Mass Transit

I saw this article in the New York Times today, and thought I'd mention it as a kind of part 2 of my commentary on high gas prices (see my post from a year ago here, although prices have continued to rise I don't think my sentiments have changed a ton). I'll let you read the article yourselves, but the basic synopsis is that with gas prices at all time highs, public transit systems are seeing record breaking ridership. It appears we might be near the "tipping point" where prices are high enough to convince people to train, bus, bike, or walk-it. Of course biking and walking won't show up in these statistics, but you get the point.

The article contained one thing I'd like to quote:

The increase in transit use coincides with other signs that American motorists are beginning to change their driving habits, including buying smaller vehicles. The Energy Department recently predicted that Americans would consume slightly less gasoline this year than last — for the first yearly decline since 1991. [emphasis added]

Think about this. In 1991, I didn't have an email address. I couldn't even type very well. I listened to mix tapes on a Sony walkman (90-minute Maxell XLII tapes of course). MTV still played music, and we would see the release of both Ten and Nevermind that year. Kurt Cobain has now been gone more than a decade, and we have iPods, blogs, the interwebs, and instead of walking to my local record store I download albums from iTunes. But with all of those amazing technological advancements we came up with nothing to make our transportation-related energy use more efficient. In fact, we just kept using more and more. Just think if transportation saw the same step increase in technology that the walkman did. As tough as high oil prices can be for people, how many decades have people been making rational arguments for higher fuel economy, increased public transportation, and decreased dependence on fossil fuels? Just for argument sake, let's say since the late 1970's. And what have we done? If we would have heeded those warnings back then, when gas was $1.25 a gallon, perhaps it never would have reached this point.

Oh, and even with a cheap-o 9 year old car I still pay less for gas now that a medium-sized SUV driver did in 2000.

UPDATE, thought I'd add this clip from the 1999 Simpsons season.

Slate Articles and Michael Pollan

Not too long ago I blogged about Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma. If you've read my review you know that in general I thought it was a very well written and argued book. Pollan has a new book out, called In Defense of Food, which was recently reviewed on Slate. I am a regular Slate reader, and since In Defense of Food is a book I am considering reading, I thought the review might be a good read.

Slate is a weird website. Some of the articles very well written pieces on politics and culture, mixing humor and insight in a way that makes me check the site daily. But, Slate also has a second type of article that appears all too often. The outline of the classic Slate complaint is this: Take something that everyone likes or is in general good, and with a whiny, self-important, high-schoolish rant explain why it is either bad, wrong, or both - written, of course, with a "I would have done it sooo much better" flavor usually reserved for indie music critics in novelty retro t-shirts (One of my favorites is a complaint of how a fictional character is a "fraud.") One way this is done is by misrepresenting the original source. Which leads me to Laura Shapiro's recent piece on In Defense of Food. Now, I haven't read Pollan's new book, but I cannot trust this review because of a glaring misrepresentation.

Shapiro writes:

Pollan's way of doing this is to stage a kind of faith-based dinner party he calls "The Perfect Meal"—perfect because everything on the table will be made from ingredients grown, shot, or gathered near his home in the San Francisco Bay area, from the wild-boar pâté to the cherry galette. By the time he heads out to collect local yeast spores for the bread dough, you feel as though you're not even reading a book anymore but instead gazing stupefied at some sort of life-sized diorama in the Museum of Natural History ("Northern California, ca. A.D. 2000—Worshipping Plants and Animals").

This has nothing to do with the content of the chapter, or what Pollan ends up calling "The Perfect Meal." In addition, it pitches Pollan, and Dilemma, as an elitist and snobby book that provides no "real world" ideas or solutions. As I quoted in my review

Perhaps the perfect meal is one that's been fully paid for, that leaves no debt outstanding. This is almost impossible ever to do, which is why I said there was nothing very realistic or applicable about this meal [emphasis added]. But as a sometimes thing, as a kind of ritual, a meal that is eaten in full consciousness of what it took to make it is worth preparing every now and again, if only as a way to remind us of the true costs of the things we take for granted. The reason I didn't open a can of stock was because stock doesn't come from a can; it comes from the bones of animals. As the yeast that leavens our bread comes not from a packet but from the air we breathe. The meal was more ritual than realistic because it dwelled on such things, reminding us how very much nature offers to the omnivore, the forests as much as the fields, the oceans as the meadows. If I had to give this dinner a name, it would have to be the Omnivore's Thanksgiving. (pp. 409-410)

Pollan fully admits that the meal foraged and hunted is impractical, he talks about that repeatedly in Dilemma. You might confuse the point if you only skimmed the book and chapter titles, perhaps. Unfortunately I see this as falling into the Slate whiny pattern I mentioned earlier; perhaps confusing the idea of critique with criticism Shapiro wants to find something to complain about in a well reviewed and popular book. That is one of the thing Slate does best, of course, point out why things we like are actually bad. I haven't read Pollan's new book, but I immediately can't trust the rest of Shapiro's review. The misrepresentation goes to the heart of what I consider to be one of the better points of Dilemma, and I can only guess that the trend of exaggeration and misrepresentation is not limited to the example I am using.

