The future of Canadian Science at stake?

          A plea for fundamental scientific research from Nobel prize winning Canadian chemist, John Polanyi.
 
http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/As+It+Happens/ID/2384023775/

           Polanyi is here reacting against another false perception propagated by the neconservative ideology of the present government. This view holds that research is not good if it does not directly aid the business community's bottom line. The problem here is with the world "directly". Fundamental research is often a roulette game. If you hit big you hit BIG! Think about lasers..

           Much fundamental research, though, does not pan out or does not produce knowledge of immediate benefit. But neocon ideologues want immediate results.They can't see beyond the next quarter's profit margin. They seem to suffer from a kind of mental myopia, a short sightedness of vision.. meanwhile human demography, our planet's ecology, the climate, the resource base we live from, all go to hell in a handbasket. 

           The Haper government, true to its ideological roots, has announced a further re-visioning of the goals of Research Canada: science will be the handmaiden of industry. The cart will drive the horse..

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/05/07/national_research_council_open_for_business_conservative_government_says.html

The hubris of economists

           A recent study by economists Reinhart and Rogoff concluded that large national debts inhibit economic growth (which in the neoconservative cosmology is the Moloch to which all goods of the earth must be sacrificed). Now, few papers submitted to peer review - as Reinhart and Rogoff's had been - are actually fully scrutinized under a magnifying lens: the researchers basic competence and honesty are assumed. In this case these assumptions appear to have been misplaced..

          University of Massachussetts (Amherst) doctoral student, Thomas Hendon, was assigned, as part of his course work, the task of "replicating" and critiquing a published paper written by professional economists. Hendon chose the Reinhart and Rogoff study. To his surprise he found numerous errors and - infinitely worse from the point of view of scientific objectivity - even "strategic" omissions: data that did not fit their theses were passed over in silence.

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/04/18/reinhart-rogoff-austerity-study/

           To read student Hendon's report and critique, click on the link, in blue, "read Thomas Hendon's 'A critique of Reinhart and Rogoff' here"

           We can only conclude that this is another case of the hubris of the neoconservative establishment, so assured of itself in its high places of power. Objectivity and caution are thrown to the winds. All that matters is the ideology: Moloch - economic growth - must be fed at all costs. The ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles spoke of this state of spirit when he wrote:

            "The gods blind those they would destroy"

             What is particularly galling here are not the (apparently rather elementary) spreadsheet computational errors. These are bad enough indicating unprofessional attitudes and work ethic (although not rising to moral derelection). Rather what galls is the omission or deletion of "non-conforming data", those which run contrary to one's ideological preconceptions. The odor of moral dereliction is now in the air: economists, after all, do have pretensions of practicing a "science" and science, the last time I checked, is suposed to be motivated by a comittment to discovering truth through the "open and public" analysis of replicable data. Suppressing non-conforming data violates the basic demand of science for intellectual honesty, objectivity and transparency. That is my reading anyway.

             Anna Maria Tremonti interviewed several guests - from both sides of the fence - recently on the CBC program, "The Current". The following link provides access to the podcast.

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2013/05/09/is-the-case-for-austerity-crumbling/

What future climate?

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Canada/Saskatchewan/Flood+2013/ID/2383924482/

             Climatologists speak of the earth passing through a series of "tipping points" or thresholds of rapid change into a new climatic regime. Past climate research indicates that these periods are times of intense climate instability. During the time the climate machine takes to "shift gears" into a new stable climate regime, regional microclimates will fluctuate wildly. There are signs this is happening today.

              Farmers are particularly exposed to the vagaries of climate change and weather. They need predictable weather patterns - that is, stable climate regimes - to planify seeding, irrigation, weeding, harvesting, drying, transport and marketing..

             Contemporary climate models suggest that the northern regions are more susceptible to climate change than lower lattitudes. This prediction now appears to be fufilled. Subarctic temperature rises exceed - often by far - those observed at midlattitues.

              Southern Saskatchewan province has been affected by odd weather for several years. Whether or not this is a lasting pattern or not, only time will tell. 

               Take this past winter for example. Climate change theorists like to point to increased winter "blocking" of jet stream patterns, caused (presumably) by global warming. The paradoxical result is a colder, stormier winter with more snow cover than usual. This, of course, is great fodder for deniers and "sceptics": "Gee! I thought they say the world is growing warmer and just look outside the window folks.." 

