Voltaire on Religion
at 12:21 pm on Friday, 27 August 2010
On reading what our founding fathers thought on the subject of religion and government, one is constantly finding references to the great rational and “Enlightenment” philosophers and thinkers. One of the favorites is Voltaire, and their favorite work by Voltaire seems to have been his Philosophical Dictionary ( Downloadable for free, in English, from Project Gutenberg.)
I am reproducing the most often quoted section, used in the writings of nearly everyone who took a serious interest the Constitution, from Adams, Jefferson, Madison, to Paine, who quotes large chunks of Voltaire’s “Sect” almost verbatim.
SECT
SECTION I
Every sect, in whatever sphere, is the rallying-point of doubt and error. Scotist, Thomist, Realist, Nominalist, Papist, Calvinist, Molinist, Jansenist, are only pseudonyms.
There are no sects in geometry; one does not speak of a Euclidian, an Archimedean.
When the truth is evident, it is impossible for parties and factions to arise. Never has there been a dispute as to whether there is daylight at noon.
The branch of astronomy which determines the course of the stars and the return of eclipses being once known, there is no more dispute among astronomers.
In England one does not say—”I am a Newtonian, a Lockian, a Halleyan.” Why? Those who have read cannot refuse their assent to the truths taught by these three great men. The more Newton is revered, the less do people style themselves Newtonians; this word supposes that there are anti-Newtonians in England. Maybe we still have a few Cartesians in France; that is solely because Descartes’ system is a tissue of erroneous and ridiculous imaginings.
It is likewise with the small number of truths of fact which are well established. The records of the Tower of London having been authentically gathered by Rymer, there are no Rymerians, because it occurs to no one to combat this collection. In it one finds neither contradictions, absurdities nor prodigies; nothing which revolts the reason, nothing, consequently, which sectarians strive to maintain or upset by absurd arguments. Everyone agrees, therefore, that Rymer’s records are worthy of belief.
[Pg 268]
You are Mohammedan, therefore there are people who are not, therefore you might well be wrong.
What would be the true religion if Christianity did not exist? the religion in which there were no sects; the religion in which all minds were necessarily in agreement.
Well, to what dogma do all minds agree? to the worship of a God and to integrity. All the philosophers of the world who have had a religion have said in all time—”There is a God, and one must be just.” There, then, is the universal religion established in all time and throughout mankind.
The point in which they all agree is therefore true, and the systems through which they differ are therefore false.
“My sect is the best,” says a Brahmin to me. But, my friend, if your sect is good, it is necessary; for if it were not absolutely necessary you would admit to me that it was useless: if it is absolutely necessary, it is for all men; how then can it be that all men have not what is absolutely necessary to them? How is it possible for the rest of the world to laugh at you and your Brahma?
When Zarathustra, Hermes, Orpheus, Minos and all the great men say—”Let us worship God, and let us be just,” nobody laughs; but everyone hisses the man who claims that one cannot please God unless when one dies one is holding a cow’s tail, and the man who wants one to have the end of one’s prepuce cut off, and the man who consecrates crocodiles and onions, and the man who attaches eternal salvation to the dead men’s bones one carries under one’s shirt, or to a plenary indulgence which one buys at Rome for two and a half sous.
Whence comes this universal competition in hisses and derision from one end of the world to the other? It is clear that the things at which everyone sneers are not of a very evident truth. What shall we say of one of Sejan’s secretaries who dedicated to Petronius a bombastic book entitled—”The Truths of the Sibylline Oracles, Proved by the Facts”?
