation
• Journals, Other Docs, Misc. Science, Models, Free Science, Hansen
• International Politics: UN, Carbon Trade, Carbon Tax, Bank Tax, Hormuz, South China Sea
• TPP, CETA etc, FQD, Solar Spat, Misc., Activism, Divestment, H2O Biz, Education
• National Politics: Britain, Europe, Australia, Tasmanian Forests, Election, MDBP, India, Asia, South America
• Canada, Oliver, Muzzling, NRC, PR game, Northern Gateway, East-West
• ELA, Salmon, BC, Tar Sands, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Maritimes, Canadiana
• America, BP Disaster, Post Sandy, Keystone, Mayflower, Carbon Tax, Birth Control
• Coal Exports, Sequestration, Smith, Outrage, Obama, USAdmin, Congress
• Ecological Economics, IPAT, Apocalypso, Fixes, Media, Video, Courts
• Energy, Transitions, Clathrates, Fracking, Coal, Oil & Gas, Pipelines, Biofuel
• Wind, Solar, Nukes, Nuclear Waste, Efficiency, Cars, Gee Whiz, Energy Storage
• Joe’s List, Carbon Lobby, Miscellaneous Climate, Useful Links
• Shameless Self Promotion, A Simple Plea, .sig

 

Laugh. I dare ya:

• 2013/05/12: Creekside: (cartoon – Alison) DILBIT : Propaganda
• 2013/05/10: QuarkSoup: (cartoon – Sack) 0.4 ppk
  

  And for those who enjoy challenging Poe’s Law:

• 2013/05/10: SciAm:TCW: Friday levity: More CO2 will be better. Also, meth is good for you.
  

  Just because it’s beautiful:

• 2013/05/12: APOD: Clouds, Birds, Moon, Venus
  

  Looking ahead to COP19 and future international climate negotiations:

• 2013/05/10: RTCC: Is it time to abandon the 2 degree warming target?
• 2013/05/10: Grist: America wants Kyoto Protocol replaced with peer-pressure campaign
• 2013/05/09: RTCC: Climate ambition criteria set to face UN debate in Warsaw
  Specific criteria that countries can base emission reduction plans on needs be agreed at the Warsaw climate summit at the end of 2013, an influential campaign group has warned. The Climate Action Network (CAN) wants the UN to host an ‘equity review’ to establish a consistent set of indicators developed and developing countries can use to assess their own climate ambition. Observers fear that unless accepted measurements of climate ambition can be established, it could be virtually impossible to construct an effective global climate deal in 2015.
• 2013/05/08: RTCC: Climate finance: the elephant that’s not even in the room
• 2013/05/08: RTCC: Berlin climate talks [Petersberg Climate Dialogue] end with pledge to ‘inspire and enable’ action
• 2013/05/08: Guardian(UK): New emissions plan could energise global climate talks, says US envoy [Todd Stern]
• 2013/05/07: CDreams: As World Burns… Rich Countries Drag Feet at Climate Talks
• 2013/05/07: RTCC: Why legal form matters at international climate negotiations
  

  The G8 are supposed to meet again. [Does anybody care? They won't do anything useful.]:

• 2013/05/08: EurActiv: G8 under pressure to rethink biofuel mandates
  Leaders of the EU and their partners in the G8 nations are under mounting pressure to reconsider their support for biofuel targets amid concern that plant oil production competes with food output in poor countries.
• 2013/05/08: RTCC: G8 set to discuss climate change
  The UK government appears to have backtracked on efforts to block climate change from the G8 agenda, after the Queen’s Speech confirmed the issue would be discussed at the summit.
• 
  

  Oh Great. We already have a Red Listfor Species; now we’ll have one for whole Ecosystems:

   

• The IUCN Red List of Ecosystems
• The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
• 2013/05/11: ABC(Au): Wollongong’s upland swamps ‘critically endangered’
  Wollongong’s wetland swamps have been identified as critically endangered. A team of international scientists is drawing up a red list of ecosystems on the brink of extinction and the Woronora upland swamps is on the list. The study by the International union for conservation of nature has looked at twenty ecosystems around the world so far across six continents and three oceans.
• 2013/05/08: PLoS One: Scientific Foundations for an IUCN Red List of Ecosystems by David A. Keith et multi alia
• 2013/05/09: ABC(Au): ‘Red List’ introduced to protect at risk ecosystems
  A team of international scientists is drawing up a “Red List” identifying ecosystems on the brink of extinction – and Australia appears eight times. The global report is similar to what already exists for animal and plant species that are threatened, vulnerable or on the brink of extinction. Led by a team of Australian scientists, in co-operation with the United Nations affiliated conservation body the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the study aims to assess every major ecosystem around the world by 2025.
• 2013/05/09: TheConversation: Identifying ecosystems at risk – the new IUCN Red List
  

  CO2 passed the 400ppmv mark this week:

• 2013/05/11: P3: 400 Fest
• 2013/05/11: TruthDig: Climate Landmark Is a Grave Warning Sign
• 2013/05/12: TFTJO: 400 ppm: time for a communication tipping point
• 2013/05/12: CBC: World passes ‘dangerous’ greenhouse gas milestone
• 2013/05/12: WtD: Silence of the milestone: how humanity is greeting 400ppm with continuing indifference
• 2013/05/11: ABC(Au): CO2 levels in atmosphere hit historic high
• 2013/05/11: Grist: We just passed the climate’s ‘grim milestone’
• 2013/05/11: ABC(Au): Carbon pollution hits highest point in 3 million years
• 2013/05/11: SciNews: Carbon dioxide in atmosphere reaches landmark level
  At 400 parts per million, greenhouse gas concentration is now higher than it has been for millions of years
• 2013/05/11: TreeHugger: Climate hits 400ppm of CO2 for first time in 3 million years
• 2013/05/11: BBC: Scientists call for action to tackle CO2 levels
  Scientists are calling on world leaders to take action on climate change after carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere broke through a symbolic threshold.
• 2013/05/10: CDreams: 400 Parts Per Million: Climate Milestone is a Moment of Symbolic Significance on Road of Idiocy
• 2013/05/10: CSM: Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reach milestone
• 2013/05/10: Grist: CO2 crosses dreaded 400 ppm milestone, and science is very disappointed in you
• 2013/05/10: CNN: CO2 levels hit new peak at key observatory
• 2013/05/10: NOAA: Carbon Dioxide at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory reaches new milestone: Tops 400 ppm
• 2013/05/10: BBC: Carbon dioxide passes symbolic mark
• 2013/05/10: WtD: C02 reaches 400ppm, highest level in 3 million years: back then planet 2-3c warmer, sea levels 25m higher
• 2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): Global carbon dioxide in atmosphere passes milestone level
• 2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): Climate milestone is a moment of symbolic significance on road of idiocy [Monbiot]
• 2013/05/10: TCoE: 400ppm
• 2013/05/10: DD: Atmospheric carbon dioxide rises to 400 parts per million for the first time in human history…
• 2013/05/10: RTCC: McKibben: 400ppm is a grim climate landmark
• 2013/05/10: CDreams: In ‘March Toward Disaster,’ World Hits 400 PPM Milestone
• 2013/05/10: BBerg: Greenhouse Gases Hit Threshold Unseen in 3 Million Years
  The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surpassed 400 parts per million for the first time since measurements began, breaching a threshold not seen for 3 million years. The main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming averaged 400.03 parts per million at a monitoring station on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano yesterday, according to data published today on the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website. The administration’s data stretches back to 1958.
• 2013/05/09: SciAm:Obs: 400 PPM: Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere Reaches Prehistoric Levels
• 2013/05/08: WaPo:B: Carbon-dioxide levels are at their highest point in at least 800,000 years
  

  ---

  Greetings from Lake El’gygytgyn, Siberia:

   

• 2012/06/21: Science: (ab$) 2.8 Million Years of Arctic Climate Change from Lake El’gygytgyn, NE Russia by Martin Melles et al.
• 2013/05/09: Science: (ab$) Pliocene Warmth, Polar Amplification, and Stepped Pleistocene Cooling Recorded in NE Arctic Russia by Julie Brigham-Grette et al.
• 2013/05/09: SciNews: The Arctic was once warmer, covered by trees
  Pliocene epoch featured greenhouse gas levels similar to today’s but with higher average temperatures
• 2013/05/09: NSF: Climate Record From Bottom of Russian Lake Shows Arctic Was Warmer [3.5 to 2] Million Years Ago
  Unparalleled sediment record is “most continuous archive” of ancient Arctic climate
• 2013/05/09: CCP: Three-million-year-old sediments from Crater Lake El’gygytgyn, Siberia, reveal higher climate sensitivity
• 2013/05/09: SimpleC: Arctic mission recovers record of surprising warmth
• 2013/05/09: Guardian(UK): Meteorite crater reveals future of a globally warmed world
• 2013/05/09: CSM: Ancient Arctic was warm, wet, and green. What that says about the future
  

  If the politicians won’t do anything about CO2, maybe they’ll act on short-term pollutants?

• Climate and Clean Air Coalition
• 2013/05/10: Grist: It’s not all about CO2: A plan to help reduce short-term climate pollutants
  

  That carbon bubble, unburnable thesis redux:

• 2013/05/06: Stoat: The Carbon Bubble: All we have to do is decide to not commit civilizational suicide — and the markets crash?
• 2013/05/06: QuarkSoup: Carbon Bubbles — Who’s Kidding Who?
• 2013/05/05: P3: The Haircut
  

  So, If we put a price on nature, will it deal with externalities and lead to greater conservation
  or will it lead to greater exploitation or what?

• 2013/05/07: al Jazeera: Will California fall into the REDD trap?
  Pseudo-scientific methods are used to commodify environment and turn forests into private assets, writes Picq.
• 
  

  John Cook and friends continue their point-counterpoint articles:

   

• 2013/05/11: SkS: The evidence for climate change WITHOUT computer models or the IPCC by dana1981
• 2013/05/11: SkS: 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #19B by John Hartz
• 2013/05/10: SkS: What you need to know about climate sensitivity by dana1981
• 2013/05/09: SkS: 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #19A by John Hartz
• 2013/05/08: SkS: Who is Paying for Global Warming? by Agnostic
• 2013/05/07: SkS: 2013 SkS News Bulletin #10: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline by John Hartz
• 2013/05/07: SkS: The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2. by KK Tung
• 2013/05/06: SkS: Distinguishing Between Short-Term Variability and Long-Term Trends by dana1981
• 2013/05/05: SkS: 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #18 by John Hartz
  

  ---

  A note on theFukushima disaster:

   

  It is evident that the Fukushima disaster is going to persist for some time. TEPCO says 6 to 9 months. The previous Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, said decades. Now the Japanese government is talking about 30 years. [Whoops, that has now been updated to 40 years.]
  And the IAEA is now saying 40 years too.
  We’ll see.
  At any rate this situation is not going to be resolved any time soon and deserves its own section.
  Meanwhile…
  It is very difficult to know for sure what is really going on at Fukushima. Between the company [TEPCO], the Japanese government, the Japanese regulator [NISA], the international monitor [IAEA], as well as independent analysts and commentators, there is a confusing mish-mash of information. One has to evaluate both the content and the source of propagated information.
  How knowledgeable are they [about nuclear power and about Japan]?
  Do they have an agenda?
  Are they pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear?
  Do they want to write a good news story?
  Do they want to write a bad news story?
  Where do they rate on a scale of sensationalism?
  Where do they rate on a scale of play-it-down-ness?
  One fundamental question I would like to see answered:
  If the reactors are in meltdown, how can they be in cold shutdown?

  Not much good news coming out of Fukushima:

   

• 2013/05/11: EneNews: Kyodo: Terror drill at Fukushima nuclear plant – Fears about ‘highly fragile’ cooling systems
• 2013/05/10: Asahi: Cover on Fukushima reactor [#1] building to be demolished
• 2013/05/09: EneNews: Cover over Reactor No. 1 to be removed at Fukushima plant – Radiation levels expected to rise
• 2013/05/09: EneNews: Report: Tepco now dumping contaminated water from Fukushima plant into ocean – 200 tons of radioactive groundwater “pumped out”
• 2013/05/08: Asahi: Fukushima closes 2 parking lots for emergency decontamination work
  Fukushima – Two parking lots in the city of Fukushima were declared off-limits to the public on May 7 after high concentrations of radioactive cesium were detected in the exposed soil there. Local authorities shut down the parking lots for emergency decontamination operations after a nonprofit organization found a maximum of 430,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium during a survey conducted between April 29-May 2 at the behest of local residents. The Citizen’s Radioactivity Measuring Station also detected a maximum level of airborne radiation at 3.8 microsieverts per hour, above the benchmark for evacuation, at the two sites.
• 2013/05/08: PRNewsWire: Worst Week Since Fukushima: 4 Major Setbacks In 3 Days Are Latest Stumbles For U.S. Nuclear Power Industry
• 2013/05/08: Asahi: TEPCO to dump groundwater to ease crisis at Fukushima nuclear plant
• 2013/05/07: EneNews: Radiation level to spike at Fukushima plant – Blamed on recent radioactive leaks (photo)
• 2013/05/05: EneNews: ‘Happy’ Fukushima nuclear plant worker interviewed: “It’s like a war zone”
  

  Post Fukushima, nuclear policies are in flux around the world:

• 2013/05/10: DerSpiegel: Nuclear Headache: Task of Decommissioning Plants Is Herculean
  The dismantling of Germany’s nuclear power plants will be one of the greatest tasks of the century as the country moves to phase out atomic energy. It will take at least until 2080 to complete the job. But what happens if energy utility companies who own the facilities go bust before the work is done?
• 
  

  What do we have for Fukushima related papers this week?

   

• 2013/05/07: BG: Surface pathway of radioactive plume of TEPCO Fukushima NPP1 released Cs134 and Cs137 by M. Aoyama et al.
• 2013/04/29: PubMed: Overview of active cesium contamination of freshwater fish in Fukushima and Eastern Japan by T.Mizuno & H.Kubo
  

  ---

  The Arctic melt continues to garner attention:

   

• 2013/05/12: Dosbat: Autumn Sea Ice Area
• 2013/05/10: ASI: Greenland “snow drought” spells trouble
• 2013/05/10: KSJT: The news buzz on Arctic’s ice pack. Soon to be an annual thing, one layer thick on a near-acid ocean
• 2013/05/10: Dosbat: CT Area Anomalies
• 2013/05/09: Eureka: Ice-free Arctic may be in our future, say UMass-Amherst, international researchers
• 2013/05/09: Grist: Finally, some not-terrible climate news: Greenland not melting any faster
• 2013/05/09: PeakEnergy: UN sounds alarm on record Arctic ice melt
• 2013/05/08: SciNews: Ice loss from Greenland’s glaciers may level off
• 2013/05/08: Eureka: The effect of climate change on iceberg production by Greenland glaciers
• 2013/05/06: ASI: Crowd-Source Prediction of Minimum Arctic Sea Ice
• 2013/05/03: MeltFactor: Greenland “snow drought” makes big 2013 melt more likely
  

  The Arctic fox is being stricken by mercury from sea food (and ultimately from coal burning):

• 2013/05/08: NatureN: Seafood diet killing Arctic foxes on Russian island — Mercury pollution in marine animals may be behind a population crash
• 2013/05/08: CBC: Ocean acidification affecting Arctic at fast pace
• 2013/05/06: BBC: Mercury exposure linked to dramatic decline in Arctic foxes
  

  That Damoclean sword still hangs overhead:

• 2013/05/08: CCP: Degradation of submarine permafrost and the destruction of hydrates on the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf as a potential cause of the “Methane Catastrophe”: some results of integrated studies in 2011
  

  As for the geopolitics of Arctic resources:

• 2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): Obama undecided on Arctic Council expansion days before summit
  Arctic region’s international governing body will debate member status of 14 potential new members including China
• 2013/05/10: WhiteHouse:B: [link to 479k pdf] National Strategy for the Arctic Region Announced
• 2013/05/10: CSM: US unveils Arctic strategy, but is it keeping pace with other countries?
  