To be fair, not all of the review is this off, and I have liked many of Shapiro's pieces in the past. But I am entirely disappointed with the tone of this one. Why misrepresent?

AGU Meeting Planner

I spent some time this morning searching the schedule for the upcoming American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, and decided to vent. The on-line abstract searcher and meeting planner could be the most user-unfriendly and time-wasting internet tools around. I don't think AGU has updated their online searching in years, and as far as I can tell you can only export your selected itinerary as a poorly formatted email, damn near impossible to import into anything useful or make easier to read in any way. I move that AGU pays one of its computer savvy members to redesign the meeting website for next year, this time with a focus on being user friendly. Seriously, I'd be thrilled for a tab-delimited text file right about now. As it is I have about 13 printed pages of session names, posters, and talks. I think the style is properly called "dot matrix, circa 1991." I feel like printing it out on that wide green-striped paper we used when I worked for the Department of Fish and Game.

Amory Lovins and Technology

I had a chance recently to see Amory Lovins speak. Lovins (not McLovins, as I found myself saying) has a rather impressive resume, but he is bet known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a "think and do tank" that specializes in profitable "green" technologies. Early in his talk, Lovins drove home what seems to be his central philosphy: the profit or the environment dichotomy is entirely false. In fact, switching to energy saving technologies is extremely profitable, and any business that expects to survive and compete needs to realize that. He has countless examples or instances where the RMI has partnered with companies to help them retrofit factories, redesign systems, and adopt new materials and technologies that both save energy and dramatically increase profit. He also focuses on what he calls "breaking barriers." This means designing with efficiency in mind, and optimizing efficiency so standard items that are both expensive and inefficient are unnecessary. One of the examples Lovins uses is his own home, high in the Rocky Mountains, 16 miles west of Aspen, sitting at a beautiful 7100 feet. Even though the home is in an area that can get frost yeear-round, and will dip well below 0°F in the winter, the home does not have a furnace. Want to be more impressed? Well, the home also has a high-falootin' greenhouse, where they grown a great deal of fruits and vegetables, including bananas. Yes, growing bananas at 7100 feet in Colorado with no furnace. And, Lovins insists that the technology and engineering used to make the home so efficient is actually fairly cheap. Cheap enough that the initial costs are minimal, and the long term costs are much lower than if he had built a conventional home.

Far and away the focus of his talk was on cars. Specifically, the advances that RMI has helped to develop that can make cars lighter, safer, more efficient, and...wait for it....cheaper. The main advance is a composite carbon-fiber body with more crash absorbing power than steel, but at a fraction of the weight. The carbon-fiber is so light that even modern hybrid engines can give you excellent acceleration and towing power. They are more aerodynamic, so they are safe from big rig wind gusts, and because of a reduction in tire width, have as much traction as your standard WMD, err, sorry, I mean SUV.

OK, that part was great, yay technology! But at it's core I felt his argument was this: Efficiency is profitable, the technology is already there, so if we spread the gospel of the RMI and it's associated advancements things like CO₂ emissions and Peak Oil become irrelevant, they will just get fixed. He actually went so far as to say that Peak Oil didn't really matter.

This comes awfully close to the "technology will save us" argument, which I particularly get annoyed with. On some levels it makes sense, but realistically I feel it pays little attention to history.

The point, especially in regards to Peak Oil, is not whether or not we will run out of oil in the future. That is a certainty, at some point, non-renewable resources will become exhausted. That is why they are called non-renewable. What is worrisome is the path we will take to get there. Throughout human history, too many wars have been fought over scarce resources for me to put my faith entirely into the market and technology. One can make the argument that we are at a special point in human history where technology can bypass the nastiness that seems to accompany different groups of people fighting over dwindling supplies of some necessary good, but that is still not all that comforting to me.

I also am suspect of arguments like the one Lovins made. The idea that every company can make a big profit and, perhaps more importantly, position themselves as a leader in their industry while saving energy. I am sure there is inertia in all industries, but I find it hard to believe that there are all of these companies passing up profitable ventures. If it is such a no-brainer, as Lovins suggests, then why hasn't it been adopted wholesale?

In truth I was very excited about most of the talk, and most of my critiques stem from three "party fouls." First, Lovins was at our University as part of a University-wide speaker series in honor of a geologist who passed away 3 years ago. Yet he was at best dismissive of the use of the earth sciences in addressing global environmental problems. I thought that was bad form. I have heard that Lovins is a big proponent of "speaking to your audience," or using the correct message for your particular group of listeners. This talk would have been right for a group of people who's primary concern is how much they have to spend on gas for their next SUV, not for a group of academics with a heavy showing of earth scientists, in honor of a well-known geologist who worked on climate change!

