jeskill

Hal, Proof is not a scientific concept -- it's a mathematical concept. And they're not trying to prove any mathematical theories here. They're making an argument. I agree that there's a lot of evidence to support most, if not all, of these grievances. I just think that linking to the evidence reminds people of that. It makes the connection between these statements and reality all that more clear.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City list of grievances: Wow, the list of grievances is a doozy, eh? So, anybody know how many organizations are organizing the wall street protesters? Imaatfal, why do you think this is the most official of all declarations? The scientist in me says that it would be great if they linked each of these grievances directly to a page of evidence for each. It seems to me that both the Tea Party (the grassroots supporters) and the Wall Street Protesters are upset over very similar things, but blame different culprits for our economic woes. The Tea Party blames the government, and the Wall Street Protesters blame the corporations.

That's complex subject because there are many different types of organic agriculture, and many different reasons (ecological, evolutionary, socio-economic) for different organic practices. For which part of organic agriculture do you want to see scientific evidence?

From this, it seems you would like to see the protesters rally around a solution to the problem of economic inequity? I agree that it would make life a lot easier if they did, but I also think that this would be impossible. There are so many possible solutions that could occur at so many different institutional levels. Based on the youtube videos I've watched, it seems to me that the organizers of this movement are saying, "We need to recognize that economic inequity has grown worse in the past 30 years, and this is bad for America. We therefore need to have a grown up conversation about this and implement a number of solutions that will reduce this inequity." Some of the protesters are discussing solutions (via youtube) -- at the individual, city, and state level. Unfortunately, these are not 15 second soundbites. I just really hate the media's insistence to hold to pithy one-sentence rallying cries. We are effectively being told we can't have meaningful discussions about complex solutions to complex problems because people need their information as short and simplified as possible. Talk about infantilisation.

We've been hearing this a lot: the wall street protesters lack a clear message. To me, the message is crystal clear: there's too much power at the top and the middle class is getting screwed. What do you think?

To whom are you responding? In the last few points, no one has compared the standard of living in the US vs. non-Annex I/underdeveloped (what's the proper terminology nowadays) countries. Most would agree that the standard of living can be raised in many areas of the world. However, you are making an assumption that "large gas guzzling cars" and "high fat beef and pork" positively contribute to standard of living. They don't. They contribute to obesity (the second-highest preventable cause of death in the states after lung disease), which definitely reduces a person's quality of life, they increase the health costs for taxpayers (via asthma, obesity) and increase pollution. Pollution and affordable health care are two factors used to define standard of living according to this website. I think the problem with using the terminology "developed" and "developing" country, is that we make assumptions about the type of infrastructure needed to have a good standard of living. We think that we know the best way to do things, but that's not always the case. To give an example, Malawians switched to growing corn (from the Americas) rather than growing traditional pulses, grains and vegetables in the early 1900s and the government is currently providing subsidies to increase high-yielding hybrid corn production. As a result, many have stopped growing the traditional vegetables and legumes that are necessary to combat malnutrition caused by a lack of vitamins. Moreover, hybrid corn needs nitrogen fertilizer, which is energy-intensive to make and monetarily expensive. The government is basically following the same path as "developed countries", but this has not improved the standard of living much, if at all, and comes with a whole host of ecological, health and economic problems. Contrast the hybrid-seed subsidies with this concept:SFHC is a group of researchers who have been working with a Malawian community to introduce a "relay legume crop", whereby legumes are grown in the off season when corn is not grown. This has improved the soil fertility, so they don't require as much fertilizer (the legumes associate with nitrogen-fixing bacteria and increase the amount of nitrogen in the soil). Plus, this has improved nutrition, because the legumes are a good source of protein. This system does not require subsidies -- it is self-sufficient. It is more environmentally and economically sustainable. All it required was a change in behaviour. Second example: I have the choice of biking, taking the bus, or driving to school. When you factor in time to park, driving takes just as long as taking the bus. Sometimes, biking is faster than driving. Plus, driving requires that I pay for parking. When I bike, I'm improving my physical health and I get to look at natural features (which improves mental health). When I take the bus, I get to cuddle, talk to and read to my son. Neither of these choices affect my standard of living. In fact, I think they improve my quality of life. Hence, why I actually choose not to drive. The problem, of course, is that in many places in North America, these choices don't exist. Quality of life and standard of living could be improved in the US if the infrastructure allowed people to make more sustainable choices.