  ---

  The food crisis is ongoing:

   

• 2013/05/10: WSJ:RTE: Food-Stamp Use Rises From Year Ago
• 2013/05/09: CCurrents: 1.3 Billion People May Be Exposed To Longer-Term Food Insecurity In 2050
• 2013/05/10: RTCC: Amazon deforestation could hurt Brazil’s farmers
• 2013/05/09: FAO: Strong cereal production seen in 2013 — New record expected for coarse grains
• 2013/05/10: ScienceInsider: Global Partnership Intends to Fight Cassava Viruses
• 2013/05/09: Grist: Cassava was supposed to help us survive climate change, and now it’s dying
• 2013/05/09: UCSUSA:B: UCS Vision for Healthy Farms in the 21st Century: Agroecology has the Answers
• 2013/05/09: UCSUSA:Congress Should Prioritize Modern, “Healthy Farm” Practices When Farm Bill Debate Re-Starts This Month
  Industrial Model of Agriculture Is a Dead End, Scientists Say
• 2013/05/09: BBC: Study of lead levels in rice under scrutiny
  Tests indicating that rice imported to the US contained high levels of lead have been cast into doubt. At a conference in April, researchers reported that commercially available rice contained many times more lead than US food authorities deemed safe. The findings sparked international concern over imported rice. But preliminary independent checks on the findings have failed to replicate the results, and tests suggest the equipment used may have been to blame.
• 2013/05/09: Eureka: No-win situation for agricultural expansion in the Amazon
• 2013/05/08: DD: Cassava disease spreading across Africa at alarming rate…
• 2013/05/08: CDreams: Starved of Democracy and the Fight Against Corporate ‘Foodopoly’ — Only four gigantic companies process 80 percent of the beef we eat
• 2013/05/08: RTCC: Rising temperatures threaten Africa cassava crops
  A plant which is a staple food crop for millions of people across Africa is at risk from [CBSD: Cassava Brown Streak Disease] disease as regional temperatures rise, scientists say.
• 2013/05/08: MoJo: 7 Dodgy Food Practices Banned in Europe But Just Fine Here [in USA]
• 2013/05/07: CCurrents: The UN And 250,000 Dead Somalis
• 2013/05/07: Guardian(UK): Over half the world’s population could rely on food imports by 2050 – study
• 2013/05/07: Guardian(UK): How climate change is transforming British wine
• 2013/05/05: Eureka: Scientists alarmed by rapid spread of Brown Streak Disease in cassava
  World’s cassava experts to wage war against cassava viruses; introduction into Nigeria, the largest cassava producer in the world, could result in drastic food shortages in this part of Africa
• 2013/05/05: BBC: Which? poll says many ‘borrowing money for food’
  One in five UK households borrowed money or used savings to cover food costs in April, a Which? survey says. It suggests the equivalent of five million households used credit cards, overdrafts or savings to buy food.
• 2013/05/05: ZeroHedge: Recovery?: One-In-Five Britons Borrow Money To Afford To Eat
• 2013/04/24: BBC: Steep rise in number using [UK] food banks ‘shocking’, says Trust
• 2013/04/23: BBC: Scottish food bank requests more than double
  A charity that provides emergency food banks says the number of people using them in Scotland more than doubled last year. The Trussell Trust said 14,318 people were helped during 2012-13, up from 5,726 the previous year. It said almost a third of these cases were children.
• 
  

  The state of the world’s fisheries is a concern:

   

• 2013/05/10: NBF: Fish farms provided 66.5 million tons in 2012 about 42% of total world fish production
• 2013/05/08: BBC: Swedish salmon sales ‘breached EU ban’ over dioxins
• 2013/05/07: ABC(Au): Drought impacting Gulf barra fishers
  It’s not just those on the land who are feeling the effects of the drought, fisherman in northern parts of the country are too. Gary Ward is the chairman of Gulf of Carpentaria commercial fishers association and has noticed a drastic drop in barramundi numbers. He says the missing wet season is to blame for an 80 per cent reduction compared to last year.
• 
  

  Food Prices are still problematic:

   

• FAO: World Food Situation – Food Price Indices
• 2013/05/09: UN: Food prices rise for second month, strong cereal crop forecast for 2013 – FAO
  

  So, are these land grabs Colonialism V2.0?

• 2013/05/09: Resilience: The global land grab: The new enclosures
  

  Regarding the genetic modification of food:

• 2013/05/09: RT: Monsanto protests scheduled in 36 countries
• 2013/05/09: Grist: Frankenfoods: Good for Big Business, bad for the rest of us
• 2013/05/07: BPA: Biotech Crop Adoption Around the World and a Statement about GM Activism
  

  And how are we going to feed 9 billion, 10 billion, 15 billion?

• 2013/05/11: BBC: Cambridge-based scientists develop ‘superwheat’
  British scientists say they have developed a new type of wheat which could increase productivity by 30%.
• 2013/05/10: UN: Upcoming UN forum highlights vital contribution of forests to food security and nutrition
• 2013/05/10: Resilience: Food ENERGY: Processing
• 2013/05/09: CBC: Farmers reaping big rewards from new smartphone apps
• 2013/05/09: Guardian(UK): Using ICT tools to cut carbon emissions and improve agriculture
  Information and communication technologies for climate change and agriculture are developing fast, but how do they fit into the big picture?
• 2013/05/07: Resilience: Farming with fire: Revaluing a Japanese agricultural tradition
• 2013/05/08: TheConversation:Carbon farming could restore Australia’s southern coastal wetlands
• 2013/05/05: NakedCapitalism: Forest Gardening, Edible Landscapes, and Urban Permaculture
  

  ---

  It started as a relatively quiet week, but then twin cyclones Mahasen and Jamala spun up in the Indian Ocean. [Late note: I see Jamala has faded this morning.]:

   

• 2013/05/11: MODIS: Tropical Cyclones Jamala (24S) and One (01B) in the Indian Ocean
• 2013/05/11: Wunderground: Dangerous Cyclone Mahasen gathering strength in the Bay of Bengal
• 2013/05/10: NASA: NASA Sees Two Tropical Cyclones Competing in the Indian Ocean
• 2013/05/11: ABC(Au): Myanmar on alert as Bay of Bengal cyclone [Mahasen] grows
• 2013/05/10: Wunderground: Double Trouble: twin tropical cyclones spin up in the Indian Ocean
  

  While elsewhere in the hurricane wars:

• 2013/05/06: Grist: Hawaii could be hit by more hurricanes as climate changes
• 2013/05/05: EarthMag: Lofted by hurricanes, bacteria live the high life
• 2013/05/05: Eureka: More hurricanes for Hawaii?
  

  This week in notable weather:

• 2013/05/09: al Jazeera: Thousands without power in Western Australia — Strong winds and torrential rain batter the state
• 2013/05/07: CapClimate: Weather Whiplash: U.S. Cold Records Crush Heat Records 6.5 to 1 in April
• 2013/05/07: DD: Fires, floods, and heavy snow: An extreme May weather situation in North America
• 2013/05/06: EPOD: Walla Walla Wall Cloud
  

  This week in the New Normal — extreme weather:

• 2013/05/09: PSinclair: Fasten Your Seatbelt – Weather Whiplash is the New Normal
• 2013/05/08: WtD: The New Normal: drought grips Queensland and WA, record making heat continues across continent
• 2013/05/08: al Jazeera: Severe weather strikes the Middle East — Sandstorms and flooding have stretched from Iraq to Yemen
• 2013/05/07: Guardian(UK): This isn’t the weather we grew up with
  Climate change means we are experiencing extreme weather with increasing frequency – and increasing economic cost
• 2013/05/06: Wunderground: Extreme Drought to Flood in Georgia: Weather Whiplash Strikes Again
  

  Meanwhile on the GHG front. See also:

• 2013/05/10: MethaneHydrates: Antarctic methane peaks at 2249 ppb
• 2013/05/06: DD: With carbon dioxide approaching a new high, scientists sound the alarm
  

  As for the temperature record:

• 2013/05/10: Moyhu: TempLS global temp unchanged in April
• 2013/05/08: TFtJO: The hockey stick is real!
• 2013/05/07: YaleCMF: Wither Global Warming? Has It Slowed Down? by David Appell
• 2013/05/07: QuarkSoup: My Article on the Temperature Hiatus
  

  Aerosols are making their presence felt:

• 2013/05/12: MODIS: Dust storm in the Sahara Desert [on May 7th]
• 2013/05/10: ABC(Au): Sulphur find clouds climate predictions
  Climate haze The cooling effect of clouds is overestimated in current climate change models, suggests new research.
• 2013/05/09: RTCC: Pollution helps clouds to slow global warming
  Pollution from vehicle exhausts and factories is having the unexpected effect of cooling the atmosphere by making clouds brighter and so reflecting more sunlight back into space, say researchers from Manchester University, UK.
• 
  

  And on the ENSO front:

   

• 2013/05/09: NOAA:NCEP: El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion
  Synopsis: ENSO-neutral is favored into the late Northern Hemisphere summer 2013.

• ---

  Regarding Climate Sensitivity:

   

• 2013/05/10: SkS: What you need to know about climate sensitivity by dana1981
• 2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): What you need to know about climate sensitivity
  

  As for Ocean Currents:

• 2013/05/07: NatureN: Oceans under surveillance — Three projects seek to track changes in Atlantic overturning circulation currents
  

  And the State of the Oceans:

• 2013/05/08: TreeHugger: Hundreds of starving sea lion pups get a helping hand [photos]
• 2013/05/07: WHOI: New Robotic Instruments to Provide Real-Time Data on Gulf of Maine Red Tide — Deployment could lead transformation of toxic HAB monitoring
  

  What’s new in Biodiversity?

• 2013/05/06: CSM: Cicadas return: How do they know when it’s time to emerge?
• 2013/05/08: GWU: George Washington University Biologist Maps the Family Tree of All Known Snake and Lizard Groups
• 2013/05/06: TheConversation: Can we offset biodiversity losses?
  

  On the extinction front?

• 2013/05/11: DD: Orangutans are victims of ‘sustainable’ palm oil as rainforest is razed…
• 2013/05/11: DD: Dozens of elephants slaughtered for ivory in Central African Republic…
• 2013/05/11: SciAm:EC: Massacred Elephants, Found Frogs and Other Links from the Brink
• 2013/05/10: DerSpiegel: King No More: The Tragic Plight of Lions in Africa
  Lions are becoming a threatened species. Trophy hunters and the loss of savannah grasslands have drastically reduced the number of prides. Scientists and conservationists are calling for improved protections for lions — even if that means fenced-in enclosures.
• 2013/05/10: BBC: ‘Twenty-six’ forest elephants slaughtered in Central Africa
  Men armed with Kalashnikov rifles have massacred 26 elephants in the Dzanga-Ndoki National Park in the Central African Republic, say conservationists. WWF reported the number of carcasses, quoting its sources in the region.
• 2013/05/09: BBC: Fears of forest elephant slaughter in Central Africa
  A heavily armed gang has killed an unknown number of elephants at a world heritage site in the Central African Republic. WWF says that ivory poachers were seen using a scientist’s observation platform to shoot the animals, which gather there in large numbers. The campaigners say they are extremely worried about the elephants in Dzanga-Ndoki national park. The head of CITES has also expressed grave concern about the animals’ fate.
• 2013/05/09: SciAm:GB: Dye and Poison Stop Rhino Poachers
• 2013/05/09: SciAm:EC: The 5 Most Endangered Canine Species
• 2013/05/09: TheConversation: Australian endangered species: Christmas Island Shrew
• 2013/05/08: SciAm:EC: How Poachers Stole 10% of an Entire Tortoise Species — and What Happened Next
• 2013/05/08: TreeHugger: Sea turtles threatened in Mexico; New documentary highlights the problem and solutions
• 2013/05/08: BBC: Cold War bunkers offer bats refuge from killer disease
  Cold War nuclear bunkers are the latest attempt to safeguard US bat populations under attack from white-nose syndrome. Scientists have converted two of the 43 bunkers at the former Loring Air Force Base, Maine, which has been a wildlife reserve since the mid-1990s. The artificial hibernacula are designed to safeguard bats from the disease that was first recorded in the US in 2006. White-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed up to an estimated 6.7 million bats so far and is continuing to spread.
• 2013/05/07: TheConversation: Climate change wiped out Australia’s megafauna
• 2013/05/07: ABC(Au): Megafauna victims of ‘climate not humans’
  Fierce mega-debate There is no evidence to support the idea that humans were primarily responsible for wiping out the extraordinary gigantic animals that once roamed Australia, says a group of Australian and US scientists. The claim is the latest salvo in a longstanding and ferocious scientific disagreement over what killed animals such as 100 kilogram marsupial lions, rhinoceros-sized marsupial Diprotodons and goannas as big as large saltwater crocodiles. On one side of the debate, including the authors of the latest paper, are researchers who suggest megafauna gradually died out as climate change altered the landscape of Sahul, the single Pleistocene-era landmass that combined Australia and New Guinea. On the other side, are those who argue that humans hunted the animals out of existence, who point to evidence suggesting the megafauna extinction occurred within 10,000 years of people arriving in Australia for the first time.
• 2013/05/07: ABC(Au): Ancient frog fungus spread by globalisation
• 2013/05/06: TreeHugger: Clouded leopards declared extinct in Taiwan
  

  The bees and Colony Collapse Disorder are a constant concern:

• Wiki: Neonicotinoid
• 2012/01/03: PLoS One: Multiple Routes of Pesticide Exposure for Honey Bees Living Near Agricultural Fields by Christian H. Krupke et al.
• 2013/05/11: RT: US approves new pesticides [sulfoxaflor] linked to mass bee deaths as EU enacts ban
• 2013/05/09: CDreams: Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New ‘Highly Toxic’ Pesticide [sulfoxaflor]
• 2013/05/09: Grist: Hive mind: Talking with the man who may save Europe’s bees
• 2013/05/08: Guardian(UK): US honeybees threatened as 31% of colonies died out in 2012, report shows
• 2013/05/08: CDreams: Hollow Bee Hives May Threaten Our Lives Too
  The United States should follow Europe’s example and ban pesticides that may be wiping out these key pollinators.
• 2013/05/07: CDreams: Buzz! Buzz! Silence — New survey shows almost a third of bee colonies in the US died last winter
• 2013/05/07: EnvEcon: I like cashews, beets, broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, chestnuts, watermelons, cucumber, fennel, macadamia, mangoes, apricots and almonds…but not strawberries. I’m OK with losing the strawberries.
• 2013/05/07: Grist: Entomologists: “Stop feeding corn syrup to honeybees.” Duh.
• 2013/05/06: DD: Video: Bee dieoff accelerates in U.S., threatens farmland – ‘This year it seemed like it got the whole nation’
• 2013/05/05: DD: World’s most widely used insecticide is devastating dragonflies, snails, and other water-based species
• 2013/05/05: NoC: Study Links Monsanto’s Roundup to Autism, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s
• 2013/05/03: BugGirl: Guest Post: Honey bees, CCD, and the Elephant in the Room by Dr. Doug Yanega
  

  Meanwhile in near earth orbit:

• 2013/05/09: USGS: Landsat Images Provide the Gold Standard for New Earth Applications
• 2013/05/08: BBC: ESA’s Vega rocket puts Proba-V vegetation mission in orbit
  Europe’s Vega rocket has successfully completed its second mission. The vehicle left the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana at 23:06 local time on Monday (02:06 GMT, Tuesday), placing three satellites in orbit. Its primary payload was the 140kg Proba-V spacecraft. This will acquire pictures of land use and vegetation changes from an altitude of 820km, maintaining an important data series started by the French Spot satellites in the late 1990s.
• 2013/05/07: BBC: ESA approves Biomass satellite to monitor Earth’s forests
  A satellite that can “weigh” the Earth’s forests has just been given the go ahead by the European Space Agency. Biomass, as it will be known, is expected to launch in 2020.

