tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87666654771465772442024-03-05T02:39:05.095-08:00Birds, Books, Brahms, Babies, Bosons and the Pursuit of True WildernessThe articulations of one physicist's obsessions.trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-29655029676897382432011-05-14T17:34:00.000-07:002011-05-14T17:34:20.332-07:00Montebello 2011 | Mini Herp TransectThis year I decided to take my 4th annual Montebello solo 24-hour shindig in the late spring just for some variety. It's a better season for wildlife but much more challenging for the <a href="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/Nature/Montebello-Light-Project/13845182_RYKgk">Montebello Light Project</a>. Everything is way too green this time of year, especially after getting a tremendous winter rainfall this year.<br />
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I spent more time than previous years but almost none of it photographing--I was waiting for some inspiration but got none. Instead, I embarked on a mini informal herp transect along Steven's Creek and tributaries. Here's my route [UPCOMING]:<br />
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And here's my haul:<br />
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407 California newts<br />
4 unidentified larval salamanders [1 apparently arboreal, 3 unknown--very dark but too small to be giants]<br />
3 unidentified large fish <br />
1 San Francisco garter snake<br />
0 Red-legged frogs<br />
0 Robot ninja zombie badgers<br />
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I estimate that I undercounted the newts by between 10-50%, giving a total newt population along the transect of ~450-600. I estimate that the 3 fish decreased the newt population by about 50 based on the dramatic decrease in newts in the fishy sections. I probably missed several dozen of the larval salamanders because they are much more prone to hiding and I tried to disturb the habitat as little as possible [no rock-flipping, etc]. Montebello probably holds several thousand newts altogether.<br />
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At night [alone, as usual], a couple great-horned owls frolicked above me in the trees until I disturbed them with raucuos nose-blowing. A wild turkey greeted me in the morning and I watched a wrentit gather nesting materials.<br />
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Now for the pictures:<br />
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Lupine at sunset.<br />
<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/i-FczKz8h/0/M/i-FczKz8h-M.jpg" /><br />
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<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/i-XkkcFSQ/0/M/i-XkkcFSQ-M.jpg" /><br />
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My unfortunate attempt at a 2011 entry into my ongoing Montebello Light Project. It's a lupine as pacman, eating the sun. <br />
<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/i-4ksVFZt/0/M/i-4ksVFZt-M.jpg" /><br />
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You can bet when this white-tailed kite decided to start kiting near the setting sun that I really missed my 500mm f4 [this was taken with a 180mm]:<br />
<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/i-hJhxrTJ/0/M/i-hJhxrTJ-M.jpg" /> <br />
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I found a small deer skull and thought it would be fun to combine it with some cool water effects. I aimed the skull so that water entering the breathing tubes at the back of the skull emptied out the nose. In the full-size version, the little squigglies made by reflections of the sunlight on the surface of the water make for a very cool abstract pattern.<br />
<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/i-fsbgCW7/0/M/i-fsbgCW7-M.jpg" /><br />
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California newt. If you see the full-size version, there's a funny little parabola of water spray coming from the salamander. I've spent many hours over the last couple years trying to get good newt pictures and these two are the first I've felt good about.<br />
<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/i-C6VVp5D/0/M/i-C6VVp5D-M.jpg" /><br />
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<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/i-gwKJWWM/0/L/i-gwKJWWM-L.jpg" /><br />
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As always, thanks to my wiff for letting me go!trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-76027769785219138952010-09-19T22:33:00.000-07:002010-09-19T22:33:02.356-07:00Montebello 2010Friday was my third annual backpacking trip to Montebello. It's a perfect little spot for a quick, short photography expedition and night under the stars: the wildlife and habitat is diverse and the sunsets from Black Mountain are excellent. Here are some of my pictures from this trip; not quite the haul I got the last two years but worth it anyway.<br />
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Steven's Creek had a lot of newts, including both local species. Especially exciting was a very large red-legged frog, my first ever and a goal for this year. <br />
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<div align="center"><img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/1014759530_sKWNu-L.jpg" /></div><div align="center"><br />
</div><img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/1014758559_Qu8U3-M.jpg" /><br />
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I took a self-portrait reflected from the frog's eye. Well, the camera and tripod are at least plainly visible.<br />
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<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/1014759656_rcWTW-M.jpg" /><br />
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When I got up to Black Mountain the sun was low and fog was moving in, which made for some nice generic atmospherics. There's something about the soft backlight, the harsh dark karst, glowing golden grass and fog that combine to make a nice mood. It was lovely up there.<br />
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<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/1014758391_iHixP-M.jpg" /><br />
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<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/1014758811_iXaq6-L.jpg" /><br />
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<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/1014759002_LcE5j-L.jpg" /><br />
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I found a jay feather and played around with shooting it with the sun behind it. Of several hundred pictures this is probably my favorite. It took pretty much everything I know about my camera and its optics to make this work.<br />
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<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/1014759870_krzHN-L.jpg" /><br />
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The Pacific Ocean is somwhere beneath that sea of clouds out there.<br />
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<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/1014759178_sScDX-M.jpg" /><br />
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The fog crept in up valleys and ravines. <br />
<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/1014759159_iBD3J-M.jpg" /><br />
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I don't like the combination of colors in this picture but I just love the perspective of sitting above the clouds and capturing their advance up and over ridges.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/1014758476_nupnH-M.jpg" /></div><br />
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I took this last picture long after sunset, trying to get the light low enough that I could take a long exposure to soften the clouds and get some nice color. The fog was pouring between the trees at the top of the ridge as the it rolled in from the ocean.<br />
<img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/1014759287_w3vP6-M.jpg" /><br />
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Once again lots of thanks to Manda, who was stupendously generous to let me take this time away.trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-19841405644735190022010-06-29T16:24:00.000-07:002010-06-29T16:24:24.657-07:00Infinite JestI just "finished" Infinite Jest on the plane back from San Diego last night. Then I started from the beginning again because it seems like that's the only way to make sense of it. Infinite indeed.<br />
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Some thoughts, appropriately disjointed, for myself and others who have already read it:<br />
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1. I haven't seen any IJ analysis that touches on the mathematics in the book, but I see some major clues to what happened in the year between the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment and the Year of Glad. I started cataloging science- and math-related errors in the book in order to determine if DFW was making the errors or the characters. I ended up finding about 25 significant errors; most of them were of a nature that they had to be intentional. If I knew pharmacology and chemistry like I know physics, optics and math maybe the list would be much longer.<br />
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Quite a lot of the errors are math "mistakes" that Pemulis communicates to Hal. In one or two cases, The Peemster nails the math when he isn't communicating with Hal, but he's always wildly off when he's tutoring Hal. And ALL of Hal's math--which he presumably got from Pemulis at some point--is terrible. Hal tells Mario that his most-feared monster is somebody who can lie without him (Hal) realizing it--and he mentions that Pemulis had just lied successfully in a way he'd never seen and he didn't know that the Peem could lie like that--and on pg. 852 Hal says that Pemulis has been "almost suspiciously generous" about tutoring Hal. The "point" of all this seems to be that Pemulis is in reality not Hal's best friend, but an incredibly subtle arch-enemy. I think the math points to the hypothesis that Pemulis deliberately sabatoges Hal through introduction of the DMZ. In a tale about Hal's alienation, it is a major key that his only real friend is actually one of literature's most cunning antagonists.<br />
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Some of the mistakes seem to be DFW error and some others are non-plot-related pseudo-narrator error akin to the pseudo-narrator grammar errors. Some appear to be deliberate physical surrealism. If I have a few hours I may list the errors here because nobody else seems to have done it, though my list will surely be incomplete.<br />
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2. The book is certainly meant to be read cyclically--there is no way to make sense of the book without starting at the beginning directly after reading the last page. This mirrors a general theme throughout the book.<br />
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3. The narration is individual-based but not first-person except for the very end and very beginning of the book, which are contiguous chronologically [also a brief chapter by Himself that is completely out of the chronology]. Hal's personal narration indicated to me upon first read that the events of the book all eventually cross with Hal--and that idea was borne out in the first chapter when it is revealed that Hal, John NR Wayne [representing the wheelchair assassins/Quebecois connection] and Don Gately [representing the Ennet Housers] dig up Himself's head together. The story is about Hal--even the parts that aren't explicitly so.<br />
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4. IJ is clearly a work of mad genius. Don Gately may be the most beautifully rendered sack in all of literature.<br />
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I think I'd need 2-3 rereadings before I can really put things together. But let me leave you with part of pg. 482, which sums up how I feel while reading IJ:<br />
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"He has that rare spinal appreciation for beauty in the ordinary that nature seems to bestow on those who have no native words for what they see."trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-8660114206894905692010-04-07T18:58:00.000-07:002010-04-07T18:58:52.042-07:00HomeThe taproot of my psyche is embedded to the mantle at <i>fifty-ten-west-Sweetwater-Drive-Tucson-Arizona-eight-five-seven-four-five</i>. My sense is dominated by place--not community, belonging, security, but by the geography of my formation.<br />
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My senses are overwhelmed by this sense.<br />
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Sounds: a 7am Gila woodpecker banging on the ducts, "The Barn," "Kingstaff," "The Museum," violent monsoons, amorous Harris' hawks, The Wash after a microburst, the strange acoustic properties of brutal heat, "Arroyo Lane," The Katiebonniepeter Saguaros exploding and plastering our outside walls with green spiky goo, coyote packs yapping in the yard, C-130, A-10, F-16, cicadas, "one-four-oh-oh-oh-off," the ringing of the old cowbell heralding dinnertime, "good morning to you, good morning to you, it's time to get up now, it's time to go poo," an impossible cacophony of mysterious noises throughout the night, Past Masters II through headphones over the roar of the Electrolux Pig every Saturday morning in The L, Tyrone interfacing with the ancient Soviet-personnel-carrier-ish microwave, KUAT 90.5 FM in the morning in The Addition, "I'm just going to show Bonnie that she didn't throw this rag away," and--most of all--the seasonal serenades of white-winged and mourning doves and Gambel's quail: <em>kuh kuh kuh kuuuuu-uh u-uh kuuuu-uh u-uh kuuuu-uh uh</em>... <em>kuh kuh-kuh kuuuuuuuuuh</em>; <em>oooooaaah poo poo poo</em>; <em>huh hwaaa ha huh hwaaa ha huh hwaaa ha</em>, respectively.<br />
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Tastes: bitter pulp of unripe pomegranates, grotesquely sweet ocotillo blossoms after summer rains, chlorinated overripe apricots, the local oral anesthesia of raw jojoba, prickly-pear jelly, Fry's bagels--by the crate--with copious butter and cream cheese and dipped in orange juice, feral New Zealand spinach, a half vanilla/half flour swirl cake, homemade bagels with dry milk for flour, Dongy's fried eggs with La Victoria chile verde salsa on Roman Meal, eggplant and swiss chard.<br />
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Smells: monsooned creosote, burnt dust signaling the end of the heater's annual 11-month siesta, a necklace of dessicating chiles, "flower"ing palos verdes, heat so oppressive it reeks, goat manure, the complex and powerful smell of paraffin and stale placemats pouring from the buffet, freshly-broken ground, the well-ripened trailer interior after 10 months of disuse, The Barn with goats, The Barn with chickens, The Barn with packrats, Pixie, anything cooking on the cast iron, a daddy javelina, the desert's anxious chemical anticipation of an approaching storm cell, Cabby's wet-mixed-with-dry dogfood in the aluminum bread pan.<br />
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Sights: literally hair-raising lightning, a bobcat under my window on a lazy Saturday morning, acres of frosty cacti glowing backlit in sunrise-light, the omnipresent raptor, gopher snake with the <i>blip-blip-blip</i> of digesting packrats, javelinas in the carport; Gila monster under the car, Granddaddy's shells lined up under <i>Smithsonian</i> cutouts of leopards and orcas, the bushy overwatered elephant acacia near The Tramp, surreptitious TGIF with Katie every datenight, rattlesnake on floor at the foot of the bed during construction, diaper art, Bonnie curled up in a midden with a decovered and well-bathed <i>Gone With the Wind</i>, Van building a wall from desert rocks, a single vulture feather helicoptering down, Dongy stepping on--and breaking--the greatest dragon of all, a dozen tan cottonballs leaking horizontally behind quail parents, ubiquitous funnels of black widow spider nests, "Monsoons to Wash in Toxic Toad," Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp framed by saguaros, Dongy jigsawing a brontosaurus in the porch outside the master bedroom, two admired brothers jumping in the living room until their heads brushed the ceiling popcorn, ubermanly Brother Hously cutting his pinkie with a circle saw while building The Addition, a new land discovered in <i>Civilization</i>, iridescent cicadas, burnt circles on the underside of bookcase shelves, old sliding church belt buckle found by the rabbit cages, maggoted dove carcasses on The Porch, the daily drowned kangaroo mouse in the pool, old bullet hole in a prickly-pear paddle every day on the trail back from the bus stop, the potato plug--from a potato gun war with Bonnie--stuck to a thin branch over the pool wall for years and years.<br />
