Author Archives: Hue White

Due to our hosting service, Bluehost, sending us mail saying that Google is now biasing search results to bring up results for sites that are responsive, which is to say that recognize the browser and platform and modify the site accordingly, we have switched WordPress themes (the old one was also no longer supported). I believe it’s more attractive than the old theme.  Let us know if you like it or not.

A reader sees the issue differently:

I’m not sure I have much sympathy for the Hawaiians who don’t want this 14th telescope built on land that’s been leased since the 60s. Sounds like a few powerful players are using sympathies for supposed cultural or religious beliefs as a way to further empower themselves, more likely. I’m not negatively disposed towards native Hawaiians at all, quite the opposite. But I think this needs some perspective.

For example, compared to Native Americans on the continent, Hawaiians are very recent arrivals. The Hawaiian Islands are the very last of the Pacific Islands settled by the Polynesians that spread eastward to the south Pacific islands from what’s the Malaysian archipelago today. They were originally settled somewhere between 300 and 800 AD, and then (arguably, science is not settled) conquered in 1300 by Tahitians. Europeans showed up in 1778. Meanwhile, Native Americans were probably here 16,000 years ago. One could argue that a hundred years in any place is long enough to make it sacred, though. So this may not be much of an argument.

Another mistake we often make is to regard native cultures as close to perfection, living in perfect environmental harmony and respectful of nature, etc. That’s a huge mistake. Read the history of Easter Island (for example, as written by Jared Diamond in “Collapse”), and you’ll see that native, even primitive cultures frequently plunder and destroy their own environments, often to their fatal demise.

Hence, I want to see some good evidence that those protesting this telescope have some good, solid footing for doing so — other than it just makes good optics from some opportunist rabble rousers. Did modern native Hawaiians really descend from and maintain an existing belief system which contained venerated respect for the particular parcel on the mountain where this telescope is being built? Or is that more wishful thinking, or transference, or something else?

A telescope is a pretty innocuous renter, mostly.

I’m not sure how the “culture as perfection” thing plays into this; I’m aware of the messy, violent Mayans, the deforestation of Greece in ancient times, and other examples of imperfections in ancient culture.  But so what?  They’re human, just like us.

Like my reader, I have no idea if time even plays into making land sacred.  Being agnostic, the word registers only a little more for me than does ‘spiritual’, which is more or less a zero.

I suppose telescopes don’t pollute much.  Here’s the specs on the Subaru Telescope:

* Cylindrical enclosure rotating with the telescope
* Height: 43 m (141 ft.)
* Diameter at base: 40 m (131 ft.)
* Weight: 2000 metric tons (2205 tons)

And it took 8 years to build, which was probably equal portions technical challenge and altitude problems.

In the interests of really full disclosure, I worked, briefly, for a company that was performing administrative computer services for the supercomputer used to control the telescope.  I didn’t get to go visit it, though, as I was in a different division.

A reader writes on this thread:

Sounds more like my money is more important than your children.

Yes, it does indeed.  The problem of greed becoming more important than community?  I’ll bet Pope Francis would be nodding his head right now.

Sami Grover @ TreeHugger suggests that the incremental strategy for decarbonisation is in the process of being discarded – in favor of the whole enchilada:

[A] new kind of environmental action is emerging, one that is not afraid to champion all-out, systemic change. It’s happening on many fronts:

• Engineers are mapping out roadmaps to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.
• Utilities are committing to complete decarbonization, and reshaping their business models around renewables.
• Authorities are planning to “make cars in cities pointless.”
• Mainstream builders are building homes with 90 percent lower heating bills, largely out of straw, at a comparable cost to conventional homes.
• Apple is buying up forests the size of San Francisco to promote sustainable forestry.

So are we really making that great of progress?  Are the renewables really ready for this kind of pressure?  Granted, it’s good to see corporations swing into action:

“A 100 percent goal is easier than 90 percent, or 50 percent. Because when you go for 90 percent, everyone in the company always finds a way to be in the 10 percent.”

-Steven Howard of IKEA

But there will also be those companies that’ll drag their feet and avoid doing anything that’ll impact the bottom line.  Perhaps I’m just cynical today.

I’ve heard, on and off, about the Hawaii’an independence movement for maybe 30 years now; I have a vague memory of seeing something about it in Whole Earth Review, but their archives show nothing.  I have some sympathy for them, as the USA basically overran their island chain.

I also qualify, I think, as a science-groupy.

So this news, from Hawaii News Now, caught my attention:

Protests against the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope has spread far beyond the slopes of Mauna Kea. Rallies are now springing up around Hawaii, the mainland and around the world.

The movement against the telescope has been growing, even as construction has been halted for a week atop Mauna Kea.

The telescope is controversial because of its location:

“Mauna Kea is sacred, and our children are taught to respect our `aina,” said teacher Leo Akana. “They understand that science is an important thing, but I think the state needs to realize that Hawaiians were the very first astronomers here.”

Definition of ‘aina, courtesy HuffPo, in an unrelated article:

Aina means land. Life in Hawaii is lived outdoors — malls, homes, offices, and even the airport are built with open-air walkways, large windows, or lanais (balconies or patios) so you’re never fully indoors. Native Hawaiians see their identities and wellbeing entwined with the land, and so respecting it and living in it are of the utmost importance.

PhysicsWorld reports on the suggested compromise:

Since 1968 the University of Hawaii has leased more than 44.5 km² of land on Mauna Kea from the Hawaiian Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) for scientific purposes, with the highest 2.1 km² devoted to astronomy research. The top of Mauna Kea is already home to 13 telescopes, and the TMT will be the largest and most powerful instrument when it is operational in 2023. The telescope’s 30 m primary mirror will be made of 492 hexagonal segments, and a structure 66 m wide and 56 m tall will house the telescope. The TMT will sit on a plateau about 500 feet below the summit, a location picked to reduce the telescope’s visibility from the majority of the island.