• ---

  More GW impacts are being seen:

   

• 2013/05/11: Guardian(UK): Climate change ‘will make hundreds of millions homeless’
  Carbon dioxide levels indicate rise in temperatures that could lead agriculture to fail on entire continents
• 2013/05/07: Eureka: Decline in snow cover spells trouble for many plants, animals
  

  And then there are the world’s forests:

• 2013/05/10: TreeHugger: Google’s new timelapse project shows 30 years of disappearing rainforest in just seconds
• 2013/05/10: CCP: Amazon ‘may lose 65% of land biomass by 2060?
• 2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): Indonesia’s tropical forests set to benefit from further clearing ban
• 2013/05/09: USDA:SRS: Loss of Eastern Hemlock Will Affect Forest Water Use
• 2013/05/08: DD: Indigenous occupation of Belo Monte dam site enters sixth day – Government refuses to negotiate, ejects journalists from site on World Press Freedom Day
• 2013/05/07: CDreams: Amazon Tribes Demand to Be Heard: ‘You Are Killing Us’
  In nature versus profits battle, indigenous groups occupy controversial Belo Monte Dam
• 2013/05/07: DD: Central America’s largest forest under siege by colonists…
• 2013/05/06: DD: Mekong region has lost a third of its forests in 30 years, may lose another third by 2030
• 2013/05/05: Eureka: As climate changes, boreal forests to shift north and relinquish more carbon than expected
  

  Emerging diseases accompany ecological change:

• 2013/05/06: WaPo: California, Arizona see spike in valley fever cases as worsening drought kicks up dust
• 2013/05/06: SF Gate: [Valley] Fever hits thousands in parched West farm region
  

  Changes in natural cycles are showing up:

• 2013/05/10: UCSUSA:B: Climate Change Is Disrupting Nature’s Calendar. Thoreau’s Notebooks Are Helping Show Us How
• 2013/05/10: BBC: Climate change shifts migrating birds’ wintering ground
  

  On the tornado front:

• 2013/05/09: P3: The Whipsaw: Tornado Edition
• 2013/05/08: Wunderground: Tornado drought: only 3 U.S. tornadoes during May’s first week
• 2013/05/07: Grist: Where did all the tornadoes go?
• 2013/05/05: Guardian(UK): Northern Italy hit by tornado, hail and torrential rain – video
  

  As for heatwaves and wild fires:

• 2013/05/11: ABC(Au): Fire crews battle Adelaide Hills blaze
• 2013/05/10: NASA: Wildfires in Siberia
• 2013/05/10: MODIS: Fires in northwest India
• 2013/05/10: ABC(Au): House burns as out-of-season fire scorches Adelaide Hills
• 2013/05/10: ABC(Au): Adelaide hills bushfire threatens homes
  A bushfire at Cherryville in the Adelaide hills continues to threaten homes and has prompted more than 250 hills residents to leave the area. More than 200 hectares of scrub have been blackened in an area near Fernhurst, Mawson and Sixth Creek Roads.
• 2013/05/10: ABC(Au): Destructive blaze leaves Adelaide hills heartbreak
  A house has been lost in an Adelaide hills bushfire which has blackened more than 450 hectares. By Friday evening the Country Fire Service (CFS) said firefighters were starting to get an upper hand but a long effort remained to quell the flames.
• 2013/05/09: IOTD: Mapping the Severity of Springs Fire from Space
• 2013/05/07: CBC: 2 N.B. forest fires almost under control — Petitcodiac and Kedgwick residents had been asked to leave for own safety
• 2013/05/06: Grist: Beware: Rough wildfire season ahead
• 2013/05/06: NASA: Satellite Animation Shows Smoke from California’s Springs Fire
• 2013/05/06: Guardian(UK): California wildfires: arson not to blame, investigators say
• 2013/05/06: CBC: California fire crews struggle in slippery conditions — Huge Southern California wildfire is 80 per cent contained
• 2013/05/06: WSWS: Wildfires break out in Southern California
• 2013/05/03: NASA: Satellite Captures Night-time image of California’s Springs Fire
  

  Corals are a bellwether of the ocean’s health:

• 2013/05/10: ABC(Au): Local action key to saving reefs
  Saving reefs It’s not too late to save coral reefs as long as local action to reduce pollution and fishing pressures is combined with global action on climate change, according to a new model.
• 2013/05/07: TheConversation: UNESCO still worried about the Great Barrier Reef
  

  Acidification is changing the oceans:

• 2013/05/08: TP:JR: On Top Of Sea Ice Death Spiral, Ocean Acidification Poised To Radically Alter Arctic
• 2013/05/06: P3: Arctic Ocean Acidifying Rapidly
• 2013/05/06: BBC: Arctic Ocean ‘acidifying rapidly’
  The Arctic seas are being made rapidly more acidic by carbon-dioxide emissions, according to a new report. Scientists from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) monitored widespread changes in ocean chemistry in the region. They say even if CO2 emissions stopped now, it would take tens of thousands of years for Arctic Ocean chemistry to revert to pre-industrial levels.
• 
  

  Glaciers are melting:

   

• 2013/05/08: FaGP: Puisortoq North Glacier Retreat Southeast Greenland
• 2013/05/08: IOTD: Tropical Climate History…Shrinking [Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru]
  

  Sea levels are rising:

• 2013/05/11: ABC(Au): Study sheds light on glacier melt
  A team of international researchers is predicting sea level rise from ice movement over the next century will not be as extreme as first thought. Scientists have mapped the behaviour of four glaciers in Greenland and found breakaway ice will probably not add as much to sea levels as previously thought. The glaciers are expected to account for 18 centimetres of global sea level rise by the turn of the century.
• 2013/05/08: DD: Rising seas in southern Caribbean offer dark preview of future amid climate change…
• 2013/05/07: DD: Virginia scientist finds East Coast sea levels rising at accelerating rate
  

  As for hydrological cycle disruptions [floods & droughts]:

• 2013/05/10: al Jazeera: China overflows as the rain sets in
  Days of heavy and steady rains cause flooding and widespread disruption across the south of the country.
• 2013/05/10: IOTD: Lake Powell Low Despite Spring Snow
• 2013/05/10: ABC(Au): Marshall Islands has declared a state of disaster in the island nation’s north due to prolonged drought
• 2013/05/09: ABC(Au): The Goldfields Highway between Meekatharra and Wiluna has been closed due to flooding
• 2013/05/08: DD: Graph of the Day: Snow water content in Southern Sierras of California, 2 May 2013
• 2013/05/08: DD: A third year of drought threatens southwestern Oklahoma – ‘You either adapt or you sell out and move on’
• 2013/05/07: al Jazeera: Flooding hits northeastern France
  The region has been hit by torrential rain, causing several rivers to reach dangerous levels.
• 2013/05/07: ABC(Au): PNG floods at crisis point [pix]
• 2013/05/06: ABC(Au): New Zealand’s worst drought in 30 years is over
• 2013/05/06: ABC(Au): Australian aid for drought-hit Marshall Islands
• 2013/05/06: BBC: Nepal floods change river course and threaten tourism
  A major tourism destination in western Nepal faces increased risk of natural disasters following a devastating flood last year, experts have warned. They say the sudden flood on the Seti river, which killed more than 60 people, has brought changes in the course and flow-pattern of the river. These changes are now threatening human settlements in and around Nepal’s second-largest city Pokhara. The changes may set the stage for serious effects on tourism in the area.
• 2013/05/06: al Jazeera: Pre-monsoon rains inundate India
  Early rains have brought flooding to Bangladesh and parts of northeastern India ahead of this year’s summer monsoon
• 2013/05/05: CCurrents: Climate Crisis Will Bring Drought In Temperate Areas, Finds NASA
• 2013/05/05: CCP: Neela Banerjee: Climate change may bring drought to temperate areas, study says
• 2013/05/05: EarlyWarning: April PDSI Map for California and Nevada
• 2013/05/05: CBC: Floods threaten homes in Ontario, Saskatchewan — Residents airlifted from Kashechewan First Nation
  

  First, stop subsidizing fossil fuels
  Second, put a price on carbon
  And elsewhere on the mitigation front:

• 2013/05/11: Guardian(UK): [Editorial] Climate change: swift political action can avert a carbon dioxide crisis
• 2013/05/10: Grist: A scientist made steel without releasing any greenhouse gases
• 2013/05/09: ABC(Au): Moon mission paves way to ‘green’ steel
  Green steel The dream of “green” steel is a reality with US scientists unveiling a new method of extracting metallic iron from its ore while curbing carbon dioxide emissions. The process uses electrolysis and, according to its developers, will eventually result in cheaper steel of higher purity.
• 2013/05/09: Guardian(UK): Using ICT tools to cut carbon emissions and improve agriculture
• 2013/05/08: MIT: One order of steel; hold the greenhouse gases
  Steelmaking, a major emitter of climate-altering gases, could be transformed by a new process developed at MIT.
• 
  

  Consider transportation & GHG production:

   

• 2013/05/06: TheConversation: Electric unicycles, minifarthings and the future of urban transport
  

  While in the endless quest for zero energy, sustainable buildings and practical codes:

• 2013/05/09: Grist: If Bilbo Baggins built a zero-energy hobbit home, this is what it would look like
• 2013/05/09: Grist: California town of Sebastopol will require solar panels on all new homes
• 2013/05/07: TheConversation: To cut emissions, the housing sector has to pull its weight
• 2013/05/07: TreeHugger: North Carolina law would ban LEED green building certification
  

  Large scale geo-engineering keeps popping up:

• 2013/05/11: TheConversation: Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help
• 2013/05/10: FreakOn: One Small Step for Geoengineering — or Is “Ecoengineering” Better?
• 2013/05/07: EIJ: If We Could Fix Climate Change With a Flick of a Switch, Will It be More Palatable to Conservatives?
• 2013/05/06: JapanTimes: Japanese cloud seeding tests work for second year in row
  A Japanese research team has succeeded in producing artificial rain for two consecutive years, proving the effectiveness of spraying liquid carbonic acid onto the bottoms of clouds. The researchers from Kyushu University and Fukuoka University will report on their experiments with inducing artificial rainfall in February 2012 and March 2013 around the Izu Islands at a meeting of the Meteorological Society of Japan in Tokyo on May 15.
• 
  

  What’s new in conservation?

   

• 2013/05/10: BBC: Establishing UK tree seed bank ‘crucial’
  The UK’s first national collection of tree seeds has been established, which scientists say is crucial as a growing array of pests threaten native species. Co-ordinated by Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, it aims to safeguard the genetic diversity of the UK’s tree flora. The scheme will initially target 50 native species, including the common ash, which is under threat across Europe from ash dieback. The project’s funding has been provided by the People’s Postcode Lottery.
• 
  

  Meanwhile in the journals:

   

• 2013/05/07: PNAS: (ab$) Organic-matter loading determines regime shifts and alternative states in an aquatic ecosystem by Jennie Sirota et al.
• 2013/05/07: PNAS: (ab$) Centrality in primate-parasite networks reveals the potential for the transmission of emerging infectious diseases to humans by José María Gómez et al.
• 2013/05/07: PNAS: (ab$) Transporter-mediated biofuel secretion by Rupak Doshi et al.
• 2013/05/07: PNAS: (ab$) Agricultural intensification escalates future conservation costs by Jacob Phelps et al.
• 2013/05/07: PNAS: (ab$) Origin of seasonal predictability for summer climate over the Northwestern Pacific by Yu Kosaka et al.
• 2013/05/07: PNAS: (ab$) Assessment of radiative feedback in climate models using satellite observations of annual flux variation by Yoko Tsushima & Syukuro Manabe
• 2013/05/07: PNAS: (ab$) Terrestrial cooling in Northern Europe during the Eocene-Oligocene transition by Michael T. Hren et al.
• 2013/05/07: PNAS: (ab$) Pre-Miocene birth of the Yangtze River by Hongbo Zheng et al.
• 2013/05/07: PNAS: (letter$) How a nested framework illuminates the challenges of comparative environmental analysis by Eleanor K. Bors & Susan Solomon
• 2013/05/08: Nature: (ab$) Future sea-level rise from Greenland’s main outlet glaciers in a warming climate by Faezeh M. Nick et al.
• 2013/05/01: Springer:CC: Exploring negative territory Carbon dioxide removal and climate policy initiatives by James Meadowcroft
• 2013/05/06: TC: Speedup and fracturing of George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula by T. O. Holt et al.
• 2013/05/06: TC: High-resolution interactive modelling of the mountain glacier-atmosphere interface: an application over the Karakoram by E. Collier et al.
• 2013/05/07: TCD: Global glacier retreat: a revised assessment of committed mass losses and sampling uncertainties by S. H. Mernild et al.
• 2013/05/06: TCD: High resolution 900 yr volcanic and climatic record from the Vostok area, East Antarctica by E. Yu. Osipov et al.
• 2013/05/07: AGWObserver: Papers on tropopause height
• 2013/05/08: PLoS One: Scientific Foundations for an IUCN Red List of Ecosystems by David A. Keith et multi alia
• 2013/05/08: Nature: (ab$) A new anode material for oxygen evolution in molten oxide electrolysis by Antoine Allanore et al.
• 2013/04/29: BioMedCentral: A phylogeny and revised classification of Squamata, including 4161 species of lizards and snakes by Robert Alexander Pyron et al.
• 2013/05/08: BG: The impact of land-use change on floristic diversity at regional scale in southern Sweden 600 BC-AD 2008 by D. Fredh et al.
• 2013/05/08: BG: Unravelling the environmental drivers of deep-sea nematode biodiversity and its relation with carbon mineralisation along a longitudinal primary productivity gradient by E. Pape et al.
• 2013/05/08: BG: Implications of elevated CO2 on pelagic carbon fluxes in an Arctic mesocosm study – an elemental mass balance approach by J. Czerny et al.
• 2013/05/07: BG: Surface pathway of radioactive plume of TEPCO Fukushima NPP1 released Cs134 and Cs137 by M. Aoyama et al.
• 2013/05/08: BGD: Ocean acidification state in western Antarctic surface waters: drivers and interannual variability by M. Mattsdotter Björk et al.
• 2013/05/08: BGD: Modeling ocean circulation and biogeochemical variability in the Gulf of Mexico by Z. Xue et al.
• 2013/05/07: BGD: Food availability and pCO2 impacts on planulation, juvenile survival, and calcification of the azooxanthellate scleractinian coral, Balanophyllia elegans by E. D. Crook et al.
• 2013/05/07: CP: Heinrich event 4 characterized by terrestrial proxies in southwestern Europe by J. M. López-García et al.
• 2013/05/07: CP: Spatial gradients of temperature, accumulation and O18-ice in Greenland over a series of Dansgaard-Oeschger events by M. Guillevic et al.
• 2013/05/07: CP: Large spatial variations in coastal C14 reservoir age – a case study from the Baltic Sea by B. C. Lougheed et al.
• 2013/05/08: CPD: Droughts in the Czech Lands, 1090-2012 AD by R. Brázdil et al.
• 2013/05/08: CPD: Eurasian Arctic climate over the past millennium as recorded in the Akademii Nauk ice core (Severnaya Zemlya) by T. Opel et al.
• 2013/05/07: CPD: Water-soluble organic carbon in snow and ice deposited at Alpine, Greenland, and Antarctic sites: a critical review of available data and their atmospheric relevance by M. Legrand et al.
• 2013/05/07: CPD: Holocene climate variability in the Winter Rainfall Zone of South Africa by S. Weldeab et al.
• 2013/05/06: CPD: Late Holocene summer temperatures in the central Andes reconstructed from the sediments of high-elevation Laguna Chepical, Chile (32° S) by R. de Jong et al.
• 2013/05/07: ESD: Climate change impact on available water resources obtained using multiple global climate and hydrology models by S. Hagemann et al.
• 2013/05/08: ESDD: The impact of nitrogen and phosphorous limitation on the estimated terrestrial carbon balance and warming of land use change over the last 156 yr by Q. Zhang et al.
• 2013/05/08: ACP: Aerosol size-resolved trace metal composition in remote northern tropical Atlantic marine environment: case study Cape Verde islands by K. W. Fomba et al.
• 2013/05/08: ACP: Comparison between summertime and wintertime Arctic Ocean primary marine aerosol properties by J. Zábori et al.
• 2013/05/08: ACP: Systematic investigation of bromine monoxide in volcanic plumes from space by using the GOME-2 instrument by C. Hörmann et al.
• 2013/05/07: ACP: How much CO was emitted by the 2010 fires around Moscow? by M. Krol et al.
• 2013/05/07: ACP: Source attributions of pollution to the Western Arctic during the NASA ARCTAS field campaign by H. Bian et al.
• 2013/05/07: ACP: Role of external factors in the evolution of the ozone layer and stratospheric circulation in 21st century by V. Zubov et al.
• 2013/05/08: ACPD: Stratospheric O3 changes during 2001-2010: the small role of solar flux variations in a CTM by S. S. Dhomse et al.
• 2013/05/08: ACPD: A sensitivity study of radiative fluxes at the top of atmosphere to cloud-microphysics and aerosol parameters in the Community Atmosphere Model CAM5 by C. Zhao et al.
• 2013/05/07: ACPD: Hygroscopic properties of organic aerosol particles emitted in the marine atmosphere by A. Wonaschütz et al.
• 2013/05/06: ACPD: The contribution of extratropical cyclones to observed cloud-aerosol relationships by B. S. Grandey et al.
• 2013/05/10: Cell:CB: Avoiding Coral Reef Functional Collapse Requires Local and Global Action by Emma V. Kennedy et al.
• 2013/05/10: Science: (ab$) Enhanced Role of Transition Metal Ion Catalysis During In-Cloud Oxidation of SO2 by Eliza Harris et al.
• 2012/06/21: Science: (ab$) 2.8 Million Years of Arctic Climate Change from Lake El’gygytgyn, NE Russia by Martin Melles et al.
• 2013/05/09: Science: (ab$) Pliocene Warmth, Polar Amplification, and Stepped Pleistocene Cooling Recorded in NE Arctic Russia by Julie Brigham-Grette et al.
• 2013/05/10: Belfer: A Voting Architecture for the Governance of Free-Driver Externalities, with Application to Geoengineering by Martin L. Weitzman
• 2013/05/09: Springer:CC: (ab$) Why geoengineering is not a ‘global public good’, and why it is ethically misleading to frame it as one by Stephen M. Gardiner
• 2013/05/08: GMDD: Incorporating grassland management in a global vegetation model: model description and evaluation at 11 eddy-covariance sites in Europe by J. Chang et al.
• 2013/05/08: GMDD: High dimensional decision dilemmas in climate models by A. Bracco et al.
• 2013/05/08: TC: Brief communication “Global glacier volumes and sea level – small but systematic effects of ice below the surface of the ocean and of new local lakes on land” by W. Haeberli & A. Linsbauer
• 2013/05/05: Nature:GeoSci: (ab$) Cloud droplet number enhanced by co-condensation of organic vapours by David Topping et al.
• 2013/05/05: Nature:GeoSci: (ab$) Boreal carbon loss due to poleward shift in low-carbon ecosystems by Charles D. Koven
• 2013/05/05: Nature:CC: (ab$) Projected increase in tropical cyclones near Hawaii by Hiroyuki Murakami et al.
• 2013/05/12: Nature: (ab$) Climate mitigation: An open dialogue on solar engineering by John Shepherd et al.
• 2012/01/03: PLoS One: Multiple Routes of Pesticide Exposure for Honey Bees Living Near Agricultural Fields by Christian H. Krupke et al.
  