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Touch"es": a scorpion's zing, daily cholla spines in feet, smushy wash sand, binary solar radiation, bristly tarantulas, barefoot basketball on scorching gravel, thousands of prickly-pear microspines embedded in flesh, a tarantula hawk-shaped forehead welt, floating at night in a dark warm pool while bats swoop in for sips, the soft wood-on-wood friction of Dongy's goat-head-holder, the tactile <i>dwink </i>of the racquetball dwinked off an aluminum softball bat from the diving board out deep into the desert, getting blocked over and over and over again by Chris at The Hoop, the glossy rubberiness of the fiberglass-reinforced tape wrapped around the fracture in the Louisville Slugger, the impenetrability of caliche when attacked with a digging bar, the sandy and satisfying yield of poking holes in a sweet potato before baking it, Tyrone on my chest on Saturday morning to remind me of seminary, heavily-counterbalanced fancy silverware, insubstantial squirmy Colorado river toad tadpoles, pounding nail after nail into the unfinished doorjamb between the master bedroom and the porch, helpless but efficient swimming down the flashflooded Wash, scraping candle wax off the diningroom table with a butter knife, the heft of the squat square-tipped goat manure shovel, unique textures in a shovelful of packrat nest, peeing in the breeze, the crunchy lace of Mongy's nori and the satisfying monaxial rollability of the sushi roller, tapping each support beam in The L--only after working up from the metal bracket on the side of the fridge and the two inter-hall arches, wedging above the floor in doorways with hands and toes, the velvet-on-wood report from closing a drawer on The Buffet. <br />
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A cataract of memories pours from every remembered sensation. My roots grow to absorb every memory. I will never be uprooted from <i>fifty-ten-west-Sweetwater-Drive-Tucson-Arizona-eight-five-seven-four-five </i>but I can never go back. Even if I could go back, it would just be 5010 W. Sweetwater Dr., Tucson, AZ 85745, without the infinite magic.trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-30399222311570822882009-10-10T20:04:00.000-07:002009-10-10T20:22:03.905-07:00Montebello 2009My superlative wife let me go on my second annual Monte Bello 24-hour solo backpacking trip this weekend. October is just about the worst month for wildlife here, but that was only part of my reason for going. Here are a few pictures culled from the 300 or so I took yesterday.<div><br /></div>One of my main goals was to find snakes. Most of my hiking plans revolved around poking around the karst outcroppings up near Black Mountain to find snakes. I found none there. I did however see a Pacific gopher snake directly on the trail right at the parking lot before I had even taken a single step:<br /><div><br /><img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/676544297_xtgCE-L.jpg" /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>In the undergrowth around Stevens creek I found a western skink [no newts because of the season]:</div><br /><img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/676542322_spsvE-L.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/676544114_Ts2PU-L.jpg" /><br /><br /><div>1000 feet higher, at Black Mountain, I spent a lot of time taking pictures of flowers and searching for snakes. I didn't find a snake but I did find a completely intact 5-foot gopher snake skin. The scales seemed like little lenses to me, so I shot the setting sun through the skin:</div><div><br /><img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/676544487_xgrwQ-L.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/676542086_jvS2g-L.jpg" /><br /><br /></div><div>This is my favorite of the bunch. The shadows from the wide ventral [belly] scales are visible as well as the in-focus dorsal scales:</div><div><br /><img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/676541792_W9753-L.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/676541904_qAqhT-L.jpg" /><br /><br /><img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/676541972_qsPxN-L.jpg" /><br /><br /></div><div>For 45 minutes or so I sat alone on Black Mountain and watched the sun set, while a doe stood still on a hill several hundred feet away and... watched the sunset too, is all I can figger. </div><div><br /><img src="http://pandalewis.smugmug.com/photos/676547709_vFY3D-L.jpg" /><br /><br /></div><div>I spent a foolish portion of last night rigging up creative ways to catch opossums in my lens, to no avail. They were everywhere and impossible to nail down. </div><div><br />It was great! I hope next year I can go in a better season...</div>trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-81391871161175536162009-03-16T23:54:00.000-07:002009-03-16T23:56:59.850-07:00Shorter versionEach person is a dot in a box. People that are really, fundamentally similar are close together and people that are different are far away. Similarities are measured in dozens of different ways. What pattern do the dots make?<br /><br /><br />[this is a 3-dimensional projection of the n-cube, if you care]trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-40521004148260470462009-03-16T23:01:00.000-07:002009-03-16T23:49:46.722-07:00The Ultimate Social Science ExperimentI couldn't sleep last night. All I was thinking about was:<br /><br />The ultimate social science experiment [short of raising people from birth in 100% controlled environments]. Here's how it would go:<br /><br />1. Find a set of N social variables that are, to the best degree possible, completely orthogonal, and span the set of all social properties [!]. <br /><br />2. Design a test--like a very carefully conducted interview--to measure position along the variable axes for a very large number of randomly selected people. Each person would need to answer, say, 10 weighted questions to resolve their position along a single axis.<br /><br />3. Instruct a computer to create an N-dimensional cube [hypercube, n-cube, whatever] containing all the data. Each person would be represented by a single point within the volume of the cube.<br /><br />4. Calculate the effective entropy of the configuration, and other interesting things<br /><br />Question: what would it "look" like?<br /><br />To simplify things, imagine a 3-dimensional cube [the normal kind]. Along one edge might be the variable "pacifism," measured between -1 [hawk] and +1 [dove]. Another edge would measure, say, "deference to authority" and another possibly "analyticity." If you scored (1,1,-1) then your position would be at one of the bottom corners of the cube, and indication that you are extreme in views. If lots of people end up there--if there is a clustering somewhere--then we can conclude that the variables either have [a] correlation in substance or [b] correlation in occurance. Since the axes are chose to avoid--as much as is possible--correlations in substance, grouping means correlation in occurance. Meaning, there's a "type" of person begging to be labelled there, typified by location near a particular corner of the box. Occurance correlations could be very profound, though there's no way of identifying cause [ie. nature or nurture] without plotting gene occurances along yet more axes [and that's still partially ambiguous]!<br /><br />Expanded to N-dimensions, we can do all kids of neat statistical tricks to tease out interesting information. How about a polarization test on all axes combined? As in, are people generally one way or the other, or do they generally fall along a flat continuum? Correlation tests, looking for structure: filaments in N-space would indicate that some variables have give-and-take relationships with others. Projection on axis pairs will unobfuscate correlations that might be hidden by completely uncorrelated variables. Entropy is a good measure of how "organized" the resulting distribution is: do people really fall into categories?<br /><br />The great thing about cubes is that every axis connects to each vertex. A 3-dimensional cube has 12 edges and 8 vertices, but each vertex touches one edge in the x direction, one in the y direction, and one in the z direction. So all the correlation information in the whole system is contained in an n-cube.<br /><br />The overall key to this exercise is asking the right questions. Take the "pacifism" axis, for example. Questions like "suppose a terrorist struck a major US city, would you support retailiation" tap into conscious political biases. Stripping away contextual biases in the questions, to get at how people really ARE would be incredibly difficult but essential.<br /><br />So I ask again: what do you see? Do you see a cloud of dots in the middle, with outliers near the edges? A hole in the middle? A gas [uniform density]? Structure? What about dynamics: do dots clump over time, disperse, oscillate, rotate, collapse, expand?trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-73469155264556782582008-12-22T22:55:00.000-08:002008-12-23T00:11:24.889-08:00CreativityChapter 18 in my ongoing quest to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">meanderingly</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">pedanticize</span> the world.<br /><br />I've been brooding over the nature of creativity since I noticed a disconnect between two different broad usages of the word. If I say Bob is creative, I can mean that he:<br /><br />1. creates things.<br /><br />or<br /><br />2. is imaginative.<br /><br />The first, I imagine, is closer to the roots of the word, but the second is much more common. If I tell you that I know a guy named Bob and that he's very creative, you would probably imagine somebody with unique style, an artist's flair for the new and different, and a certain unrealistic and colorful view on life. At least that's the image I get.<br /><br />The interesting thing is that being creative in this way doesn't say anything about one's actual creation of anything. Engineers--not <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">everyone's</span> creative archetype--create things all the time, but colorful creative personalities might actually create nothing. I'm not arguing that this is in any way wrong--language can make whatever it wants out of the words we use--but the distinction is interesting because it shows how much we culturally evaluate creativity as an attitude or personality and not as a process of creation.<br /><br />I came upon this disconnect while trying to label myself [a fantastic waste of time]. I have always felt a profound motivation to make things--music, photographs, drawings, snowflakes, model rockets, electronics, dams, forts, holes, gardens, websites, food, books, songs, code, solutions, essays, babies. But calling that "creativity" implies a lot of things which--regardless of whether they are true or not--have nothing to do with this creative impulse. So, I want a way to think of these two ideas--creation and imagination--independently.<br /><br />I imagine there is a continuum of possible "amounts" of each of these two types of creativity which each person has. And I doubt they're correlated. And no doubt a large portion of the world's more successful artists, scientists, architects, musicians, chefs, engineers, lawyers, contractors, entrepreneurs, and criminals have decent amounts of both. I can't think of many situations where creativity wouldn't help performance, and it is basically a uniformly recognized [but soft] virtue.<br /><br />Synthesizing these two ideas, we get creativity as a process of imagination motivating creation. This is probably what I would like the word creativity to express. Take, for example, the three processes of creation that I've noticed in my own life and by observation, with Bob as proxy. These represent the three general paths whereby a new thing can come into existence.<br /><br />1. Inspiration lands in Bob's head. He follows it.<br /><br />2. Bob has some good ideas. He uses talent, work, and time to stitch them together into something.<br /><br />3. Bob sits down with no ideas but with a goal to make something. He forces it into existence with no particular inspiration, using only his skills and concerted effort.<br /><br />It would be fair to say that, in a sense, the first path is the "higher" path. But there's nothing in essence wrong with the third approach--it just seems less likely to produce remarkable results. In fact, I imagine that the bulk of the creation that is done is of the third type; crank the stuff out because somebody will buy it, instead of sell it because it's worth buying. This Dell PC that I'm typing on right now is a result of that approach, so I shouldn't complain too loudly. That being said, the third path is less creative [by my definition].<br /><br />Anybody who has made an effort to create has probably experienced each of these three states. You can't control inspiration [whatever <em>that</em> is] so if you're regularly driven to create something you'll use the third method at least some of the time. Brahms did--he threw away huge amounts of music that he didn't feel met his standards, a fact which many musicians bemoan but I am grateful for. So it's nothing to be ashamed of--unless your entire career is the mass production of forced-into-existence soulless pieces of corporate detritus. Then you should be ashamed [but you wouldn't have lasted this far into this post if that was you].<br /><br />And what about the crucial element of creativity, uniqueness? It's essential to any of these three steps. If it's not original, it's not creation you're doing, it's <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">mimicry</span>. And don't get me wrong, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">mimicry</span> has its place too--every band has its own sound [Beatles respectfully excepted]. But even to accomplish creation of the third kind requires something new. I like to remind myself often though that <em>uniqueness is not a measure of creativity any more than sheer bulk of output is.</em> Anybody can do something that has never been done before--I just picked my ear with a bottle of contact solution, balanced my salsa bowl on my cup and then blogged about it--but that doesn't mean it's an expression of creativity. I feel that this is the major trap that people fall into when they run out of inspiration: they replace it with <em>idea-free </em>experimentation [see: Wild Honey Pie].<br /><br />There is no conclusion. But I feel like I understand creativity better--perhaps not in the cognitive sense but in the psychological sense. The best summation I can make is this:<br /><br />Creativity is imagination which motivates creation. The more inspiration is involved the better the result. Creativity motivates experimentation and creates unique results, but does not come from them.trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-36418563384085487462008-11-04T22:30:00.000-08:002008-11-04T22:31:08.829-08:00At last!Wooo hoooo!trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-81499700593960523072008-10-06T20:55:00.000-07:002008-10-06T20:57:58.101-07:00Killing in the name of<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">[by mandamommy and trogonpete]</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">From our perspective, there are two distinct questions pertaining to the Iraq war that are often lumped together.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The first is whether we were right to invade in the first place.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The second question is what we do now that we’re in.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We believe that the first question needs to be answered first, because it necessarily motivates the answer to the second question.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Invasion:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The original justification for invading Iraq is often cited this way: </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Iraq seemed to be producing weapons of mass destruction.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The theory was that part of our war on terrorism included pre-emptive strikes against terrorists likely to attack the US.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But the actual original justification predated 9/11 and had nothing to do with terrorism.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The neoconservative group Project for a New American Century [PNAC] sent a </span><a href="http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">letter </span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">in 1998 to President Clinton urging a strategy aimed at “</span><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.”</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The group believed in the establishing of an “American empire” and proposed that American dominance in the 21</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">st</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> century should be maintained by </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"fight[ing] and decisively win[ning] multiple, simultaneous major theater wars."</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The main goal of the group was to convince the government to invade Iraq.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So who is the PNAC?</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Well, you might have heard of Dick Cheney.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And Donald Rumsfeld.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And 15 other well-known names later part of the Bush administration.