Bad news for migraine sufferers

While taking a break from recycling my shed (read: tearing it down and dissassembling the pieces), I thought I'd catch up with the world.

To my dismay, I found this little article waiting for me. It appears that migraines are linked to brain damage. Not good news for me, as I average a migraine (with aura) about once a month. I know this doesn't compare to the more frequent sufferers, such as Louise who averages one about every 2 or 3 days, but just the same, it's alarming.

A critique of XTRONIC's "global warming" webpage

I got tired of writing my critique of XTRONIC's "global warming" webpage, so I thought I would publish what I've written to date. Given the length of the original article, it will take me several weeks of regular work before I finish. Rather than to wait and publish a complete opus (I'm too impatient for that), I figure that I'd get the first part out of the way.

Maybe I'll publish weekly. Stay tuned.

Funny how things happen...

I mentioned in a previous post a discussion I had with a clan member regarding global warming and Kyoto. He referred me to a site entitled "Is man caused Global Warming a Scientific fact?"

Now, I work as a program administrator for a science scholarships program. Though I have training as a scientist, I abandoned that career path more than 20 years ago when I realized that I neither had the productivity nor the persistence to become a hardcore scientific researcher. So the skills I learned in grad school have pretty much been inactive since I finished my postdoc.

I read through the Xtronics web page on global warming, my gut reaction was: "This is wrong. There's lots of stuff that's wrong here." But then I realized that I didn’t have any arguments based on fact to compare with what I was reading.

I resolved then to write a critique of the Xtronics web page. So, I started reading carefully the Xtronics page, and consulting on-line resources regarding climate change and the issue of global warming. I won’t write here about my findings, since I will publish that on my personal website when it’s finished. However, from the way things are going, my response will be at least as long as the Xtronics article, if not longer.

But what is important to me, and why I’m blogging about it now, is the fact that I have started using some long-unused brain cells related to my past science career: unused for the past 20 years. I thought that such a long time would have made me rusty, and for sure the more technical knowledge aspects of what I am writing about has escaped me. But what has astonished me is how I have kept the “scientific mindset” (for lack of a better term) that I had in me all along and which got sharpened 20 years ago. I find that those things really didn't change for me.

As I was researching my response, I found it refreshing and fun to read, and write of things scientific – and I don’t just mean trying to distill concepts into lay terms, but to actually study and think and write critically, the way I did when I was a grad student writing my thesis or when I'd draft a publication. It’s the kind of thing where you know that whatever you are going to write is going to be examined by people who’ve done a lot more research than you, or are very familiar with the subject area, and will ask probing questions.

Cheryl found me last night writing and researching, and when I explained what I was doing, she asked me: “Why are you wasting your time?” (Being pragmatic, she was wondering why I was spending time doing this than doing something constructive, like paying the taxes or arranging for a load of gravel to be delivered.) I have no answer to her question other than to say I feel compelled to do it. I guess what irks me is to read something on the web or in the newspaper that I suspect is not true, and discover that people read the same thing and take it as truth. So I feel obliged to correct things.

Anyway, this blog entry is taking time away from my critique… Back to work!

Canada's emissions plan misses Kyoto deadline by years

This is a sad day for Canada - the public acknowledgement that we will miss our Kyoto commitments by 8 to 13 years.

To be fair to the current Conservative government, the 8 to 10 years of Liberal government inaction on Kyoto did not help.

See the CBC story entitled: Baird's 'real' emissions plan misses Kyoto deadline by years

Our universe harbors no more than 512 vampires

I’d meant to blog this a long time ago, what with one thing or another getting in the way, I finally got around to it…

In his blog, Clive Thompson reports on an article entitled “Ghosts, Vampires and Zombies: Cinema Fiction vs Physics Reality” written by C.J. Efthimiou and S. Gandhi, and accessible online at the Cornell University Library.

To make a long story short, these physicists prove that (1) vampires don't exist, because if they did, we would have been overrun by them at least 200 years ago; and (2) in a steady-state "Buffy universe," there would be no more than 512 vampires.

Clive’s writeup is a very enjoyable read; take the time to look at his blog.

Kryptonite finally discovered!

The BBC newsite reports that Kryptonite has finally been discovered in a mine in Serbia. It seems that the mineral identified as sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide by Dr Chris Stanley, a mineralogist at London's Natural History Museum, had been reported in the literature – that is, comic book literature, not scientific. The mineral’s atomic structure was conclusively identified thanks to the analytical facilities at Canada's National Research Council and the assistance and expertise of two of its researchers, Dr Pamela Whitfield and Dr Yvon Le Page.

Isn’t it fun when fantasy meets reality?

Fallait s'y attendre...

En furetant les manchettes du BBC, j’ai trouvé cet article…Parait qu’un type est entré dans un restaurant à Londres et a décidé de se couper le penis! Mais ce qui est encore plus bizarre c’est le nom du resto (facilement visible dans la photo mais aussi cité dans l’article).

Très bizarre...

More on Global warming

As I was doing my research yesterday, an interesting article caught my eye: it was BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change published in the research magazine Science in 2004. I've taken the liberty of quoting a couple of paragraphs from the article. It should be kept in mind that this article was written in 2004 - about 3 years ago.

