Ferraris for all

Sense about Science, a British science education charity, has produced its third annual Celebrities and Science review (PDF). Not only is it amusing but it is also informative about common misconceptions on scientific topics.

Labels: celebrities, science

I was saddened but not surprised that my local Borders bookshop is cashing in this Christmas with a section promoting books related to the credit crunch. All of the books look like they have either been rebranded or recycled for the section.

Among the most heavily promoted titles are Delia’s Frugal Food and Save Cash & Save the Planet. Other topics including debt management, DIY, making your own clothes and holidays (either in Britain or camping).

Meanwhile, the cover story in this week’s New Scientist magazine is on “how to unplug from the grid”. It examines how to live unconnected to the power grid or water, gas and sewerage supplies.

Unfortunately these examples seem to indicate that the trend for green austerity is becoming stronger rather than weaker. As long as growth scepticism remains unchallenged the possibility of resisting green austerity will be diminished.

Labels: consumption, economics, environment, food, science

Belatedly caught up with the BBC TV Horizon programme on Jimmy’s GM Food Fight (as I write there are still 23 days left to watch it on BBC iPlayer). It provided an unexpectedly good primer to the debate about genetically modified (GM) crops (or GMOs as they are known in America). The presenter was Jimmy Doherty, a traditional farmer with a PhD in entomology, who also presented the informative Jimmy Doherty’s Farming Heroes (see 20 July 2008 post).

Doherty did a good job of explaining the basics of GM. For instance, he pointed out that selective breeding of plants has existed for literally thousands of years. He pointed out that crops such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts cauliflower, Kohlrabi and numerous varieties of modern cabbages were all bred from the wild cabbage. GM technology merely provides a more efficient way of breeding.

He also pointed to other advantages of GM technology. These include modifying plants to improve their qualities by making them, for instance, more drought resistant or disease resistant. Such modifications can mean that less pesticides are required to growth them. It is also possible to use GM technology to enhance the nutritional value of food.

Doherty also allowed the critics of GM, based mainly in Europe, to have a voice. Lord Peter Melchett, a British environmental campaigner, voiced his opposition to GM mainly on the grounds of the uncertainties involved in relation to the environment and human health. Yet despite professed concern about “uncertainties” such campaigners, including Melchett himself, have destroyed experiments to determine the qualities of GM crops.

The programme also contained a couple of surprises:

• An interview with an Amish farmer who – despite eschewing mechanised tractors – happily used GM crops. The programme also pointed out that 80% of corn, cotton and soya production in America is GM. GM technology has been used in dozens of countries for over a decade.

• An interview with the head of a research unit in Uganda experimenting on using GM technology to counter a fungus that is decimating the country’s vital banana crop. The unit has high security but, unlike in Europe, its aim is not to keep anti-GM protestors out. The fences and barbed wire are designed to keep out Ugandan farmers who desperately want to plant the crops rather than await the results of time-consuming trials.

Labels: consumption, food, health, science, technology, television

Scientific American has an extensive feature on geoengineering in its November issue including references for further study. It looks at such possible technologies as injecting sulphur dioxide into the upper stratosphere, spraying seawater in the troposphere and building huge “blinds” in space to act as a sunshade. At least the magazine takes the discussion seriously although a related editorial ends by coming out against the technology on several grounds: the danger of side effects, cost and the false sense of security it would engender.

To me there is much room for further investigation and debate.

Labels: climate, environment, geo-engineering, science, technology

India’s lunar programme should be welcomed. India is sending an unmanned space probe to the moon and in the course of it explore the possibility of bringing helium 3 – the ideal fuel for nuclear fusion – back to earth.

It was inevitable that many would sneer at such a mission when India is still mired in poverty. But it is wrong to counter-pose missions such as India’s space programme with economic development. On the contrary, the same bold ambitious attitude is required of both.

