A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Irreversible. That’s what a new study reported by NPR says:

As carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, the world will experience more and more long-term environmental disruption. The damage will persist even when, and if, emissions are brought under control, says study author Susan Solomon, who is among the world’s top climate scientists.

I’ve heard that mentioned for a long time. There were several times over the past thirty of forty years where significant changes might have made a difference. But, once we reach the tipping point there’s no turning back. Things will change and we have to adapt to those changes.

“People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide that the climate would go back to normal in 100 years or 200 years. What we’re showing here is that’s not right. It’s essentially an irreversible change that will last for more than a thousand years,” Solomon says.

This is because the oceans are currently soaking up a lot of the planet’s excess heat — and a lot of the carbon dioxide put into the air. The carbon dioxide and heat will eventually start coming out of the ocean. And that will take place for many hundreds of years.

Do we still have to make changes to the way we pollute the environment and cut back on carbon emissions. Yes, we do. Because we can continue to make things worse. It’s about the only thing we can be sure of — we can make it worse. So, why not try to adapt, change and learn to protect our environment as much as we can.

Dr. Solomon, a scientist at NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) also said:

If we continue with business as usual for even a few more decades, she says, those emissions could be enough to create permanent dust-bowl conditions in the U.S. Southwest and around the Mediterranean.

So, we should be doing everything in our power as citizens of the planet to help contain the damage we’ve already done to our planet. It’s not like we have anywhere else to go — at least not right yet. Since this is the only planet we have to live on we can’t afford to make a worse mess of it. So, do your part to reduce the damage — recycle, reduce your carbon footprint, look for ways to live a greener life.

NASA announced that it will finally get a good look at our Sun. NASA manages to put the importance of this ability in a nutshell:

STEREO’s deployment on opposite sides of the Sun solves a problem that has vexed astronomers for centuries: At any given moment they can see only half of the stellar surface. The Sun spins on its axis once every 25 days, so over the course of a month the whole Sun does turn to face Earth, but a month is not nearly fast enough to keep track of events. Sunspots can materialize, explode, and regroup in a matter of days; coronal holes open and close; magnetic filaments stretch tight and—snap!—they explode, hurling clouds of hot gas into the solar system. Fully half of this action is hidden from view, a fact which places space weather forecasters in an awkward position. How can you anticipate storms when you can’t see them coming? Likewise researchers cannot track the long-term evolution of sunspots or the dynamics of magnetic filaments because they keep ducking over the horizon at inconvenient times. STEREO’s global view will put an end to these difficulties.

We’ve never been able to see a full 360 view of our sun and using these two STEREO spacecraft we’ll get that chance. Having the full image of the sun available is still two years away but already scientists are getting glimpses of what just over the horizon from what they could see before. You know that bit that’s hidden just a little bit further and you feel if you stretch you could see it. Well, now these spacecraft are giving them that little bit of stretch to see beyond what they had before. It’s a taste of what’s coming and has them all excited about what they could learn. Currently that peek is giving them about a three day advantage — they can see what will be coming around when the Sun spins on its axis by about three days.

Getting better information about the sun and its flares, spots, winds, and such is very important for those of us who use high-tech gadgets. The sun is moving into a very active phase and that is going to effect the Earth’s atmosphere to make some spectacular auroras. However, it’s also going to cause electrical disruptions that can badly decay high-tech gadgets ability to work as smoothly as they do now. There will probably be drop outs in communications using satellites — phones, PDAs, TV reception, internet connections. Having advanced warning of such possible disruptions and maybe some plans to ameliorate the difficulties would be very nice (especially since I have a cellular internet connection).

I think about things and wonder:

• what causes it, or
• how it works, or even
• why can’t I find anything about it.

Today I got to think about eyes and sleep.

Have you ever noticed that you’ll be asleep and it’s dark and some sound or something wakes. But, you come to consciousness but you don’t open your eyes and everything is dark. Then you open your eyes and it’s bright sunshine. Now here’s the part I wonder about. If you then close your eyes it’s not dark when you do — the light is filtering through your eyelids and its obviously light beyond your eyelids.

Why is that? If the same eyelids before and after you open your eyes. Is it like your eyes have to turn on and they don’t boot up until your open them then they recognize the light outside the lids? I mean what causes that difference in sensation.