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Nearly everybody advising Bush after 9/11 were members of the PNAC, a group that had a clear and public agenda of bringing war to Iraq for the purpose of maintaining American “hegemony.”</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">These are the very same people who attempted to discredit the entire CIA after the intelligence agency proved that there was no WMD threat from Iraq.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">10 days after George Bush took office he instructed his staff to begin drawing up plans for an invasion of Iraq.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Additionally, it is now well documented that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld lied about the WMD’s and misled the American people about Iraq being part of the war on terror. </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">There were no WMD’s, and the administration knew it.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Again, this much is well documented [along with almost 1000 other lies told between 2001 and 2003 by the Bush administration about the threat Iraq posed to the US, according to the Center for Public Integrity]. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">As far as the war on terror was concerned, bin Laden and Saddam were enemies; Saddam represented the secular Islamic ideal so repugnant to fundamentalists like bin Laden, and Saddam considered bin Laden a—well, terrorist.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Additionally, there never was any possibility that Saddam was in the terrorism business—he was a cruel dictator, but he wasn’t interested in flying planes into American buildings.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But the administration said Saddam had WMD’s and that these WMD’s could be used as weapons of terror on American soil.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Donald Rumsfeld, as the Secretary of Defense, made it clear that what was at stake in Iraq was the potential for Saddam to repeat 9/11 but on a much larger scale.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Again, this is a deliberate lie; Saddam never had any connection to al Qaeda and had no interest in terror operations in the US.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So we invaded Iraq.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The interesting footnote here is that many supporters of the war now cite how bad Saddam was and what a service we have done to the world in getting rid of him.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But what about Robert Mugabe?</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What about Kim Jong-il? Than Shwe?</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Hu Jintau?</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Sayyid Ali Khamenei?</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And there’s no way Saddam was worse than Omar al-Bashir.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Should we invade Zimbabwe, North Korea, Myanmar, China, Iran and Sudan in order to depose tyrants?</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Is that our role?</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">If so, why aren’t we doing it?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We believe—as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—that we should “renounce war and proclaim peace.” [D&C 98:16]</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">War is justifiable only in cases when it is necessary to defend our families [Alma 43:47] and plausibly our rights and freedoms [akin to Alma 48:10].</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">War is also a purely defensive means of preservation [Alma 48:14] and even pre-emptive war is expressly forbidden, even in cases where a pre-emptive strike would prevent a terrorist</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">attack [3 Nephi 3:20-21].</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Modern scriptures clearly forbid the invasion of Iraq and the prophesies concerning the failure of offensive endeavors are applicable.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">[Each of these scriptures pertains to a situation analogous to the position we were in; the saints in Missouri wanted to take the fight to their persecutors and the Lord forbad it, the Nephites wanted to pre-emptively attack the terrorist Gadianton robbers but were forbidden.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We believe that the inclusion of these councils in the scriptures is very strong council for us and pertains to our government as well.]</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This is an unjust war, founded on a thousand lies and violating basic morality. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The immorality of the invasion is key to the discussion about what we do now:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A much more complicated question is what we should do now that we’re in Iraq.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It is very important at this time to step back and admit that nobody—nobody anywhere—has any idea what the future holds.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The military experts told us the war would be quick, painless and easy.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They were wrong.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The civilian experts said the surge would only exacerbate the violence.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They were wrong.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So any time a politician says something like “setting a timetable will plunge Iraq into a civil war” or “the fighting will never continue as long as we’re there,” we shouldn’t believe it for a second.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The truth is that nobody knows and even the best analysis is a guess.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Politicians also like to talk about “winning” and “losing” the war.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This is pure propaganda.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It is meaningless.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In a sense, we have already lost: we lost over 4,000 American soldiers—significantly more than the number of civilians lost in 9/11—we lost our moral standing in the world, we lost trillions of dollars, we lost the opportunity to capture or kill the terrorists responsible for 9/11, we lost trust in our government, and our government lost the trust of the world.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We lost our national integrity.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We created a country full of destitute anti-American terrorists where once there was a country of poor repressed farmers.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A million Iraqis lost their lives.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Every day we stay we lose more.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The only metric of victory in a war like this one is preventing further losses.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This is where the immorality of the invasion comes to play.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Having losses does not imply a war is lost.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">World War II was a victory in the sense that Hitler’s ambition at global domination was ended, and Americans had to pay dearly.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But when the cause that these troops are fighting for is an ignorant, arrogant global domination scheme dreamed up by a few radical ideologues in the government, when “dying in vain” becomes propaganda for dying for oil and power, when planning to save American lives is branded “unpatriotic” and “defeat,” then we have lost.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But neither Saddam Hussein nor Osama bin Laden beat us.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We just lost.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Still, it would be clearly irresponsible of America to just pack up and leave.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The infrastructure needs to be rebuilt.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We need to make sure the Iraqi army is competent enough to prevent a plunge into anarchy.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">That’s why we need to stay.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But we must stop the bleeding as soon as possible.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This means setting a firm goal with the government of Iraq after which they will be on their own, then get out.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Every day we spend there the more we lose.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">An open-ended policy seems foolish; with our tax dollars flowing into the country, what great motivation does the government of Iraq have to pick up the slack themselves?</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">With no carrot and no stick, the donkey ain’t moving.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Of course we’re not experts.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We know very little and understand less.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But we do know that the invasion was wrong.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And that fact alone compels us to want out—the best way to repent, we believe, is to stop sinning.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">That’s a good first step.</span></p>trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-46084821923042677102008-09-26T09:10:00.000-07:002008-09-26T09:21:36.544-07:00Deceit and ... SillinessFor anybody who may have doubted that Palin really buys the McCain campaign's garbage about the proximity of Russia to Alaska giving her foreign policy experience, there's this:<br /><br />COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?<br /><br />PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land-- boundary that we have with-- Canada. It-- it's funny that a comment like that was-- kind of made to-- cari-- I don't know, you know? Reporters--<br /><br />COURIC: Mock?<br /><br />PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.<br /><br />COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.<br /><br />PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our-- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia--<br /><br />COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?<br /><br />PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state.<br /><br /><br />By those qualifications, the governer of Missouri has foreign policy experience because the B2's used to bomb Iraq in 2003 flew out of an air base there. Again, she's claiming experience from what the military is doing in Alaska; it has nothing to do with her. <br /><br />Read that carefully a couple times. It's disturbing.trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-59861450747757308242008-09-18T01:01:00.000-07:002008-09-18T13:06:28.470-07:00Deceit and OutrageGuy walks into a job interview. Interviewer asks if he feels he's sufficiently educated for the job.<br /><br />GUY: "Well, I grew up in Oakland. Berkeley and Oakland are neighbors."<br /><br />INTERVIEWER: "What knowledge did you obtain due to your proximity to Berkeley?"<br /><br />GUY: "Oakland and Berkeley are neighbors, and there's even a hill in Oakland you can climb and actually see the Berkeley tower."<br /><br />INTERVIEWER: "What knowledge does that give you?"<br /><br />GUY: "Well, it means it's a small world."<br /><br />Does he get the job? Of course not. Even if the job required no special schooling, the sheer audacity of the bald deceit involved in Guy's claim to education would disqualify him from any job in the eyes of a self-respecting interviewer. It's downright offensive. If Guy expected the interviewer to buy that, what does he think of the interviewer's intelligence? And can the interviewer expect him to be an honest employee?<br /><br />Here's another story, even more ludicrous, you may have heard this one:<br /><br />SARAH <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">PALIN</span>: "...And, Charlie, you're in Alaska. We have that very narrow maritime border between the United States, and the 49<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">th</span> state, Alaska, and Russia. They are our next door neighbors.We need to have a good relationship with them. They're very, very important to us and they are our next door neighbor."<br /><br />CHARLES GIBSON, ABC NEWS: "What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?"<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">PALIN</span>: "They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."<br /><br />GIBSON: "What insight does that give you into what they're doing in Georgia?"<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">PALIN</span>: "Well, I'm giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relation with all of these countries, especially Russia..."<br /><br />Before you rush in and claim that these two stories are not perfectly analogous, let me say that you're right. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Palin</span> is much much worse than Guy. There is a decent probability that Guy, growing up in Oakland, benefited from some small cultural trickle-down from the [relatively] nearby university. It is even likely that Guy has been to Berkeley. But <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Palin</span> has never seen Russia, she's never been there, she's never interacted with diplomats from there, she's never dealt with Russian-American common interests in the region, there is no Russian foreign policy trickle-down floating across the Bering Strait, and she surely hasn't picked up any clues to Russian motivations for the invasion of a small democracy 5,000 miles away. Guy was just trying to deceive the interviewer to get a job. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Palin</span>? The entire country.<br /><br /><br /><br />Before I analyze her comments further, let me make one thing clear: I'm not currently interested in the question of whether Sarah <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Palin</span> is qualified to be VP. What interests me is the culture of deceit in the McCain-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Palin</span> campaign that this story symbolizes. The campaign and even John McCain himself have repeated this exact same argument on national TV. This is not a poor choice of words by a candidate under duress; it is apparently a coordinated talking point within the campaign designed to convince voters that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Palin</span> is experienced enough in foreign affairs to be VP and, by extension, P. Yet it would be safe to claim that both <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Palin</span> and McCain understand the deceit inherent in this claim; <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Palin</span> certainly understands that she never interacted with Russia in any way as Governor of Alaska. But she apparently has no qualms feeding this story to the public. America hasn't seen somebody this comfortable deceiving us since... well, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.<br /><br /><br /><p>Let me be again be clear: I'm not accusing <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Palin</span> of lying. I'm [re-]documenting her deceit. Let's analyze her claims in detail:<br /></p><p>Start in Sarah <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Palin's</span> hometown of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Wasilla</span>. Drive to Anchorage and board a plane. Fly 500 miles over completely uninhabited wilderness to the town of Nome on the remote western coast of Alaska. Hire [at great cost] a helicopter to fly 120 miles to Little <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Diomede</span>, a small island in the middle of the Bering Strait. This is the only way to get to Little <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Diomede</span>; it has no port and no airport, the population of about 170 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Inupiat</span> Eskimos isolated from the rest of the world but for a weekly mail helicopter and a single cargo barge each year. If you're lucky and the weather is good, you can now look west and see another island on the horizon. This is Big <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Diomede</span> which, for historical technicalities, is actually part of Russia. Big <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Diomede</span> has a permanent population of exactly zero. Beyond Big <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Diomede</span>, over the Bering Sea, lies the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Chukotka</span> Autonomous region of Russia, with a population density of 0.18 per square mile; less than 1/6<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">th</span> that of Alaska, which is by far the least densely populated state in the country [Wyoming, the next lowest, has 5.4 citizens per square mile]. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Chukotka</span> is so remote that its large oil reserves and other resources are largely untapped. See <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Bering_Strait.jpeg">this map</a>: Alaska on the right, Little <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Diomede</span> and Big <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Diomede</span> in the middle, with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Chukotka</span> on the left. </p><p>Furthermore, Russia is so big that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Wasilla</span> is barely further from the business end of the country--Moscow--than Boston is, via a Great Circle route. You don't hear Mitt Romney touting his foreign policy experience because he was the governor of a state only 4,500 miles away from Moscow. In fact, to fly to Moscow from Anchorage requires flying down to the lower 48 and flying east over Europe. So <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Wasilla</span>--in practical terms--is as far from the heart of Russia as any place you can find in the Northern Hemisphere.</p><p>The point is this: While it is technically true that it's possible to see part of Russia from an island in Alaska, this fact is <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">irrelevant</span> to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Palin's</span> foreign policy experience in the following ways:</p><p>1. Sarah <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Palin</span> has neither seen Russia nor traveled to Russia</p><p>2. The region of Russia adjacent to Alaska has negligible strategic importance</p><p>3. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Palin</span> has never met with official Russian delegations</p><p>4. Alaska is functionally further from the Kremlin than almost anywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere.</p><p>Unless foreign policy experience is acquired through some kind of bizarre geographically selective osmosis, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Palin</span> can claim exactly none due to her home state's proximity to Russia.</p><p>Some cite the fact that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Palin</span> was commander of the Alaska National Guard. Well, this is true, but any time National Guard troops are used for international issues they are federalized under command of national military leaders. The frequently-cited Alaskan National Guard troops in Iraq are not commanded by Sarah <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Palin</span>. Executive experience [whatever that means, and why it's suddenly the only kind of applicable experience, is another question entirely] maybe, but foreign policy experience? Hardly.</p><p>Let me get back to the point. This little deceit is a microcosm of the McCain-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Palin</span> campaign. They have shown an epic degree of comfort with deceiving the American public for political gain. Sarah <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Palin</span> and John McCain both know that there is exactly zero substance behind the some-Alaskans-can-see-a-remote-part-of-uninhabited-Russia-sometimes-and-therefore-the-Alaskan-G<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">overner</span>-is-experienced-in-foreign-affairs claim. When they use this argument, they are consciously trying to deceive the country. That is terrifying to me, as an American citizen. And, truth is, this isn't even close to the most egregious example of McCain-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Palin</span> deceit. Check any one of the <em>non-partisan</em> fact-checking sites like <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">FactCheck</span>.org </a>and <a href="http://www.politifact.com/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">PolitiFact</span>.com</a>. It's shocking: full-up straight-faced pants-on-fire lies.</p><p><br />Having foreign policy experience with Russia may or may not be a legitimate mandatory qualification for VP candidates; I haven't argued either way. But the willful, persistent, coordinated deceit that the McCain-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">Palin</span> campaign is willing to feed the American people signals a moral corruption and deep cynicism that profanes the offices they are running for. This isn't politics as usual, this is the politics of change: change from fibs, exaggerations and disinformation to dirty, filthy, brazen lies. </p>trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-79035441399767000232008-09-08T11:41:00.001-07:002008-09-08T11:41:39.822-07:00PingPing!trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-28258224068634736612008-06-19T11:04:00.000-07:002008-06-19T11:40:00.787-07:00MontebelloI backpacked solo in Montebello friday and saturday. The lighting was unreal due to a nearby fire. Here are a few of the several hundred pictures I took on friday. I hope you like California grass. Enjoy.<br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello2.jpg" align="middle" /><br />At about 5pm a large cloud of smoke covered the sun.<br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello3.jpg" align="middle" /><br />Count my aperture blades.<br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello4.jpg" align="middle" /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello7.jpg" align="middle" /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello8.jpg" align="middle" /><br /><br />As the smoke patch cleared the normal gorgeous colors came out briefly.<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello9.jpg" align="middle" /><br /><br />One of the sweat-sucking little buggers.<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello11.jpg" align="middle" /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello12.jpg" align="middle" /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello13.jpg" align="middle" /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello16.jpg" align="middle" /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello17.jpg" align="middle" /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello18.jpg" align="middle" /><br />I think this is a white butterfly mariposa lily. <br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello20.jpg" align="middle" /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello21.jpg" align="middle" /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello22.jpg" align="middle" /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello23.jpg" align="middle" /><br />Bees were mobbing the soap plants.<br /><br /><img src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/RPMontebello5.jpg" align="middle" />trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-72222713628171899382008-05-21T20:49:00.001-07:002008-05-21T20:51:53.700-07:00My other hobbySometimes I go to parties and start beatboxing. Everybody just starts going wild, I'm that good. Here's a <a href="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/beelzebub.mp3">live recording </a>from the last party I went to. Pretty sweet, right? I know, it's pretty impressive.trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-47001920550321459422008-04-22T15:42:00.000-07:002008-04-22T15:58:31.996-07:00Some pictures [too large for palewis]<a href="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Alexandra.4.22.08.1.JPG"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 800px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Alexandra.4.22.08.1.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br /><a href="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Alexandra.4.22.08.2.JPG"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 800px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Alexandra.4.22.08.2.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br /><a href="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Alexandra.4.22.08.3.JPG"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 800px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Alexandra.4.22.08.3.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br /><a href="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.1.JPG"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 800px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.1.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br /><a href="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.2.JPG"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 800px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.2.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br /><a href="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.3.JPG"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 536px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.3.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br /><a href="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.4.JPG"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 536px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.4.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br /><a href="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.5.JPG"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 800px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.5.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br /><a href="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.6.JPG"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 800px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.6.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br /><a href="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.7.JPG"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 800px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://trogonpete.googlepages.com/Eleanor.4.22.08.7.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div>trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-8884664868378261442008-04-07T16:54:00.000-07:002008-04-07T17:17:30.494-07:00RacistI just took tests at two sites to determine if I have subconscious racist biases. Here they are:<br /><br /><a href="http://backhand.uchicago.edu/Center/ShooterEffect/">U Chicago</a><br /><a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/">Harvard </a>[the race <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">IAT</span>]<br /><br />I first read about these in Malcolm <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Gladwell's</span> <em>Blink</em> and then today in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/opinion/06kristof.html?em&ex=1207713600&en=cee1db633094044e&ei=5087%0A">Nicholas <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Kristof's</span> NY Times column</a>. Apparently whites and blacks alike tend to associate blacks with negative things and whites with positive things. The tests are designed to access the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">subconscious</span> through mind-numbingly <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">repetitive</span> tasks that measure implicit associations. <br /><br />So go give them a try.<br /><br />The U Chicago test has you shooting or choosing to not shoot a series of white and black men holding guns or cell phones. I shot whites with guns faster than blacks and I holstered my gun faster with blacks than with whites [no error bars were quoted, so I don't know if the results were statistically significant, but the difference appeared "large"]. This means that I am subconsciously biased <em>anti-white</em>. The second test is an association test and I scored dead even with no bias. I have many questions/complaints about the methodology but the general conclusion is that I test marvelously bias-free!<br /><br />Everybody let me know how you do... and whether you measure up to my lofty <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">precedent</span> of high-minded anti-European American bigotry.trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-81531514499411404152008-02-27T12:16:00.000-08:002008-02-27T15:17:14.992-08:00Evolution of ToxicityHow does defensive toxicity evolve? Being as I am completely ignorant of scientific orthodoxy on the topic, I am free to wildly speculate regarding this mystery.<br /><br />Consider the monarch butterfly for a well-known example. As caterpillars, monarchs acquire a store of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">cardenolide</span></span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">aglycones</span></span> from eating milkweed. These <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">cardenolides</span></span> are steroids that, in high enough doses, can stop the heart and thus are toxic to most animals. The monarchs then are permanently toxic to most predators from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">cardenolides</span></span> ingested as a caterpillar and are thus protected from predation.<br /><br />Storing <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">cardenolides</span></span> is a trait that must have evolved. Any investigation into the evolutionary history of a trait must begin with the Occam's Razor of evolutionary theory: the trait arose through random genetic mutation; it was beneficial to the reproductive viability of an individual monarch; this increase in viability eventually led to universal trait ownership in the global monarch population.<br /><br />But how can this <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">explanation</span> be correct? Let us try to explicitly paint this story of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">cardenolides</span></span>-storing "gene" [standard <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">euphemism</span> for "gene or set of genes"]. We will start with a single monarch since identical genetic mutation in two distinct individuals is probabilistically impossible:<br /><ul><li>A single monarch is endowed through genetic mutation with the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">cardenolides</span></span>-storing gene. Until the first interaction with a predator, this gene has no effect on the reproductive viability of the single butterfly.<br /></li><li>A bird eats the butterfly and dies or is injured from the toxin.<br /></li><li>The gene disappears.</li></ul>The gene conferred no survivability advantage to its host since its first effect occurred only after the monarch was killed. If the monarch had offspring before it was killed, those offspring would have no survivability advantage over their cousins without the special gene. Genes that confer no reproductive viability advantage do not become universal.<br /><br />Consider further the role of the predator, in this example a bird. If not killed, the bird might learn not to eat monarchs again. Through cultural transmission the bird could possibly teach other birds not to eat monarchs. Even if such cultural transmission is likely, this benefits both the monarchs endowed with this gene and not, giving no evolutionary advantage to the gene itself [using a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Dawkinsian</span></span> gene-level evolutionary argument which is clearly valid trait-level as well]. If the bird was killed, on the other hand, then birds with a gene instructing them to not eat monarchs might replace the old ones after many generations. This scenario is less likely than the first; it requires a long period of large-scale predator/prey interactions with a monarch population significantly endowed with the gene, while simultaneously never giving any viability advantage to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">cardenolides</span></span>-storing monarchs. Neither <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">explanation</span> can account for selective pressures favoring the toxic gene.<br /><br />Is there still some way to invoke basic adaptive natural selection for monarch toxicity? There is a candidate solution: taste. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Cardenolides</span></span> taste horrible. Is it possible that the bird tasted our monarch and rejected it? The butterfly then has received the ultimate survivability boost from the gene: it lives where its cousins would certainly have died. This is certainly possible, but I have strong doubts about this hypothesis. For one thing, I wonder about the state of a butterfly after being tasted by a bird. Is it likely that a tasted butterfly can survive and have offspring? It is true that this tasting could possibly leave the butterfly alive; this is why beak-marks on the wings of butterfly specimens are common. But what are a monarch's chances of reproducing after this injury? Additionally, any lesson the bird learned from the tasting the monarch--that all monarchs or even all butterflies taste terrible and are possibly toxic--will confer no specific advantage to the monarchs with the mutation. Remember that our one monarch, in order to pass on beneficial genes, will need to live in a situation where a monarch without the genes would die. Unless birds habitually sample butterflies in a non-fatal way before deciding to eat them, I find it extremely unlikely that it is taste that conferred the viability advantage for the monarchs with the toxic gene.