Randeep Ramesh, the Guardian’s south Asia correspondent, claims he is not against the mission in principle but sees it as precocious:

“India is a nation with a proliferating development needs – the global hunger index ranks it below Laos and Burkina Faso. Hundreds of millions of Indians still openly defecate in fields, at roadsides and beside train tracks. Common tropical diseases easily overwhelm the country's poorly-funded public health system. Its roads, railways and airports all need money and managerial overhauls.”

He misses the point that looking to the stars cultivates the right attitude to solve problems on earth too.

Labels: Asia, energy, india, inequality, science, technology

I have unwittingly gone straight from one anti-growth BBC television documentary to another. “High Anxieties: The Mathematics of Chaos”, a one-off documentary by David Malone, achieves this effect by muddying the difference between the natural world and the social world. It starts by outlining how the Newtonian worldview was a relatively simply linear one which allowed for human beings to increase their control over nature. But the development of what later became known as chaos theory from Henri Poincaré (1854-1912), a French mathematician, onwards showed the world was both more complex than previously assumed and non-linear. This set up a phoney debate between environmentalists who recognised the need for caution and limits and economists who believed in growth. It ended with James Lovelock, a veteran environmentalist, arguing that with climate change we could, metaphorically speaking, be at the edge of a cliff and unable to return to normality.

Chaos theory may well be a good way to understand non-linear natural systems such as climate. But the social world is fundamentally different from the natural one. Society is composed of human beings with the potential to act consciously to mould the world around them.

Labels: economics, environment, growth, science, television

Just as the world appears to be on the edge of an economic downturn New Scientist (18 October) comes along with a special issue on “The folly of growth”. Its online edition edition is even bleaker with a headline of “How our economy is killing the earth”. It seems to be based on the hoary old argument that the economy is growing exponentially in a finite world. Contributors include many of the usual suspects such as Herman Daly, Susan George, Tim Jackson and Andrew Simms. Along with the customary references to books by Herman Daly, Paul Ehrlich, Al Gore and Jeffrey Sachs are others by Peter Dauvergne, Herve Kempf and James Gustave Speth.

If only the magazine would stick to science rather than recycling dodgy economics.

Labels: book, economics, environment, growth, science

For time reasons I have so far avoided commenting on Prince Charles’s silly intervention in the debate on genetically modified (GM) foods. But the Comment Is Free article by Paul Collier, the director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, on the damaging effect of opposition to GM makes many useful points. I have disagreed with Collier on some key issues in the past including his implicit support for empire and his relatively narrow vision (see posts of 14 May 2007, 6 June 2007, 1 July 2007, 20 July 2007 and 15 October 2007). But his support for GM and large scale farming is welcome (also see post of 15 April 2008).

Labels: Africa, environment, food, science, technology

Today’s Guardian has an unashamedly one-sided review essay by Tim Flannery (Australian academic, climate change activist and author of The Weather Makers), of books on climate change. Among those authors recommended in the piece are works by Al Gore (Earth in the Balance), Mark Lynas (Six Degrees), George Marshall (Carbon Detox) and Oliver Tickell (Kyoto2). The review concentrates on British writers but American authors mentioned include Keith Bradsher (High and Mighty - an interesting sounding book on SUVs), Ross Gelbspan (Boiling Point), William McDonough (Cradle to Cradle), Bill McKibben and Gus Speth. Bjorn Lomborg, a leading sceptic on climate change, is mentioned in a few sentences but disparagingly dismissed.

One telling sentence in the article: “Few books about climate change have been written by the meteorologists and atmospheric physicists that dominate the field”. So even in relation to the science of climate change – as opposed to the politics or economics – there are few popular books written by experts. Pro-environmentalist non-specialists seem to dominate the popular debate.

In relation to the economics of climate change the Stern Review and William Nordhaus (A Question of Balance) are mentioned.