Fewer telescopes

Construction of the TMT had been halted in early April following protests by native Hawaiians, who see its construction on Mauna Kea as desecration of their spiritual and cultural pinnacle. Over the past eight weeks, Ige has mostly stayed quiet regarding the protests, but now, along with giving permission for construction to restart, he requests that the university returns all of the land not used for astronomy to the jurisdiction of the DLNR. He also says that the University of Hawaii should begin decommissioning one telescope later this year with at least one-quarter of the remainder to be completely dismantled by the time the TMT is operational, with each site to be returned to its natural state.

Mauna Kea has some of the best astronomical observing conditions in the world, so losing some of the observatories will hurt some of the astronomy researchers.  Additionally, telescopes are specialized, so sharing is not as easy.

But we’re a democracy first, and science-based second.  As a cohesive minority, and previous owners (not the right term, but it’s what we have), we need to recall that democracies exist to bring disparate groups with disparate belief systems together through compromise.  I’m well aware that some scientists have no time for other groups religious beliefs, but as an agnostic I do try to have some respect – since I have no idea which, if any, is correct – but that’s a matter for another post.

I’m also aware of the mostly undescribed provincialism of many scientists.  This takes the form of putting the needs of science ahead of anything else.  It’s usually not a problem in astronomy, but anthropologists often demonstrate it – on themselves.  The Kennewick Man controversy brought the pot to a boil, but the problem was recognized and initially dealt with by the Federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) law.  This law compels federally-funded scientists and institutions to return American Indian remains and other cultural items to the relevant tribes; indeed, often without any study other than that necessary to determine whether the remains are American Indian and which tribe might be best suited to take custody.  This caused quite an uproar as scientists lamented the loss of materials which might not have given up all of their data.

Another example came when Hershel Shanks, founder & editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, searching for a way to curtail widespread looting of ancient remains in the Biblical lands, hit upon the realization that such research resulted in the collection of thousands of oil lamps and pots, and he suggested these be placed on the legitimate market as a way to satisfy the demand for ancient remains by amateur collectors, thus reducing the prices paid for black market wares, and discouraging the looters.  The archaeological establishment just about burst a blood vessel, as I recall.  (Mr. Shanks also filled an instrumental role in the release of the Dead Sea Scrolls from the academic ghetto they’d fallen into.  All this from a lawyer pursuing a passion, too.  He’s a minor hero for me.)

In a way, it’s understandable.  Science takes time and, often, monomaniacism; thinking about the mindsets of groups with little relation to yours is difficult, especially when they may have data critical to your scientific endeavour.  But need doesn’t prioritize their desires over others.  Nor does it work the other way.

Compromise.

(h/t NewScientist 6 June 2015, paywall)

I’d never really thought about how it was done….

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/oEc-ESRjntg?rel=0&autoplay=1

(h/t William Cloose)

On the other hand, new North Carolina State Senator Jeff Jackson (D – District 37) seems unafraid to tote up the failures of North Carolina leadership on his Facebook page:

North Carolina’s 30-year teachers make $50,000.

Houston’s first-year teachers make $49,100.

Not sure if that’s adjusted for COLA, but it’s probably not much of an adjustment – and it indicates the shrine of choice for North Carolina legislative leadership.

Since I appear to live in a hole in the ground (pun fully intended), I had not heard of this effort by some architects to do their bit in reducing carbon emissions: building skyscrapers using wood, which will sequester carbon, rather than steel & concrete, which emits carbon (and is hardly sustainable).  Michael Green makes the case at TED:

These are my buildings. I build all around the world out of our office in Vancouver and New York. And we build buildings of different sizes and styles and different materials, depending on where we are. But wood is the material that I love the most, and I’m going to tell you the story about wood. And part of the reason I love it is that every time people go into my buildings that are wood, I notice they react completely differently. I’ve never seen anybody walk into one of my buildings and hug a steel or a concrete column, but I’ve actually seen that happen in a wood building. I’ve actually seen how people touch the wood, and I think there’s a reason for it. Just like snowflakes, no two pieces of wood can ever be the same anywhere on Earth. That’s a wonderful thing. I like to think that wood gives Mother Nature fingerprints in our buildings. It’s Mother Nature’s fingerprints that make our buildings connect us to nature in the built environment.

Helen Waters, also at TED, gets more information from Michael in a visual essay, which covers a number of topics, including the common concern: fire.

Peter Wilson at the Discover Magazine blog The Crux discloses the CO₂ cost of concrete:

This ability to use a renewable material to provide a positive response to a key environmental issue facing the construction industry, namely global warming, is nothing short of transformational. The use of concrete is already responsible for 5% of global greenhouse-gas emissions.

CityMetric covers a proposed wooden skyscraper in Vienna:

Unlikely as it sounds, wooden skyscrapers are a thing these days. As we noted last year, concerns about the environmental impact of steel and concrete are driving some architects and designers back to wood as a more eco-friendly alternative. There’s already a nine storey tower built from specially laminated timber in London, and a 12 storey wooden building under construction in Bergen, Norway.

A planned tower for Vienna, however, is due to leapfrog both in terms of scale and height. The HoHo project in Vienna’s Seestadt Aspern area will feature two wooden towers, the tallest of which will stretch to 25 storeys and 84m. The towers will be 76 per cent wood; Kerbler, the firm behind the designs, claim the material will produce 2,800 tonnes of CO2 when compared to a similar sized tower built from concrete.

The fire brigade in Vienna was a trifle irate, but they’re working with the builder to certify the construction materials.  Meanwhile, Lloyd Alter @ TreeHugger reports on the next step up:

Some think that architect Michael Green is pushing the envelope and perhaps his luck with his proposals for 30 and 35 storey buildings. Now he is working with Finnish lumber giant Metsä Wood to design and build a virtual Empire State Building, just to show that they can. The point of it all: “To challenge preconceptions and explore the possibilities of wood construction.”

Given that Michael is based in seismically active Vancouver, you have to think the seismic challenges for wood have been assessed; I probably just missed that section.