  And other significant documents:

• 2013/05/10: WhiteHouse:B: [link to 479k pdf] National Strategy for the Arctic Region Announced
  

  As for miscellaneous science:

• 2013/05/11: EPOD: Small Scale von Karman Vortices
• 2013/05/10: RBroberg: Courtney: Studying the Internal Ballistics of a Combustion Driven Potato Cannon using High-speed Video
• 2013/05/09: CCP: “Mass loss of Greenland’s glaciers and ice caps 2003-2008 revealed from ICESat laser altimetry data,” by T. Bolch et al., GRL 40 (2013); doi:10.1002/grl.50270
• 2013/05/09: CCP: “Contrail ice particles in aircraft wakes and their climatic importance,” by Ulrich Schumann et al., GRL (2013); doi:10.1002/grl.50539
• 2013/05/09: RBroberg: McKinnon: The spatial structure of the annual cycle in surface temperature: amplitude, phase, and Lagrangian history
• 2013/05/09: CLBook: Variable variability
• 2013/05/08: RBroberg: Amplified inception of European Little Ice Age by sea ice-ocean-atmosphere feedbacks by Flavio Lehner et al.
• 2013/05/07: RBroberg: Wang and Zeng: Development of global hourly 0.5-degree land surface air temperature datasets
• 2013/05/10: Moyhu: Climate of the Past fails Fourier test
• 2013/05/06: RBroberg: Kapsch: Springtime atmospheric energy transport and the control of Arctic summer sea-ice extent
• 2013/05/06: ASI: Springer science summary
  

  What’s new in models?

• 2013/05/09: RTCC: IPCC models underestimate role of CO2 in warming
  The Earth’s climate is more sensitive to changes in CO2 than previously thought, according to new research. New data taken from an Arctic sediment core that has recorded the climate for the past 3.6m years, suggests climate models, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have not given enough weighting to CO2′s role in the changing climate.
• 2013/05/09: AMAWr: Possible futures
  

  What developments in the ongoing struggle for Open Science?

• 2013/05/10: Priceonomics:B: Why is Science Behind a Paywall?
• 2013/05/09: ScienceInsider: U.S. Government Accuses Open Access Publisher of Trademark Infringement
  

  Regarding Hansen:

• 2013/05/08: P3: Hansen: More Science, Not Less
  

  Meanwhile at the UN:

• 2013/05/10: UN: UN disaster assessment team arrives in drought-affected Marshall Islands
  

  And on the carbon trading front:

• 2013/05/10: BBerg: UN Carbon Has Biggest Weekly Gain This Year as EU Factories Buy
• 2013/05/09: RTCC: EU carbon price crisis spreads to Australia
• 2013/05/09: RTCC: Comment: why it’s time for a global price on carbon
  Writing for RTCC, former Japanese climate change Ambassador Yoshi Nishimura explains how trouble with Europe’s cornerstone climate policy proves that a global carbon market is the best route to limiting warming to 2°C.
• 2013/05/07: EnvEcon: Editorializing Europe’s carbon market
• 2013/05/05: WaPo: European carbon market in trouble
  

  The idea of a carbon tax is still bouncing around:

• 2013/05/09: WtD: Carbon tax destroys jobs?: Oz economy refuses to surrender to “great big tax on everything” by adding 50,000 jobs
  

  Finally, the UK has shown its colours. Protect the City from the dread Tobin tax:

• 2013/05/10: BBC: Prime minister David Cameron has reiterated British opposition to a European financial transactions tax (FTT), saying it is “not a good idea”
  

  On the international political front, tensions continue as the empire leans on Iran:

• 2013/05/10: al Jazeera: Consequences of western intransigence in nuclear diplomacy with Iran
  As long as Washington refuses to recognise Iran’s right to enrich, no substantial agreement will be possible.
• 2013/05/09: OilPrice: The U.S. has Spent $8 Trillion Protecting the Straits of Hormuz
  

  South [& East] China Sea tension persists:

• 2013/05/12: Xinhuanet: Taiwan asks Philippine response to fisherman killing in 72 hours
  Taiwan’s leader Ma Ying-jeou vowed to give the Philippines 72 hours to respond to demands regarding the shooting death of a Taiwanese fisherman at sea, or Taiwan will take actions to retaliate. Ma demanded the Philippines to apologize, clarify the truth and punish people held responsible, offer compensation for the death and the damage to the fishing boat, and start negotiations with Taiwan on a fishery agreement as soon as possible, according to a statement posted on the website of Taiwanese authority. “If the Philippine government does not make a positive response within 72 hours,” Taiwan will freeze on all applications of Philippine laborers, recall its representative to the Philippines and ask the representative of the Philippines in Taipei to leave, the statement said.
• 2013/05/12: BBC: Taiwan ultimatum to Philippines over fisherman’s death
  The government of Taiwan has given the Philippines until Wednesday to apologise for the death of a Taiwanese fisherman whose vessel was fired on by the Philippine coastguard. Taiwan is also demanding compensation and the arrest of those responsible. It has warned the Philippines of diplomatic and economic measures if it does not respond positively.
• 2013/05/12: ABC(Au): Taiwan considers sanctions over fisherman death
  Taiwan says it will consider sanctions against the Philippines over the shooting of a fisherman by the Philippines Coast Guard. The Philippines government said it would not apologise for the incident until an investigation had taken place, after Taiwan had earlier demanded one. The 65-year-old fisherman, Hung Shih-cheng, died after the Philippines Coast Guard fired at a Taiwanese fishing boat on which he was a crew member. President Ma Yin-Jeou says Taiwan will seek justice for the fisherman’s death, demanding compensation and a full investigation as well as the apology.
• 2013/05/10: IBTimes: South China Sea: Taiwan Protests To Philippines Over Fatal Shooting Of Fisherman; Philippines Denies Allegation
• 2013/05/10: PhilippineStar: Philippine Navy denies involvement in Taiwan fisherman’s shooting
• 2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): Taiwan demands Philippines investigate fatal shooting of fisherman
• 2013/05/10: BBC: Taiwan protests to Philippines after fisherman shot
  Taiwan has demanded an explanation and apology from the Philippines after a fisherman was shot and killed in disputed waters.
• 2013/05/10: Asia Times: US hoist by its own pivot petard
• 2013/05/09: RT: Japanese claim on Okinawa challenged in China
  China’s leading newspaper has upped the ante in the country’s intensifying territorial dispute with Japan, claiming its high time both sides “re-examine” who has sovereignty over Okinawa — which hosts a massive US military contingent.
• 2013/05/07: BangkokPost: China sends large fleet to Spratlys
  

  Did you ever wonder how it is that international treaties come to override parliament?
  The dispute resolution mechanisms built into these treaties are fundamentally anti-democratic:

• 2013/05/08: EurActiv: Draft EU-Canada trade treaty threatens Europe’s fracking bans
  European bans on hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – for shale gas could face lawsuits under a far-reaching investment clause in a draft Canada-EU Trade Agreement treaty, seen by EurActiv.
• 2013/05/08: TheCanadian: New Report: Canada-EU Trade Agreement Threatens Fracking Bans
• 2013/05/09: CDreams: Why the TransPacific Partnership is a Scary Big (Trade) Deal
  A super-sized NAFTA, the TPP gives foreign corporations privileges that can override domestic laws on environmental health and citizens’ rights. Here’s why we shouldn’t let it pass without a fight.
• 
  

  Regarding the EU FQD: Fuel Quality Directive:

   

• 2013/05/08: Reuters: Canada says it may take EU to WTO over oil sands dispute
  

  In the solar squabbles between China and Europe:

• 2013/05/10: EurActiv: China calls 47% duty on solar panels ‘a mistake’, calls for dialogue
  The European Commission agreed to impose punitive import duties on solar panels from China in a move to guard against what it sees as dumping of cheap goods in Europe, prompting a cautious response from Beijing which called for further dialogue.
• 2013/05/08: DerSpiegel: Dumping Allegations: EU To Impose Tariffs on Chinese Solar Panels
  The European Commission has approved tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels in response to complaints of price-dumping. However, analysts say the move will do little more than give European companies a short-lived boost, and that the levy will mainly just increase prices and decrease use of solar power.
• 2013/05/08: BBC: The European Commission is on the verge of a trade war with China over the import of solar panels worth 21bn euros (£18bn) a year
  

  And in miscellaneous international political jousting:

• 2013/05/07: RTCC: Denmark to fund Pacific Island clean energy research
  The Danish Government has committed US$2 million to renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in the Pacific.
• 
  

  What are the activists up to?

   

• 2013/05/10: ArcticNews: 1250 – New group calls for action on methane
• 2013/05/10: TreeHugger: Even Former Coal Miners Want to End Mountaintop Removal Mining
• 2013/05/09: RT: Monsanto protests scheduled in 36 countries
  An international protest planned for later this month against biotechnology company Monsanto is slated to span six continents and include demonstrations in dozens of countries around the globe. Amid growing concerns over St. Louis, Missouri-based Monsanto and the impact the company is having on agriculture, activists have planned rallies for later this month in 36 countries.
• 2013/05/08: FuelFix: Keystone pipeline nemesis leads charge from her family minivan
• 2013/05/08: AppalachiaRising: Residents Bring Dirty Water from Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Communities To Washington
• 2013/05/06: ABC(Au): Train station targeted by environment campaigners
  Environment group Quit Coal has unfurled a huge banner at Flinders Street Station in Melbourne to protest against the lack of action on renewable energy. The banner which says ‘Get off the coal train and on track for renewables’ was raised above the iconic clocks on the main Melbourne train station during the morning peak. The group has attacked Premier Denis Napthine’s policies saying he has inherited Ted Baillieu’s “regressive” polices on brown coal and coal seam gas. “Premiers come and go, but climate change will be a long-term challenge for Victoria,” said Chloe Aldenhove, of Quit Coal.
• 
  

  The move to divest from fossil fuel investments is growing slowly:

   

• 2013/05/10: NPR: College Divestment Campaigns Creating Passionate Environmentalists
• 2013/05/08: Guardian(UK): How science works: follow the money
• 2013/05/06: Grist: Ask Umbra: How can I convince my alma mater to go fossil-free?
• 2013/05/06: Grist: Why haven’t the big green groups divested from fossil fuels?
  

  Regarding Water Politics and Business:

• 2013/05/10: HuffPo: Fixing the Colorado River: First Steps
• 2013/05/09: HuffPo: Fracking Water Use Draining Resources, Especially In Western U.S., New Studies Find
• 2013/05/08: ABC(Au): Controversial Cambodian dam set for construction
  Cambodia has begun preparations to build a controversial hydropower dam on the Se San River. The Lower Se San 2 Dam will be built downstream on the river, with an 8-kilometre-long wall and a reservoir that will cover more than 300 square kilometres.
• 2013/05/07: MNN: Fracking is draining water resources, especially in the West
• 2013/05/08: Grist: Will cities ever get smart about water use?
• 2013/05/07: Guardian(UK): Safe drinking water disappearing fast in Bangladesh
  Extreme weather increases salinity of water in coastal areas while excessive demand in Dhaka leaves dwindling supply
• 2013/05/07: USGS: Decades-old Nitrate Found to Affect Stream Water Quality
• 2013/05/06: JFleck: Total Mead/Powell storage headed for lowest level since Powell first filled
• 2013/05/06: DD: Plans to harness Chinese river’s power threaten a region…
• 2013/05/06: al Jazeera: Rationing water in a thirstier world
  The world does not lack the knowledge about how to build a water-secure future – but “lacks the political will”.
• 2013/05/05: JFleck: stuff I wrote elsewhere: junior groundwater pumping and the “futile call”
  

  So what’s new on the education front?