                Aside from the comic relief, such "increased winter blocking of the jet stream" could spell economic disaster for already strapped prairie farmers. The unusually heavy snow falls eventually encounter globally warmed late springs with incredibly rapid - and inhabitual - thaws and resulting flooding. Check out the short video below - impressive..

massive ice surge - Saskatchewan river 

                 Ice surges constitute a flooding risk (due to damming of watercourses) as well as direct risk of property damage if they surge ashore. In general, spring floods delay seeding which can be a problem in northern climates. Late seeding may reduce yields and increase the risk of frost damage at the end of the growing season. This is definitely a file to follow..

                 For a synopis of this spring's flooding in Saskatchewan:

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Canada/Saskatchewan/Flood+2013/

                 The damages incurred by Saskatchewan's agricultural sector - to the degree that they are, in fact, caused by climate change - would constitute "hidden costs" of non-sustainable (fossil fuel based) development. These costs are, in effect, "hidden subsidies" to pollutors who get to damage life for others without having to pay compensation, install pollution abatement equipment or switch to more expensive, non-fossil energy based, production processes. Their non-sustainable economic activity is payed for by the misery of others. In the end, of course, since the ecosystem is a closed circle, someone pays: what goes round, comes round. And given the interconnected nature of the ecosystem, this eventually means everyone, rich or poor.

As a man sows, so shall he reap - Jesus, the Buddha, the Upanishads, etc

Book Review: Ice Ages, solving the mystery

John Imbrie and Katherine Palmer Imbrie: Ice Ages, solving the mystery (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1979, 1997), 224 pages, index, bibliography, chronology, suggested reading.

Ice Ages traces the history of the discovery of past ice ages from the 18th and 19th century and the evolution of the "astronomical theory" of their causation.... The focus is on the Milankovitch hypothesis which relates ice ages to the amount of sunlight received in northern regions of the globe as different "parameters" of the earth's orbit - like the tilt of the earth's axis of rotation - vary systematically over time.
This is one of the very best books of scientific popularization I have ever read. Earth science research tends to ressemble the plot of an Agatha Christie novel, a point the authors themselves make. Unlike the physical scientist who conducts tightly controlled experiments in a lab setting, the earth scientist is a sleuth, stalking a smoking gun admidst the chaos, confusion and accident of the "real world". The Imbries are masters at exploiting this narrative quality of earth science research: one keeps turning pages to find out the next twist of the plot. Remarkably readable and conscise, I finished the book in three days of leisurely evening reading. The textual figures, abundant and well explained, are admirably integrated into the text as illustrative material.

Here is an example of a "grassroots" scientific hypothesis rising from the observations of nature of peasants and hunters living off the land. These men observed that movements of Swiss glaciers transported material and conjectured that in the past glaciers were larger and had transported material over distances where today no glaciers exist. Academic scientists, on the other hand, tended to defend the Biblical story of the Deluge which they held responsable for the ancient transport of debris, even into the high reaches of mountain ranges. It was only after a few big intellectual guns like Swiss-American naturalist Louis Agassiz were won to the side of glacial expansion that the scientific establishment began to take the idea seriously.
The Imbries present an admirable synopsis of proposed causes for ice ages and the challenges these present to the researcher:

1- Variations in solar output. These are found to be too weak, accounting for a 1-2 C variations in temperature globally. Such variations do, in fact, correlate with the movement of glaciers over the past 1,000 years but are insufficient to explain full blown ice ages.

2- Passages of our solar system through clouds of "space dust". The hypothesis is internally inconsistent as it now stands. Some theorists argue that such a dust cloud would cool the earth by screening sunlight, others that the dust will stoke the fires of the sun and make it burn brighter!

3- Variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) content. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, capable of warming the earth by trapping heat in the lower regions of the atmosphere. The difficulty is finding a mechanism that could reasonably account for the observed glaciation / deglaciation cycle. Observations of past CO2 levels even suggests that CO2 variation is a response to - not a cause of - ice age temperature variations.

4- Volcanic activity. Dust and sulfate droplet clouds reflect solar energy but evidence of sufficient volcanic activity is not found in the sedimentary record to confim the hypothesis. The problem is, in part, technical: lack of sufficiently accurate, standardized measurement procedures.

5- Rise in land elevation leading to cooling. There is no credible mechanism that could account for such elevations.

6- Antarctic ice sheet instability. Two variations of the hypothesis exist. Either the ice sheet periodically breaks down filling the sea with reflective ice, triggering an ice age, or periodic increases in moist air flow over the pole cause the sheet to grow, triggering an ice age. There is no evidence for either variant of the hypothesis and for the second, no plausible mechanism is known.