This secretary proves to you first that it was necessary for God to send on earth several sibyls one after the other;
[Pg 269]
for He had no other means of teaching mankind. It is demonstrated that God spoke to these sibyls, for the word sibyl signifies God’s counsel. They had to live a long time, for it is the very least that persons to whom God speaks should have this privilege. They were twelve in number, for this number is sacred. They had certainly predicted all the events in the world, for Tarquinius Superbus bought three of their Books from an old woman for a hundred crowns. “What incredulous fellow,” adds the secretary, “will dare deny all these evident facts which happened in a corner before the whole world? Who can deny the fulfilment of their prophecies? Has not Virgil himself quoted the predictions of the sibyls? If we have not the first examples of the Sibylline Books, written at a time when people did not know how to read or write, have we not authentic copies? Impiety must be silent before such proofs.” Thus did Houttevillus speak to Sejan. He hoped to have a position as augur which would be worth an income of fifty thousand francs, and he had nothing.[20]
“What my sect teaches is obscure, I admit it,” says a fanatic; “and it is because of this obscurity that it must be believed; for the sect itself says it is full of obscurities. My sect is extravagant, therefore it is divine; for how should what appears so mad have been embraced by so many peoples, if it were not divine?” It is precisely like the Alcoran which the Sonnites say has an angel’s face and an animal’s snout; be not scandalized by the animal’s snout, and worship the angel’s face. Thus speaks this insensate fellow. But a fanatic of another sect answers—”It is you who are the animal, and I who am the angel.”
Well, who shall judge the suit? who shall decide between these two fanatics? The reasonable, impartial man learned in a knowledge that is not that of words; the man free from prejudice and lover of truth and justice; in short, the man who is not the foolish animal, and who does not think he is the angel.
[Pg 270]
SECTION II
Sect and error are synonymous. You are Peripatetic and I Platonician; we are therefore both wrong; for you combat Plato only because his fantasies have revolted you, and I am alienated from Aristotle only because it seems to me that he does not know what he is talking about. If one or the other had demonstrated the truth, there would be a sect no longer. To declare oneself for the opinion of the one or the other is to take sides in a civil war. There are no sects in mathematics, in experimental physics. A man who examines the relations between a cone and a sphere is not of the sect of Archimedes: he who sees that the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the square of the two other sides is not of the sect of Pythagoras.
When you say that the blood circulates, that the air is heavy, that the sun’s rays are pencils of seven refrangible rays, you are not either of the sect of Harvey, or the sect of Torricelli, or the sect of Newton; you agree merely with the truth demonstrated by them, and the entire universe will ever be of your opinion.
This is the character of truth; it is of all time; it is for all men; it has only to show itself to be recognized; one cannot argue against it. A long dispute signifies—”Both parties are wrong.”
FOOTNOTES:
[20]
Reference to the Abbé Houtteville, author of a book entitled—”The Truth of the Christian Religion, Proved by the Facts.”
The Constitution vs Religion
I recently had reason to read what John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, James Madison, and others wrote about freedom of (from) religion. (My reading included the obvious Constitution of the United States, Constitution of Virginia, and the Constitution of New York, for a few examples. Sources of much of their thought on the subject came from John Locke, Voltaire, Hume, Adam Smith, and other members of the “Enlightenment”.
They were all keenly aware that nearly every country in Europe had a “state” religion that was abusive and coercive. There were ecclesiastical laws that were often brutally enforced by whatever church could wield enough power. People were required to give a certain amount of their income to the “established” churches, no matter what they believed. Churches ran schools in which they not only educated their students, they indoctrinated them in their religious beliefs. Believers in various sects fought bitter wars over what one was supposed to believe.
The founding fathers thought that, by not endorsing any church at all, there would be hundreds of sects and each sect would be small enough that it would be unlikely to take on the others for power and influence over government. They did not imagine that one species of religion, Reformation Protestantism, could become dominate enough to begin eroding the freedoms guaranteed by their Constitution.
There were many long and heated arguments over this at the Constitutional conventions, not only of the U.S. but of several states. Jefferson wrote a lengthy piece on the subject that became part of the Constitution of Virginia, and James Madison did the same for the Constitution of New York.
In America, largely as a result of the terrors of the French revolution, we had what was called the “Great Revival” (late 18th Century) in which old-line Protestants of numerous stripes, primarily in the South, declared that the French revolution happened because God had been left out of government. They immediately tried to redress this by insinuating religious doctrine into government documents and laws at every opportunity.
That they were successful is shown by the success of the religious right even today, who can influence law about marriage rights, abortion, stem-cell research, teaching of science, “In God We Trust” on our money (did not become official until 1956, it supposedly proved we were not communists), the pledge of allegiance itself, (In 1892, a socialist named Francis Bellamy created the Pledge of Allegiance for *Youth’s* *Companion*, a national family magazine for youth published in Boston. In 1888 the magazine started a fund-raising program in which they sold american flags to schools, along with the pledge of allegiance. Very few schools even had a flag until then.[http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur10.htm], and especially onerous is the insertion of “under God” (by Eisenhower in 1954, with the explanation that it was a quote from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address — where the phrase “under God” does not actually occur in any manuscript copy.” to name a few instances.