• 2013/05/06: SciAm:GB: A Decade of Explosions: What ‘Mythbusters’ Taught Me
  

  While in the UK:

• 2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): Key climate change adviser resigns from Cameron post
  Ben Moxham, senior policy adviser and former aide to BP chief Lord Browne, becomes latest energy official to quit
  [...]
  His resignation follows an exodus of leading energy officials in recent weeks. Ravi Gurumurthy and Jonathan Brearley, who were advisers at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), and architects of key proposed energy reforms, each left though the energy bill is still making going through parliament
• 2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): Climate change sceptic [Peter Lilley] to advise David Cameron on foreign policy
• 2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): [Letters] Popular support for Green party policies
• 2013/05/09: Guardian(UK): Green investment bank’s chief plans to borrow and raise debt
  Shaun Kingsbury says bank’s scope must be expanded to bring forward renewable energy and environmental projects across UK
• 2013/05/09: Guardian(UK): Oxford students and alumni to protest over Shell Earth sciences funding
  Campaigners say the partnership undermines the university’s credibility and conflicts with its work on climate change
• 2013/05/09: Guardian(UK): Biomass: should we burn trees to generate electricity?
• 2013/05/08: Guardian(UK): Ed Davey hits out against coalition climate change sceptics
  Energy and climate change secretary will use a major speech at Clarence House to promise stronger action on global warming
• 2013/05/05: BBC: Which? poll says many ‘borrowing money for food’
  One in five UK households borrowed money or used savings to cover food costs in April, a Which? survey says. It suggests the equivalent of five million households used credit cards, overdrafts or savings to buy food.
• 
  

  And in Europe:

   

• 2013/05/12: BBerg: Bulgarians Vote as Two Main Parties Locked in Dead Heat
• 2013/05/10: NatureN: Spanish research held hostage by deficit cuts — Funding goal for 2020 revised from 3% of GDP to 2%, and state share will be cut
• 2013/05/09: AutoBG: BMW says European CO2 targets are ‘impossible to meet’
• 2013/05/08: EurActiv: EU leaders to square the circle of cheap energy
  EU leaders will grapple with controversial issues including shale gas development and climate change mitigation at an energy summit on 22 May, documents obtained by EurActiv show.
• 2013/05/08: ScienceInsider: Overhaul of E.U. Seed Regulations Triggers Protests
  The European Commission is reforming the European Union’s plant and animal health legislation in a bid to enhance food safety across the bloc. But critics say that the measures, proposed on Monday, threaten seed diversity and favor large agrochemical businesses.
• 2013/05/07: RealEconomics: Green economics — getting things done
• 2013/05/07: EurActiv: EU embraces green infrastructure package
• 2013/05/07: EurActiv: Biofuels industry sent ‘three mails an hour’ in ILUC lobby offensive
  Biofuels companies and associations sent EU cabinet members three e-mails an hour, many containing catastrophic warnings, in the run-up to a recent European Commission proposal to account for greenhouse gas emissions that the fuel crops might indirectly cause.
• 2013/05/07: EurActiv: Lawmakers vote to limit van speed, reject stronger CO2 target
  The European Parliament’s environment committee on Tuesday (7 May) called for the installation of electric speed limiters for vans to prevent their accelerating beyond an agreed 120kph cap. But MEPs rejected reducing the 2020 target for van CO2 emissions to 118g per km.
• 2013/05/07: EUO: Merkel: inaction on climate change will cost more
• 2013/05/07: DerSpiegel: Leading or Following?: Merkel Speaks with Two Tongues on Climate
  German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded an international climate deal by 2015 on Monday. Yet at home, she has declined to push for badly needed fixes to Europe’s ailing carbon cap-and-trade program. She is putting off the toughest decisions until after fall elections.
• 2013/05/07: RTCC: EU to vote on carbon market reforms in July
  A second vote on reforms to the EU’s carbon market will take place in July, the European Parliament has confirmed.
• 2013/05/07: RTCC: Ministers urge long term fix for EU climate policy
• 2013/05/06: DeutscheWelle: German climate talks: ‘Waiting not an option,’ says Merkel
• 2013/05/06: RealEconomics: The Danes do renewables well
• 2013/05/05: DeutscheWelle: The ‘green economy’ as an engine for growth
• 2013/05/06: RTCC: Poland and France co-operating on 2015 climate deal
  Poland and France are collaborating on the 2015 global climate deal, according to a spokesperson for Poland’s Environment Minister Marcin Korolec.
• 2013/05/06: RTCC: The desire of leading nations to address the causes of global warming will be tested at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin this week
• 2013/05/06: BBerg: EU Pollution Push in Disarray on Debt Crisis Distracttion
  Europe’s program to halt climate change is in disarray with lawmakers in the region expressing concern the drift is undermining the planet’s most significant effort to combat global warming. Members of the European Parliament’s environment committee meet today for a second time to revive a plan the full assembly rejected that would have boosted the cost of greenhouse-gas emissions. The rebuff left the cost of pollution near a record low, leaving companies with less incentive to reduce emissions. The situation “reflects a sea-change against climate policy,” said European Green Party Co-Chair Reinhard Buetikofer, who supported the plan. The effort to limit carbon gases “is not being perceived as an opportunity by industry but rather a burden,” he said, adding that the decision “destroyed the foundation of common European climate policy.”
• 
  

  Meanwhile in Australia:

   

• 2013/05/01: LarvatusProdeo: Are 100% renewables possible?
• 2013/05/07: JQuiggin: Decarbonising Australia
• 2013/05/09: NatureN: Fears grow over Australian science funding — Researchers braced for budget cuts
• 2013/05/09: WtD: Carbon tax destroys jobs?: Oz economy refuses to surrender to “great big tax on everything” by adding 50,000 jobs
• 2013/05/07: ABC(Au): Wind farm report puts pressure on government restrictions
  

  The Tasmanian Forests Agreement has triggered some heated bickering:

• 2013/05/10: TheConversation: Tasmanian Forests Agreement: liberal society needs an alternative
• 2013/05/09: ABC(Au): The contract of Forestry Tasmania’s managing director Bob Gordon has been terminated
• 2013/05/08: TheConversation: Tasmanian Forests Agreement: deeply flawed, worth backing
• 2013/05/07: ABC(Au): Brown the new Fraser: Premier
  The Tasmanian Premier has suggested the former Australian Greens Leader, Bob Brown, is becoming irrelevant to the Green cause. Lara Giddings has compared Mr Brown to former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser who is now ‘just a citizen.’ Mr Brown has condemned the forest peace deal legislation which four of the five Tasmanian Greens MPs supported in Parliament last week. He has criticised the green groups who negotiated the deal, saying they were outmanoeuvred by the logging industry.
• 2013/05/06: ABC(Au): Greens hit back over forest deal lashing
  Tasmanian Greens MP Cassy O’Connor has hit back at critics of her party’s decision to support the amended forestry peace deal legislation. Last week, four of the five state Greens MPs backed the bill despite the party’s national leader Christine Milne opposing it. Prominent environmentalist and author Richard Flanagan lashed out at the state Greens’ decision in an online opinion piece,
• 2013/05/06: ABC(Au): Brown claims green groups ‘outflanked’ by loggers
  The former leader of the Australian Greens believes green groups have signed up to a deficient forestry peace deal because they were outmanoeuvred by the logging industry. Bob Brown claims Tasmanian Greens MPs had no choice but to back the forest peace deal bill.
• 
  

  It’s a long way to the September election:

   

• 2013/05/11: WSWS: SEP announces candidates for 2013 Australian election
• 2013/05/10: ABC(Au): The economy: where the parties stand
• 2013/05/10: TheConversation: Climate action under an Abbott government
• 2013/05/10: TheConversation: Why Labor should fight the 2013 election on climate change
• 2013/05/09: ABC(Au): One Nation co-founder told to refile Abbott lawsuit
  One Nation’s co-founder has been ordered to resubmit a civil claim against Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. David Ettridge is suing Mr Abbott for $1.5 million, alleging he unlawfully assisted and encouraged litigation against One Nation in 1998 that led to the party being deregistered.
• 2013/05/08: ABC(Au): Govt dumps carbon package tax cuts
  The Federal Government has confirmed it’s dumping another of its program, shelving the 2015 tax cuts linked to its carbon package because Treasury is downgrading the expected revenue from carbon permits. The Government had previously ruled out dumping the cuts, but the big revenue shortage is taking its toll on Labor promises. Hardly surprisingly, the Opposition has pounced on Labor for ditching two commitments in two days.
• 2013/05/08: ABC(Au): Combet confirms carbon trading tax cut on hold
  Climate Change Minister Greg Combet has confirmed the 2015 tax cut associated with the carbon trading scheme will not go ahead because of the drop in the carbon price in Europe. Mr Combet says the Government now thinks the carbon price will not be as high as the $29 per tonne originally forecast. He says that means there will not be a need to increase the tax free threshold as promised.
• 2013/05/12: ABC(Au): Confusion over Slipper’s split from Palmer’s party
  Confusion surrounds the departure of federal independent MP Peter Slipper from Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer’s new political party. The former Liberal MP applied to join the United Australia Party (UAP), which is now changing its name to the Palmer United Party. Yesterday the party issued a statement indicating Mr Slipper’s application had been accepted. But just hours later, it issued another statement reversing that decision.
• 2013/05/11: ABC(Au): Slipper moves to Palmer’s new party
  Federal independent MP Peter Slipper has joined Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer’s political party.
• 
  

  After years of wrangling, the Murray Darling Basin plan is in place. Now the real fight begins:

   

• 2013/05/11: ABC(Au): Parched far north Qld town facing water ‘burden’
• 2013/05/10: ABC(Au): Toowoomba council calls for compulsory water tanks
  The Newman government has scrapped mandatory water tanks but Toowoomba Regional Council wants the law reinstated for it’s residents.
• 2013/05/09: ABC(Au): Pricing changes encourage water saving
• 2013/05/09: ABC(Au): Fears water prices making growers ‘unsustainable’
  Sunraysia irrigators say they are worried growers will walk off their farms because they cannot manage water price increases. In the Lower Murray Water area, costs could rise to $140 a megalitre and prices in the Benetook pressure district are between $250 and $260 a megalitre.
• 2013/05/09: ABC(Au): The Goldfields Highway between Meekatharra and Wiluna has been closed due to flooding
• 2013/05/08: ABC(Au): Gulf town’s water supplies dry up
  A mayor in north-west Queensland’s Gulf Country says town water supplies for the small community of Forsayth, north-east of Mount Isa, may need to be trucked in from later next month.
• 2013/05/07: ABC(Au): Flood forum hears call for national disaster levy
  A Gympie business owner says Australia needs a national levy to cover the cost of disasters. Disasters have cost Australia billions of dollars in the past few years – Gympie has had five major floods in two years.
• 2013/05/07: ABC(Au): Tasmania wants drought aid to fund irrigation projects
• 2013/05/06: ABC(Au): NFF says big drought questions remain unanswered
  The national farm lobby says Australia’s drought reform agreement is a good step forward, but leaves the biggest policy questions unresolved.
• 2013/05/06: ABC(Au): Farmers want more detail on drought model
  

  And in the Indian subcontinent:

• 2013/05/08: CCurrents: Sorry, We Haven’t Got Answers To Our Questions [Koodankulam]
• 2013/05/08: CCurrents: Koodankulam: A Court In The Supreme Contempt Of Its People
• 2013/05/06: ABC(Au): Court approves India’s largest nuclear plant [Kudankulam]
• 2013/05/06: al Jazeera: Court approves contested India nuclear plant
  Supreme Court gives greenlight for Russian-built Kudankulam plant in state of Tamil Nadu despite widespread protests.
• 
  

  While elsewhere in Asia:

   

• 2013/05/12: al Jazeera: [Former prime minister Nawaz] Sharif claims victory in Pakistan elections
• 2013/05/12: BBerg: Sharif’s Muslim League Leads in Landmark Pakistani Vote
• 2013/05/12: Guardian(UK): Pakistan backs former prime minister Nawaz Sharif as Imran Khan falls short
• 2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): Indonesia’s tropical forests set to benefit from further clearing ban
• 2013/05/09: UN: Maldives approaching ‘critical juncture’ with upcoming elections – UN official
• 2013/05/07: Guardian(UK): Pacific islands look for model to combat changes due to global warming
• 2013/05/05: Guardian(UK): Malaysia re-elects National Front coalition
  Najib Razak’s governing coalition extends 56-year rule after winning election opinion polls suggested would be tight
• 
  

  And South America:

   

• 2013/05/06: Xinhuanet: Petrocaribe summit ends with plan for economic zone, new members
  Petrocaribe member states agreed to create a new economic zone and granted membership to Honduras and Guatemala at their 7th summit that ended here on Sunday. Venezuela created Petrocaribe in 2005 to sell fuel to Latin American and Caribbean nations at cheaper prices and help finance their oil infrastructure projects. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said the planned economic zone for Petrocaribe member states and other regional blocs is designed to boost regional development by promoting joint investments in trade, tourism, industry, agribusiness and science. Venezuela has also proposed the establishment of a permanent headquarters in Caracas for the Petrocaribe Secretariat. In 2012, Venezuela supplied on average 108,000 barrels of oil a day to 14 Petrocaribe members, or 40 percent of their energy needs.
• 
  

  In Canada, neocon PM Harper, aka The Blight, pushes petroleum while ignoring climate and ecology:

   

• 2013/05/10: RTCC: Canada wears climate pariah label “with honour”A group of senior academics issued a letter this week to the Canadian government, criticising it for ignoring the threat of climate change. It was the latest in a long line of reprimands for a nation that has been described as a “pariah” at the international climate talks.
• 2013/05/10: PostMedia: Conservatives’ reputation as the ‘Nasty Party’ is well-deserved by Andrew Coyne
• 2013/05/10: PCat: The Harper Government lacks a strategic vision for Canada’s oil industry
• 2013/05/09: BBerg: Harper to Visit New York in Push for Keystone Approval
• 2013/05/08: CBC: Canada tightens shipping emission standards
• 2013/05/08: TheCanadian: New Report: Canada-EU Trade Agreement Threatens Fracking Bans
• 2013/05/06: CPW: CETA: EU-Canada trade agreement threatens fracking bans
• 2013/05/07: CBC: Canada drops out of race to tap methane hydrates
  Funding ended [by NRC] for research into how to exploit world’s largest fossil energy resource
• 
  

  In his role as chief tar sands salesman, Joe Oliver is making himself an embarassment:

   

• 2013/05/11: TheCanadian: Joe Oliver Sticks to his Guns in Tar Sands European Trade Dispute
• 2013/05/10: WpgFP: Oliver hurls more insults as he ends oilsands promotion tour through Europe
• 2013/05/10: CBC: Joe Oliver not backing down in Canada-EU battle over oilsands
• 2013/05/09: Maribo: The letter to Minister Oliver from climate scientists and energy experts (en francais)
• 2013/05/09: Guardian(UK): Letter to Joe Oliver on tar sands production
  Academics urge Canada’s natural resources minister to consider the consequences of his support for expanding Alberta’s tar sands production
• 2013/05/09: TreeHugger: Al Gore calls Alberta Tar Sands “an open sewer.”
  ‘No such thing as ethical oil,’ Al Gore tells Toronto audience
• 2013/05/08: SudburySteve: Al Gore and Setting the Record Straight on Energy Politics and Resource Development
• 2013/05/08: P3: Canadian Scientists’ Letter to Minister of Natural Resources
• 2013/05/08: CBC: Government should ‘grow up’ on climate change, scientist says — A dozen prominent scientists write letter to Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver
  A group of 12 prominent Canadian climate scientists called out the federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver on his support for the expansion of oil infrastructure in a letter released today. The scientists wrote that building pipelines and developing fossil fuel production delays the transition to an economy that relies less on oil and gas. The scientists urged Oliver to move away from the high-carbon approach that will lead to climate warming of more than 2 C.
• 2013/05/08: Guardian(UK): Academics warn Canada against further tar sands production
  Letter urges natural resources minister Joe Oliver to consider consequences of his support for controversial policy
• 2013/05/07: iPolitics: Is Joe Oliver actually winning the debate on climate change?
• 2013/05/07: OilChange: Canada’s “Sewer Salesman” Heads to Europe
• 2013/05/06: G&M: Ottawa strikes back at Al Gore’s remarks on oil sands as ‘open sewer’
  Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver will make the Harper government’s case for the Alberta oil sands in Europe this week. But before he can begin, he finds himself contending with inconveniently timed comments from Al Gore about Canada’s climate-change record. Mr. Oliver is none too happy about it.
• 2013/05/04: G&M: Al Gore isn’t overly pleased with Canada
  Al Gore is back. A dozen years after he was denied the U.S. presidency and turned his attention to the warming atmosphere (and won the Nobel Peace Prize, an Academy Award and a Grammy), he is opening his lens wider.The result is The Future, a 500-page examination of the six major forces that he believes are producing dramatic change in the world: an increase in economic globalization; an expansion of digital communications; a balance of power moving away from the United States; an economic system that produces inequality and overconsumption; a set of revolutions in biotechnology and the life sciences and, of course, the world’s warming atmosphere and damaged ecosystems.
• 
  