Here is Wood Skyscrapers.

A reader has a dismal reaction to the G7’s late move on the crisis:

I don’t read that with nearly the optimism that many commenters seem to have. It sounds more like hot air (no pun intended). Even if they were concrete goals which would be met in 2100, it’s probably way the hell too late. The only hope is in your final remark about it’s not so much about government as it is about the (small chance of a) tidal wave of public sentiment change and action. But I never over-estimate the public. As such, I’ve been busily mentally drafting a letter to my son, for when he’s a mature adult and I’m dead, apologizing profusely and long for bringing him into a world his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents generations so royally screwed up.

My hope centers around physical manifestations of the problems with fossil fuel overuse.  It’s one thing to point at subtle temperature changes and proclaim disaster in the offing, it’s quite another when food prices soar because of crop dislocations caused by out of normal range temperatures, etc.  Then the question will become whether we can change fast enough.  Once enough people abandon or show they’re willing to abandon fossil fuels, then the infrastructure will be abandoned and the hold outs won’t have a choice – economics at work, you might say.

The Australian experience may be illustrative of this process, at least politically speaking.  Whether it’ll work here and in China – two radically different political situations – remains to be seen.

It seems the North Carolina legislature is still failing to give its teachers any love, as we can see by this contribution from a North Carolina educator:

The N.C. Senate this evening started rolling out portions of its proposed budget, however we are still awaiting some of the details. Here is what we know right now.

• The Senate proposal will not make a dent in our dismal per-pupil spending and average teacher pay national rankings.
• Students and schools will be heavily impacted by the decimation of the state’s teacher assistants. According to reports, the Senate plans to cut more than 13,000 teacher assistants over two years. So much for the Senate’s job creation budget!
• Once again the Senate is shortchanging experienced teachers by giving them smaller, or in some cases, the most veteran teachers, no raise. The Senate also did not include restoring master’s pay as did the House budget.
• At a time when we are at the bottom of the heap in education, Senators used a $400 million surplus for the Rainy Day Fund instead of investing in education.
• Only $29 million in additional funding for textbooks and digital resources, the lowest of the three budget proposals.
• The Senate did include a proposal to reduce class size, but we are still trying to crunch the numbers and understand what it really will mean for schools.
• $6.8 million for private school vouchers.

Quite the dismal proposal.  I wonder how many of the legislatures legislators have children in the school system?

(Updated to insert a missing word. And again..)

I’m not religious, never have been.  But Pope Francis has been a great relief after Pope Benedict’s concentration on orthodoxy and theological purity, although perhaps I was negatively influenced by Andrew Sullivan’s view of the former Pope.  Francis’ public comments which I happen to stumble across seem more connected to the real world; his 3rd world origins give us a flip-side view of USA dominance of the world which is refreshing and important.

So now MarketWatch‘s Paul Farrell reports on the content of his upcoming (June 18th) encyclical.  I’ll take them one at a time:

Capitalism is threatening the survival of human civilization

A “threat to peace arises from the greedy exploitation of environmental resources. Monopolizing of lands, deforestation, the appropriation of water, inadequate agro-toxics are some of the evils that tear man from the land of his birth. Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms we witness.”

This is difficult to deny in the face of the destruction of the Amazon.  Let’s face it: raw capitalism is an unbalanced system in the sense that, while a libertarian will tell you that a wise owner will husband their resources in order to wring maximum long term profit, that has the hidden assumption that long term profit is desirable.  This is not always true; sometimes short-term profit is the desire of the owner, whether that’s rational or not.

There is a second hidden assumption: that value is objective.  It is not: value is, by and large, subjective.  Sure, we all value clean air and water … when it’s our water and air.  I discussed this a while ago here:

In the early days, the only international companies were the trading companies such as the Dutch East India Company; the overwhelming majority of companies were strictly local companies.  This resulted in the owners and the management having to live with the results of their decisions.  If you made a decision to treat your employees poorly, you heard about it: at church, at your office, and, if you were not a monopoly, at the clerk’s counter, as the customers decided to take their business elsewhere.  Communities did not exist to further the fortunes of companies, but to further the fortunes of the citizens, and they realized that betterment of the community resulted in the betterment of the citizens.

So now we see there are two dimensions to value: relative location as well as differing judgments on value itself.  So when I say the system is out of balance, it means resources are used for short-term profit because of different requirements, because valuations differ, and sometimes because people are idiots.

The managed capitalism practiced in first world countries is also destructive as it’s difficult to regulate the externalities involved.  It may help to remember that capitalism is often characterized as using  human selfishness to better the human condition; unspoken is the assumption that most of the selfishness balances out and the rest can be handled through minor regulations and the efforts of non-capitalist institutions … such as churches.  What is thought to work automatically is sometimes quite ramshackle.

Capitalism is destroying nonrenewable resources for personal gain

This is quite evident, not only in second and third world countries, but in the shorn off tops of mountains in the United States.

Capitalism has lost its ethical code, has no moral compass

Indeed, it’s hard not to see it as another religious institution for many folks these days.  And, given previous economic alternatives, it’s not a difficult thing to understand: it offers economic mobility, predicated on the notion of meritocracy.  There is nothing wrong with this notion.  Consider the idea of being stuck in your station for the rest of your life, a fate that beset millions prior to the notion of capitalism.  (Which may seem fine if you’re a programmer making a good living; now consider the janitor, the shoe salesman, the waiter.  While professional examples of each may be found, in general they are not considered stepping stones to a better life when they’re the final stop.)

Communism featured its own brand of social climbing, one that had little to do with merit.  Socialism is not well known, or understood, in the USA.

Back to the point; capitalism, as the dominant economic system in many countries, especially the USA, has come to the point where many think it IS the point.  Efficiency becomes the point, not building an institution attractive to both customers and employees – and leaves one of our most storied companies stained with embarrassment.