Not only are we very fortunate that we are not governed under the laws of Islam (for an extreme example) — we are very fortunate that our founding fathers fought so hard to try to keep religion completely out of governance.
They could not have expected that their hard won nation, built on rational philosophy, with no supernatural references except to some great force they usually called simply “Providence”, could have succumbed so much to organized religion and what they correctly called “superstition”.
Biological Diversity Correlates with Ecological Opportunity: Surprised?
at 9:28 am on Thursday, 26 August 2010
Jerry Coyne, on his Why Evolution is True site has a quick analysis of a new paper that is turning up all over the place under a headline that is some variant of Darwin Was Wrong, when it fact, the article doesn’t seem to prove anything of the kind.
Read a reasonable and rational review at Why Evolution is True.
Religious Accommodation: Heidegger’s cats?
at 10:31 am on Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Science (or statistics?) meets religion half way.
“I [Had] A Dream”: Religion and Social Justice
at 9:39 am on Wednesday, 25 August 2010
In an August 25 Washington Post op-ed, Martin Luther King III discussed Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally planned to take place on the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and Martin Lulther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Writing that “it is clear from the timing and location that the rally’s organizers present this event as also honoring the ideals and contributions of Martin Luther King Jr.,” he stated, “I would like to be clear about what those ideals are.”
Read article here:
Government vs Islam: Treaty of Tripoli
at 11:58 am on Tuesday, 24 August 2010
In 1797 the US Senate unanimously approved (only the third unanimous vote out of 339), a treaty with the Barbary pirate state (Treaty of Tripoli). The Treaty was signed by President John Adams and Sec. of State Timothy Pickering. It was published in the Philadelphia Gazette and in two New York papers, and never raised even a letter to the editor in protest. Our nation seems to have been pretty comfortable with it, including Article 11:
“Article 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
What do you reckon would happen if the Senate made bold to vote on such a statement today? (“senate make bold” is a joke)
Men are not animals
at 9:01 am on Tuesday, 10 August 2010
This parody of creationist arguments is so close to the truth it is painful to watch!
Critique of Cal Thomas’ article “More Abandon Climate ‘Myth’”
at 1:05 pm on Wednesday, 9 June 2010
“After spending years promoting ‘global warming,’ the media are beginning to turn in the face of growing evidence that they have been wrong.”
Just who are these media he talks about? Given the title of the piece, and this opening, one would suppose that some startling new evidence of flaws in the science was causing “media” to abandon the “climate myth.” However, Thomas does not cite any new science at all and doesn’t actually use any scientific information. He simply refers to some old denier scandals, such as the notorious and oft refuted climate-gate even though most of the articles don’t connect to the science at all, but to public opinion.
That quote is the first paragraph of the article and Thomas apparently didn’t read any further or he would have discovered that the article does not support his argument at all. We learn that the “rebellion” was from a tiny percentage of the Royal Society, who had been selected because they were hoped to be sympathetic to the cause, and asked to sign a petition to open the discussion on climate to more deniers. The article says that only a third of those asked actually signed, and nearly all of them were non-climate scientists and were retired.
The conclusion of the Royal Society? “Nothing in recent developments has changed or weakened the underpinning science of climate change.”
Hardly a groundswell of opinion shift. Add to this fact that the London Times has been a leading denier of climate change from the very beginning. The reference to this article is completely empty of information and is used only to vaguely suggest that the Royal Society is being forced to change its stand on climate change because of something wrong with climate science. Thomas is counting on the reader’s just taking his word for it that the article suggests scientists were suppressing the truth, and will not go to the trouble to find and read what the London Times article actually said.
Thomas next refers to a Newsweek article titled “Uncertain Science”, in the May 28 edition of newsweek.com, which he admits up front doesn’t support his thesis very well. The article, by Stefan Theil (who is not a science writer), is about how the general pubic is losing confidence in global warming, primarily because of other issues they hold to be more urgent, and because scientists have not done a very good job of communicating. No news there. No sudden abandonment of the “myth”.