<br /><br />It is clear to me that the standard adaptive natural selection argument can't explain the toxicity trait of monarch butterflies. But <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">exaptation</span></span>--my old friend of herons and voles--could explain it well. Here's my <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">explanation</span>:<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Cardenolides</span></span> are not only toxic to birds, but insects as well. In fact, the toxins are used by plants specifically as a defense against being eaten by insects. Let us paint a different evolutionary story:<br /><ul><li>A single monarch is endowed through genetic mutation with some kind of immunity to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">cardenolides</span></span><br /></li><li>This monarch has access to food plants [as a caterpillar] that other monarchs do not. The immunity gene confers a strong advantage to this monarch at its most vulnerable stage of life.</li><li>Because of increased survival rates as caterpillars, monarchs with the mutant genes proliferate and replace those without it</li></ul>This sounds very probable. But where does the toxicity fit in? I have only explained how monarchs might have evolved tolerance to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">cardenolide</span></span>. Here is the "wild speculation" I promised:<br /><br />Suppose the gene for "immunity" is actually a gene for removing the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">cardenolides</span></span> from the plant matter before digestion. This is one of several plausible methods for tolerating a toxin. The toxin thus must be excreted or stored. If the toxin is stored--or even if it persists a significant amount of time before being excreted--the monarchs will be toxic to birds. This toxicity is a <span style="font-style: italic;">by-product</span> of the natural selection of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">cardenolide</span></span>-tolerant gene.<br /><br />The benefit of this approach is that it allows the monarchs to acquire the toxic gene <span style="font-style: italic;">as a species</span>. The downfall of the adaptive natural selection argument in the first place was that the gene had to be beneficial to the first butterfly in order to propagate. If the mutation had an initial evolutionary benefit--allowing access to new abundant food sources--then it will prevail throughout the species. Only then will the pressures of predation influence the evolution of these monarchs. Remember that all of our <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">explanations</span> for how the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">presence</span> of the gene in the first individual gave it an evolutionary edge failed because <span style="font-style: italic;">all of those <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">explanations</span> gave the same advantage to the monarchs not <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">possessing</span></span> the mutation as to the monarchs with it</span>. This failing is erased when the evolutionary impetus for the gene's survival is not dependent on being eaten or "tasted" to be expressed.<br /><br />Now, as a species, the monarchs evolve better and better storage mechanisms for the toxins to be more effective at deterring predators. The predators evolve in parallel to learn not to eat monarchs.<br /><br />This is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">exaptation</span></span>.<br /><br />This is also a "just-so story." But I would be surprised if toxicity in most prey animals is not a result of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">exaptation</span></span> [there is a tantalizing genetic correlation between toxicity and coloration that broadcasts toxicity--like the red/black monarch wings--which seems to support my argument].<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Update:</span> I just found <a href="http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/arm115v1">a paper</a> [<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >Ecological factors influencing the evolution of insects' chemical defenses</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, J. Skelhorn et al.</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >, </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Behavioral Ecology, doi:10.1093/beheco/arm115</span> ] </span>discussing the evolution of defensive toxicity in insects. It says that the subject is relatively unexplored but gives this insight:<br /><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote> One potential explanation [for the evolution of defensive toxicity] is that chemically defended individuals<sup> </sup>suffer less from predation than those that do not invest in<sup> </sup>costly chemical defenses. <strong style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></strong>However, chemical<sup> </sup>defense often cannot be detected prior to attack, meaning that<sup> </sup>in order for chemically defended individuals to suffer less<sup> </sup>from predation than visually similar undefended individuals,<sup> </sup>they must be more likely to survive predatory attacks. Although<sup> </sup><span style="font-style: italic;">there is now some evidence that aposematic insects often survive</span><sup style="font-style: italic;"> </sup><span style="font-style: italic;">predatory attacks relatively unharmed and</span><sup style="font-style: italic;"> </sup><span style="font-style: italic;">that predators selectively reject prey based on their chemical</span><sup style="font-style: italic;"> </sup><span style="font-style: italic;">content</span>, it is currently unclear under what ecological<sup> </sup>circumstances such differences in survival would allow costly<sup> </sup>chemical defenses to <strong></strong>evolve...<br />...[A]lthough sequestered chemicals may be stored systemically<sup> </sup>in body tissues, many species store<sup> </sup>a large proportion of the chemicals in the integument and wings. This may increase the speed with which predators perceive<sup> </sup>an individual to be defended and as a result reduce damage to<sup> </sup>the insect.<br /></blockquote>This vindicates the premise for my theory but sheds some doubt on the need for it [the paper nowhere discusses the transmission of the gene from the first individual to further generations, but points to evidence that birds taste and release butterflies. And I was right about storing the toxic chemicals, it seems]. I still think exaptation is a cleaner explaination, but pure adaptative natural selection is more plausible in light of this. The paper is really good, it's worth a read.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Update 2</span>: I just realized that toxicity can be manufactured by the prey species, not just acquired through feed. This strongly suggests that the adaptive route is possible.<br /><blockquote></blockquote>trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-18941092916862677512008-02-26T07:47:00.000-08:002008-02-26T09:31:42.958-08:00Encyclopedia of LifeLast night I had the urge to look up the ecology of tank <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">bromeliads</span>. Not having a university biology library in my apartment, I turned to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">internet. And found nothing</span>. The "information superhighway" is supposed to be a glut of information; a curious <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Googler</span> is supposed to be able to find <em>anything</em>. I have found this to be increasingly not the case. Very, very few resources provide deep, detailed, well-written material for the purpose of free information. Most of my searches return a superfluity of corporate garbage, functionally empty blogs, and woefully incomplete or inaccurate official pages. There are a few well-respected sites which provide high-quality information consistently--like the <a href="http://dictionary.oed.com/">OED</a> and <a href="http://www.britannica.com/">Encyclopedia Britannica</a>--but all have significant flaws; too narrow a scope, too little free content, or too-shallow coverage. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Wikipedia</span> has immensely broad but shallow and frighteningly inconsistent coverage. General Google searches are a major headache for anybody trying to find quality information. At every turn a researcher is bombarded with hundreds of irrelevant ads, search results, and links. I have found the i<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">nternet</span> to fall well short of its promise of being a powerful and accessible repository of the sum of human knowledge.<br /><br />For these reasons I have been nearly beside myself with excitement for the last year in anticipation of the unveiling of the <a href="http://www.eol.org/">Encyclopdia of Life</a>. The EOL will be the culmination of the internet, and by far its most important resource. In the words of E. O. Wilson, one of the coolest guys on the planet and the inspiration for the EOL:<br /><blockquote><p>Imagine an electronic page for each species of organism on Earth available everywhere by single access on command.</p></blockquote><br />And it's even better than that. Each page will eventually contain <em>all known information about each species</em>. It will accept user content, but only after screening by an expert, so the EOL will have the breadth of Wikipedia [within biology] with the information quality of a scientific journal. But the <em>depth</em> of information will be unlike any resource ever created by man. Seriously.<br /><br />This morning I received this message in my inbox:<br /><blockquote><p>The new Encyclopedia of Life portal has gone live with more than one million<br />species pages! In celebration of this big event, our first EOL newsletter is<br />available at: </p><p><a href="http://cmpgnr.com/r.html?c=1172762&r=1171711&t=1294958089&l=1&d=89331389&u=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eeol%2eorg%2fcontent%2fpage%2fnewsletter&g=0&f=-1">Click here to read the newsletter</a>.</p><p>You can see the new pages at <a href="http://www.eol.org/">http://www.eol.org/</a>. We also invite you to take the<br />survey at the site so you can help us improve.We thank you for your interest and<br />support over the past year. Enjoy.</p></blockquote><br />Woohoo! It is here--in abbreviated form, but it is here. I strongly urge you to go take it for a spin; the information format in revolutionary and brilliant.<br /><br />Now when Little wakes up in the morning and asks to look at a picture of a kinkajou I don't have to rely on the crummy random pictures that Google image search returns...<br /><br /><em>Update</em>: nytimes.com has a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/science/26ency.html">nice article</a> on the unveiling of the EOL.trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-15537174471897409622008-01-28T14:01:00.000-08:002008-01-31T14:01:20.696-08:00Sub-bullet b: Antarctica<span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Sub-bullet <em>b</em>: "A clear warming trend is evidenced by the Antartctic ice sheets"</strong></span><br />Hierarchy: <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part_16.html">Part II</a>:<strong>1</strong>:<strong>A</strong>:<em><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/bullet-iv-ice-and-sea-levels.html">iv</a></em>:<em>b</em><br /><br /><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part.html">Back to Intro</a> - <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part_16.html">Back to Outline</a> - <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/bullet-iv-ice-and-sea-levels.html">Up to Bullet <em>iv</em> </a><em>-</em> Back to Sub-bullet a - Forward to Sub-bullet <em>c</em><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Introduction:</span></strong><br />Antarctica, like Greenland, has a complex climate and thus the logical structure of Sub-bullet <em>a</em> will be followed. Simply, this means that we will use current understanding of how warming could effect the ice in Antarctica and data showing the trends of the distribution of that ice to conclude whether warming is occurring. The issue of causality will be left at this point unless evidence can be found which attributes the observed behavior to effects other than warming.<br /><br />The bulk of the ice on Antarctica consists of two main sheets: the East Antarctic Ice Sheet [EAIS] and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet [WAIS]. The EAIS is much higher in elevation and therefore colder and less susceptible to warming than the lower WAIS. Below is a map compiled by NASA's <a href="http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.php">ICESat</a> showing the altitude of the upper surface of the Antarctic ice sheet.<br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 600px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/ICESat_AntElevation_lrg.jpg" border="0" /> This uneven distribution of ice mass and altitude will be critical for understanding the behavior of the Antarctic ice sheet.<br /><br /><br />In most respects Antarctica is as different from Greenland as two polar ice sheets can possibly be. In contrast with Greenland, Antarctica is naturally very cold; a large majority of the surface area of the continent averages below freezing year-round. Since Anatarctica is less marginal for ice than Greenland, a small rise in temperature isn't likely to be the difference between ice and liquid water except at the extreme edges. This means that melting is relatively less important in Antarctica as a factor for mass loss. The interior is large and very cold and in this region scientists expect that a warming climate would increase the ice mass since precipitation would increase--perhaps even enough to make the total mass balance increase due to warming. The Antarctic peninsula sticks much farther north and thus is more susceptible to warming trends than the coasts. Antarctica also does not rely on an exterior ocean current to cool it, and contains over 10 times the ice that Greenland does. All of these factors make Antarctica theoretically much less sensitive to small climate effects as Greenland is.<br /><br /><br />Despite all of these differences, we are looking for the same warming signature for Antarctica as we were for Greenland: positive mass balance in the interior, potentially negative and accelerating mass balance at the edges [since thinning is not just related to melting but to ice dynamics like glacier flow], and glacial dynamics features like accelerating flow. A refinement of the mass balance model predicts that the WAIS will see mass loss and the EAIS will see mass gain; this is the signature we are looking for.<br /><em>[Refer to <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/bullet-iv-ice-and-sea-levels.html">bullet </a></em><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/bullet-iv-ice-and-sea-levels.html">iv</a><em><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/bullet-iv-ice-and-sea-levels.html"> </a>for further introductory material]</em><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Study 1</span></strong> <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">: GRACE weighs in on mass balance</span></strong><br /><em><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/311/5768/1754.pdf">Measurements of Time-Variable Gravity Show Mass loss in Antarctica</a><br />Isabella Velicogna and John Wahr, Science 311, 1754 (2006)</em><br /><br /><em></em><br /><br /><em><a href="http://www.csr.utexas.edu/GRACE/publications/press/2006GL026369.pdf">Antarctic mass rates from GRACE</a></em><em><br />J. L. Chen et al., GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 33, L11502</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VF0-4KM46W9-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e58cc0038d1742f72d00341dd95ecc62"><em>Interannual variations of the mass balance of the Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets from GRACE</em> </a><br /><em>G. Ramillien et al., Global and Planetary Change 53:3, 198-208 (2006)<br /></em><br /><em>Simple:</em> The researchers who conducted two of the three of our GRACE studies for the Greenland mass balance trend also conducted similar studies for Antarctica, and another group worked on the data as well. Their conclusions are the same: interior mass is increasing, peripheral mass is decreasing, with a net decrease in mass that is quickly accelerating. See Sub-bullet <em>a</em>: Greenland for more GRACE discussion.<br /><br /><em>Details</em>: All three studies found large negative mass balances in the WAIS and mass gain or balance in the EAIS. A figure from Velicogna and Wahr illustrates this [the green line is the EAIS trend and the red line is the WAIS trend]:<br /><br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol311/issue5768/images/large/311_1754_F3.jpeg" border="0" /><br />Mass balance findings for these three studies are summarized in the table below.