Not all companies have fallen into this mistake, of course; conscious capitalism (briefly discussed here) is an explication of the purpose and practice of responsible capitalism.

Capitalists worship the golden calf of a money god

Certainly a question for many Wall Street types.  On the other hand, some folks simply worked hard at their company and made millions.

Capitalists pursuit of personal wealth destroys the common good

… An economic system centered on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it.

What a great phrase, it really makes you think a bit.

Capitalism has no respect for Earth’s natural environment

There is no inherent value in the natural world as-is (and we’ll skip the discussion about Nature not being a static entity, either) for the capitalist; at least, not until their destruction of it rebounds on their heads to great effect, with, no doubt, a few exceptions.  But this is where we live, it is what supports us, so it behooves us to consider our actions and how they may negatively effect us.

Us.  Us.  Consider that word, a unitary word for a collective entity, an entity which doesn’t communicate particularly well outside of its own immediate circle.  The Internet may in fact be a symptom of this problem, and an attempt to ameliorate it.  But keep that in mind: “Us” is a misleading word, as what I write may only impact those who read it, and no one else.  The folks building a coal-fired power plant on the Amazon will not realize what impact that may have upstream, downstream – or on the other side of the world.

Capitalists only see the working class as consumers and machine tools

Sure seems that way sometimes.  See conscious capitalism.

Capitalism is killing our planet, our civilization and the people

And yet … the benefits of capitalism have been undeniable, its superiority over the previous systems make it beloved of anyone ground into the dirt – if they were able to use it to improve their lot.  There’s a lot to say for it, so that last statement is provocative, to say the least.

Mr. Farrell:

Imagine Pope Francis addressing a hostile GOP controlled joint session of the U.S. Congress in September. There’s no chance of changing the minds of those hard-right politicians, all heavily dependent on fossil-fuel special-interest donations. But he’s clearly laying the groundwork for a global revolution, and his enemies know it.

Indeed.  But, if it’s phrased so confrontationally, will it be wise?  Hardening the position of those who back unfettered capitalism may make it that much harder to win the war.  Declarations are fine when speaking to the home team, but you need reasoned arguments, preferably using their own ideology against them, to win the important battles.

And, on that note, what is the life expectancy of the Pope?  Will his successor, picked by the Cardinals, rather than by himself, be up for the job of continuing the battle?

(h/t Accumbens @ The Daily Kos)

(Updated – fixed a missing apostrophe, changed formatting for readability – 7/22/2015)

… which sounds rather like a weapon from Star Trek, but is not – it’s the code word for the movement away from fossil fuels and thus blunting the impact of anthropocentric climate change.  The G7 nations agreed to remove fossil fuels from their economies by 2100, or at least so the communique is interpreted.  From whitehouse.gov:

Urgent and concrete action is needed to address climate change, as set out in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report. We affirm our strong determination to adopt at the Climate Change Conference in December in Paris this year (COP21) a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) applicable to all parties that is ambitious, robust, inclusive and reflects evolving national circumstances.

The agreement should enhance transparency and accountability including through binding rules at its core to track progress towards achieving targets, which should promote increased ambition over time. This should enable all countries to follow a low-carbon and resilient development pathway in line with the global goal to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C.

Germany’s dw.de reports on environmentalist reactions:

Lutz Weischer, of the German environmental NGO Germanwatch, told DW that the decisions on climate change constituted an “important moment in the international climate debate.” The commitment to global decarbonization, he added, was “a significant step.”

Samantha Smith, who leads the WWF’s global climate and energy initiative and was also in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, was less enthusiastic: “The G7 have given us some important political signals, but they’ve left out the concrete commitments from themselves as nations,” she told DW. Concrete, immediate actions to cut emissions, Smith added, “would have had a big impact,” particularly in the run-up to the summit. She did, however, call an initiative agreed by leaders to roll out renewable energies in Africa and other emerging countries “very positive.”

But,

Concrete financial pledges were, however, not made in the 17-page communiqué, which was hammered out by the delegations on the sidelines of the meeting. Leaders also pledged to lift 500 million people in developing countries out of hunger and malnutrition by 2030 – also without making concrete financial commitments.

Climate Central suggests this is too little, too late:

“Decarbonization by the end of the century may well be too late because the magnitude of climate change long before then will exceed the bounds of many ecosystems and farms, and likely will be very disruptive,” Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said.

The goal is a step in the right direction, but not very meaningful considering greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced dramatically within the next decade, well ahead of the G7’s timeline, Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, said.

“In my view, the science makes clear that 2050 or 2100 is way too far down the road,” he said. “We will need near-term limits if we are going to avoid dangerous warming of the planet.”

350.org warns investors:

The commitment should serve as a dire warning for investors considering new dirty projects, like the Galilee Basin coal mines in Australia, or investors who continue to hold shares in companies such as Exxon and Chevron, who refuse to acknowledge their climate risk and continue to spend massively on high carbon projects.

And Big Oil may become Tiny Oil:

More ambition is needed, but even these targets should send shivers down the spines of major fossil fuel companies. Scientists are clear that meeting the 2°C target will require leaving at least 80% of known fossil fuel reserves underground. Any new investments in extracting or finding new reserves will only further inflate a carbon bubble that is bound to burst.

G7 leaders also reiterated the need to phase out the fossil fuel subsidies, a push that will only gain momentum between now and the G20 summit in Turkey this November.

Bjorn Lomborg’s take at MSN is here.  Clean Technica reports,

Merkel and US President Obama, as well as President Hollande of France, have stood at the forefront of the G7 decarbonization movement. Jennifer Morgan, director of the global climate program at the Washington, D.C.-based World Resources Institute, said that “It’s pretty clear that Canada and Japan are in a different place than the rest of the G7 on the issue of climate change.”

Obama cannot make this succeed on his own, however.  International Business Times reports Sir David King of the UK is optimistic:

For him, Monday’s G7 agreement to “decarbonize the global economy” means a workable global climate deal is likely in Paris, he said late Wednesday 10 June.