Labels: book, climate, consumption, economics, environment, review, science

This week’s BBC Radio 4 Analysis programme, presented by Frances Cairncross, included the most detailed popular discussion of geo-engineering I have come across so far. In broad terms three possible techniques were identified:

• Removing carbon dioxide from the oceans.
• Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
• Using lenses or mirrors to divert sunlight from the planet.

However, the discussion is still wracked with anxiety. On the one hand, some are arguing that things are getting so bad that geo-engineering might be necessary despite the possibility of damaging unintended consequences. On the other hand, others are worried that discussing geo-engineering could shift the discussion away from decarbonisation. An added worry seems to be that developing countries such as China and India – those that most need great increases in energy supply - could take a lead in developing the technology.

It is a pity there cannot be a more confident, forward-looking debate.

Labels: climate, environment, geo-engineering, radio, science

Eric Rolston, an American science writer, has written a fascinating sounding book on carbon. Despite its sensationalist sub-title – “how life’s core element has become civilization’s greatest threat” – The Carbon Age rightly makes the point that carbon is the building block of life. Despite the element’s key role in the natural world it is strangely seen as a great threat to humanity nowadays.

Labels: book, energy, environment, science

Burn-up, BBC 2’s big budget eco-thriller on the oil companies and runaway climate change, was awful in every way: as a drama, politically and in relation to the science. Rob Johnston on spiked has written an incisive review but it is worth outlining the key misconceptions embodied in the drama as they are common in the green mindset:

* It is assumed that there is no question that runaway warming (not just climate change) is happening. Catastrophe is imminent. A worst case scenario is presented as indisputable fact.

* Corporations are driven by greed in their ruthless pursuit of oil. In this sense attacks on capitalism are moral (it is driven by bad people) rather than linked to the pursuit of profit in itself. Companies and the economy are “addicted” to oil. (Insurance companies are a partial exception as they are suffering big losses as a result of climate change).

* The role of corporate lobbyists is to shed doubt on “the science”. They play the pernicious role of generating uncertainty and may engage in “greenwash” to improve their clients’ images.

* Deep down America knows that climate change is bad but it should help further its drive for global domination.

* Britain is on the right side but ineffectual.

* China is duplicitous – playing America against Europe to further its own interests,

* The only way to deal with climate change is to cut emissions. Adaptation is hardly discussed at all let along geo-engineering.

Sadly such mistaken views are widely held in the climate change debate.

Labels: climate, environment, review, science, spiked, television

Now that it is the Easter holidays I can catch up on some of the supposedly great issues of our time. The first is plastic bags. In Britain the campaign against these useful items has had the support of Gordon Brown, the prime minister, and the Daily Mail newspaper. However, Dick Taverne of Sense About Science has exposed how the campaign against them is based on faulty science. In addition, Angus Kennedy has written on spiked about how the hysterical campaign against plastic bags is causing job losses in the East.

Labels: consumption, environment, science

Ben Goldacre, who writes the Guardian’s Bad Science column, has written an article criticising scare headlines linking cancer to genetically modified (GM) potatoes. He gives as an example a high profile story in 1998 making such a link and a similar more recent one in the Independent. On closer examination neither story was justified by the evidence yet they help to create the misleading impression that GM foods are unsafe. Goldacre argues that any research on GM should be published in full, so that it can be properly scrutinised, rather than being reported on the basis of leaks.

Meanwhile, the Times has run a preview of a forthcoming Channel 4 series on GM. In Animal Farm Dr Olivia Judson, a biological scientist, will put the case for GM while Giles Coren, a food writer will take a more critical view. In the course of working on the programme Coren evidently realised that GM food has many advantages. However, like Ben Goldacre of the Guardian, he expresses fears of the control of GM technology by multinational corporations.