Next, he drags out the old “polar bears are thriving” argument. According to Arctic Focus, October 27, in a routine re-evaluation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) the convention recommended that all commercial trade in polar bears will be against the law. The Nunavut, whose income depends heavily on guiding sportsmen on polar bear hunts, claimed that polar bears were not currently under any stress in their part of the arctic, and asked for the hunting restrictions not apply to their territory. It is obvious that the Nunavut have a special interest. In fact, the polar bears may be thriving in their particular part of the arctic. That would not suggest that the science of climate change is affected in any way by this occurrence. Hence, there is no support here for Thomas’ assertion that climate change is a “myth”. He just need an opportunity to say “polar bears” and “thriving” in the same sentence, which is, in fact exactly what he did.
His reference to the New York Times has to be quoted in full to be appreciated:
LONDON — Last month hundreds of environmental activists crammed into an auditorium here to ponder an anguished question: If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?
When I first read this I couldn’t believe that a New York Times editor had let such an obvious gaff pass. But then, unlike Mr. Thomas, I read the article. The article described a meeting in which hundreds of scientists and others gathered to discuss why global science had gone from being one of the hottest topics amongst the general public in Britain to being taken seriously by less than 30% of the population. The Times writer used two of the commonest of all logical fallacies to help explain the sudden shift. It was a “rhetorical” question with no fewer that two classical logical fallacies!
First it the equivocation on the word “consensus.” “Consensus” means “agreement”, or solidarity of opinion. The question about consensus is agreement amongst whom? The big question is “If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea. . . “Scientific consensus” would clearly mean a general agreement amongst scientists. In his very next sentence Thomas declares that there was not a consensus. It would seem that consensus should refer to “scientific consensus” above, but, no, the next sentence boldly declares that the consensus is amongst “those of us who didn’t get an ‘A’ in science”! By using a perfectly common word to mean two entirely different things, he has bamboozled himself. Or is he trying to deliberately bamboozle us?
The simple fact is: anyone who didn’t get an “A” in science does not get a vote in a scientific consensus. A scientific consensus is an agreement amongst experts. There was an overwhelming consensus amongst scientists, and the consensus has grown even stronger as more and more evidence supporting global climate change becomes available.
Appealing to a consensus view for support of an opinion or belief is called an “appeal to authority”. The value of the argument depends entirely upon on the quality of the authority and the relevance of the authority’s expertise to the subject. I think most reasonable people would agree that a “consensus of scientists” should carry more authoritative weight than a “consensus of those of us who never go an “A” in science” in the evaluation of a scientific thesis. Once one has determined whether the authority is reasonable and likely to actually be an expert in the subject under consideration, one must decide how much to depend on that authority’s opinion.
The 20th Century philosopher, Bertrand Russell, provided a good guide to evaluating expert opinion in his little book Let the People Think (London, 1941, p.2):
“When the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain;
“When [they] are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert;
“When they all hold no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion to exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgement.”
In the case of global warming the consensus of scientists is a trustworthy authority. And the experts (the climate scientists) are in agreement (over 94% at last count — an overwhelming majority).
Next, this big question (If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?) is, itself, an example of the fallacy called argumentum ad numerum (appeal to numbers) or argumentum ad populum (appeal to the people). It is a logical fallacy that is taught to ever college student who takes freshman English. It is an appeal that is often used in political advertising, as in: “Nine out of ten of my constituents oppose the bill, therefore it is a bad idea.” How many people believe a thing has nothing to do with its truth or relevancy to a current situation. The oceans are getting warmer. Masses of data from all over the world demonstrate it. It does not matter at all what you or I or ten thousand Scandinavian sailors believe. Facts are facts. And the overwhelming number of expert scientists agree that the science behind climate change is good science. According to Bertrand Russell, any opposing view is unlikely.
The big job for scientists now is to try to get those who never got an “A” in science to understand enough about climate change that they will vote for people who can effect the kinds of change that will be required to mitigate the situation.
The horrifying thing about Thomas’ using this paragraph (in which he used both an unqualified) in an argument that is opposite to what Elisabeth Rosenthal was demonstrating in her quoted material, is that he fell for both fallacies! This seems to prove, beyond any doubt, that Thomas didn’t read the article. He took what he thought served his purpose and ran off to write his article.