Three basic lines of evidence: Look at figures that show the rate of change of air temperature, sea level, ice extent (from, say, 1800 to now). Look at figures that show the rate of change of GHG emissions from 1800 til now. Look at figures that model temperature change solely on natural forcings, and compare them to figures that model temperature change based on natural and anthropogenic forcings together. Which model fits past data better? I'm pretty sure you can find all these figures in the IPCC report.

I agree with imatfaal. I would add that it might actually be possible to improve quality of life in the "western world" if some of the wastefulness and pollution caused by unsustainable transportation, land-use policies, and coal-fired factories were eliminated. For example, many people in NA don't even have the choice of whether or not they can travel efficiently without a car, or walk to a store to buy groceries. They buy houses where it's cheap to buy houses (e.g. in the suburbs) and commute by car everywhere. They spend most of their time shopping or sitting in front of the television, and less time being active outdoors. From a health perspective, this is stressful and has a negative effect on our overall health and well-being. It also limits community interactions, which can negatively affect a community's ability to advocate for their well-being as a whole. In essence I think it's faulty to assume that the western standard of living is the optimum, because it has negative effects on our quality of life. I'm not saying we should become impoverished peasants. I'm saying that sustainable policies would probably improve the Western quality of life for the majority of people in the western world.

That's great Essay! My 2nd year chemistry class material was popping up in my brain as I read what you wrote. It may not all be lost afterall . I think my problem is that I've been thinking of energy transfer within a molecule in the same way that I think of energy transfer through trophic levels. Which is silly, really, because they're completely different scales with completely different processes.

Thanks for the response. I understand your explanation. One more questions: can GHGs absorb a wide spectrum of IR, or just specific narrow bands?

Hi People, So, I feel like I don't really have a complete understanding of the greenhouse effect and I would like to understand it in a bit more depth. My questions for all you people well-versed in Chemistry and/or Physics are as follows: How much of the greenhouse effect is caused by GHGs trapping and re-radiating ... light energy radiating from the sun? light energy reflected from the surface of the earth? or light energy that's been absorbed by the surface of the earth and re-radiated outward? am I missing anything? When energy is absorbed by a CO2 molecule and re-radiated, how much energy is lost? Can energy that's been re-radiated by a carbon dioxide molecule be re-absorbed by another GHG molecule? If energy is being lost through every transaction, is there a point at which the energy is no longer able to be absorbed by the carbon dioxide molecule? The reason I'm asking is that I have this very basic conceptual model in my head whereby light energy is radiated by the sun, passes through the atmosphere, is reflected (or absorbed/re-radiated) by the earth, then is absorbed/re-radiated by a GHG molecule, then is absorbed/re-radiated by the earth ..... kind of like a ping pong ball that loses energy after each bounce. I just want to know, is this at all accurate? Cheers Jes

So if you know why plants are green, then why did you ask the question? And how come you haven't yet described your theory of why plants are green? I can't speak for others, but I would love to hear your reasoning.

I would, if I owned a home. As a renter, that might be difficult. Would you happen to know if these U.S. patent laws stifle renewable energy investment in other countries? For example, if someone in another country invented pretty much the same technology as one shelved by the PTO for whatever reason, are they obligated to shelve it as well?

You mean, what if the majority of people aren't aware that we have the potential to improve our efficiency via already-invented technology? That's a great question. The willingness to adopt the technology would probably still depend on the cost for the majority of people.

Yes, we are definitely over-exploiting resources. Resource depletion, global warming, pollution, and loss of biodiversity are all major issues that we need to contend with. BUT, the nations that are mostly responsible for over-exploiting resources are, ironically, the nations with the lowest per capita birth rates, the highest energy use, and are generally the most wasteful. Just because a concept is widely accepted doesn't mean it's true. The concept "too many people on earth" is highly dependent on how efficient people are with technology and energy. In some areas, with certain technologies, high population densities can be sustainable over long periods of time (check out Mayan history for a great example). The sustainable population size fluctuates through time though, and is significantly affected by the technology used, by environmental change, and by energy efficiency. Your OP is basically a call to action: should we limit population growth with draconian, authoritarian policy? I say no. It's not going to stop over-exploitation, because the countries with the highest birth rates have the smallest impact on resource depletion, global warming, pollution, etc. Most of the ultra-polluting countries have a fertility rate that's either at replacement levels already or below replacement levels. Therefore, it's not a useful policy and it won't do much to decrease over-exploitation in the time-frame needed or to the extent needed.

Wired had an interesting take on the reason humans prefer incandescent light bulbs to fluorescent: Is the concept "progression" a synonym for "cultural evolution"? If so, one would think that progress only occurs when it's advantageous. In our culture, that generally means that there needs to be some sort of monetary/economic advantage for progression. That would lead to the conclusion that in our current culture, economic maintenance is king. It seems to me that the concept of progression leading to an efficient use of resources and unbridled innovation is actually an ethical or value concept. Therefore, it would only be important if it were a value held by the majority of people, or if it was a value laid out in a constitution and thus had to be obeyed.