Second, PowerPointless. Lovins used the kind of PowerPoint presentation I have been trained for years to avoid. Text text text, in random colors, tiny print, the works. Graphs with unreadable axes that he did not bother to explain. Stats and numbers and profit margins without any reference or discussion of where the data comes from, or what other forces may have contributed to the trends. If he was a student in my class I would have told him he should have spent more time preparing the presentation. My guess is that he gives this one, or some variant on it, dozens of times a year. He should hire a second year graduate student to smooth it out.

And finally, much of the talk focused on potential energy savings from transportation. Let me rephrase that, much of the talk focused on making more fuel efficient cars. That is a good goal, but not once did he mention applications of these technologies to public transportation, or RMI's position on creating well designed high-density housing integrated with business and commercial properties, you know, cities. As much as I love the idea of living in a sustainable home at 7100 feet in the Rockies, I also believe that any calculation of the amount of energy required by the house must take into account transportation to and from the house. You know, to the grocery store, hardware store, soccer practice, work.....These things weren't mentioned once. Again, maybe he was "talking to his audience," but I felt it a glaring omission. It actually reminded me of a recent trip to Washington D.C. to visit metcaffeination. We went to the National Building Museum, and ended up looking through the Green House Exhibit. Although I thought some of the displays and materials were interesting, almost all of the example homes were in the fricking middle of nowhere! Oh look, I have to drive 30 miles to get to my house but when I am there I can do my laundry with 33% less water. Well, why not put those things in city homes? Near public transport? Within walking distance to work?

OK, a little bit of a diatribe. In general I was impressed by his talk, the examples he gave of profitable and energy saving innovations were really interesting. But, I left the talk in general feeling very disappointed. Lovins missed the mark with me. RMI is doing good things, don't get me wrong, and Lovins has done a lot of impressive things. Anyone else have similar experiences? I'd be interested to know.

Fighting Pseudo-Science, Prime Time Edition

Unfortunately I did not write my contribution to the Accretionary Wedge #2 (How the Earth Can Kill You). I am going to post this thought though. although I understand it is a poor replacement. Read the Accretionary Wedge first, there are some excellent contributions this time around, then you can come back here.

During an ad break in a football game Sunday I overheard a promotion for a new show on NBC, called Phenomenon, which is allegedly in search of the world's new "mentalist". The show is starring Chris Angel (who had a magic, err, excuse me, mentalism show called MindFreak where he entertained with a "distinct blend of magic, mentalism, and dazzling pyrotechnic effects") and Uri Geller. That's right, wanna-be magician, swindler, liar, and all around jackass Uri Geller is trying to make a comeback. For those of you who don't know who Uri Geller is, (or why he is always standnig around with an ED-afflicted spoon) he came to fame in the 70's with his claims of psychic abilities, including his most famous illusion, bending a spoon with his "mind." The folks over at the Denialism Blog have a nice summary and two exceptional videos showing 1) Geller getting debunked live on the Tonight Show thanks to tips from skeptic and debunker-of-BS James Randi, and 2) One of Geller's "secrets" getting caught on camera.

Even though Geller was before my time, I know of him primarily through my brother, who became a big fan of Randi's when we were young. My parents also took us to a live show where James Randi was the main speaker (and where my brother got to be the person who held the magic spoon as it was bent and broken by Randi's "mind"). I have no problem at all with illusionists, I think they can be entertaining, but whenever anyone tries to pass off their tricks as proof of supernatural abilities, well, that's just too much. People like Geller (or even worse Peter Popov, also featured in the videos I linked to) often use their tricks and personality to swindle people. Although these are two extremes, I think these characters and their techniques speak volumes about our role as scientists in society. We do not know everything, we aren't always right, and science has been used for plenty of bad reasons, but one of our duties, I believe, is to single out and call Shenanigans (or BS) when applicable. Although many things we see are not as blatant as Geller or Popov, they can be much more dangerous. Most pseudoscience is really just a slight variation on their themes, misdirection and manipulation. We see it with the ID crowd, the young-earth crowd, the "CO₂ is life" crowd, it's really the same idea, misdirect and make it so there appears to be only one possible answer. I think the use of the term "irreproducible complexity" (a Beheism) is a direct analog to the "mentalist" illusion; It must be ESP/Supernatural Forces, what other explanation is there?!?!?

What is most baffling to me is this: Geller's whole spoon thing is completely debunked, so how does he get away with it? Maybe that is his real magic trick, convincing people to continue to believe his BS even when he's been outed a thousand times. Popov at least went bankrupt, but now Geller gets a new show?