  The Harper gang is big into muzzling scientists, civil servants, librarians, diplomats…:

   

• 2013/05/11: TMoS: Truer Words – Governments Hide in Silence
• 2013/05/09: UCSUSA:B: Margaret Atwood on the Muzzling of Canadian Government Scientists
• 2013/05/03: Macleans: When science goes silent
  With the muzzling of scientists, Harper’s obsession with controlling the message verges on the Orwellian
• 2013/05/07: KSJT: MacLeans – In Canada, Tory gov’t in “Orwellian” crackdown on scientists talking without a permit
  

  The Harper gang are misdirecting the NRC:

• 2013/05/08: ScienceInsider: NRC Head Says Realignment Means ‘Full Meal’ for Canadian Industry
• 2013/05/08: NatPo: Andrew Coyne: New research council mandate shows Conservative’s hostility to free market
• 2013/05/07: ScienceInsider: Canada to Convert NRC Into ‘Toolbox’ for Industry
• 2013/05/07: NatPo: John Ivison: National Research Council revamp fuels David Suzuki’s claims of a Conservative ‘war on science’
• 2013/05/07: G&M: Research council’s makeover leaves Canadian industry setting the agenda
• 2013/05/07: CBC: National Research Council now aims for ‘commercial value’
  

  How the PR game is played in Canada. [Note the dates]:

• 2013/05/10: SixthEstate: Canada’s New National Research Council: Same As the Old One, Digging a Deeper Hole
• 2013/05/09: CBC: NRC teams up on CO2-eating algae farm
• 2012/12/04: CBC: CO2 emissions could feed algae biofuel bonanza
  U.S. Steel Canada announces pilot project that will test Pond Biofuels technology
• 2011/03/17: CBC: Energy sources of the (near) future — New technologies promise greener power
  

  The battle over the Northern Gateway pipeline rages on:

• 2013/05/09: WCEL: Taking the Pipeline and Tankers Debate to Enbridge’s Door
• 2013/05/05: CBC: Enbridge breaks safety rules at pump stations across Canada
  Company’s defence is that National Energy Board is interpreting rules differently The biggest oil and gas pipeline company in Canada is breaking National Energy Board safety rules at 117 of its 125 pump stations across the country, but Enbridge says it’s not to blame. Enbridge was ordered by the Canadian energy regulator to disclose whether or not it had backup power to operate emergency shut-down systems in the facilities that keep oil flowing through its pipes. The company told the NEB only eight of its pump stations complied with the board’s backup power system regulation. On top of that, Enbridge disclosed that 83 of its pump stations were missing emergency shut-down buttons. But the NEB admits that it has only just started to concentrate inspections on regulations covering backup power and shut-down systems. The regulations are anywhere from 14 to 19 years old.
• 2013/05/06: AD: On measured responses [Enbridge pipelines]
  

  And the fabled West-East line:

• 2013/05/06: POGGE: But did they fill out an application first? [Line 9]
• 2013/05/06: CBC: Enbridge pipeline protesters close Ontario highway
  Area residents concerned about reversing flow of Line 9, which runs through Hamilton
• 
  

  Another step forward in salvaging the Experimental Lakes Area:

   

• 2013/05/09: PostMedia: Fisheries Department reaches deal with think tank to save freshwater research facility
  Some federal scientists working at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans may soon gain new freedom to control their research and speak in public, under a tentative deal announced Thursday to transfer management of a world-renowned freshwater research facility that opened in 1968. The arrangement would transfer the management of the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA), a research site made up of dozens of lakes near Kenora in northwestern Ontario, to a Manitoba-based think tank, the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
• 2013/05/09: CBC: Deal would see scientists return to Experimental Lakes Area — Winnipeg-based policy institute has framework of deal with government
  A deal has been reached between the federal government and a policy institute that would see scientists return to the Experimental Lakes Area this summer. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) issued a joint news release Thursday afternoon, saying the framework of an agreement has been reached to allow IISD to operate the area near Kenora in northwestern Ontario. The federal government had closed the area at the beginning of April, saying it would save around $2 million a year.
• 
  

  The ISA/PRV/IHN/Alpha virus in Canadian waters is potentially disastrous:

   

• 2013/05/09: TheCanadian: Piscine Reovirus Pt.1: New Salmon Disease Sweeping the Coast?
• 2013/05/08: EcoJustice: Morton, Ecojustice launch lawsuit over transfer of diseased salmon
• 2013/05/07: AlexandraMorton: Putting diseased farm salmon in BC waters is not OK – going to court..again
  

  In BC, the May 14th election is approaching fast. The campaign shenanigans abound:

• 2013/05/11: TheCanadian: Independent MLAs, Candidates Shake Up BC Politics
• 2013/05/11: Tyee: BC’s Fringe Political Parties: Name Your Quest!
• 2013/05/10: Tyee: Where’s the Vision for Clean Green Jobs? Answer on economy vs. environment question largely ignored in BC’s election
• 2013/05/10: TheCanadian: Video: The Truth About Christy Clark’s Position on Pipelines, Tankers
• 2013/05/10: NatPo: With only four days to go before B.C. election, Liberals are now neck and neck with NDP: poll
• 2013/05/10: CTV: B.C. NDP widens lead days before election: poll
• 2013/05/09: CBC: Stephen Smart: Brace for Fortress B.C. whoever wins on Tuesday
  Whether it’s Christy Clark or Adrian Dix, Ottawa’s Alberta alliance will be tested
• 2013/05/09: Reuters: Left wing [NDP] set to win in Canada’s BC, may reshape energy policy
• 2013/05/09: TheCanadian: Christy Clark’s Very Bad Day
• 2013/05/09: DeSmogBlog: BC LNG Exports Blow Climate Targets Way, Way Out of the Water
• 2013/05/08: Tyee: BC Election 2013: The Declaration of Independents — Without a hope of holding party power why would anyone run solo?
• 2013/05/08: GlobalNews: Movement underway within BC Liberals to oust Christy Clark
• 2013/05/08: CBC: B.C. Liberal leader’s advance ballot sparks confusion — Christy Clark put 2 names on ballot
• 2013/05/08: TheCanadian: Georgia Straight Op-Ed: Salish Sea Becoming ‘Carbon Corridor’?
• 2013/05/07: CPW: On climate change, a clear distinction between the major BC parties
• 2013/05/06: CBC: Greens eye official party status in upcoming B.C. election — Party would need to secure 4 seats in the legislature
• 2013/05/06: TheCanadian: Smaller Private Power Projects Rack up Huge Regulatory Violations in BC
• 2013/05/06: TheCanadian: Battle Over Kinder Morgan Proves Major Election Issue in BC
  

  Meanwhile in that Mechanical Mordor known as the tar sands:

• 2013/05/09: TMoS: When You Think Bitumen, Think of the World’s Poor and Needy
• 2013/05/06: Grist: Canadian tar-sands exec: ‘We do need Keystone’
• 2013/05/06: SciAm:PI: The Dirt on Tar Sands
  

  Also in Alberta:

• 2013/05/05: CPW: 30 groups demand removal of Alberta Energy Regulator chair Gerry Protti
  

  It looks like Manitoba dodged the bullet this year. The extended weeks of freezing nights and melting days did the trick:

• 2013/05/06: ManitobaGovt: Flood Bulletin #7
• 2013/05/07: CBC: Flood risk receding across much of Manitoba — Red River already at or near crest through much of province
• 2013/05/06: CBC: Portage Diversion protesters reach agreement with province — Farmers say they’ve agreed not to block operation of flood control structure
  

  Wynne is struggling to establish herself. Energy still looms large:

• 2013/05/11: CBC: First Nations residents forced out due to flooding [in Northern Ontario]
• 2013/05/08: Grist: WTO kills Ontario’s green jobs initiative
• 2013/05/07: PostMedia: Human error blamed for “near-miss” at Chalk River reactor
• 2013/05/07: CBC: Dalton McGuinty admits moving gas plants was his decision
• 2013/05/07: CPW: Ontario must defy unreasonable WTO ruling against Green Energy Act
• 2013/05/06: CBC: Canada loses WTO appeal over Ontario’s green energy program
  The World Trade Organization’s appeal body has upheld complaints from the EU and Japan that Ontario’s program to promote green energy use violates international trade rules. The WTO’s appellate body confirmed the Ontario program to encourage the development of wind and solar power discriminates against foreign firms because Ontario’s Green Energy Act mandates that a certain percentage of solar and wind components be domestically made.
• 
  

  In the Maritimes:

   

• 2013/05/07: CBC: 2 N.B. forest fires almost under control — Petitcodiac and Kedgwick residents had been asked to leave for own safety
  

  As for miscellaneous Canadiana:

• 2013/05/07: Rabble:CM: The Mind of Mulcair: The leader of the NDP on energy, climate change, and electoral reform
• 2013/05/06: TheCanadian: Why Justin Trudeau May Be More Dangerous than Harper
  

  And on the American political front:

• 2013/05/10: WSJ:RTE: Food-Stamp Use Rises From Year Ago
• 2013/05/09: SciAm:PI: Move over NC, Texas Gov wants to scrap research at universities
• 2013/05/08: TreeHugger: California bill would guarantee open access to charging stations for all EV drivers
• 2013/05/08: EnvEcon: Quote of the day — Surprise! Anti-science at the Outer Banks
• 2013/05/08: Grist: Youngstown, Ohio, voters on fracking: “Yes, please”
• 2013/05/07: TP:JR: Loan Program Made Infamous By Solyndra Has Created 20,000 Jobs While Its Cost To Taxpayers Is Shrinking
• 2013/05/06: GreenGrok: The Pesticide in Many Soaps and Toothpastes [triclosan] to Get Reviewed
• 2013/05/07: EnvEcon: I think NC-20 is trolling the Colbert Report
• 2013/05/08: EnvEcon: North Carolina is becoming a banana republic
• 2013/05/09: Resilience: Hidden Power Grab Stops Communities From Deciding Their Own Futures
• 2013/05/10: DD: Flood alarms threatened by U.S. budget cuts…
• 2013/05/10: DD: Internecine fight over climate change looms for U.S. Republicans…
• 2013/05/09: NatJo: The Coming GOP Civil War Over Climate Change
  Science, storms, and demographics are starting to change minds among the rank and file.
• 2013/05/10: TP:JR: The Coming GOP Civil War Over Climate Change: Reality And Demographics Are Battling The Kochs, Says National Journal
• 2013/05/09: BBerg: N.Y. Senate Fracking Backer Tied to Firm With Gas Lease
  Senator Tom Libous, a champion of fracking in the New York Legislature, is blocking a bill that would delay drilling for natural gas for at least two more years. Passage of the measure would harm the prospects of a real-estate company founded by Libous’s wife and run by a business partner and campaign donor. The donor, Luciano Piccirilli, operates Da Vinci II LLC, which owns 230 acres near Oneonta, west of Albany. Da Vinci II’s rights to underground natural gas are leased to a drilling company, property and corporate records show. Piccirilli’s company stands to gain if the 60-year-old Binghamton Republican senator stymies opponents of fracking…
• 2013/05/10: TreeHugger: The [coming] Republican civil war on climate change
• 2013/05/09: CSM: Why the US military should continue biofuel research
• 2013/05/09: CDreams: Fracking Activists Could Face Felony Charges as “Ag-Gag” Laws Spread
  New Pennsylvania law would criminalize animal rights and anti-fracking activists
• 2013/05/11: PSinclair: Must Read: The Coming Republican Civil War on Climate Change
• 2013/05/06: P3: A Realpolitik Defense of Cap and Trade
• 2013/05/07: P3: Texas Drought Continues – Water Legislation Fails
• 2013/05/10: P3: Republicans Behind the Scenes Struggle to Overcome Climate Denial
• 2013/05/10: AutoBG: Maine votes to ban ethanol in gasoline, takes stand against E15
• 2013/05/07: Grist: Should America export its fracked gas? Why greens say no.
• 2013/05/07: Grist: California Gov. Jerry Brown blames climate change for early wildfires
• 2013/05/06: DeSmogBlog: The Death of ‘Sustainability’
• 2013/05/06: TP:JR: Even A Moderate Price For Carbon Pollution Has a Big Impact On U.S. Emissions
• 2013/05/05: TP:JR: New Mexico State University’s Next President May Be A Climate Science Denier
• 2013/05/06: SciAm:PI: Texas vs. North Carolina Steel Cage Match in Science Stupid
  

  The BP disaster continues to twist US politics:

• 2013/05/10: Grist: Shell to drill world’s deepest offshore oil well in Gulf of Mexico
• 2013/05/09: CDreams: Deeper Than Deepwater: Shell Plans World’s Riskiest Offshore Well — Ignoring risks, Shell gears up for production of world’s deepest offshore well
• 2013/05/08: BBC: ExxonMobil and Statoil have agreed to jointly develop an oil field in the Gulf of Mexico thought to contain six billion barrels of oil and gas
• 2013/05/08: FuelFix: Shell announces plans to build world’s deepest production facility [in the Gulf of Mexico]
• 2013/05/07: BBerg: Exxon Starting Development of $4 Billion Gulf of Mexico Field
• 2013/05/07: Grist:In the Gulf, a long history of oil spills and cover-ups
• 2013/05/07: CSW: More coverage on Corexit, deadly dispersant in the BP Gulf oil blowout disaster
  

  Post-Sandy commentary and news:

• 2013/05/11: HillHeat: New York City Allocates Nearly $300 Million Of Sandy Funds For Climate Change Resiliency Plan
• 2013/05/10: NYT: City to Begin Distributing Storm Aid This Summer
  The federal government has approved New York City’s plan to spend the first $1.77 billion in aid for Hurricane Sandy recovery, with the money expected to start flowing by early summer to homeowners, businesses and others in need.
• 2013/05/09: WSWS: Six months since Superstorm Sandy
• 2013/05/09: WSWS: New York City workers speak out on conditions six months after hurricane
• 2013/05/06: DD: Superstorm Sandy aid center on Staten Island fights order to leave – ‘Six months later, we’re still feeding people’
  

  The Keystone XL saga grinds slowly. And it grinds woe:

• 2013/05/10: Reuters: U.S. decision on Keystone XL pipeline seen dragging past summer
• 2013/05/10: MoJo: Arkansans to Kerry on Keystone: “Come to Our State to See the Devastation”
  Two residents of Mayflower, the site of the March 29 pipeline spill, want Kerry to see the damage in their home state before he approves another massive pipeline.
• 2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): Plan B age-restriction appeal from US government denied by federal judge
  Obama administration appealed against ruling that emergency contraception should be available to women of all ages
• 2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): Keystone XL: Obama urged by [150] Democrat backers to reject pipeline
• 2013/05/10: WaPo:B: Obama donors compare Keystone decision to Lincoln’s outlawing of slavery
• 2013/05/10: ICN: 150 Major Democratic Donors Urge Obama to Reject Keystone Pipeline
  Where money talks louder than science, the letter from the donors won’t go unnoticed, the week before Prime Minister Harper is to visit Washington.
• 2013/05/10: CPW: Keystone XL Pipeline could cost $100 billion per year in health and environmental damages
• 2013/05/09: TreeHugger: Quid Pro Quo on Keystone approval? Not likely.
• 2013/05/08: TreeHugger: Vice President Biden opposes Keystone XL. What can this tell us about Obama’s plans?
• 2013/05/08: OilChange: Al Gore Tells Obama to Cancel KXL
• 2013/05/07: OilChange: Keystone XL Could Cost Society Over $100 Billion per Year
  

  The Mayflower oil spill continues to weigh heavily on the Keystone decision:

• 2013/05/10: CDreams: Arkansas Victims of Pegasus Spill to Kerry: Come and See What Tar Sands Has Wrought
• 2013/05/09: ICN: Rep. Griffin [R-Ark] Wants Exxon Pipeline Relocated, but Keystone Is a ‘No-Brainer’
  He wants a pipeline moved out of an Ark. watershed, but thinks a pipeline through the Ogallala aquifer is a good idea. The contradiction grates on critics.
• 2013/05/08: ICN: Arkansas Residents Sick From Exxon Oil Spill Are on Their Own
  The Arkansas Department of Health says people with dizziness, nausea and headaches have the option to leave, and it is their personal choice.
• 2013/05/07: KATV: Arkansas AG: There are still harmful chemicals in the air
• 2013/05/07: ICN: Rep. Markey Asks Exxon CEO to Explain Contradictory Statements on Arkansas Oil Spill
  Markey cites police reports, obtained by InsideClimate News, which reveal discrepancies and contradictions in Exxon’s account of the pipeline spill.
• 
  

  With the deficit hawks panicking about any issue handy, there has been talk of a carbon tax solution:

   

• 2013/05/08: TP:JR: A Price Is Right: Carbon Tax Has Very Broad, Bipartisan Support (Outside Of Congress)
• 2013/05/06: P3: Citizens’ Climate Lobby
• 2013/05/05: TheHill:e2W: Carbon tax backers quietly forge ahead
  Activists are quietly forging ahead with their campaign for carbon taxes despite long odds on Capitol Hill. Bob Inglis, a former GOP House member from South Carolina, is part of a very loose collection of policy wonks and advocates fighting to change the politics of taxing emissions.
• 
  

  The GOP War on Women continues. See also:

   

• 2013/05/08: RawStory: NC committee OKs bill banning STD tests and counseling for teens
• 2013/05/08: UCSUSA:B: A Roundup of Editorials Criticizing President Obama’s Plan B Emergency Contraception Decision
• 2013/05/07: Salon: Judge rips Obama’s right-wing Plan B stance
  “You’re disadvantaging young people, African-Americans, the poor… that’s the policy of the Obama administration?”
• 
  

  The NorthWest coal export debate remains heated:

   

• 2013/05/10: Grist: Coal-export plans going off the rails in Pacific Northwest
• 2013/05/09: QuarkSoup: Another Coal Export Project Bites the Dust
• 2013/05/09: TP:JR: Another Coal Export Terminal Is Terminated As Chinese Developments Could End Business Case For Remaining Three
• 2013/05/08: LA Times: Plans shelved for coal export terminal in Oregon
  

  The impacts of the sequestration are starting to come home:

• 2013/05/08: TP:JR: Congress Holds Hearing On Tourism’s Economic Benefits While Sequestration Forces National Parks To Shutter Services
• 2013/05/07: SciAm:Obs: Will Business Step In to End a Sequester-Driven Research Funding Gap?
  

  Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tx) seeks to control science research via defunding:

• 2013/05/10: ScienceInsider: NSF Delays Reply to Hill Query on Social Science Grants
• 2013/05/09: ScienceInsider: Pressure Builds on Congress to Kill NSF Bill
• 2013/05/09: ScienceInsider: What Representative Lamar Smith Is Really Trying to Do at NSF
  The new push by the House of Representatives science committee to change the grant-making process at the National Science Foundation (NSF) flows from members’ unhappiness over a handful of grants awarded in the social sciences. And the goal is to screen out “questionable” grants.
• 
  

  Yer daily outrage:

   

• 2013/05/08: RawStory: California strawberry pickers fired for walking off job to flee wildfire
• 2013/05/09: Grist: Strawberry fields, not forever: Workers ditch farm after it punishes them for fleeing wildfire
  

  Now that he doesn’t need their vote any more, how will Obama treat liberals and their policy issues?

• 2013/05/10: WhiteHouse:B: [link to 479k pdf] National Strategy for the Arctic Region Announced
• 2013/05/11: CCP: Obama Gives Finger to All of Humanity: Announces Increased Carbon Emission Strategy for the Arctic
• 2013/05/10: CSM: US unveils Arctic strategy, but is it keeping pace with other countries?
• 2013/05/09: TP:JR: Will Future Generations Call Obama The ‘Environmental President’ Or An Abject Failure?
• 2013/05/08: EENews: Hydraulic Fracturing: Key Dem says Obama caved on BLM frack rule
• 2013/05/08: ERabett: ICYMI, Chait’s optimist take on Obama and climate
• 2013/05/08: Grist: Conservative newspaper [WashEx] declares love for Obama’s fracker-friendly ways
• 2013/05/07: TreeHugger: Why does Obama love natural gas? It’s complicated
• 2013/05/07: TreeHugger: Is Obama the “environmental President?” Yes or no, he can still win climate fight
• 2013/05/06: Grist: Is Obama the ‘environmental president’?
  

  The actions of the Obama administration are being watched closely:

• 2013/05/09: CCP: Criminally corrupt EPA unconditionally approves sulfoxaflor pesticide extremely toxic to bees with no supporting research
• 2013/05/09: Grist: Once more, with feeling: EPA is required to regulate carbon from existing power plants
• 2013/05/08: TCoE: Two [US] policy head-shakers
• 2013/05/09: TheHill:e2W: Obama officials roll out climate and health data tool
• 2013/05/10: TreeHugger: Vice President Biden talks climate to Rolling Stone
• 2013/05/09: CDreams: Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New ‘Highly Toxic’ Pesticide [sulfoxaflor]
• 2013/05/06: NBF: EPA publishes guidelines to help officials make decisions that balance radiation risks against evacuation and other actual risks
• 2013/05/06: TheCanadian: US Environmental Agency Deals Blow to Proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska
• 2013/05/06: ICN: The Case of the Disappearing Dilbit: How Much Oil Was Released in 2010 Pipeline Spill?
  A crucial number is removed, without explanation, from the EPA website that is tracking the cleanup of the 2010 dilbit spill Michigan’s Kalamazoo River.
• 
  

  As for what is going on in Congress:

   

• 2013/05/10: CJR: A bogus boycott — The GOP hijacks the transparency debate as the EPA calls for a ‘reset’ with reporters
• 2013/05/10: SciAm:Obs: EPA Nominee Gina McCarthy Stymied By Republican Boycott
• 2013/05/10: TP:JR: Why Passing Rep. Peters’ Bill Is A SUPER Strategy to Fight Climate Change
• 2013/05/10: TP:JR: Will Washington Level The Playing Field For Clean Energy Through MLPs And REITs?
• 2013/05/09: CSM: GOP senators boycott vote on McCarthy for EPA
• 2013/05/09: OilChange: 8 Senate Republicans Boycotting McCarthy EPA Nomination Took $5.2 Million from Fossil Fuel Industry
• 2013/05/09: Grist: GOP throws tantrum over Obama’s EPA nominee [Gina McCarthy]
• 2013/05/09: UCSUSA: Lawmakers Urged to Quickly Reschedule McCarthy Vote
• 2013/05/09: TP:JR: Republican Senators Boycott Vote On Gina McCarthy’s Nomination To Head EPA
• 2013/05/08: BBickmore: WaPo Fact Checker on Rep. Stewart
• 2013/05/07: ScienceInsider: U.S. Senate Committee Holds Hearing on Helium Bill
  

  The movement toward a long term ecologically viable economics is glacial:

• 2013/05/09: RealEconomics: Growth in what?
• 2013/05/07: TheCanadian: To Tiny Bhutan, “Progress” Means Happiness, Not GDP by Dr. David Suzuki
• 2013/05/07: CCurrents: Environmental Ignorance Is Economic Bliss
• 2013/05/08: P3: Bill Gates: GDP Can Be an Inadequate Metric of Growth
• 2013/05/06: JHollender: Making Way for Worker Co-ops
  

  IPAT [Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology] raised its head once again:

• 2013/05/10: IndiaTimes: In UK, forced marriage is a criminal offence now
• 2013/05/10: S&R: Forced miscarriages, however horrible, should not qualify as “murder”
• 2013/05/09: CCurrents: Human Population Bomb Blows Up
• 2013/05/09: TreeHugger: Full Planet, Empty Plates: Chapter 2. The Ecology of Population Growth by Lester Brown
• 2013/05/09: CBC: [Canadian] Anti-abortion movement rebrands, adopts human rights focus
  Shift to ‘moderate’ language follows fight by Tory MPs against ban on abortion talk
• 2013/05/08: Guardian(UK): Female genital mutilation campaigners face death threats and intimidation
  Women who speak out against barbaric operations against young girls face danger and abuse from their own ethnic groups
• 
  

  Apocalypso anyone?

   

• 2013/05/08: CCurrents: Preparing For Near-Term Extinction
• 2013/05/07: CDreams: And Then There Was One: Imperial Gigantism and the Decline of Planet Earth
• 2013/05/05: TP:JR: Into The Valley Of Death Rode The 600, Into The Valley Of 400 PPM Rode The 7 Billion
  

  Okay, so how are we going to deal with this mess?

• 2013/05/10: ArcticNews: Climate change: Solutions to a big problem
  

  How do the media measure up?

• 2013/05/11: CWars: Alarmists at The Australian herald new ice age, forget they promoted ice age five years ago
• 2013/05/10: ABC(Au): Greenpeace blames Coke for Channel 9 ‘choke’
• 2013/05/10: CSW: Tired, disproven argument on “benefits” of CO2 resurfaces in Wall Street Journal
• 2013/05/10: P3: CO2 on Trial vs WSJ’s Ironic Op-Ed; Various Rebuttals on CSW
• 2013/05/10: GReadfearn: The Australian Brings You The Climate Science Denial News From Five Years Ago
• 2013/05/10: WtD: Of ice ages, the view from nowhere and the value of one’s soul: Graham Lloyd, The Australian and the repackaging of fringe science
• 2013/05/09: CJR: The WSJ editorial page hits rock bottom — And that’s saying something
• 2013/05/09: CDreams: Coalition Vows to Fight Koch Bros. Purchase of Tribune’s Newspaper Empire
• 2013/05/09: PSinclair: Media Misses Extreme Weather/Climate Connection
• 2013/05/09: Guardian(UK): Petition aims to stop right-wingers from acquiring US newspapers
• 2013/05/08: CJR: A new ‘golden era’? Nautilus is the latest in a proliferation of science-news sites
• 2013/05/07: NewAnthropocene: ABC Paying the Price for Disingenuous Articles: Giving Air to Anti-Wind Farm Ideologs
• 2013/05/07: MediaMatters: Study: Media Ignore Climate Context Of Midwest Floods
• 2013/05/06: QuarkSoup: Hype from Pullitzer Prize Winners
• 2013/05/06: JEB: The great David Rose con no. 9234: The hard proof that finally shows that he makes stuff up
• 2013/05/06: QuarkSoup: Re: The great David Rose con no. 9234
  

  While activists search for effective communication techniques:

• 2013/05/11: TFTJO: Communication strategies on climate change according to Peter Sandman
• 2013/05/07: Maribo: Talking about climate change in a hot and cold world [eff comm]
  

  And for your film & video enjoyment:

• 2013/05/08: PSinclair: Four German Words for Wind Energy
• 2013/05/07: GLaden: Genie Scott: Denialism of Climate Change and Evolution
• 2013/05/09: TreeHugger: Indian villagers rush to the rescue of a baby elephant (Video)
• 2013/05/08: TreeHugger: Beautiful timelapse video aims to save ancient forest
• 2013/05/10: UKISS: [Pass Thru] climate change for dummies — no models or IPCC
  YouTube: The evidence for climate change WITHOUT computer models or the IPCC
• 2013/05/10: DD: Video: Timelapse satellite views of human destruction of the biosphere over three decades
• 2013/05/10: PSinclair: Wall Street Journal: CO2 Good for Plants. Seriously.
• 2013/05/10: PSinclair: The Weekend Wonk: Google Hangout with Greenman – Climate Science and Climate Solutions
• 2013/05/10: PSinclair: Growing Your Own Food is Like Printing Your Own Money: Guerilla Gardening in South Central
• 2013/05/11: QuarkSoup: Global warming over the last 16 years
• 2013/05/10: CChallenge: Prof. Pierrehumbert: Successful Climate Predictions
• 2013/05/11: PSinclair: White Supremacists and Climate Denial
• 2013/05/08: P3: It’s Existential
• 2013/05/11: CChallenge: Dr. Trenberth Lecture: The Role of the Oceans in Climate
• 2013/05/11: PaiD: The World We Are Destroying
  

  Meanwhile among the ‘Sue the Bastards!’ contingent:

• 2013/05/09: Grist: Judge says EPA’s lax guidelines on dispersants can stand
• 2013/05/08: CBC: Ex-Enron CEO may get out of prison 10 years early
• 2013/05/07: Reuters: Chevron CEO ordered to testify in fraud case against Ecuadoreans
  A judge on Tuesday ruled that Chevron Corp’s chief executive must testify in the U.S. oil company’s fraud case against Ecuadoreans seeking to collect on a $19 billion judgment against Chevron related to rainforest pollution.
• 2013/05/08: Grist: How little-known judges could thwart Obama’s climate plans
  

  Developing a new energy infrastructure is a fundamental challenge of the current generation:

• 2013/05/09: UGa: Power plants: UGA researchers explore how to harvest electricity directly from plants
• 2013/05/08: SciAm:PI: Visualizing Clean Energy Progress
• 2013/05/08: WRI: U.S. Natural Gas Exports: Friend or Foe?
• 2013/05/07: RWER: Electricity production in the European Union
• 2013/05/07: UCSUSA:B: Renewable Electricity Standards Deliver the Goods
• 2013/05/06: TP:JR: Four Must-See Charts Show Why Renewable Energy Is Disruptive — In A Good Way
• 2013/05/06: Grist: Not all renewables are created equal
• 2013/05/05: CSM: Drive to make energy cleaner has stalled. Shale gas could help.
  

  What do you have in energy comparisons and transitions?

• 2013/05/08: CSM: Natural gas glut crimps nuclear power
• 2013/05/07: TP:JR: Parity Time: Large-Scale Solar Power Plants Now Cost Effective in Oregon
  

  If they can be accessed, there are enough methane hydrates to ensure we are well and truly cooked:

• 2013/05/02: Atlantic: Are Methane Hydrates Really Going to Change Geopolitics?
• 2013/05/07: CBC: Canada drops out of race to tap methane hydrates
  Funding ended [by NRC] for research into how to exploit world’s largest fossil energy resource
• 
  

  Hey! Let’s contaminate the aquifer for thousands of years! It’ll be a fracking gas!