“That commitment from the G7, to me, was a critical turning point,” said Sir David King, the UK’s Special Representative for Climate Change, in a process where “progress has been painfully close to zero.”

After failed talks in Copenhagen in 2009, “I think we’re coming to a very different point now,” he added. King is leading the UK’s efforts abroad to secure an ambitious deal at the crucial UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. …

During the G7 Heads of Government meeting on Monday, 8 June, world leaders from the developed nations pledged to remove carbon from the global economy by 2100.

The conditions for creating a global climate deal are now “realistic,” King said, because various carbon tax schemes are “emerging country by country.” Currently six Chinese provinces are trading carbon credits, with all provinces in the country set to take up the scheme in 2017.

As is Sami Grover @ Treehugger:

This is a significant coup for climate hawks, especially given that the G7 includes tar-sands rich Canada. And yet I see many Internet commenters voicing their incredulity: 2100 is simply too slow, given the speed at which the climate is already changing.

In many ways these angry voices are right. Many were hoping for more ambitious push by 2050 – and many individual G7 member countries including the United Kingdom and the United States have emission reduction targets of around 80 percent by that date – but this collective commitment to actually phase out fossil fuels completely, now signed onto by recalcitrant nations like Canada and Japan, represents a significant statement about where the future is headed.

As I’ve argued before, once we are firmly headed in a particular direction, the pace at which we get there becomes less about specific government targets, and more about the sheer momentum of social and technological change.

A correspondent writes about the effect of the economy on North Carolina’s citizenry:

People see the nation going to hell in a hand basket. They then (mistakenly) blame gay marriage, liberals, scientists, blacks, poor people, marijuana, Democrats, immigrants, atheists, the “elite”, Hollywood, etc. while missing some the real, biggest causes: corporate capture of government, ignorance, income disparity, polarized politics, cultural ghettos.

I think there are a couple of points to make here.

First, I don’t even think it takes “hell in a handbasket” – I think just change is enough.  Whether it’s gay marriage or electric cars, as the environment transforms from their formative environments, people often take it as as a step down.  For example, from my youth I recall the importance of a high fidelity stereo setup.  These days, that high fidelity is not as important as mobile access – of having those ear buds in and listening to something, no matter how bad the quality.

If I think about it, it makes sense to have instant access anywhere – but it’s a little disconcerting to realize the kids really don’t seem to care about quality, only about access.

But let’s take this thought a little further – let’s add in the idea, the concept, of people who do not try to approach morality from a rational point of view, but from a static, “revealed” point of view.  To such a person, where morality is the Word of God, completely perfect, what does it mean when the world around them changes in some meaningful way?  When they lack an intellectual approach to morality?

If you can’t evaluate change in a meaningful way, you can either panic or condemn, to be overly blunt about it.  The idea that a moral system is imperfect is the first step to evolving that moral system so that it doesn’t permit obvious unjust situations.  A “revealed” moral system, as its source is God, is difficult to evaluate since there will be many who take joy in the emotional proclamation of its existence.  And logic is easy: if it’s from God, it’s perfect, so don’t mess with it..

And, yes, that’s overly blunt: We no longer burn witches, stone adulterers, or whatever it is we’re supposed to do – if you’re in the Christian tradition.  People do think, often against their will, but eventually the received word is modified to a form less likely to leave society riven with tragedy and mutual hatred.  But it is a painfully slow and murky process.

(And let me say right here that “rational morality” is simply my code phrase for people behaving in a thinking and reasonable manner.  While someday I intend to explore the ramifications of rational morality, it’s not happening here.)

Secondly, let’s consider what I loosely term tribalism, the tendency to congregate and put the group ahead of the individual.  I’ve been meditating on this since I read this Daily Kos piece on sexual abuse in a fundamentalist family.

As I had described in a previous post, my stepfather, who was popular and handsome, insisted that we function as a “Christian” family. He was also a violent pedophile living a double life, one as a child abuser, and the other as the male head of a church going Christian family. …

At some point the pastor spoke to my parents. He encouraged my mother that she was fulfilling the will of God by staying married to a pedophile who molested all three of her kids because God hates divorce. My stepfather broke down and cried when confronted saying he was sorry for what he did. He claimed to repent (only when he was caught and confronted) and the pastor felt that the chapter was closed. I was firmly told that my stepfather had repented and that he was forgiven and transformed by God, and I should forgive him too. It seemed that Jesus would not forgive me for my sins unless I forgave others for theirs. I was directed to receive pastoral counseling from another area pastor. My stepfather wasn’t expected to get any counseling at all. The pastor I received Christian counseling from also believed in the transformative power of Christ which it seemed would be the key to my healing.

The social dynamics are fascinating once we toss in thoughts about revealed morality vs rational morality.   The group, as it offers a moral system, becomes paramount as morality is perceived as the primary mechanism through which a peaceful and successful society is to be achieved; more importantly, as the group and its moral system is definitionally good, if something of a non-good nature should occur within the group, then this is a threat to the moral system, which should only have good outcomes.  Those who’ve put their trust in the group, who’ve made it a fundamental part of what they are, will not willingly accept that their morality has led to a bad outcome.  In the above, the stepfather insists on a Christian family, thus he must be Christian; his activities that are not-good, then, are a product of the “revealed” moral system.

So there are a few logical paths: you can proclaim abusing your children as good; you can proclaim that the victims brought it upon themselves; or, as in the above, you can repress the evidence, because it’s a danger to this moral system which, having been dispensed by God, is good and is the mechanism through which the group is held together.

Add in a few leaders that have become addicted to power – a common human fallibility – and the victims are enmeshed in a web that reinforces itself so long as the leaders are more or less human.  The group is paramount – which, it could be argued, is a survival mechanism – and when the morality is static, the group becomes static and then twisted as the inability to allow for flaws in morality, to transform it into something better, is not available.