Thomas obliquely refers to an article in the third most popular newspaper in Germany, Focus. He doesn’t actually cite anything in the article except the mention of El Nino, La Nina, and “shifting winds” as drivers of weather. These three phenomena are thoroughly described and accounted for in the scientific literature. He missed a big chance to enumerate a whole list of popular denier arguments that were featured in the article. (All of the arguments in the Focus article have long been debunked.
He then appeals to an authority, the meteorologist Joe D’Aleo, recently of the Weather Channel. Mr D’Aleo would seem to be a person who is qualified to speak on the subject of climate. Unfortunately, if Thomas represents D’Aleo’s views correctly, he is the person who confuses cause and effect in discussing El Nino, La Nina, and “shifting winds”. Also if we follow the advice of Bertrand Russell, since Joe D’Aleo is in the tiny minority of scientists who deny the importance of climate change, his conclusions are unlikely to be correct. It is fair, in this instance, to mention that almost all of D’Aleo’s publications are sponsored by Exxon, so he also has a vested political and financial interest.
TO BE CONTINUED
Cal Thomas: Sinking ‘climate change’
(The Washington Examiner, June 3, 2010)
Original title: “More Abandon Climate ‘Myth’”
Three modern myths have been sold to the American people: the promise of a transparent administration (President Obama); the promise of a more ethical Congress (Speaker Pelosi); and the myth of “global warming,” or climate change.
The first two are daily proving suspect and now the third is sinking with greater force than melting icebergs — if they were melting, which many believe they are not.
After spending years promoting “global warming,” the media are beginning to turn in the face of growing evidence that they have been wrong. The London Times recently reported: “Britain’s premier scientific institution is being forced to review its statements on climate change after a rebellion by members who question mankind’s contribution to rising temperatures.”
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Sinking-_climate-change_-95418754.html#ixzz0qHnJoV1U
Read the rest of this entry here:
Carbon-Friendly Beef? Look to Africa, Experts Say
at 2:36 pm on Monday, 7 June 2010
(Solve Climate, June 7, 2010)
Studies in Africa reveal that raising livestock through pastoralism is ‘far more’ ecological than crop production
In 2006, a landmark report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that livestock production contributes 18 percent to global carbon dioxide emissions — more than automobiles. Since then, meat production has been insistently and ringingly hammered, and the message has been loud and clear: eat less meat to cut your carbon footprint, slow deforestation and keep healthier.
Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
(Skeptical Science, June 7, 2010)
Guest post by John Abraham
This time, we are turning our attention to a problem that is rapidly gaining attention in the public arena. That problem, commonly termed “ocean acidification” refers to the lowering of the ocean’s pH by the dissolution of carbon dioxide in seawater. It should be noted that the ocean is basic (It’s pH is greater than 7). Ocean “acidification” does not refer to the ocean becoming an acid. It means the ocean is becoming less basic.
Scientists believe that the pH of the ocean has decreased by about 0.1 point since pre-industrial times. This may not sound like a large change, but it must be recognized that the pH scale is logarithmic. On a log scale, a change in pH of 0.1 means that the concentrations of hydrogen ions in the water has changed by about 30%.
So, why does the decrease in pH concern us? In saltwater, living creatures that make calcium carbonate shells or skeletons (oysters, clams, sea urchins, corals, etc) require a pH around 8.2. When pH falls too low, these creatures have difficulty making and maintaining their shells.
Read the rest of this entry here:
Arctic Sea Ice at Lowest Point in Thousands of Years
at 8:58 am on Saturday, 5 June 2010
(Live Science, June 4, 12010)
By Andrea Thompson
posted: 04 June 2010 09:10 am ET
he shrinking amount of sea ice that covers the Arctic Ocean today is the smallest it has been in the last few thousand years, a new study suggests.
The sea ice that normally covers huge swaths of the Arctic Ocean has been retreating and thinning over the last few decades, due to the amplified warming at the North Pole, which is a consequence of the buildup of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.