   

• 2013/05/09: CleanBreak: Worth reminding: study established first “definitive” link to well water contamination from shale ‘fracking
• 2013/05/09: HuffPo: Fracking Water Use Draining Resources, Especially In Western U.S., New Studies Find
• 2013/05/09: BBerg: N.Y. Senate Fracking Backer Tied to Firm With Gas Lease
• 2013/05/09: BBC: Shale gas firm Cuadrilla to test drill in West Sussex
• 2013/05/09: BBC: North American firms quit shale gas fracking in Poland
  Two North American energy firms have ended their shale gas fracking operations in Poland. Talisman Energy of Canada and the US oil company Marathon said they were pulling out of what is seen as potentially one of the largest sources of shale gas in Europe. Marathon said it decision was based on “unsuccessful attempts to find commercial levels of hydrocarbons”. Poland had hoped the shale gas deposits would replace imports from Russia. The departure of the two companies represents a major blow to the country’s ambitions.
• 2013/05/09: CDreams: Fracking Activists Could Face Felony Charges as “Ag-Gag” Laws Spread
• 2013/05/08: DeSmogBlog: Interview: Energy Investor Bill Powers Discusses Looming Shale Gas Bubble
• 2013/05/07: MNN: Fracking is draining water resources, especially in the West
• 2013/05/08: Grist: Youngstown, Ohio, voters on fracking: “Yes, please”
• 2013/05/08: EENews: Hydraulic Fracturing: Key Dem says Obama caved on BLM frack rule
• 2013/05/06: CPW: CETA: EU-Canada trade agreement threatens fracking bans
• 2013/05/05: SciAm:PI: Enough with the fear-mongering, fracking edition
  

  On the coal front:

• 2013/05/10: TreeHugger: Even Former Coal Miners Want to End Mountaintop Removal Mining
• 2013/05/10: CSM: Struggling at home, US coal finds markets overseas
• 2013/05/08: WSWS: Patriot Coal bankruptcy threatens thousands of US miners, retirees
  Around 2,000 active and retired miners and their supporters converged on the federal courthouse in St. Louis last week for the start of bankruptcy hearings for Patriot Coal. Patriot, which filed for Chapter 11 protection last summer, is attempting to use the proceedings to rid itself of health care and pension obligations for more than 1,650 active union miners and some 13,000 retirees.
• 2013/05/07: Grist: Coal companies have gotten good at wrangling their way out of federal fines
  

  On the gas and oil front:

• 2013/05/10: BBerg: Closing oil prices Friday
  OIL (US$/bbl)
  Dated Brent Spot….103.91
  WTI Cushing Spot…..96.04
• 2013/05/08: EarlyWarning: Short-Term Non-OECD Demand Trends
• 2013/05/07: EarlyWarning: OECD Oil Consumption
• 2013/05/07: CSM: US oil boom means oil prices must drop, right? Wrong.
• 2013/05/05: Resilience: Patient contrarians: The natural gas market isn’t what it seems
• 2013/05/04: DallasNews: Oil drilling technology leaps while clean energy lags
  

  And in pipeline news:

• 2013/05/08: Grist: PG&E hit with big penalty for big natural-gas explosion
• 2013/05/08: GreenGrok: Another Pipeline, Another Controversy
• 2013/05/08: CBC: Enbridge looks to increase U.S. pipeline capacity
  Calgary company wants U.S. approval to almost double the capacity of a pipeline to Wisconsin Enbridge is seeking U.S. approval to pump more crude through an Alberta-to-Wisconsin pipeline — a process the company expects to be easier than the one TransCanada is facing with its Keystone XL pipeline.
• 2013/05/07: CSM: California urges record $2.5 billion fine for natural gas blast
  One of the country’s largest utility companies [Pacific Gas and Electric Co.] could face a record $2.5 billion fine for its role in a 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people, injured 66, and destroyed 38 houses. If adopted, it would be the largest penalty ever levied by a state regulatory body in the US.
• 2013/05/06: ICN: The Case of the Disappearing Dilbit: How Much Oil Was Released in 2010 Pipeline Spill?
  

  Biofuel bickering abounds:

• 2013/05/10: AutoBG: Maine votes to ban ethanol in gasoline, takes stand against E15
• 2013/05/08: Eureka: Setting the standard for sustainable bioenergy crops
  

  The answer my friend…:

• 2013/05/10: Grist: $1.9 billion wind project coming to Iowa
• 2013/05/10: RealEconomics: Iowa invests in more wind
• 2013/05/09: PSinclair: Despite Fossil Fueled WindBaggers, Kansas and Iowa Blast Ahead in Wind
• 2013/05/09: PSinclair: Yet Another Study: Wind Turbine Syndrome is Bullshit
• 2013/05/09: TP:JR: Doubling Wind Power Could Save Mid-Atlantic Consumers $6.9 Billion A Year
• 2013/05/07: ABC(Au): Wind farm report puts pressure on government restrictions
  A company that makes wind turbines is urging the Victorian Government to respond to a Health Department report by ending restrictions on wind farms in the state. The report by the Victorian Health Department dismissed concerns that wind farm noise makes people ill, although it did find that the noise could be annoying.
• 2013/05/06: PSinclair: Wind Turbine “noise” No Biggie for Germans. Why?
• 2013/05/06: EarlyWarning: US Wind Power Statistics
  

  Meanwhile among the solar aficionados:

• 2013/05/10: EurActiv: Solar thermal chief predicts third year of recession
  Europe’s solar thermal industry is bracing itself for another cold economic year, as consolidation in the building and solar energy sectors continues to hit new energy-efficient housing construction.
• 2013/05/08: UCSUSA:B: Solar Power Blooms Across the Country
• 2013/05/07: BCLSB: The Cost Of Solar Power
• 2013/05/07: TreeHugger: New discovery allows low-grade silicon to be turned into high-efficiency solar panels
• 2013/05/06: TP:JR: Green On-The-Go: A Portable Solar-Powered Electrical Outlet
• 2013/05/06: Eureka: A giant leap to commercialization of polymer solar cell
• 2013/05/06: NBF: Enable cheap silicon to perform better than current best for solar power
  

  The nuclear energy controversy continues:

• 2013/05/08: Grist: [Palisades] Nuclear plant spills radiation into Lake Michigan
• 2013/05/08: EneNews: Outrage: Congressman demands action at leaking U.S. nuclear plant – NRC needs to get serious on Palisades (video)
• 2013/05/07: SciAm:TCW: Nuclear energy for future citizens
• 2013/05/07: APR: [Press Release] Kewaunee Shuts Down for Last Time
• 2013/05/07: PostMedia: Human error blamed for “near-miss” at Chalk River reactor
• 2013/05/07: WSWS: US concerns about Japanese nuclear reprocessing
  The Wall Street Journal published an article on May 1 entitled “Japan’s nuclear plan unsettles US.” It indicated concerns in Washington that the opening of a huge reprocessing plant could be used to stockpile plutonium for the future manufacture of nuclear weapons. The Rokkasho reprocessing facility in northern Honshu can produce nine tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium annually, or enough to construct up to 2,000 bombs. While Japanese officials insist that the plutonium will be used solely to provide nuclear power, only two of the country’s 50 nuclear power reactors are currently operating.
• 2013/05/06: Grist: One nuke plant in Wisconsin will shutter, another in California might not be switched back on
• 2013/05/06: NBF: EPA publishes guidelines to help officials make decisions that balance radiation risks against evacuation and other actual risks
• 2013/05/06: EneNews: [Palisades] Nuclear plant spills radioactive water into Lake Michigan (audio)
• 2013/05/06: EneNews: [Michigan] U.S. [Palisades] nuclear plant shuts down due to leaks: “Leakage has increased for unknown reasons” – “Exact location of the leakage has not been determined”
  

  Nuclear waste storage requires _very_ long term thinking:

• 2013/05/10: SlashDot: Hanford Nuclear Waste Vitrification Plant “Too Dangerous”
• 2013/05/09: TheCanadian: Hanford Nuclear Waste Site in Washington State Faces Perilous Future
• 2013/05/09: Yahoo:SciAm: Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup Plant May Be Too Dangerous
  The most toxic and voluminous nuclear waste in the U.S. — 208 million liters — sits in decaying underground tanks at the Hanford Site (a nuclear reservation) in southeastern Washington State. It accumulated there from the middle of World War II, when the Manhattan Project invented the first nuclear weapon, to 1987, when the last reactor shut down. The federal government’s current attempt at a permanent solution for safely storing that waste for centuries — the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant here — has hit a major snag in the form of potential chain reactions, hydrogen explosions and leaks from metal corrosion. And the revelation last February that six more of the storage tanks are currently leaking has further ramped up the pressure for resolution.

  After decades of research, experimentation and political inertia, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) started building the “Vit Plant” at Hanford in 2000. It’s intended to sequester the waste in stainless steel-encased glass logs, a process known as vitrification (hence “Vit”), so it cannot escape into the environment, barring natural disasters like earthquakes or catastrophic fires. But progress on the plant slowed to a crawl last August, when numerous interested parties acknowledged that the plant’s design might present serious safety risks. In response, then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu appointed an expert panel to find a way forward. Because 60 of the 177 underground tanks have already leaked and all are at increasing risk to do so, solving the problem is urgent.

• 2013/05/08: EneNews: [Landfill] Fire burning next to buried nuclear waste near St. Louis – Officials: Measurements of radioactivity ‘have not reached levels of concern’
  

  And then there is the matter of efficiency & conservation:

• 2013/05/10: CSM: Energy efficiency: how retailers save money
• 2013/05/08: SciAm:TCW: Political ideology can dominate other factors in choosing energy efficiency
  

  Automakers & lawyers, engineers & activists argue over the future of the car:

• 2013/05/11: AutoBG: Toyota’s ‘model’ eco district gets solar-powered EV charging station
• 2013/05/10: Grist: Tesla sedan gets best Consumer Reports auto review of all time
• 2013/05/10: UCSUSA:B: To EV or Not To EV: Are You Ready for an Electric Vehicle?
• 2013/05/08: GreenCarReports: Plug-in Electric Car Sales In Canada, April 2013
• 2013/05/09: EclecticLip: April 2013 Canadian plug-in electric vehicle sales
• 2013/05/08: TreeHugger: California bill would guarantee open access to charging stations for all EV drivers
• 2013/05/07: TP:JR: GM Aims To Cut Chevy Volt Cost By $10,000 – While Making It Profitable
• 2013/05/05: FreeP: Like U.S., China not embracing electric vehicles
• 2013/05/06: AutoBG: Lansing, MI installs solar EV charging station good for 300,000 emission-free miles
  

  This week in the Gee Whiz File:

• 2013/05/09: CCurrents: Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
  Ronald Ace, photographed at his home in Laurel, Maryland, May 4, 2013, said his flat-panel “Solar Traps,” which can be mounted on rooftops or used in power plants, will shatter barriers that have stymied efforts to make solar energy cheap, clean and reliable. His claimed discoveries, which exist only on paper so far…
• 
  

  As for Energy Storage:

   

• 2013/05/09: AutoBG: Australia university researchers more than double EV battery capacity
  

  Joe Romm posts a daily list of top energy and climate stories:

• 2013/05/10: TP:JR: May 10 News…
• 2013/05/09: TP:JR: May 9 News…
• 2013/05/08: TP:JR: May 8 News…
• 2013/05/07: TP:JR: May 7 News…
• 2013/05/06: TP:JR: May 6 News…
  

  Other (weekly) lists:

• 2013/05/11: SkS: 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #19B by John Hartz
• 2013/05/09: SkS: 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #19A by John Hartz
• 2013/05/06: BPA: What Made the News this Week in Agriculture?
• 2013/05/03: EcoJustice: Your Weekly Recap of Canada’s Environmental News: May 3, 2013
  

  The carbon lobby are up to the usual:

• 2013/05/08: WottsUWT: Watt about the ground rules?
• 2013/05/06: QuarkSoup: WUWT, Going Gently Into That Good Night
• 2013/05/07: HotWhopper: Anthony Watts cooks up a new conspiracy theory
• 2013/05/07: P3: Genie Scott on Denial
• 2013/05/07: V VUWT: The Mummy Returns
• 2013/05/07: HotWhopper: Bob Tisdale is Perennially Puzzled about ENSO
• 2013/05/07: WottsUWT: A challenge from Bob!
• 2013/05/09: HotWhopper: Dissecting A Conspiracy Theory on WUWT
• 2013/05/09: WottsUWT: Watt about the effectiveness of carbon dioxide?
• 2013/05/08: SciAm:TCW: Climate change “deniers” and “skeptics”: What’s the difference?
• 2013/05/09: Stoat: I’ve not found much of interest to write about tonight, and story submissions have been a dry hole lately [d]
• 2013/05/09: WottsUWT: Watt about Trenberth’s “missing heat”?
• 2013/05/10: WottsUWT: Watt about wind power?
• 2013/05/10: HotWhopper: Meteoric Research at Lake E and The DuKEs(tm**) Feeble Battle
• 2013/05/10: VV: Decline of the climate “sceptical” community, reactions and new evidence
• 2013/05/07: TP:JR: 99 One-Liners Rebutting Denier Talking Points – With Links To The Full Climate Science
• 2013/05/11: WottsUWT: Watt about the 400ppm?
• 2013/05/11: HotWhopper: Earth in the grip of a fever – CO2 at 400 ppm – deniers ecstatic
• 2013/05/06: SciAm:TCW: Climate change denial, laissez-faire economics and conspiracy theories: A productive pairing?
• 2013/05/12: WottsUWT: Happer and Schmitt
• 2013/05/12: HotWhopper: A better t-shirt for WUWT-ers
• 2013/05/12: OParachute: “Incontrovertible” is it, Rodney?
  

  Meanwhile in the ‘clean coal’ saga:

• 2013/05/08: AppalachiaRising: Residents Bring Dirty Water from Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Communities To Washington
  

  As for climate miscellanea:

• 2013/05/08: CassandrasLegacy: The frog that jumped out
• 2013/05/06: ERabett: If not now when? If not me, who?
• 2013/05/07: JEB: Another survey
• 2013/05/09: Stoat: University of Qld/Skeptical Science survey of climate research
• 2013/05/09: Grist: Even in the best-case scenario, climate change will kick our asses
• 2013/05/09: S&R: Climate Science for Everyone: how much heat can the air and ocean store?
• 2013/05/10: GreenGrok: Climate Chatter [quotes]
• 2013/05/10: TFTJO: Communicating climate change in ONE graph
• 2013/05/10: RTCC: Global Environment Facility launches new drive to ‘detox’ planet
  A leading development bank has launched a new drive to cut the levels of harmful chemicals released into the atmosphere. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) now has projects in Asia, Latin America and Africa to address what is an increasingly severe problem in developing countries.
• 2013/05/10: CBC: Clothesline comeback: Clean, green and free as the breeze
• 2013/05/09: CDreams: Thoreau’s Radicalism and the Fight Against the Fossil-Fuel Industry — What would it mean if we were to walk in his footsteps?
• 2013/05/10: CSM: Google Earth Engine unveils how Earth has altered
• 2013/05/07: Wunderground: Survey says: 97% of climate scientists agree that humans cause global warming
• 2013/05/06: HotWhopper: Why does the land warm faster? Don’t ask a science denier!
• 2013/05/11: TMoS: Monbiot – You Can’t Win on Climate Change Without First Vanquishing Plutocracy
  

  And here are a couple of sites you may find interesting and/or useful:

• Nature Conservancy Blogs
• The frog that jumped out
• Wiki: Cassava brown streak virus disease
• Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme
• The IUCN Red List of Ecosystems
• The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
• EcoJustice
• ILSR: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
• International Conference on Forests for Food Security and Nutrition
• USGCRP MATCH Geoportal
• GreenCarReports: Hybrid and Electric Car News and Reviews
• WORC: Western Organization of Resource Councils
• FAO: World Food Situation
• FAO: World Food Situation – FAO Cereal Supply and Demand Brief
• TCN: Texas Climate News
• 1250 Now
• Methane Hydrates (blog)
• Guardian(UK): Climate consensus blog – John Abraham & Dana Nuccitelli
• WRCC: Palmer Drought Severity Index – California
• Wiki: Neonicotinoid

Low Key Plug

My first novel Water was published in Canada May, 2007. The American release was in October. An Introductionto the novel is available, along with the Unpublished Forewordand the Launch Talk(which includes some quotations), An overview of my writing is available here.

A Simple Plea

Webmasters, web coders and content providers have mercy on your low bandwidth brethren. Because I am on dial-up, I am a text surfer — no images, no javascript and no flash. When you post a graphic, will you please use the alt text field … and when you embed a youtube/vimeo/flash video, please add some minimal description. Thank you.

<regards>

-het

P.S. Recent postings can be found in the week archive and the ancient postings can be accessed here, which should open to this.

I notice moyhu has set up a monster index to old AWoGWN on AFTIC.

“Whatever lies ahead, we know its main dimensions will emerge over the next two decades. The global economy is already so far above sustainable levels that there is very little time left for the fantasy of an infnite globe. We know that adjustment will be a huge task. It will entail a revolution as profound as the agricultural and industrial revolutions. We appreciate the difficulty of finding solutions to problems such as poverty and employment, for which growth has been, so far, the world’s only accepted hope. But we also know that reliance on growth involves a false hope, because such growth cannot be sustained. Blind pursuit of physical growth in a finite world ultimately makes most problems worse; better solutions to our real problems are possible.” -Meadows et al., Limits to Growth, page 12

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