In case you missed it, Rosetta’s Philae lander has reawakened!  Here’s the Rosetta Blog:

“Philae is doing very well: It has an operating temperature of -35ºC and has 24 Watts available,” explains DLR Philae Project Manager Dr. Stephan Ulamec. “The lander is ready for operations.”

For 85 seconds Philae “spoke” with its team on ground, via Rosetta, in the first contact since going into hibernation in November.

(h/t Al Kolman-Stich, Kathy Melaas, CNN)

General Benjamin F. Butler, commander of Fort Monroe, declared that fugitive slaves reaching his command were contraband.  This legal maneuver led to their freedom.  Archaeology‘s Marion Blackburn has the story of Fort Monroe and how the city of Hampton, abandoned burned by the Confederates to prevent its use, instead gave the slaves free reign to build their own community:

In command at Fort Monroe was Major General Benjamin F. Butler, a criminal defense lawyer from Boston who had accrued a fortune by winning clients’ freedom on technicalities. Before the war, he had become known as something of a social activist for instituting a 10-hour workday—a reform at the time—in a mill he had purchased. Using his familiarity with legal loopholes, on May 24, 1861, Butler made what has come to be known legally as the “contraband” argument. Because the enemy considered slaves property, he reasoned, and because their labor was being used for the war effort, Butler concluded that runaway slaves were to be treated as any other illegal war goods would be—as contraband, subject to seizure by the Union, rendering them free.

Butler was “a lawyer first, and a general second,” says Michael Cobb, curator of the Hampton History Museum, adding, “He had the disposition to help people who were defenseless in many ways.” An agent for Charles King Mallory, [three escaped slaves’] owner, visited Fort Monroe to collect his “property,” and Butler explained that the law no longer applied in Virginia, which claimed to have seceded—but that he would return slaves to any owner who pledged loyalty to the Union.

“Butler’s fugitive slave law,” as it came to be known, drew thousands of slaves to Fort Monroe from as far away as North Carolina and Maryland, provided valuable Union labor, and represented a threat—real and existential—to local Confederate loyalists. Just months after Butler’s decision, on the order of Brigadier General John B. Magruder, the Confederate commander at Yorktown, the Confederates abandoned and burned Hampton. Their destruction of the city may have been intended as a provocation to the Union, but it had a different effect. It left a city’s worth of land and materials, albeit charred, for the newly freed people.

This was before the Emancipation Proclamation, making the legal maneuver all the more clever; it set an example that was emulated in more than 100 locations.  Butler, however, was not without controversy and suffered military defeats, which may explain why he’s not remembered today.  It’s a lovely article, and, judging from Wikipedia, Butler was quite the progressive.

Samir Patel of Archaeology Magazine writes a report on how the Romans might have designed their transportation network:

… Physarum polycephalum, consists of a single large membrane around many cell nuclei, and has drawn the attention of a wide range of scientists because of its uncanny ability to solve almost impossibly complex computational problems.

It’s a fascinating sentence: impossibly complex recalls a previous discussion of free will.  If a problem not solvable through mathematics is solvable through some other means, what does this say about the strictly mechanistic view of the universe when mathematics cannot resolve problems directly resolved by the Universe?  Does the slime mold prove free will?  Well, as usual I’m probably a little too far out on a limb here, but I do find the idea of a slime mold solving difficult computational problems to be fascinating.  It’s difficult to make a brain think in new ways, but perhaps the visual image of a slime mold solving problems may spark new ways of thinking about certain classes of problems.

Through rhythmic contractions of its membrane, called shuttle streaming, the slime mold grows out in search of food. If you put a P. polycephalum into a maze with two food sources in it, over a few days the organism will grow toward the food sources and retract from everywhere else except the shortest path between them. Mathematicians and network analysts call this the “shortest path problem.” When presented with additional food sources, the slime mold forms ever more complex and efficient networks. These “Physarum machines,” as they are known, may help in the understanding of communication, road, and transport networks, which also, over time, come to balance complexity and efficiency.

The new study applied the power of a Physarum machine (and a computer program that simulates its behavior) to landscape-scale archaeology, specifically Roman roads in the Balkans. Researchers placed a P. polycephalum in a petri dish containing 17 little bits of food representing 17 urban centers in the Balkans from the Roman imperial period. The slime mold “imitated rather spectacularly the two main military roads of the area, the Via Egnatia [across Macedonia] and the Via Diagonalis [from central Europe to Constantinople],” says archaeologist Vasilis Evangelidis of the Hellenic Ministry of Education. This was a test case, but future experiments with P. polycephalum might reveal previously unobserved patterns in complex networks of human settlement, trade, and migration.

I wonder if, and how, they simulated geographical features as well.

I managed to get ahead of myself yesterday and had not finished reading the article before posting this.  Current hypothesis on the original wall is that it stood 12 feet tall, was 200 feet long, and contained 25,000 words; this is extrapolation from the discovered fragments.  The discovered fragments criticize the Stoics, and argues the Gods are indifferent to human affairs.  Archaeology does provide a short online slide show of this site.

A final quote from Diogenes (the article is not entirely clear as to whether it’s from the inscriptions or another source), concerning his motivations for setting up the wall:

Not least for those who are called foreigners, for they are not foreigners.  For, while the various segments of the Earth give different people a different country, the whole compass of this world gives all people a single country, the entire Earth, and a single home, the world.

– Diogenes of Oinoanda

Wassim Bessem of AL Monitor reports on the termination of the hand-woven carpet industry in Iraq:

“I’ve been weaving for many years. I employed some workers and together we would make three or four carpets per month. Work was profitable and in high demand to the extent that buyers would order carpets in advance,” she said. According to Umm Hassan, completing the work on a carpet took about two weeks and in the ’80s and ’90s the carpets cost about $40 each, a relatively expensive price at the time.

However, time and circumstances conspired against Umm Hassan, and she got tired. She was no longer able to work, except for limited periods, given the absence of opportunities that could capitalize on her expertise and train a new generation to master the skills of this traditional industry.