Read the rest of this entry here:
Suminia: Life in the Trees 260 Million Years Ago
(Laelaps, May 28, 2010)
When I hear the phrase “early human relative” I cannot help but think of an ape-like creature. Something like Sahelanthropus fits the bill nicely – it may not be a hominin but it is still a close relative from around the time that the first hominins evolved. That is why I was a bit puzzled to see MSNBC.com parroting a story written by the Discovery Channel which proclaimed “Early human relative predates even dinosaurs”! Was this another fossil that would change everything? While not quite as startling as a Precambrian rabbit, a 260-million-year-old-hominin (or even primate) would certainly be a shocker!
The truth of the matter, however, is that the fossil described in the MSNBC story is only a distant relative of humans. Called Suminia getmanovi, it was a synapsid (the diverse group of vertebrates to which mammals and their closest relatives belong) that lived during the Permian in what is now Russia. More specifically, it was an anomodont, or a relative of the tubby Lystrosaurus and the small, tusked Robertia. The attempt to make Suminia relevant to human ancestry, therefore, was a quick and dirty way of grabbing attention, but in this case I think it stirred more confusion than enlightenment.
Read the rest of this entry here:
Ocean heat content increases update
(RealClimate, May 29, 2010)
There is a new paper in Nature this week on recent trends in ocean heat content from a large group of oceanographers led by John Lyman at PMEL. Their target is the uncertainty surrounding the various efforts to create a homogenised ocean heat content data set that deals appropriately with the various instrument changes and coverage biases that have plagued previous attempts.
We have discussed this issue a number of times because of its importance in diagnosing the long term radiative imbalance of the atmosphere. Basically, if there has been more energy coming in at the top than is leaving, then it has to have been going somewhere – and that somewhere is mainly the ocean. (Other reservoirs for this energy, like the land surface or melting ice, are much smaller, and can be neglected for the most part).
Read the rest of this entry here:
On attribution
(RealClimate, May 29,2010)
How do we know what caused climate to change – or even if anything did?
This is a central question with respect to recent temperature trends, but of course it is much more general and applies to a whole range of climate changes over all time scales. Judging from comments we receive here and discussions elsewhere on the web, there is a fair amount of confusion about how this process works and what can (and cannot) be said with confidence. For instance, many people appear to (incorrectly) think that attribution is just based on a naive correlation of the global mean temperature, or that it is impossible to do unless a change is ‘unprecedented’ or that the answers are based on our lack of imagination about other causes.
In fact the process is more sophisticated than these misconceptions imply and I’ll go over the main issues below. But the executive summary is this:
STRONG EVIDENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE UNDERSCORES NEED FOR ACTIONS TO REDUCE EMISSIONS AND BEGIN ADAPTING TO IMPACTS
at 11:12 am on Tuesday, 25 May 2010
(News from the National Academies, May 19, 2010)
WASHINGTON — As part of its most comprehensive study of climate change to date, the National Research Council today issued three reports emphasizing why the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change. The reports by the Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering, are part of a congressionally requested suite of five studies known as America’s Climate Choices.
“These reports show that the state of climate change science is strong,” said Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences. “But the nation also needs the scientific community to expand upon its understanding of why climate change is happening, and focus also on when and where the most severe impacts will occur and what we can do to respond.”
Read the rest of the entry here.
Tracking the Ancestry of Corn Back 9,000 Years
at 8:50 am on Tuesday, 25 May 2010
It is now growing season across the Corn Belt of the United States. Seeds that have just been sown will, with the right mixture of sunshine and rain, be knee-high plants by the Fourth of July and tall stalks with ears ripe for picking by late August.
Corn is much more than great summer picnic food, however. Civilization owes much to this plant, and to the early people who first cultivated it.
(New York Times, May 25, 2010)
Read the rest of this entry here.
Mediterranean Sea Getting Saltier, Hotter
at 2:52 pm on Monday, 24 May 2010
The Western Mediterranean Sea is heating up and getting saltier, a new study finds.
Each year the temperature of the deep layer of the Western Mediterranean increases by 0.0036 degrees Fahrenheit (0.002 degrees Celsius), and its salt levels increase by 0.001 units of salinity, researchers monitoring the sea found. The change is consistent with the expected effects of global warming.
These changes may sound like small beans, but they have been building up at a faster pace since the 1990s, the study, detailed in the April 1 edition of the Journal of Geophysical Research, suggests.