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161036029083882146" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf_Jv4l9xLCrzpQoS4bdF7HHaDTogh57iGGFyaOGm6nDda9xWdWk-GqLTmu_Jax4MD1ovZ6RgL_9X7A85KYwokZn9S-WTIY92sR67ZQd9_faSquFMpl61lba8ZXiK0Cz1y_t13G419LxPJ/s400/Antarctica+GRACE+MB.JPG" border="0" />All three studies also corrected the data for post-glacial rebound--the upward swelling of the crust resulting from the loss of glacial period ice--which yields more accurate but less precise data, since the post-glacial rebound is poorly known. Chen <em>et al</em>. describes the limit of knowledge [units, parenthetical statement and emphasis mine]:<br /><br /><br />"The calculations here show that the estimates of Antarctic snow/ice mass rates from GRACE data are completely dependent on the adopted PGR [post-glacial rebound] model, with uncertainties that might be on the order of 100% <em>Our estimate of -99 or -77 cubic kilometers per year mass loss in West Antarctica is consistent with that of</em> Velicogna and Wahr <em>of -148 cubic kilometers per year</em>, given the large PGR uncertainty and that <em>here we only compute the mass loss of the Amundsen Sea Embayment in West Antarctica</em>."<br /><br />The take-home message is that we shouldn't have much faith in the exact numerical values of the mass balance, but that the trend of mass loss in the WAIS and mass gain in the EAIS is clear.<br /><br /><br /><em>Discussion</em>: The two studies with the most comprehensive geographical scope [Velicogna and Wahr and Remillien <em>et al</em>. ] agree within quoted error limits. The total mass balance isn't the first clue to a warming climate that Antarctica offers anyway [although it's the driving global factor in sea-level change, which has the potential for enormous effects]. What is important is also what is clear from the data: Antarctica is undeniably showing the signs of warming--decreasing ice mass in the WAIS and increasing or stable ice mass in the EAIS.<br /><br /><em>Conclusion</em>: The GRACE data constitute <strong>strong evidence of a south polar warming trend</strong>.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Study 2: Sattelite radar altimetry measures mass balance</span></strong><br /><em><a href="http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications/IGS/mass_changes_2005.pdf">Mass changes of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and shelves and contributions to sea-level rise: 1992–2002</a></em><br /><em>H. Jay Zwally et al., Journal of Glaciology, Vol. 51, No. 175, 2005</em><br /><br /><a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2008/2008012326052.html"><em>Not-yet-published sattelite radar altimetry Antarctic mass balance study</em></a><em> </em><br /><em>Eric Rignot </em><br /><em></em><br /><em>Simple</em>: The European remote sensing sattelites ERS-1 and -2 used radar altimetry to measure the altitude of ice in the Antarctic ice sheets. The first study is comprised of data from 1992-2002 which shows a mass loss in the WAIS and a mass gain in the EAIS which contributed to an overall negative mass balance. Additionally, the as-yet-unpublished second study--another by Eric Rignot--apparently fuses newer ERS-1 and -2 data with similar data from Japanese and Canadian sattelites and finds that ice loss in the WAIS increased extremely sharply during the decade 1996-2006.<br /><br /><em>Details</em>: Covering a time period prior to most of the studies we've seen so far, the first ERS data is crucial in establishing a longer-term trend. This analysis is the most sophisticated to come out of the ERS program; the authors attempt to correct for some small but important factors which most other studies ignore, having to do with the dynamics of ice compaction. The dH/dt [rate of change of ice sheet altitude] map below represents the corrected data from Zwally<em> et al</em>.:<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161403596680041138" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlKletEv1jw2IKTUSJWjs-alDas4Sg4b7D0KimAKQEVvcnUxuKKRMBvABqW1JkRuoJEGcFKjWMBNszjv8iBwBk94jT-u4P5p_KKo4N82wWBBwPmC5jvJvU_xC4vaNwaFq3fbGhxxrq3XUs/s400/Antarctica+ERS+map.JPG" border="0" /><br />Rignot's technique is different than Zwally's; Rignot measures the amount of ice leaving the continent indirectly, by monitoring the flow of ice off the continent in glaciers. The benefit of this method is that it allows the researchers to ignore the problems that Zwally had to design sophisticated corrections for, such as the sensitivity of compactibility of new ice to temperature. Additionally, Rignot combined many different large datasets and has data up to 2006, greatly enhancing the completeness and relevancy of the data.<br /><br /><em>Quote from article on Rignot's upcoming paper</em>: "The team found that the net loss of ice mass from Antarctica increased from 112 (plus or minus 91) gigatonnes a year in 1996 to 196 (plus or minus 92) gigatonnes a year in 2006."<br /><br /><em>Zwally et al. Quote</em>: "The ice sheet inWest Antarctica (WA) is losing mass (–47 +/- 4Gt per year) and the ice sheet in East Antarctica (EA) shows a small mass gain (+16 +/- 11 Gt per year) for a combined net change of –31 +/- 12 Gt per year (+0.08mma–1 SLE). "<br /><br /><em>Discussion</em>: The data from this study solidly confirms the existence of the bimodial east/west mass gain/loss signature in Antarctica; the signature of warming. Furthermore, Rignot's study--which used data from the same sources and identical analysis--found solid evidence that the ice mass loss in Antarctica is accelerating at a phenomenal pace; a solid sign of warming. Two more sattelite radar altimetry studies, <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/282/5388/456.pdf">Wingham <em>et al</em></a>. and <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/308/5730/1898.pdf">Davis and Li</a> found a slight mass increase. However, both of these studies found it difficult to analyze the peripheral regions and thus left them out of the analysis altogether. Since a majority of the loss we see occurs at the periphery, these studies do nothing but confirm the other studies' findings of a mass increase in the interior.<br />[Zwally <em>et al</em>. study also analyzed the Greenland ice sheet and found a small positive mass balance, which is not inconsistent with the studies reported in the Greenland section for this time period]<br /><br /><em>Conclusion</em>: The ERS data constitutes <strong>evidence of a south polar warming trend</strong>.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Study 3: Laser altimetry analyzes glacial dynamics</span></strong><br /><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/306/5694/255"><em>Accelerated sea-level rise from West Antarctica</em></a><br /><em>Thomas, Rignot, et al., Science 8 October 2004:Vol. 306. no. 5694, pp. 255 - 258</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>Simple</em>: Using laser altimetry data from sattelites and aircraft, Thomas<em> et al</em>. have measured the discharge from the glaciers in a section of the WAIS. They discovered a steeply accelerating flow from the 1990's until 2003; a glacier dynamics marker indicative of warming.<br /><br /><em>Details</em>: Thomas <em>et al</em>. found that 60% more ice was flowing out of the catchment basin feeding the Amundsen sea in west Antarctica than was accumulating due to precipitation. They collected precise ice thickness data from aircraft flown from Chile and compared it with various sattelite data sets to create a map of ice thinning rates for the catchment area. A quote: "The catchment regions of Amundsen Sea glaciers contain enough ice to raise sea level by 1.3 m. Our measurements show them collectively to be 60% out of balance, sufficient to raise sea level by 0.24 mm/year. Although these glaciers are the fastest in Antarctica, they are likely to flow considerably faster once the ice shelves are removed and glacier retreat proceeds into the deeper part of glacier basins."<br /><br /><em>Discussion</em>: Not only does this large imbalance of outflow/inflow point to conditions now being different than they were previously, but the study reports an acceleration of the imbalance, which signifies compounding factors in recent years. Even more impressive is the potential for yet higher rates of mass loss when/if the ice shelves melt, effectively pulling the rug out from under the glaciers.<br /><br /><em>Conclusion</em>: This glacial dynamics study constitutes <strong>strong evidence of south polar warming</strong>.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Other studies</span></strong><br /><em><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/315/5818/1529.pdf">Recent sea-level contributions of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets </a></em><br /><em>Andrew Shepherd and Duncan Wingham, Science 315, 1529 (2007)</em><br /><br /><em>Simple</em>: This is a review of mass-balance data. It does a much better job than I can, and it reviews most of the same data I have.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/297/5586/1502.pdf"><em>Mass balance of polar ice sheets</em></a><br /><em>Eric Rignot and Robert H. Thomas</em><br /><br />Simple: Another review but older. Same conclusions.<br /><br /><em>[Further studies requested]</em><br /><em></em><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Discussion</strong></span><br />The evidence is accumulating and the doubt is thinning; the Antarctic ice sheets are shrinking at fantastic rates, and the rate of increase is itself increasing at a fantastic rate. Two years ago there might have been argument, but at this point it is obvious that something big is cooking at the south pole. The issue of causality is less complicated than Greenland, but still the strongest statement we can make is that warming is the only candidate known for the cause of the changes observed. Given the scale of the changes--and the recently discovered fact that ice outflow increases dramatically after ice shelves melt--I feel comfortable agreeing with the large majority of these researchers in this point: the loss of ice in Antarctica will likely reach astonishing proportions in the near future if current conditions persist. Two ice shelves collapsed in the last few years, triggering massive acceleration of glacial flow, and similar events should be expected in the near future.<br /><br /><br />A summary of the mass balance studies cited in this post:<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161759546389664466" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcwMLxsI67nBDImSgzWY0tRgS1VdclDOKuS3ZjW7jMpE3Uc7sEH7HvCXbz9_lgRtRDJBnf5wn54GoDnrzzYQ1ux6xxKtPvAD2vmEufCZBeX0JZSDDn1pYD8aw3h30WRjBEXR0DkijiIsLC/s400/Antarctic+Mass+Balance.JPG" border="0" /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Conclusion</span></strong><br />This data constitutes <strong>strong evidence of north polar warming</strong>.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Sub-bullet value: <span style="color:#006600;">TRUE</span></span></strong>trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-81443311632821684772008-01-22T11:25:00.000-08:002008-01-31T13:59:39.856-08:00Sub-bullet a: Greenland<span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Sub-bullet <em>a</em>: "A clear warming trend is evidenced by the Greenland ice sheet"</strong></span><br />Hierarchy: <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part_16.html">Part II</a>:<strong>1</strong>:<strong>A</strong>:<em><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/bullet-iv-ice-and-sea-levels.html">iv</a></em>:<em>a</em><br /><br /><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part.html">Back to Intro</a> - <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part_16.html">Back to Outline</a> - <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/bullet-iv-ice-and-sea-levels.html">Up to Bullet <em>iv</em> </a><em>-</em> <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/sub-bullet-b-antarctica.html">Forward to Sub-bullet <em>b</em></a><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Introduction:</span></strong><br />Greenland holds nearly 10% of all the ice in the world. Given its relatively southerly location, Greenland's ice is balanced precariously between its current state and cataclysmic melting, kept stable only by virtue of a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">microclimate</span></span> controlled by the ice itself and by friendly and cold arctic ocean currents. The ice is so thick that the crust of Greenland is depressed in the interior from the weight of it. Warming should be relatively easy to spot here; many scientists think that Greenland is close to a sharp equilibrium point and that warming will cause a chain of " positive <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">feedbacks</span></span>"--some warming will trigger factors which compound the warming and trigger other factors, etc. Thus the changes in the Greenland ice sheet might happen quicker than expected given the large thermal inertia that such a huge block of ice has.<br /><br />Greenland's climate is an anomaly when placed in the context of other land masses at its latitude. When my family traveled to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Prudhoe</span> Bay, AK this last summer, we found it warm and ice-free. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Prudhoe</span> Bay is at the northern edge of Alaska, at a latitude of 70 N [for comparison, Anchorage is at 61 N]. Greenland's permanent ice extends down to about 60 N, so far south that almost all of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Alaska</span> and the northern territories of Canada would be under ice if Greenland's ice sheet was typical. Why is Greenland covered in ice when most of the latitudes it occupies are free of ice elsewhere?<br /><br />The glib answer is: because Greenland is colder than other areas at the same latitude. A little background is needed before we can answer why.<br /><br />Greenland's ice sheet was formed during one of the many colder periods in the earth's history. These glacial periods have caused the latitude marking the ice sheet boundary to move southward, at times reaching down into the continental United States. About 10,000 years ago the last major ice age ended and temperatures returned to roughly what they are now. The equilibrium latitude shifted much farther north in a short period of time. The bulk of the ice sheets were now below the equilibrium latitude, and thus started slowly retreating northward. The retreat was so slow that it is probable that the remaining continental glaciers are still retreating to this day. For some reason, though, Greenland never got the message; some particular climate conditions caused the local equilibrium latitude around Greenland to be stuck farther south than it is for the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. It turns out that this effect is due to two main things: the East Greenland Current, an ocean current that cools Greenland's climate through shipping cold water right along the east coast Greenland from the Arctic; and the high altitude of the ice sheet in Greenland, which keeps the sheet colder than its latitude would dictate.<br /><br />Warming would effect Greenland in very complex ways, and since the climate is dictated by an ocean current, understanding the subtleties of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">current's</span> response to warming would normally be critical to understanding the effect on Greenland's ice sheets. It would be impossible to delve into those subtleties here--albedo, salinity, feedback--but we can still draw some conclusions if the effects are clear enough. This requires an explicit logic that needs explaining: given the "well, duh" aspect of the statement "ice will melt more if temperatures increase" and also given that regional models predict a certain pattern of melting occurring as the result of the warming, IF expected melting patterns are conclusively observed, THEN the region is almost certainly warming. The burden of proof to the contrary will rest on those who wish to prove that the melting proceeds by some other mechanism.<br /><br />I am not trying to cover up a logical flaw. Rather, I'm using the strongest logic that is possible in any kind of analysis of complex systems. A researcher can never be 100% confident in a causality solution in a system this complex, but it is not wrong to draw conclusions based on the best available data, assuming that as much rigor as is possible is dedicated to trying to understand the underlying causes and effects. Such a case this is. What this means practically is that we will look at the data, conclude confidently based on this data that it is TRUE or FALSE that the behavior of Greenland proves regional warming. The bullet value will only stay TRUE if sufficient evidence is not found for mechanisms other than warming causing the observed effects.