The destruction of culture appears to be taking place.  It’s unsettling to realize that this happens because of our bloody removal Saddam Hussein, a dictator.  As with Marshal Tito, he provided a source of stability amongst factions who hated each other.

The majority of people suffer from a common disease, as in a plague, with their false notions about things, and their number is increasing … I wished to use this stoa [covered walkway] to advertise publicly the [medicines] that bring salvation.

– Diogenes of Oinoanda

Found this in Archaeology (July/August 2015, print edition only).  Applicable then, applicable now.  The idea that the great mass of humanity isn’t as smart as ourselves appears to be a long standing attitude.

The medicines Diogenes advocated was the philosophy of Epicureanism.  The author of the article, Eric. A. Powell, explains further:

It was grounded in physics, held that the pursuit of pleasure is the highest good, and eschewed belief in divine intervention.

The Wikipedia link clarifies the pursuit of pleasure:

Epicurus believed that what he called “pleasure” is the greatest good, but the way to attain such pleasure is to live modestly and to gain knowledge of the workings of the world and the limits of one’s desires. This led one to attain a state of tranquility (ataraxia) and freedom from fear, as well as absence of bodily pain (aponia). The combination of these two states is supposed to constitute happiness in its highest form.

As the story of North Carolina continues, we discover that the Legislature’s Republicans have overridden the Republican governor’s veto and passed legislation that … well, the local ABC affiliate, ABC11, has the facts:

A measure allowing some court officials to refuse to perform gay marriage responsibilities because of their religious beliefs became law in North Carolina on Thursday, with the state House voting to override the governor’s veto of the bill. …

The law, taking effect immediately, means some register of deeds workers who assemble licenses and magistrates to solemnize civil marriages can decide to stop performing all marriages if they hold a “sincerely held religious objection.”

Most of the Democrats and the Governor have expressed their disappointment. Steve Benen @ MaddowBlog points out the vagueness of the new law:

The goal, not surprisingly, is to stand in the way of same-sex couples who want to wed, but the measure doesn’t specify that, which raises the prospect of some pretty broad problems. If a county magistrate has a religious objection to an interracial couple getting married, he or she can refuse.

The same is true if the local official objects to a couple from different religious backgrounds. If the local official objects to marrying someone who’s been previously divorced, the same thing.

Another writer comments about Kansas:

I liked the recent study which showed that standard Republican policies (cut income taxes, cut corporate taxes, reduce regulations, etc.) actually result in a poorer business climate. Strangely, it seems that happy, healthy employees and productive, non-economically stressed customers and local citizens are actually better for business than a tax cut. Who would have guessed? Certainly not the Republicans, apparently. Which is why Wisconsin is dead last for creating new businesses.

Since the tax cuts benefit the rich far more than the poor, the economy’s improvement would depend on the greater spending of the rich.  But do the rich need to spend?  No – they have what they need in terms of long-term purchases, and how much more can they buy in the area of consumables?

Chris Reeves @ The Daily Kos has some juicy quotes from the more conservative Republicans:

In the Kansas House last night, Rep. Rubin (R-Johnson County) spoke up and said “Taxes are evil. They are evil” at one point, which brought strong approval from the anti-tax ralliers in the balcony.

I asked them as the debate wore on what they thought and their position was clear “Taxes like this are the things socialists do, not a free country.” …

Kasha Kelley (R-Ark City) in her speech to the floor earlier: “This is the first step toward socialism”. (House)
Greg Smith (R-Johnson County), Senator, “Taxes are thievery, nickel and dime thievery.”

The last quote reminds me of holding a similar, if less extreme, position twenty years ago.  I bring this up to observe that part of the problem (and it’s a hard one) is a moral system in which goods & services are either obtained through trade (good), or they are taken by force (evil). In at least my educational venues, very little attention was given to any other economic transaction and its moral/ethical facet, such as whether or not taxation falls in the good or evil. Since taxation doesn’t immediately fall into the category of good, it must be evil, no?

Well, no. Senator Smith has evidently not given any thought to the positive contributions of government to the citizenry, from defense to services; his assertion, if indeed a true quote and not out of context, would leave me shaking my head and suggesting it’s time to replace them.

But the real point is a more nuanced discussion about the role of taxation in society, how it benefits society, and how they can be misused – this sort of thing is far more necessary to counter the mindless mantra that

TAXES ARE EVIL!

Some folks may be wondering why a deal is necessary, why the Israelis didn’t just knock out the nuclear facilities in Iran when they began to worry about them.  Israeli columnist Ben Caspit, writing for AL Monitor, reports on that recent history from a Jerusalem Post conference in NYC this past June 7th:

The much talked-about argument broke out toward the end of the discussion, when [Senior Columnist Caroline] Glick, who is known for her hawkish, right-wing views, claimed that in 2010, two members of the panel “were given an order to prepare the military for an imminent strike against Iran’s nuclear installation, and they refused.”

Quick to protest these allegations, [Maj. General] Dagan got into a vociferous argument with Glick. “It was an illegal order,” he said. “You were not there. You don’t know what happened there.”

Glick refused to concede: “Had you not brought in your expert legal opinion to determine whether or not the prime minister of Israel and the defense minister of Israel have a right to order Israel to take action in its national defense, then we would not be where we are today.” She blamed Dagan and [Lt. General and Chief of Staff] Ashkenazi for the current situation, which, according to the Israeli right, leaves the country with no way out. What she was effectively saying is that the heads of Israel’s security forces conducted a quiet putsch against the political leadership, preventing them from launching an Israeli assault against Iran’s nuclear facilities following plans prepared well in advance. …

Were they refusing a direct order? Was this a mutiny, or possibly a military putsch against the country’s political leadership? The answer is no. Glick’s question focused on a very specific incident, which occurred at the end of a meeting of the Septet, Netanyahu’s ministerial forum for strategic consultation. It was a private forum of ministers, without any statutory standing and therefore unable to make any decisions. …

Netanyahu is an overly cautious prime minister with an aversion to military adventurism, for reasons of personal political survival. He knew that if something went wrong with the attack and it then became public that he gave the order despite the recommendations of all of the professionals in the security services, it would be the end of his political career. At first, he invested enormous energy in trying to convince some of the defense chiefs to adopt his position. The event reported here occurred when he finally gave up.