"The authors analyzed 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9). .... This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.” (my emphasis added)

"The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.”

I thought these two paragraphs were rather enlightening.

More on the question of scientific consensus: There is a Wikipedia entry entitled "Scientific consensus on climate change" which IMO pretty much ends the discussion on the global warming, unless one chooses to argue that the opinions of groups of scientists is meaningless. The entry lists 14 US and international organizations which state, in one way or another, that the evidence for anthropogenic climate change is overwhelming or that that the particular organization is in agreement with the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; see my previous post). These organizations include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the US National Research Council, and American Association of State Climatologists. The only dissenting organization is the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. (I wonder why that is?)

Earth Day, Global warming, and Jeff

I found it rather funny that I had a long discussion about global warming with Jeff as we were playing RavenShield last night, on the eve of Earth Day...

I won't attempt to summarize our discussions. I was rather distracted by trying to survive in RvS and to try to follow the thread of my discussion with Jeff as well as to recall some of the major research conclusions concerning global warming. (I don't multitask very well, just ask my wife.) You see, Jeff is not convinced that global warming exists at all, and that scientists of like mind (either for or against the conclusion of global warming) banded together and that there was no consensus conclusion that global warming was a 100% certainty.

Well, it got me to thinking. I had recalled a study that, in my mind, was pretty conclusive. Well, I was wrong. In fact, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had concluded in its Fourth Assessment Report that:

"It is very likely that the observed increase in methane concentration is due to anthropogenic activities, predominantly agriculture and fossil fuel use, but
relative contributions from different source types are not well determined." (p. 4)

Now, as a person familiar with the workings of the scientific community, it is very unlikely (read: impossible) for the community to come to an absolute consensus on just about any topic except the existence of gravity - and even there, I'm not so sure. The fact that the term "very likely" was used (the term used to indicate the assessed likelihood, using expert judgement, of an outcome or a result) exceeds 90% certainty - and this, of a group of 600 international climate experts from 40 countries, including the US.

(Incidentally, I had blogged earlier on the allegation that the Bush administration attempted to muzzle its own climate scientists and suppress research results. The attempt by any government to muzzle its own scientists is despicable - and the Bush administration is by no means alone!)

So, while in the mind of this group of scientists it is very likely that the gases that contribute to global warming are of anthopogenic origins, what should be done about it?

Well, I'm not an expert, but I figure we need to do something, and to do it now. We don't have time to screw around. My first thought is that we have to limit the output of greenhouse gases (ergo, the Kyoto Protocol). I'll have more to say about Kyoto when I've researched it properly and thought about it.

Happy Earth Day, everyone, and especially you, Jeff! ;-)

Columbine and Virginia Tech

In future years, the week from April 16th to 20th will hold some very sad anniversaries - the massacres of Columbine in 1999 and this year's Virginia Tech.

What's particularly disturbing is that IMO we are no closer to really understanding the "whys" that drove Messrs Harris and Kliebold to kill than on the day it happened - and that these kids' parents testimony will be sealed for 20 years (see Columbine questions still unanswered - MSNBC.com.)

In the wake of Seung-Hui Cho's rampage at Virginia Tech, the same questions will be asked: Why did it happen? What can we do to prevent this from happening again? But I don't expect any answers that will really help us know why it happened, because the ones who know killed themselves.

It's predictable: Messrs Harris, Kliebold and Seung-Hui will be vilified in the American media; more stringent security will be set in place; and much talk, but no action, will be made on gun control. And as days turn into months, and then years, no massacre will have happened, and we may think that, somehow, we have solved the problem.

And then it happens again.

And I expect it will happen again, because IMO there is a fundamental malaise in our society, one that fosters alienation. Maybe not an active alienation, in the sense that society has excluded these young people (though there is evidence that Harris/Kleinbold and Seung-Hui were bullied), but rather that they chose to be alienated from other people. Why that was, I have no idea, but I wonder if the answer lies in what was sealed...

US generals urge climate action - BBC News

I never would have believed it, but American generals have come out in favor of U.S. action to address climate change (see BBC NEWS "US generals urge climate action").

It seems that former US military leaders say that "global warming poses a serious threat to national security, as the US could be drawn into wars over water and other conflicts."

General Zinni, a former commander of US Central Command, said that: "It's not hard to make the connection between climate change and instability, or climate change and terrorism. We will pay for this one way or another. We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we'll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll."

I doubt that Bush will listen to their voice of reason...

Skep's "new" Home Page

I've had to establish a new home page as a result of consolidating my "identities." Sadly, I've had to delete the old website, but the new one, I hope will be better organized and more readable.

My "new" website can be found at http://skiamachist.googlepages.com.

Freedom of speech on the internet (?)

For some time now, actually since my friend P. ran afoul of her workplace's internet police, I've been thinking of the question of freedom of expression on the internet through blogs and posts. This morning, I read an interesting article by Heather Mallick on the CBC website. If you're not worried about Big Brother monitoring your on-line access, then read it at work... ;-)

On another note, I've taken a few days off to visit a friend in Waterloo and visit dad-in-law in London - with interesting side-trips as I travel. More on that later.