<br /><em>[Refer to <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/bullet-iv-ice-and-sea-levels.html">bullet </a></em><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/bullet-iv-ice-and-sea-levels.html">iv</a><em><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/bullet-iv-ice-and-sea-levels.html"> </a>for further introductory material]</em><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Study 1</span></strong><br /><a href="http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005.../2005GL023955.shtml"><em>Greenland</em><em> mass balance from GRACE</em></a><br /><em>Isabella <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Velicogna</span></span> and John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Wahr</span></span>, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L18505</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/313/5795/1958.pdf"><em>Satellite gravity measurements confirm accelerated melting of Greenland ice sheet</em></a><br /><em>J. L. Chen, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">et</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">al</span>., Science 313, 1958 (2006)</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/314/5803/1286.pdf"><em>Recent Greenland ice mass loss by drainage system from sattelite gravity observations</em></a><br /><em>S. B. Luthcke, et al., Science 314, 1286 (2006)</em><br /><br /><em>Basic</em>: These papers utilize data from the GRACE experiment, with newer data in the second and third papers. This is the type of experiment every researcher would love to be part of. GRACE is a fantastic idea: two orbiting satellites working in tandem to measure the gravitational field above the earth. This is an exquisitely delicate experiment, but it was pulled off and is very successful. The idea is that ice will "pull" on the spacecraft through gravitational acceleration. This pull is measured each time the satellite passes over and compared across time. If the pull changes, that means that ice is accumulating or being lost on the ice sheet. The beauty of this approach is that it is independent of ice transport mechanism and is the first experiment that is directly measuring the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">quantity</span></span> of ice present as opposed to indirect studies of depth or flow which use generous extrapolations and interpolations. The first study includes data from 2002-2004 and the second and third studies adds 2005 to that. The studies concluded that the mass balance of Greenland in the time period was large, negative, and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">accelerating</span>, consistent with regional warming.<br /><br /><em>Details</em>: <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Velicogna</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Wahr</span>: "We recover a decrease in total ice mass of 82 ± 28 km3 of ice per year." I am unable to access the rest of the paper, so I would appreciate anybody with an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">AGU</span></span> membership to help me on this one. Again, although static or increasing mass balance is inconclusive, negative mass balance, especially one this large, is very strong evidence of warming. The image below, taken from <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/greenland_slide.html">the NASA site supporting this research</a>, shows a very strong net mass loss around the periphery of Greenland and a small mass gain in the interior.<br /><br /><div><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 600px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/160992main_mass_trend_greenland_md.jpg" border="0" /> This figure, from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Velicogna</span></span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Wehr</span></span>, shows the total Greenland ice sheet mass observed by GRACE during the study:<br /><br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/media/20051206a/images/pic4.jpg" border="0" /> The second study confirms this data and adds a crucial fact: melting accelerated even within the limited time scale of the study. This acceleration is evident in the following plots from Chen:<br /><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol313/issue5795/images/large/313_1958_F3.jpeg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 600px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol313/issue5795/images/large/313_1958_F3.jpeg" border="0" /></a> The second study revises the yearly net mass loss upwards and confirms the acceleration of mass lost at least on this small time scale.</p><p>The third study confirms the main results of the other studies but lowers the mass loss estimate from the second study. </p><p>GRACE tells us that the Greenland ice sheet is melting and by how much. But even more significant is that this melting is accelerating on a seasonal timescale. This is a crucial piece of the puzzle; receding glaciers can be attributed to "ice age rebound"--the still on-going process of ice retreat from the last ice age, when the ice sheets were much more expansive. But acceleration of melting can only be due to warming: rebound predicts a gradual deceleration of ice loss as the equilibrium point is approached.<br /><br /><em>Conclusion</em>: GRACE data provides <strong>very strong evidence of north polar warming</strong>.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Study 2</span></strong><br /><em><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/289/5478/428">Greenland ice sheet: high-altitude balance and peripheral thinning </a></em><br /><em>W. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Krabill</span></span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">et</span></span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">al</span></span>., Science 21 July 2000:Vol. 289. no. 5478, pp. 428 - 430</em><br /><br /><em>Basic</em>: Greenland ice sheet: high-altitude balance and peripheral thinning. What more to say?<br /><br /><em>Details</em>: This study was conducted using laser <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">altimetry</span></span> from aircraft; this is how it was done before GRACE. Laser <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">altimitry</span></span> can only tell you the altitude of the surface of the ice so this approach is most useful for mass balance studies. The study specifically addressed the mass balance of Greenland. Above 2000m of altitude, there was a mass balance: net accumulation in the northern latitudes counteracted net loss in the southern latitudes. However, at all latitudes around the periphery there was widespread net loss. An included figure best describes the findings [flight tracks shown; also note that this is an elevation chart, not a mass chart like for GRACE]:<br /><br /></p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol289/issue5478/images/large/se2708686001.jpeg" border="0" />Although less comprehensive than the GRACE survey, it is clear that a large negative mass balance at the periphery of Greenland overwhelms the accumulation in the interior.<br /><br /><p>In sum: "Interpolation of our results between flight lines indicates a net loss of about 51 cubic kilometers of ice per year from the entire ice sheet, sufficient to raise global sea level by 0.13 millimeter per year--approximately 7% of the observed rise." </p><p><em>Discussion</em>: This study found strong evidence for behavior which points to warming: ice thickening or balance in the interior and aggressive thinning at the periphery. However, the authors admit that the peripheral thinning cannot be explained by the temperature record alone, and that the mechanism for the mass loss is still a mystery. Study 3 below is a partial response to this study and attempts to solve this problem with glacial dynamics studies. </p><p><em>Conclusion</em>: This study gives <strong>some evidence for north polar warming</strong>.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Study 3</span></strong><br /><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/5763/986"><em>Changes in the velocity structure of the Greenland ice sheet</em> </a><br /><em>Eric <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Rignot</span></span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Pannir</span></span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Kanagaratnam</span></span> , Science 17 February 2006 311: 986-990 </em></p><p><em>Basic:</em> Using data from satellite radar interferometry [bouncing electromagnetic waves off the surface of ice from space], <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Rignot</span></span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Kanagaratnam</span></span> have measured the velocity of the glaciers of Greenland over the last decade. Note how this differs from the previous study: the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">altimetry</span></span> data presented in Study 2 likewise bounced electromagnetic waves [in that case, lasers] off the surface of the ice <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">sheet</span>, but there it was for the purpose of measuring the altitude of the ice surface and in this study the purpose is to measure the speed at which the ice flows down glaciers. These glaciers are the conveyor belts for ice transportation from the interior of Greenland to the sea, so glacial acceleration is a sign that more ice is leaving Greenland and entering the oceans. The study not only found widespread glacial acceleration, but found that the portion of Greenland experiencing the acceleration is increasing dramatically. The effect is also found to dominate any increase in due to warming, and is presented as an explanation for the mechanisms behind the results found in Study 2. </p><p><em>Detailed</em>: The causes of glacial acceleration are not very well known, although all plausible explanations are products of warming [such as surface <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">meltwater</span></span> percolating down under the ice and lubricating the interface between ice and rock]. The degree of acceleration is also not a terribly good measure of the warming; all it can say is that warming is occurring. The study found that total mass loss from Greenland doubled in the period 1996-2005. The important point is that acceleration is observed, and this is not a feature of ice age rebound. The authors state: "We detected widespread glacier acceleration below 66 [degrees] north between 1996 and 2000, which rapidly expanded to 70 [degrees] north in 2005. Accelerated ice discharge in the west and particularly in the east doubled the ice sheet mass deficit in the last decade from 90 to 220 cubic kilometers per year." </p><p></p><p>The figure below shows the velocity plots of some of the glaciers from the study. The black lines correspond to the oldest data, blue the next, and red the most recent. Since these are velocity plots, the earmark of acceleration will be the red plots lying "above" the blue ones and the blue ones above the black ones.</p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 600px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol311/issue5763/images/large/311_986_F2.jpeg" border="0" /> <p><em>Conclusion</em>: This study constitutes <strong>strong evidence of north polar warming</strong>.</p><p><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Other studies</span></strong><br /><em><a href="http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/pdf/2006/Thomas_GreenlandIceLoss_GRL_2006.pdf">Progressive increase in ice mass loss from Greenland</a></em><em><br />R. Thomas, et al., GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 33, L10503</em></p><p><em>Basic: </em>Similar results from the ICEsat experiment.</p><p><em>Quote:</em> "Laser altimeter measurements over Greenland show increasing thickening rates bove 2000 m, reflecting increasing snowfall in a warming climate. But near-coastal thinning rates have increased substantially since the mid 1990s, and net mass loss more than doubled from an average of 4–50 Gt per year between 1993/4 and 1998/9 to 57–105 Gt per year between 1998/9 and 2004. This increasing trend is very similar to findings from independent massbudget studies, but differs widely from ERS radar altimeter results."<br /><em></em><em><br /><a href="http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005.../2004JD005641.shtml">Runoff and mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet: 1958–2003</a></em><br /><em>Edward Hanna <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">et</span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">al</span>., JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 110, D13108</em><br /><br /><em>Quote: "</em>Runoff losses from the ice sheet were 264 (±26) km3 yr−1 in 1961–1990 and 372 (±37) km3 yr−1 in 1998–2003. Significantly rising runoff since the 1990s has been partly offset by increased precipitation. Our best estimate of overall mass balance declined from 22 (±51) km3 yr−1 in 1961–1990 to −36 (±59) km3 yr−1 in 1998–2003, which is not statistically significant."</p><p><em><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/sci;311/5763/963.pdf">The Greenland ice sheet and global sea-level rise</a></em><br /><em>Julian A. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Dowdeswell</span></em><br /><br /><em>Abstract</em>: "The flow of several large glaciers draining the Greenland Ice Sheet is accelerating. This change,combined with increased melting, suggests that existing estimates of future sea-level rise are too low."</p><p><em><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/311/5768/1756.pdf">Seasonality and increasing frequency of Greenland glacial earthquakes</a><br />Göran Ekström, et al., Science 311, 1756 (2006)</em></p><p><em>Abstract</em>: "Some glaciers and ice streams periodically lurch forward with sufficient force to generate emissions of elastic waves that are recorded on seismometers worldwide. Such glacial earthquakes on Greenland show a strong seasonality as well as a doubling of their rate of occurrence over the past 5 years. These temporal patterns suggest a link to the hydrological cycle and are indicative of a dynamic glacial response to changing climate conditions."</p><p><em>[Further studies requested]</em></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Discussion</strong></span><br />There is no doubt that Greenland is losing ice. And fast. A valid argument against concluding that warming is the cause of the loss is still present, however: since Greenland's climate is so controlled by the East Greenland Current [EGC], it is possible that the current is changing in ways that is encouraging the loss of ice on Greenland. The GRACE mass deficit maps are particularly encouraging to this line of thinking since a large majority of the mass loss occurs along the eastern coast, where Greenland and the current interface. I have dug deep to find evidence that the EGC has changed in any way since before the mass balance turned negative. I found no such evidence. Additionally, any change in the EGC could very well be tied to warming since the Arctic has seen the most dramatic effects attributed to warming of any region on Earth. Until strong evidence emerges that some other factor is forcing these dramatic mass losses, the sub-bullet value is TRUE. However, the evidence strength is demoted from "conclusive" to "strong" due to these concerns.</p><p><em>Brief summary of the issues</em>: A complete description of the behavior of the Greenland ice sheet has to include two behaviors: ice mass loss--the change in the distribution and quantity of ice--and glacial dynamics--the change in the behavior of the ice. The dynamics data [such as Rignot and Kanagaratnam and Ekström] are strongly complementary to the mass balance data since glacial dynamics explains at least some of the mass loss and simultaneously acts as strong evidence of warming. Strong positive signatures of warming were found from both glacial dynamics studies and mass balance studies.</p><p>Summary of mass balance data:</p><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5160992658504127106" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV5VLPwZFlbyO-q2XvxoaztYoa06kcMg6RKFYLl36fJeVAAgZP2oT_ZrNvX4XdKR9A4em5jN8NOjyY6JQZ94rgKcI2kpT0_8fnnNmI21Z52yDt18sJd7nEDhxpPcsIrs7Ua6ZnLBnjdE9l/s400/Greenland+Mass+Balance.JPG" border="0" /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Conclusion</span></strong><br />This data constitutes <strong>strong evidence of north polar warming</strong>.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Sub-bullet value: <span style="color:#006600;">TRUE</span></span></strong> </p></div>trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-62766581313774588572008-01-22T09:03:00.000-08:002008-02-19T11:10:58.127-08:00Bullet iv: Ice and Sea Levels<span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Bullet <em>iv</em>: "A clear warming trend is evidenced by ice sheet and sea level changes"</strong></span><br />Hierarchy: <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part_16.html">Part II</a>:<strong>1</strong>:<strong>A</strong>:<em>iv</em><br /><br /><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part.html">Back to Intro</a> - <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part_16.html">Back to Outline</a> - Back to Bullet iii - <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/bullet-v-warming-and-life.html">Forward to Bullet v</a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Introduction</strong></span><br />It would be logical to assume that a warming world should be losing ice cover. But the relationship between warming and polar ice sheets is not simple. Warming does not simply melt ice; it also changes weather patterns that affect the accumulation of ice. Warmer polar air can carry more moisture and thus increase the amount of precipitation over ice fields, effectively increasing the amount of ice. If precipitation outweighs melting and evaporation [positive "mass balance"], then warming could actually increase the ice in polar fields. Also, the equilibrium-line altitude [<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">ELA</span>]--the altitude above which there is net ice accumulation--increases with increased temperature but decreases with increased snowfall, so it is not necessarily clear from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">ELA</span> trends whether warming has <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">occurred</span>.