7- Stochastic hypothesis, based on sophisticated mathematical models proposed by Self-Organization Theory. Small random variations in the functioning of the climate-machine occur more often than large ones do. Thus annual variations in temperature are greater between decades than for the years within a decade. If one looks long enough - hundreds of thousands of years - we will find natural random variations accumulating into ice ages. Since no particular event actually causes ice ages, it is a hard hypothesis to test! Science requires testable hypotheses based on measurable properties which obey causal laws. Until theorists tell us how to get around these restrictions, we must remain unconvinced..

8- The astronomical hypothesis based on variations in the orbital alignments of the earth in relation to the sun. Since the 19th century various mechanisms have been proposed to explain the onset and termination of ice ages. At present, a version of this hypothesis, proposed by Milutin Milankovitch in the first half of the 2oth century, is the accepted explanation.

Milankovich, a mathematician by training, proposed that the critical trigger for glacial expansion is the amount of solar energy (insolation) received by the northern hemisphere in summer. Insolation varies because of periodic variation in the "parameters" of the earth's orbit: 1- eccentricity ("ovalness" of orbit), 2- tilt angle of the axis of rotation and 3- precession (direction of the earth's axis of rotation measured at Spring Equinox).

The twentieth century proved crucial to the verification of the essential correctness of Milankovitch's theory. Technological and scientific advances led to the discovery of several natural chronologies or calendars which permited accurate dating of glacial advances and retreats. Among these were the discovery of reversals of the earth's magnetic field which are recorded in the orientation of magnetic mineral grains in lava flows. The sequence of reversals allows dating of the original lava flow. Radio-isotopic measures permited dating of past events: since radio-isotopes decay at a know rate, they provide a clock measuring elapsed time. An example is radio-carbon chronology. Carbon 14 is formed in the atmosphere as a result of cosmic rays. Carbon is absorbed by living organisms (in photosynthesis) but when the organism dies it stops ingesting carbon and the radiocarbon decays into inert elements. The amount of C-14 left in the remains of the organism gives a measure of the time elapsed since its death. Other, non-radioactive, isotopic measures of oxygen indicate the amount of ice trapped in glacial sheets. These various measures now provide the earth scientist with an amazingly detailed picture of the evolution of past climate and have permitted the verefication of the (modified) Milankovitch hypothesis.

We now know, for example, that at this time of the earth's natural history, our planet is subject to periodic ice age / deglaciation cycles. These last about 100,000 years, corresponding to the major "driver" of the cycle, the eccentricity of earth's orbit around the sun: the orbit goes from circular to slightly oval and back again in about 100,000 years. Ice age cycles are characterized by slow cooling followed by a rapid warming (deglaciation or interglacial epoch). The latter phase is transient, lasting on average 10 to 12 thousand years. A spectral analysis of the frequency of ice age / deglaciation cycles preserved in oceanic sedimentary cores has permited the isolation of four major periodicities, each corresponding to dominant periods of earth's orbital mechanics. The 100,000 eccentricity cycle is the most powerful driver, followed by a strong "signal" of 43,000 years from the obliquity (axis tilt) parameter. And lastly, two signals of 24,000 and 19,000 from the two components of the precessional period (determined by the direction of the earth's axis on the Vernal Equinox). Milankovitch's work has survived the test of time and is today the dominant model of natural climate change for recent geological history (last few million years).

But what about the future? Today there is much talk and (pseudo-)debate about human induced climate change due to the combustion of fossil fuels and the cutting of forests. Orbital mechanics teaches that the earth is now in a cooling phase, heading into the next ice age. Since cooling, unlike interglacial warming, is a slow gradual process, it does not make much sense to ask when, exactly, the next ice age is expected to begin. For this we would need a universal, standard set of criterions which have not, at present, been formulated. The depth of the next scheduled ice age, though, should be in about 23,000 years. The Milankovitch theory is confirmed by the fact that the warmest period of our current interglacial occurred several thousand years ago. After which, the earth began to cool off - despite minor cyclic rises probably due to variations in solar output. When we reach the 20th century though, things begin to fall apart and the theory no longer works. CO2 emissions have risen dramatically since the industrial revolution and these, claim the Imbries, are creating a "super-interglacial" warming which overides the naturally occurring cooling of the planet.

The first edition of the Ice Ages was published in 1979. The Imbries predicted that human-induced warming would become noticeable around the year 2000. Even more interestingly, fig 47 (page 185) shows a version of the (in-)famous "Mann hockey stick" rise in temperture purportedly caused by human produced CO2 emissions - yet Ice Ages was published decades before the hockey stick controversy erupted!