It’s just something I’ve been pondering. Being me I Googled but didn’t find anything specifically about what I’m wondering about mostly I learned a lot about how the eyes perceive light and how color vision works — stuff I mostly knew from college. But the answer to why it’s dark until you open your eyes and then it isn’t anymore doesn’t seem to be one of the big questions scientist ponder. Guess it’s just me.

If you happen to know how/why this happens I’d like to hear about it.

Okay, this is not a science or geek post so those of you not interested in the art and craft of knitting or fibery goodness can move along. But I knit. I’m working on about six projects now. Yeah, I’m flighty and I knit with the mood. I’m nearly done with some socks I’ve been working on of my own design.  That will be another post later.

But back on topic, I heard about this knitting book a while back, quite a while back actually, and it sounded interesting, but nothing special. Now it’s out in the stores and I hadn’t had a chance to see the book itself. The bookstores near where I live and a bit farther a field are light on the craft sections and finding anything is a bit hit or miss because most jumble the crafts all together and I haven’t figured out their shelving system because it isn’t alphabetical by Author or by Title or any other method I can suss out. And no the craft books aren’t even shelves by topic with all the knitting in one area and the crochet in another and quilting in another and so on — jumbled together. So, I hadn’t seen it when I saw the notice that it was out and that usually means out of sight out of mind.

However, Knitting Daily yesterday had this YouTube video with the author talking about the book. I found it on YouTube so you can have a peek if you don’t get Knitting Daily.

My reaction? Wow. I like all the patterns they showed except one and it would take minimum changes to make it one I did like. So, imagine my surprise when today after shopping we stopped in the book store and they have one copy on the shelves. I actually got to take it down and get a closer look. I just flipped through the pages but I liked all the patterns — that’s got to be a gazillion to one chance. Fact is, once I get to actually sit down and study the book I’d probably find that even though I like the pattern it wouldn’t look good on me. But, really a pattern book that I like everything in is unusual enough.

Now it’s on the top of my Wish List. It will more than likely be the next knitting book that I get. What I like most is that the patterns all look like items that you could wear every day and feel special. And that’s mostly what knitting is about — making things that are special and/or make you feel special but are functional and beautiful. On a quick peek — this seems to be one of those books with a higher percentage of “meeting my criteria” than usual.

Wind farms are nothing new but putting them off-shore is. Cape Wind on Nantucket Sound will be the first off-shore wind farm in America.

According to an article in Tech Fragments, Cape Wind just got the official go ahead to proceed with their project. The project will have 130 turbines in the waters of Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod. From the article:

When completed, Cape Wind will be capable of supplying up to 420 megawatts of electricity, potentially offsetting as much as a million tons of carbon emissions and saving more than 100 million gallons of oil every year. But the environment wont be the sole beneficiary of Cape Wind. It will likely be a boon to out of work Massachusetts residents, as well, given that as many as 1,000 green jobs could be brought to the Bay State in addition to a significant supply of clean, renewable energy.

Just to put it in perspective that 420 megawatts of electricity would be enough to meet the needs of 420,000 homes. And unlike in other areas of the country this area is supplied by power stations that burn oil and natural gas rather than coal. So when this project is up to speed it will help offset Massachusetts’ reliance on petroleum for power.

However, the key issue is that not only will this supply power — clean power — and reduce our dependence on oil, it’s also going to produce jobs. Many times people forget that alternative energy also means alternative jobs and in these economic times jobs are important. Yes, some of the old jobs may disappear but many of the skills necessary on them can be applicable to the new jobs. Thus there is the possibility of no loss of jobs when switching to alternative power and maybe even a net gain (some new jobs will be created).

The resistance is often fear of change. Change is going to happen anyway whether we want it to or not. Things can not continue as they are — the earth is running out of oil. That’s a fact. As we deplete these resources it will become harder and harder to get the fuel we need and eventually it will gone. Not just too expensive to buy but not available, gone, all used up, nothing left. It may not happen in our lifetimes, we’ll just see prices going up and up to buy this ever shrinking resource.