Labels: food, science, technology

Science about Science, an independent charity, has produced an excellent leaflet with scientists debunking some of the pseudo-scientific claims made by celebrities. For instance, David Baddiel, Melinda Messenger and Sharron Davies have all complained that their bodies contain dangerous chemicals. What they neglect to mention is that the exposure is so tiny it will not have any damaging effect on their health. And Jamie Oliver says he prefers organic food because it is “grown with nature”. Yet all our crops and domestic animals have been created by selective breeding over 10,000 years.

Labels: health, science

A new pamphlet from Policy Exchange, an independent think tank, puts the case for a scientific enlightenment. Science versus Superstition, edited by Jim Panton and Oliver Marc Hartwich, includes chapters on the precautionary principle, the anti-nuclear movement and climate change. It can be downloaded from the internet: here.

Labels: climate, environment, science

A weird exchange between Christopher Monckton, a former policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher, and George Monbiot, an environmental campaigner and Guardian columnist. Monckton, otherwise known as the third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, had two articles in the Sunday Telegraph (5 November and 12 November) arguing that much climate science is bunk. For him it is apparently part of a left wing conspiracy run by the United Nations - although this view does not mean that his entire argument is necessarily false.

Next Monbiot waded in with a column in the Guardian accusuing Monckton of writing a “mixture of cherry-picking, downright misrepresentation and pseudo-scientific gibberish”. He also attacked Monckton for not writing in a peer-reviewed scientific journal (although the last time I looked the Guardian, like the Sunday Telegraph, was also a newspaper). Monckton then responded by saying that it was Monbiot who had his science totally wrong. The aristocrat concluded his article by saying: “gie the puir numpty a cigar - at least he spelled my name right.”

My conclusion on this sorry affair is that science should be left to the scientists. There is enough for the rest of us to argue about in relation to the correct economic and political response to climate change. Such a response does not automatically follow from the natural science although obviously it should be informed by the latest scientific thinking on the question.

Labels: environment, science

It seems that some climate scientists are becoming upset by the equating of climate change and climate catastrophe by campaigners and the British government. Mike Hulme, the director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has written an article to this effect on the BBC website. He says: “I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.”

Hulme goes on to point out that Tony Blair has already warned that the world faces the prospect of “crossing a catastrophic tipping point”. In apparent despair Hulme then asks:

“Why is it not just campaigners, but politicians and scientists too, who are openly confusing the language of fear, terror and disaster with the observable physical reality of climate change, actively ignoring the careful hedging which surrounds science's predictions?”

Labels: climate, environment, science

An inspiring look into a possible future for air travel. The BBC website has an article on a plane, developed by the Cambridge-MIT Institute, with a revolutionary “blended wing” design. This shape enables the plane to be far quieter and more efficient than existing models. Sadly the current climate of risk aversion means that the aircraft will take a long time to be developed and it may never be produced on a mass scale. But it shows the potential for developing aircraft technology in a way that does less damage to the environment.

Labels: energy, science, technology, transport

Steve Milloy has written an interesting article on the Fox News website arguing that the British government’s Stern Review on the economics of climate change is based on “junk science”. Milloy contests the catastrophic “tipping point” scenario, on which the Stern Review’s economic conclusions are apparently based, as flawed. For Milloy the junk science embodied in Stern inevitably leads to junk economics.

I take a different view. Even if we are on the verge of a tipping point - which is far from certain - the government’s favoured combination of rationing and behaviour modification is unviable. It is undesirable and unlikely to be accepted by the public. Instead we need to work out how to use more energy and tackle climate change at the same time. A richer society will be better able to handle the challenge of global warming.

Labels: climate, environment, science

I was stunned today by the Modernism exhibition at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. I am not qualified to discuss its artistic merits but what struck me most was the difference in perspective between the modernists, particularly in the early years of the movement from 1917 through the 1920s, and today (for a review of the exhibition see Karl Sharro on Culture Wars ). They welcomed science and technology as a way of enhancing the potential of humanity. In contrast today, tragically, the development of human control over nature is generally seen as a threat.

Labels: modernity, science, technology