The question that the Israeli right should ask Netanyahu is why he didn’t attack Iran in the summer of 2012. As far as Netanyahu was concerned, that summer was seemingly the ultimate moment: The heads of the security forces had left the IDF and were replaced with a new crop of generals lacking experience, charisma or influence among the public. At that time, Netanyahu had a weak and anonymous chief of staff in the person of Benny Gantz, a novice director of the Mossad with Tamir Pardo, a new chief of military intelligence and a new director of the Shin Bet on the way. At the same time, the United States was caught up in a bitter presidential election, in which President Barack Obama was fighting for his second term. Netanyahu was seemingly free to act. There was nothing to prevent him from attacking Iran in July, August or September 2012, but he hesitated and eventually put his dream aside. At the time, however, there was no one to interfere in any significant way.

So why didn’t he go through with it? First of all, because Netanyahu was afraid. Second, Barak [Obama] made a sharp, last minute U-turn and switched to the opponents’ side. And there must be other reasons.

Interesting.  One must assume that Mr. Caspit is fairly right-wing, if he’s willing to label Netanyahu as overly cautious.  A report to be read with some caution, with a feeler out for just what sort of political waters are swirling about, unseen.

Get a flu vaccination:

[Chris Reiber at Binghamton University in New York and Janice Moore at Colorado State University in Fort Collins] have found that people were far more sociable in the 48 hours following their annual flu vaccination than in the 48 hours preceding it. “This is highly suggestive that the virus is manipulating human behaviour for its own ends; that is, to spread itself to other potential hosts,” says Reiber. Another possibility, however, is that humans subconsciously become more sociable in anticipation of needing help and support ahead of disease.

The main article suggests there may be a link between Toxoplasma gondii and schizophrenia.

NewScientist (30 May 2015, paywall)

A FB correspondent remarks:

The trouble is, presenting facts doesn’t work. They ignore their failures, and just repeat their mantras. Bah. I wonder if the people of Kansas will bother to notice.

Let’s look at what we can know, which is the results of surveys.  Governor Brownback, former Senator for Kansas, was elected in 2010, winning a four way race with 63% of the vote, according to Ballotpedia.  At the time, cjonline.com (Topeka Capital-Journal) reported,

Immediate priorities in the Statehouse will be cutting state taxes and regulations in an effort to spur private-sector job growth, Brownback said. He vowed to reduce state government spending.

“My vision for Kansas is to see our economy grow so we will be able to fund the state’s core services,” he said. “My economic growth team and I are working hard to develop a balanced budget and tax plan, which will release the entrepreneurial spirit of Kansans and create the economic environment necessary for Kansas to become more globally competitive.”

Taking his vote percentage as an approval rating is probably a dubious practice, but it’s indicative of his dominance (second place had 32%).  What happened in the 2014 election?  Again, according to Ballotpedia, this time he won 49.8% to 46.1%, with a libertarian candidate taking the rest.  His approval rating in 2011,  according to local news station KWCH, was 51%, but in 2013 fell to 35% ; during the 2014 race, polling seemed to show he was frequently behind his opponent, to the extent that his campaign protested the cjonline.com poll, conducted by SurveyUSA:

In the midst of a challenging re-election campaign in 2014, Brownback’s staff now takes a disparaging view of SurveyUSA’s capacity to sample the public’s political pulse. The Clifton, N.J., company’s latest poll in Kansas’ race for governor, revealed Tuesday, had Democrat Paul Davis leading 48 percent to 40 percent for Brownback.

“SurveyUSA has a history of inaccurate polling,” said John Milburn, a spokesman for the governor and former Associated Press reporter who covered Brownback and other Kansas politicians for more than a decade. “This latest release from the organization is more of the same.”

Brownback campaign manager Mark Dugan, who worked for Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, discounted SurveyUSA’s work product as “another absurd poll showing the governor losing.”

Was the polling inaccurate?  Biased?  FiveThirtyEight had forecast Brownback to lose – big:

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback is in trouble for three related reasons: a Republican party split, economic woes and education. For as long as most of us have been alive, Kansas has leaned to the right, practicing its own brand of moderate Republicanism. Brownback, though, has governed as a pure conservative.

It has hurt him; Democrat Paul Davis has been endorsed by scores of moderate Republicans upset by cuts to education necessitated by Brownback’s large tax cuts.

According to SurveyUSA, taxes and education remain among the most important issues to voters in 2014. The result has been disenchanted Republicans. The share of registered Republicans in Kansas was 9 percentage points higher than the share of self-identified Republicans, according the latest Marist College poll. Many of these Republicans now identify as independent, a group Davis is winning by a 26-point margin.

Although polls have narrowed from a few months ago, most surveys have Davis riding Republican discontent to a lead. He’s an 82 percent favorite.

However, they do not appear to have conducted any polls of their own, just relied on others.  I found this courtesy Kevin Waisfeld, who goes on to enjoy a bit of schadenfreude.

So, back to the original question: do people learn?  I think they do.  Not enough, in this case; or perhaps they decided to accept the Governor’s assertion that he just needs more time.  That might be understandable, although in four years a lot of damage can be done.  But I think that electing a governor involves issues that are close to home: highways and education.  Let’s be honest: even WAR seems far away and irrelevant if you don’t have family members in the service – and there’s no draft to spread fear and discontent amongst the eligible; foreign policy?  For wonks.  Social Security and MediCare – hardly anyone touches those any more, and if they do they get to retire.

But when it’s close up and personal, then people do learn.  Which, of course, doesn’t really explain the Minnesota experience of an improved economy resulting in the Democrats losing the state House of Representatives.