<br /><br />But it is still true that polar ice presents a potentially powerful testament to climate trends. The expected contribution to the mass balance from increased precipitation is small compared to increased melting. And also the <em>distribution</em> of ice changes in predictable ways according to temperature. Below the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">ELA</span>, the rate of melting should undeniably increase with increasing temperatures. A signature of warming would then be ice thickening in the interior and thinning or retreating around the periphery. The flow of ice into the ocean is also expected to accelerate with rising temperatures; scientists have recently shown that the melting of sea ice abutting the mouths of glaciers triggers a massive acceleration of the glacier. And further evidence has been found that surface meltwater can percolate to the bottoms of glaciers and lubricate the ice-rock boundary, catalyzing faster ice flow. If sea levels are rising then the net amount of water tied up in ice worldwide must be decreasing, which would be an undeniable sign that temperatures are increasing despite increases in snowfall.<br /><br />Glaciers and polar ice fields are very different beasts. Glaciers represent a much higher diversity of the planet's climates and thus tell us more about global temperature trends. Glaciers also are more a part of their surrounding climate than ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which are so large that they create their own regional climates. So glaciers can respond faster to climatic variations. An analysis of ice cover then wouldn't be complete without a discussion of the trends in the distribution of continental glaciers.<br /><br />Changes in the distribution of polar ice, glacial ice and sea levels are all important in an analysis of what ice can tell us about temperature trends. Each topic contains enough data to evaluate independently, so we will follow the structure below. Click on the links to see an analysis of the research for each topic.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Bullet Structure:</span> </strong><br /><br /><strong>A clear warming trend is evidenced by ice sheet and sea level changes</strong><br /><br /><p style="TEXT-INDENT: 1em"><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/sub-bullet-greenland.html">a. The Greenland ice sheets show warming</a></p><p style="TEXT-INDENT: 1em"><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/sub-bullet-b-antarctica.html">b. The Antarctic ice sheets show warming</a></p><p style="TEXT-INDENT: 1em">c. Global continental glaciers show warming</p><p style="TEXT-INDENT: 1em">d. Sea levels show warming</p><p style="TEXT-INDENT: 1em">e. Permafrost and river and lake ice show warming</p><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Conclusion</strong></span><br />No conclusion at this time.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Bullet Value:</strong> INCOMPLETE<strong><span style="color:#006600;"><br /></span></strong></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><span style="color:#006600;"></span></strong></span>trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-11873700128729867572008-01-19T12:19:00.001-08:002008-01-19T12:52:56.822-08:00Chuckwalla and Bunnies<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Chuckwalla</span> and I were looking up animal pictures on images.google.com, and she asked me to find pictures of a bunny. So I typed "bunny" and clicked on <a href="http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/photos/american_west/images/bunny.jpg&imgrefurl=http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/photos/american_west/pages/bunny.htm&h=600&w=889&sz=134&hl=en&start=8&sig2=umP1Z-6Qhe6CCg6ZLh-sCw&tbnid=-mdGHqaKNpstaM:&tbnh=99&tbnw=146&ei=AVuSR6zWNJKUeY_k-f8P&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbunny%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den">the first picture I saw</a>.<br /><br />Click on the link.<br /><br />The photographer is... Steven Pinker! Pinker--the greatest modern cognitive psychologist, one of the most influential living linguists, and <em>the</em> modern anti-Empiricist rock star--took a picture of a "bunny." Not a desert cottontail rabbit, not a cottontail rabbit, not even a rabbit, but a "bunny." And not only that, but it is one of the top ten hits on images.google.com for "bunny."<br /><br />Bizarre!<br /><br />His gallery is actually pretty good. He uses polarizing filters to good effect, and he takes some nice macros. His bird pictures are all properly identified. But still... didn't see that one coming!trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-39075100493430238762008-01-18T15:35:00.000-08:002008-01-22T15:03:10.848-08:00Bullet v: Warming and Life<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Bullet </span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-STYLE: italic">v</span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">: "A clear warming trend is witnessed by changes in wild plants and animals"</span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">Hierarchy: <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part_16.html">Part II</a>:<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">1</span>:<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">A</span>:<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">v.</span></span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"> </span></span><br /><p><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part.html">Back to Intro</a> - <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part_16.html">Back to Outline</a> - <a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2008/01/bullet-iv-ice-and-sea-levels.html">Back to Bullet vi</a></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Introduction</span></span><br />Most plants and animals rely on climate to provide the necessary conditions to provide essential sustenance. Additionally, living organisms rely on climate to provide weather cues essential to a complete life-cycle. Therefore, widespread warming should have a measurable effect on the life-cycles of many plants and animals. With increased temperatures, birds migrate and lay eggs sooner, populations tend poleward, and the physical and genetic traits of many species tend toward configurations ideal for warmer climates. Almost certainly a majority of these effects are not known, but those that are known are easy to measure and stand as a completely independent and reliable complement to temperature data. Accumulating data from these sources avoids many of the issues endemic to outright temperature measurements, such as instrumentation unreliability, faulty or problematic calibration, and lack of continuity or comprehensiveness of records. However species' traits are poor measurers of the degree of the warming, meaning that their use is restricted to orthogonal verification of more standard climatic data. <b><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Study 1:</span></b><br /></p><div class="Ih2E3d"><i><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6918/abs/nature01333.html">Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants</a><br />Terry L. Root et. al.,</i><i> Nature</i> 421, 37-42 (2 January 2003)<br /><br /><i>Basic:</i> A large meta-analysis of 143 independent papers which shows that the large majority [>80%] of nearly 1,500 plant and animal species studied had significant changes in behavior, habits, and physical traits consistent with rising temperatures but not consistent with level or decreasing temperatures. The trait shifts were statistically significant in the direction consistent with warming.<br /><i><br />Details:</i> The species' traits studied included population density change and poleward migration; phenology: the timing of egg-laying, flowering, migration, etc.; morphology: body size, behavior, etc.; and genetic frequency shifts. The meta-study identified potential temperature-dependent shifts for each species and counted the number of observed shifts of these types. Over 80% of the species showed shifts consistent with warming, with a 90% confidence interval of roughly 70%-89%. The shifts in phenology [timing of life-cycle events] across species shows statistically significant trends towards earlier dates.<br /><br />In sum: "...the balance of evidence suggests that a significant impact of recent climatic warming is discernible in the form of long-term, large-scale alterations of animal and plant polulations. For example, the average shift in spring phenology (timing) of events, such as breeding or blooming, for temperate-zone species is 5.1 +/- 0.1 days earlier in a decade."<br /><br /><i>Discussion:</i> It is important to note that this study does two important things: [1] confirm a wide-spread and broad-based response consistent with a global warming trend, and [2] act as an independent, statistically verified, though imprecise, verification of the IPCC warming data. Though the IPCC data were cited in the study, it is crucial to understand that the trait shift data exist independent of any warming data and no statistical results were contingent on IPCC data.<br /></div><i><br />Conclusion:</i> This meta-analysis is <b>very strong evidence of a widespread warming trend</b>.<br /><b><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Study 2:</span><br /></b><i><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6918/abs/nature01286.html">Biological fingerprint of climate change impacts</a><br />Camille Parmesan & Gary Yohe, </i><i></i><i>Nature</i> 421, 57-60 (2 January 2003)<i> </i><br /><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6918/abs/nature01286.html" target="_blank"></a><br /><i>Basic:</i> A large meta-analysis of over 1,700 species focusing on range and phenology shifts as well as relative abundance shifts. The shifts are compared to predictions based on IPCC climate warming data and agree with a confidence of >95%. This means that there is a less than 5% chance that the living systems' shifts that have been observed are correlated with the IPCC warming data purely by chance.<br /><br /><i>Details:</i> Northern range limits for species moved an average of 6.1 km per decade northward with 95% confidence interval of 1.3-10.9. Mean spring timing advanced an average of 2.3 days per decade, with 95% confidence interval of 1.7-3.2. The entire set of analyses points to a >95% [the IPCC's definition of "very high"] confidence that climate change is driving species poleward and pulling spring dates earlier.<br /><br />In sum: "The meta-analyses of 334 species and the global analyses of 1,570 species... show highly significant, nonrandom patterns of change in accord with observed climate warming in the twentieth century, indicating a very high confidence (>95%) in a global climate change fingerprint."<br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Discussion:</span> This is perhaps the most statistically rigorous paper on the topic. Conforming to very high levels of objectivity and statistics, the evidence overwhelmingly proves that global plant and animal life is changing in ways consistent only with global warming. We endeavor in this section only to show that plants and animals are changing in ways that signal global warming, but it is interesting to note that this paper also ties the degree of living organism response to the amount of warming and thus acts as a kind of verification of the actual <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">IPCC</span></span> warming data.<br /><br /><i>Conclusion:</i> This meta-analysis is <b>very strong evidence of a global warming trend</b>.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Study 3:</span></strong><br /><a href="http://www.uwm.edu/~mds/">[Various <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">phenology</span></span> studies]</a><br /><em>Mark D. Schwartz</em><br />[as suggested by reader "Smoker"]<br /><br /><em>Basic</em>: Schwartz has made a career out of creating an integrated study of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">phenology</span></span>. He utilizes ground stations, citizen scientists, networks of researchers and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">satellites to track the onset of spring and to measure trends in the timing of leafing and blooming.</span> There is no simple way to synthesize all of his findings here, but there is a very useful <a href="http://www.uwm.edu/~mds/gcb_2006.html">collection of figures </a>on his website relating to a <a href="http://www.uwm.edu/~mds/Schwartz_etal_2006.pdf">single study</a> he conducted which is indicative of the type of data he is collecting. The figures for <a href="http://www.uwm.edu/~mds/graphics/NH_GrowingSL5_1955_2002_trend.jpg">growing season length</a>, <a href="http://www.uwm.edu/~mds/graphics/NH_LstFreeze28_1955_2002_trend.jpg">last spring freeze date</a>, <a href="http://www.uwm.edu/~mds/graphics/NH_SIFrstBloom_1955_2002_trend.jpg">first bloom date</a>, and <a href="http://www.uwm.edu/~mds/graphics/NH_SIFrstLeaf_1955_2002_trend.jpg">first leaf date</a> trends are particularly instructive. Data from stations across the Northern Hemisphere were used for the study.<br /><br />One pertinent quote: "Results are consistent with prior smaller area studies, confirming a nearly universal quicker onset of early spring warmth (spring indices (SI) first leaf date, -1.2 days per decade), late spring warmth (SI first bloom date, -1.0 days per decade; last spring day below 5 1C, -1.4 days per decade), and last spring freeze date (-1.5 days per decade) across most temperate NH land regions over the 1955–2002 period."<br />[Quoted from: <em><a href="http://www.uwm.edu/~mds/Schwartz_etal_2006.pdf">Onset of spring starting earlier across the Northern Hemisphere</a>, Mark D Schwartz <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">et</span></span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">al</span></span>., Global Change Biology (2006) 12, 343</em>]<br /><br /><em>Conclusion</em>: This body of data is <strong>very strong evidence of a widespread warming trend</strong>.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><b>Further studies on the topic: </b></span><br /><br /><i><a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/a08p631v7gq4p705/">Patterns of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">phenological</span></span> changes in migratory birds</a><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Thorup</span></span> K <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">et</span></span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">al</span></span>., </i><i><span title="Oecologia."><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Oecologia</span></span>.</span> 2007 Apr;151(4)</i><br /><a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/a08p631v7gq4p705/" target="_blank"></a><br /><i><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16809542">Rapid advance of spring arrival dates in long-distance migratory birds [with response]</a><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Jonzen</span></span> N, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">et</span></span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">al</span></span>., </i><i><span title="Science (New York, N.Y.).">Science.</span> 2006 Jun 30;312(5782)<br /><br /></i><i></i><i><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17479755">Climate correlates of 20 years of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">trophic</span></span> changes in a high-elevation riparian system</a><br />Martin TE, <span title="Ecology.">Ecology.</span> 2007 Feb;88(2):367-80</i><br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold;font-size:130%;" >Conclusion<br /></span>These studies together constitute <b>conclusive evidence of a global warming</b> <b>trend</b>. Little information about the rate and scale of the warming is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">discernible</span></span> from this data, however. No papers I have found to date can attribute these trait shifts to any other cause than increasing temperatures, so this bullet is uncharacteristically clean and simple.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><b>Bullet value: <span style="COLOR: rgb(0,102,0)">TRUE</span></b></span><br /><strong><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,102,0);font-size:130%;" ></span></strong><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,0)"><a href="http://truewilderness.blogspot.com/2007/11/logical-approach-to-global-warming-part_16.html">Back to the Outline</a></span>trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766665477146577244.post-27995303475329112712008-01-17T15:20:00.001-08:002008-01-17T15:32:16.836-08:00Please Spend This Here $10,000,000,000The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has just offered you one-quarter of its endowment--10 billion dollars--to spend on charitable endeavors of your choice. They also stipulate that you must spend it or lose it; no investments possible. What would your plan be? Be specific and thoughtful, I'm very interested in your answers. My guess is that the answers will vary drastically. I'll include all of the responses in a main post when enough people have responded, unless you request otherwise.<br /><br />Have fun!trogonpetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17304975189503132711noreply@blogger.com7