It's hard to fault this book so I give it a 10 on 10 rating. Since perfection is not possible on earth, I feel I must hasten to pick out some fault, however triffling. The only thing I could find was a certain wordiness in the last pages. John Imbries, one of the authors, is also a climatological researcher and a participant in the later phases of the verification of the Milankovitch hypothesis. In an attempt not to grandstand his colleagues when discussing his own part, he gives exhausting - and boring! - lists of researchers, educational institutions, funding agencies, etc. But even there, it seems he was acting from a laudable motive of intellectual fairness and honesty. A really good book for anyone wanting to initiate themselves into the mysteries of climate change from a scientific perspective.

You gets what you pays for..

                Lest we all forget, the Harper Conservative governement was elected on a platform of fiscal responsibility in the wake of the Chrétien Liberals' financing scandals: federal monies were diverted to support the anti-separatist "Non" campaign in Québec, some of that money got further diverted into Liberal election funds and gifts to Liberal supporters. 

              It is therefore a bit surprising - ? shocking ? - to note that the Conservatives have - temporarily at least - lost track of $3.1 Billion earmarked for the "war on terrorism". 

Dang! Now where did those three billion smackeroos go..

                 The synopsis boxes on the right hand side of the above article are interesting reading, too:

"The national search-and-rescue system run by the Canadian Forces and the Canadian Coast Guard is troubled by aging equipment and shortages of pilots and flight engineers. They are doing an adequate job now, but will face sustainability problems in the future."

              Part of the neoconservative ideology inspiring the Harper Conservatives is, of course, the "need" to constantly cut "government" and turn over everything to the private sector. The argument - ideologically, not factually, based - is that "government is inefficient". This argument, like all truisms, obviously has some validity but is overgeneralized to the point of absurdity by neoconservative ideologues to include even those functions and services which generate too low a profit margin when performed by the private sector. This is duh.. why they were put in the public sector in the first place! 

               Such services inevitably degrade in the hands of the private sector or, worse, end up excluding the very people who are most vulnerable and in need (poorer communities or segments of the population). The various attempts around the world to privitize potable water delivery are glaring examples of the failure of privitization to provide adequate essential public services. 

                Here, Canadian search and rescue services, is, perhaps, another example. Either society decides - hopefully democratically - that it wants adequate search and rescue services and then delivers the funding. Or isolated communities and governments are left to do as best they can. One can agree or disagree with either position but they are, at least, honest statements of alternative political positions. Anything "in between" is simply neocon hypocrisy and word-twisting. One the one hand, we praise "our boys and girls" in the military while providing them with inadequate - and therefore risky - equipment and manpower. This is not just hypocritical, it is immoral and criminal. Ideologues refuse to realize there are simply somethings governments do better. This lesson, learned during the 19th century, is now being unlearned by our contemporary "laissez-faire" ideologues. How long before the people wake up to the fact they are being short changed?

                The faulty logic in ideological overgeneralization of the "government is inefficient" argument is appalingly evident: yes, you may indeed save some money at the front end by privitizing a public function but the OVERALL costs to society as a whole, may actually rise exponentially. Programs to give welfare recipients SERIOUS occupational training cost the taxpayer money. But the ex-welfare recipicient who enters the workforce with qualifications is unlikely to fall back on the dole again. During their working life, they are likely to contribute several times, in taxes, the costs of the program that got them off welfare. They are also less likely to be a burden to the community in terms of health problems, substance or alcohol abuse, imprisionment or institutionalization for mental health problems. When one does full cost accounting, one often finds that a public service rendered by a public agent actually ends up costing society less than a privitized one. But such a position is not politically correct today..

Climate of the future?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2013/04/23/toronto-muskoka-flooding.html

Climate of the future? Here we see some of the (probable) future costs of climate change.

The hydrological cycle - evaporation / precipitation of water - speeds up due to a warmer atmosphere: more heat --> more evaporation and more water vapor in the air --> extreme precipitation events and flooding.

However, the situation in Ontario this year is a bit particular: a "perfect storm" says Dave Phillips of Environment Canada. Global Warming alters jet stream patterns which, in turn, can freeze artic air circulation patterns resulting in COLDER winter weather. If more snow falls, as it did this year, the conditions are set for flooding when those globally warmed spring days finally hit..

The flooding in parts of Ontario is "historic". Worst 1n 137 years, since the beginning of weather records..