Numbers 2,3 and 6 are arguable. They are likely preconceptions based on your cultural upbringing. Numbers 2 and 3 are completely dependent on the culture/educational system in which the people grow up and live, as well as both the definitions and the methodology of measuring "emotional" and "behaviour". I'm assuming you're describing the difference in muscle strength for number 1, so I'll give you that. But in order to have a mutually exclusive list, that means "delicate" in number 6 must describe something other than muscle tone. And if you really stop to think, women in many cultures are quite physically hardy, because they have to be. They are responsible for a significant amount of the physical grunt work -- farming, cleaning, childcare, all of which necessitate heavy lifting and/or hard physical labour.

Well, infant mortality rates have dropped since 1990 according to this site. A World bank blog talks about how population growth in Kenya is due to longer life expectancy -- their birth rate has decreased from 8.1 children per family in 1978 to 4.6 children per family in 2008. I think this phenomenon is called demographic transition, no? Edited due to a double-post problem.

The original post stated that "all tensions between nations are aggravated by resource shortages and high population stress resources" (I'm assuming the last word is a typo, no?) Anyways, this statement is different from the one you just posted above. You've also yet to provide evidence that this is true. Resource shortage (especially when that resource is food) is not always caused by overpopulation, hence it's important not to conflate the two.

All tensions? Really? Developed nations don't have positive population growth rates right now.

As you might notice from previous posts, the concept that "global population is the main problem facing the world" is definitely arguable from a scientific perspective.

Are you saying that American insurance companies currently have compassion for the patients? I strongly disagree with that statement. Their job is to make a profit, not to hand out money. If you are saying that hospital/clinic workers have compassion, then I agree that most of them do. That's not the point, though. A government-managed health care system can employ private-sector experts (doctors, nurses) to do the job. For example, Ontario doctors are not government employees. They are private contractors that often own their own private businesses. No. As you've already stated, unnecessary operations occur due to defensive medicine. I'm going to be honest and say that I don't know much about American tort laws regarding defensive medicine. My intuition is that defensive medicine is less of a problem in a universal health care system because the patient or insurance company is less likely to sue to obtain money they didn't spend in the first place. It would be interesting to see some more educated thoughts on that. The "bloating" that occurs due to the higher administrative costs of dealing with many insurance companies would also be eliminated with a state-wide / federal insurance system, btw. OK. Bear in mind I'm an ecologist, not an economist . A not for profit is simply a business that (as I'm sure you know) doesn't issue stock shares or doesn't distribute surplus profits to owners or shareholders. Releasing the insurance company or hospital from the need to constantly increase their profit margin and focusing their goals on keeping the insurance system or hospital in the black while maintaining good service would allow for a more sustainable system that just needs to be maintained, and doesn't necessarily need to grow. The concept of hospitals, state-run insurance systems being run as not-for-profit stems from a value system that believes basic health care service should be a human right.

The incentive to make a profit is really the main problem with US health care, IMO. It's fine for doctors and other skilled workers to make a profit for providing the service, but the prices in US health care are so bloated because everyone's trying to take a cut. Hospitals are not there to improve people's health -- they're there to sell the most expensive medical care they can think of, whether you need it or not. Conversely, insurance companies are trying to make sure that they make a profit, sometimes at the expense of people who desperately need health care. I mean, doesn't it strike anyone as immoral to be earning money in the stockmarket because either a) someone was denied coverage that could've improved or extended their life, or b) someone overpaid for an unnecessary operation? Healthcare would be less expensive and more oriented towards doing what is right for the patient (regardless of their income) if the insurance system and the hospitals were run as not-for-profit organizations.

This is probably correct to some degree, but it's a bit pie-in-the-sky, no? Also, it's also not just a problem of the Global North exploiting the Global South, although I recognize this is one of the top issues. But there's also the problem of Africans exploiting other Africans.

It depends on how you use wikipedia. Sometimes I have trouble finding the right search terms to get the papers I'm looking for on WOS or google scholar. A wikipedia article (or a random article on the web) can give an overview with potentially good search terms, and can help by giving some starting citations with which I would then use to find other papers (using "Times Cited" or otherwise). For example, I was looking up "intraspecific diversity" and corn last week, and getting very few hits. A random web page made me realize that the term I was searching for was "cultivar mixture". I wouldn't have gotten that from searching google scholar or WOS.