The sooner we switch to clean, non-petroleum/non-carbon based, alternative energies the better for us, for our children, for our grandchildren, and oh, yes for the country. Projects such as this wind farm are a start, but we need to be doing more to move us from our dependence on oil. This is a step in the right direction.

I’d planned to do a post on wind energy today so I’ll either do it much later to tomorrow. The reason? Well, some days when you’re on the ‘net you run into things that just… well they make you smile or laugh out loud. Today I found this wonderful video and it tickled my funny bone and I thought I’d share.

Who knew? But since so many people have made fun of his name both first and last, I thought it was about time someone got it right.

I’ve had a dream for at least eight years now that I’d get my country back. That our Constitution and Bill of Rights and the concepts and ideal upon which this country was founded would once again become important to the holder of the most important office our country has — The Presidency.

Today I watched the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. That dream became hope during his campaign and his speech today confirmed my hope and belief that finally America will be on the right track. That those hard decisions necessary to move our country forward and to maintain our ideals would be made. I now have more than a dream, I have hope for the future. Today, I am again proud to be an American. (Here’s Obama’s inaugural speech.)

We are what we imagine ourselves to be. (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.)

Last week New Scientist had an article on How Novels Help Drive Social Evolution. The article reports on a study by Jonathan Gottschall and co-author Joseph Carroll at the University of Missouri, St Louis, about how “Darwin’s theories of evolution apply to literature” (I’m not putting in a link to the study since you have to pay to view it). Gottschall and Carroll with John Johnson, an evolutionary psychologist at Pennsylvania State University in DuBois, asked 500 people to fill in a questionnaire about 200 classic Victorian novels. The believe:

Boehm and Carroll believe novels have the same effect as the cautionary tales told in older societies. “Just as hunter-gatherers talk of cheating and bullying as a way of staying keyed to the goal that the bad guys must not win, novels key us to the same issues,” says Boehm. “They have a function that continues to contribute to the quality and structure of group life.”

“Maybe storytelling – from TV to folk tales – actually serves some specific evolutionary function,” says Gottschall. “They’re not just by-products of evolutionary adaptation.”

This reminded me that back in March of 2006, I’d reviewed A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong. The premise was that people need stories or myths as much as they needed food and water (my words not hers). Basically, people have always told stories. We gathered round the fire and told of hunts, of battles, of the gods, of how good got rewarded and bad was punished. If you haven’t read this work, you really should.  It doesn’t retell the fairy stories or legends, it helps to place them in perspective according to their appearance along the time line of human social evolution.

In stories we pass on information from the older to the younger generation. Stories allow us to learn from our past and plan for our future. Children play to prepare them for the roles they will take on in life. In early days, they played at the hunt, imitating what they’d heard in the stories from their elders, the hunters of the tribe. They took in these lessons, tips, and warnings and as they grew they internalized these stories and used them in their lives. They observed the life around them and developed stories to make sense of what they saw.

Stories are essential to human culture. From stories we learn how to act. We learn about what is right and wrong and sometimes we learn that what seems right or wrong is actually the opposite. We learn to beware Greeks bearing gifts. Many of the sayings we use daily conversation are based in stories from our past.

We’ve mostly moved from a mostly oral to a mostly written tradition as few people are drawn to the position of Bard or Storyteller. At one time they brought news from one community to another and passed on the accumulated knowledge they’d learned in their travels in the form of  stories. Beyond that, our lives are but stories for the next generations, which I feel Shakespeare touched on when he wrote:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,

While you can still occasionally find storytellers, we mostly read books. The Bards/Storyteller of our time are authors — those whose fiction fulfills our need for stories. From books I learned much of what I know of life in different social classes than the one in which I was born, or life in other cultures, or other planets. I learned the manners and modes of behavior; how to survive outside my comfort zone of what I know. I also learned that these people, no matter which century they lived in, had the same fears, desires, wishes, dreams and hopes that I do. I learned that I was not alone. I learned that others had gone before me and that I could learn from their successes and their mistakes.

Stories are cautionary, informative, educational, and entertaining. Yes, “storytelling – from TV to folk tales – actually serves some specific evolutionary function” and any avid reader could have told these researchers about the importance of stories in our lives. However, it’s nice to have our beliefs ratified by science.