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/04/22/surging_water_breaches_dams_floods_roads_in_bracebridge_and_huntsville.html

Book Review: Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney

Book Review: Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney (W W Norton + Co, NY, 2000), 213 pages, introduction + varia. Rating 10 / 10

          I confess to a long standing fascination with the Old English epic of Beowulf, a Dark Ages warrior-hero who slays monsters and becomes warlord of the nordic Geats. As good king, Beowulf establishes a reign of (relative) peace and justice, finally, in old age, succumbing in mortal battle with a devastating dragon. Beowulf is certainly the origin of Britain's patron saint, George, the dragon slayer and the ancestor of modern avatars like Swarzenegger's "Conan, the barbarian".

         I've read the old poem, in translation, several times, in whole or part, but Heaney's is by far the most vivacious and lyrical. He breathes new life into the old bones to the point one forgets the poem is written in what by now a foreign language and not English.

         In Heaney's translation, the bard occasionally pauses, lifts his fingers from the harp, fixes us directly in the eyes and adds a few personal observations: the meaness of life, the value of honor - expressed as courage before the inevitability of death, or life's pathos as when an old man witnesses the execution of his son or the Geatish woman at Beowulf's funeral, madly prophesying the coming carnage as neighboring warlords reconfigure the regional power balance in the vacuum left by the great lord's passing.

         This is a powerful text rendered in traditional Anglo-Saxon "scop": two stressed syllables per half-line, cesura, alliteration across the cesura. Vestiges of the old language's phonetics must remain alive in modern English because the poem reads more naturally, more easily than "traditional" English rhyme patterns borrowed from the Latin languages. In my own experiments in poetry writing, I instinctively adopted this pattern - loosely - before I ever head of "scop". Heaney himself admits, "Part of me.. had been writing Anglo-Saxon from the start". Readers of Gerard Manly Hopkins will recognize the rhyme scheme.

           At the beginning of the poem, Grendel, a monster who lives at the bottom of a lake or pond engages in nocturnal attacks on the mead-hall of the Danish warlord, Hrothgar, devouring his knights. Beowulf arrives and slays Grendel in hand to hand combat and then slays Grendel's mother who avenges her son's killing in more nocturnal raids. As Heaney notes, there is something viscerally "archetypal" about the poem. it speaks a truth we grasp - or intuit - through the language - or iconography - of myth, an X-rated fairy tale for adults one is tempted to say. Perhaps in the monsters and the fatal dragon of the end of the poem we encounter an avatar or projection of the society Beowulf lived in. The monsters mimic men: Grendel's mother is constrained to avenge her son's death as men are condemned to slaughter in interminable blood feuds.

"the poet had performed, a pleasant murmur
started on the benches, stewards did the rounds
with wine in splendid jugs, and Wealtheow came to sit
in her gold crown between two good men,
uncle and nephew, each of whom
still trusted each other; and the forthright Unferth,
admired by all for his mind and courage
although under a cloud for killing his brothers
reclined near the king" (lines 1159 - 1167)

        Indeed! "Uncle and nephew..STILL trusted each other". "..under a cloud for killing his brothers". This is the society of the blood feud, the vendetta, of honor killing.

        Beowulf, though a mighty warrior in combat, is held in esteem for his virtue, rising above or transcending the temptations such a society offers for violence and vindictiveness:

".. so ought a kinsman act,
instead of plotting and planning in secret
to bring people to grief, or conspiring to arrange
the death of comrades.." (lines 2166 - 2169)

         The Heroic Code is well summed by lines 1383 - 1389:

"Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, spoke:
'Wise sir, do not grieve. It is always better
to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.
For every one of us, living in this world
means waiting for our end. Let whoever can
win glory before death. When a warrior is gone,
that will be his best and only bulwark.'"

        The reading of Beowulf with its glorification of violence - even if in the name of justice, stimulates reflection on the meaning, or relevance, of the Heroic Code in technically advanced societies like ours. A fictional example of such a reflection is the SF novel, Beowulf's Children by Niven, Pournelle and Barnes who question or examine the role of the Hero-Warrior in advanced societies. Their adaptation is set in the 24th century on the planet Avalon, newly colonized by humans.

        One may indeed ask if we need a new Heroic Code for the 21st century. This would be a personal heroism, not for personal glory and the "immortality" it confers but for the common good, the good of all humanity and unborn generations, even - given the state of our planetary ecology - in the service of Life itself.

        Myths often possess an internal psychological / philosophical consistency or unity. Beowulf dies childless. Why? A recognition that as an Ideal for a society founded on war, vengeance and the jockying for power of alpha males, Beowulf is simply too good to be true? Dying after the final battle with the dragon - released by human greed for the all prized gold - Beowulf laments,

"Now is the time when I would have wanted
to bestow this armour on my own son,
had it been my fortune to have fathered an heir
and live on in his flesh.." (2729 - 2732)