(Live Science, May 24, 2010)
Read the rest of this entry here.
I, microbe: Sequencing the bugs in our bodies
20 May 2010 by Caitlin Stier
People are more microbe than human, with microbes outnumbering our cellsby 10 to 1. But strangely, scientists know more about the microbes that inhabit the soil and sea than those that call us home. Now, the genetic sequencing of 178 of these microbes will help close that gap.
Scientists have long known that our microbial inhabitants, collectively known as the microbiome, can contribute to disease. But culturing the cells outside of the human body can be difficult, complicating efforts to identify many of them, particularly rare species.
Read the rest of this entry here.
U.S. Science Body Urges Action on Climate
at 11:27 am on Thursday, 20 May 2010
By JOHN M. BRODER
(NY Times, May 19, 2010)
WASHINGTON — In its most comprehensive study so far, the nation’s leading scientific body declared on Wednesday that climate change is a reality and is driven mostly by human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
The group, the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, issued three reports describing the case for a harmful human influence on the global climate as overwhelming and arguing for strong immediate action to limit emissions of climate-altering gases in the United States and around the world — including the creation of a carbon pricing system.
Read the rest of this entry here.
The Anthropocene Debate: Marking Humanity’s Impact
(Yale:Environment 360, May 17, 2010)
Marking Humanity’s Impact
Is human activity altering the planet on a scale comparable to major geological events of the past? Scientists are now considering whether to officially designate a new geological epoch to reflect the changes thathomo sapiens have wrought: the Anthropocene.
by elizabeth kolbert
The Holocene — or “wholly recent” epoch — is what geologists call the 11,000 years or so since the end of the last ice age. As epochs go, the Holocene is barely out of diapers; its immediate predecessor, the Pleistocene, lasted more than two million years, while many earlier epochs, like the Eocene, went on for more than 20 million years. Still, the Holocene may be done for. People have become such a driving force on the planet that many geologists argue a new epoch — informally dubbed the Anthropocene — has begun.
Read the rest of this entry here.
New Study Finds Ocean Warmed Significantly Since 1993
at 7:53 am on Thursday, 20 May 2010
(NASA, May 20, 2010)
The upper layer of Earth’s ocean has warmed since 1993, indicating a strong climate change signal, according to a new international study co-authored by oceanographer Josh Willis of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The energy stored is enough to power nearly 500 100-watt light bulbs for each of the roughly 6.7 billion people on the planet.
“We are seeing the global ocean store more heat than it gives off,” said John Lyman, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, who led the study that analyzed nine different estimates of heat content in the upper ocean from 1993 to 2008.
Read the rest of this entry here.
What we can learn from studying the last millennium (or so)
(Real Climate, May 15, 2010)
With all of the emphasis that is often placed on hemispheric or global mean temperature trends during the past millennium, and the context they provide for interpreting modern warming trends, one thing is often lost in the discussion: space matters as much as time. Indeed, it is likely that the regional patterns of past climate changes, rather than simple hemispheric or global mean temperature trends, will best inform our understanding of the dynamical mechanisms involved. Since much of the uncertainty in future projections relates to regional climate change impacts, it makes particular sense to focus on those changes in the past that involve regional changes and the underlying mechanisms behind them.
For instance, melting of the cryosphere (and consequent rises in sea level), subtle shifts in drought and rainfall patterns, and extreme events, are all regional effects that could be important threats to ecosystems and our environment. Such changes are often associated with phenomena like ENSO or the North Atlantic Oscillation. Yet there remain large uncertainties about how such mechanisms will respond to anthropogenic climate change.
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Smallest waterlily in the world saved from extinction – by Kew Gardens
(guardian.co.uk, May 19, 2010)
The thermal waterlily, extinct in the wild since it disappeared from Rwanda in 2008, has been granted a new lease of life.
Plant experts at Kew Gardens have rescued the smallest waterlily in the world from the brink of extinction.
The thermal waterlily has not grown in the wild since the last specimens vanished two years ago from its only known habitat, a hot spring in southwest Rwanda.
After a year-long struggle, a Kew Gardens biologist worked out a way to grow the plants at the botanic gardens, paving the way for their reintroduction in the wild.
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