And finally, am I the only one who is convinced that Uri Geller was the inspiration for Gob Bluth from Arrested Development, perhaps the funniest American television show of the last 5 years? You be the judge, can you guess who is who?



And just in case the video link from the Denialism Blog isn't working, here is one of the videos I mentioned

The Geobola Virus

I complained in this recent post that geology does not get enough respect as an exciting, relevant, and important science. I wondered why that was, and today learned at least one of the causes. That is, the geobola virus. The geobola virus manifests itself as members of the geoscience community who do not appear to care at all about geology, or in it's most virulent forms downright do not like geology. Infection can devastate a department, and may take years to recover from.

Things I heard professional geoscience educators say today:

"I mean, we spend so much time on all the rocks and minerals and it is just so boring!"

"They ask me 'when are we ever going to need to know any of this rock and mineral stuff' and I tell them the truth is you never will, it's really just not relevant!"

The geobola virus eats departments from within, beware! It is contagious! Mortality rates are high!

I'm sorry, I must have missed it when you said "and geology"

I was reading two articles on the New York Times Science section today (in 12 minute bursts, keeping in time with the machine I am running). I had first thought of posting about the intersection of the two. The first article was about a creationist film crew that allegedly tricked actual scientists into taped interviews. The interviews were done by entertainer, eye-drop enthusiast, and noted blowhard Ben Stein*. The scientists involved are now raising a ruckus, although I am not sure why they'd agree to be interviewed for a project they didn't know much about. The second article was talking about when Sputnik was launched, and how it made the US realize how behind it was in preparing future generations of scientists. This led to a big push to improve American science education back in the middle of last century. Unfortunately, we have once again seen American students fall behind much of the world in science education. As a country, this threatens our competitiveness, and I thought the first article did a decent job highlighting just how bad our national science education is. The ID crowd is just one symptom of a broken system of science education, and in my opinion their attempt to include supernatural powers in the definition of science is an enormous threat to the U.S. (for more on my feelings, check out my very first post or a letter to the editor I wrote.)

OK, so I was getting all riled up about this, but then as I finished the second article, I came across this

Some experts on science education also point to the typical sequence of high school science instruction: biology, chemistry and then physics. It would make more sense in reverse, these people say, because the principles of physics underlie chemistry, which is crucial for an understanding of biology.

Perhaps the leading champion of this “physics first” approach is Leon M. Lederman, a particle physicist, Nobel laureate and former director of Fermilab whose focus lately has been on improving science and math education. He said the current biology-chemistry-physics sequence dates from the late 19th century, when “we didn’t know enough” and biology was considered a “descriptive” subject.

In fact, Dr. Lederman said, “biology is the most complicated of all subjects, and it is based on chemistry and physics.” And, he added, “there is nothing in chemistry, no fact of chemistry or process of chemistry that if you ask ‘Why does this happen?’ you don’t go back to physics.”

While I don't disagree with the premise of teaching physics first, where the hell is geology? Seriously, we want to build up to inclusive and interdisciplinary sciences that are important for the problems of the world, and no one mentions geology? For f@#k's sake! I am sure we can all post for years about why geology or even the generic earth science are not considered important disciplines (even by Nobel Laureates, and in the same article that worries about global warming), but what this makes me most frustrated about is our inability as geoscientists to sell the significance of our work. As Lederman points out, biology used to be thought of as a descriptive science, so it came first. Is that the problem with geology? Are we thought of as describers of rocks and finders of oil? I've heard this before, that geologists are seen mainly as suppliers of products (minerals and oil), and not as scientists. OK, time for Thermochronic to get some air...

*By the way, Stein is apparently trained as an economist, where did he pick up his scientific background? What makes him qualified to comment on the subject at all? What's next, Ben Stein tells you how to treat Alzheimers? Ben Stein debunking the myths, cigarettes are good for you? Ben Stein talks about the pros and cons of Pfeiffer and Varian roughing pumps? Shouldn't you actually have some expertise in a subject before you spout off strong opinions? Should I be telling Loose Baggy Monster about literature or history? Perhaps I can be called upon to give my opinion on the effect of American corn subsidies on foreign currency markets? Hell, I have a Ph.D., somebody get me a camera! Stein discussing the biological sciences must look a lot like the panelists on the video below


Situation In Nigeria Seems Pretty Complex

Cardboard Baozi Retraction

Looks like this story might have been made up, my apologies.

Although, as the anonymous commenter points out, who's to say this isn't a face saving maneuver by the already food scandaled Chinese government? It would be interesting to see the original news piece (assuming I could understand mandarin, of course).

No thanks, I only eat organic free-range cardboard

I am leaving this post up but it turns out it might have been all made up, see my retraction here. The authenticity of the original report and the later correction are both debatable.

I have recently hinted that my recent field work in the Pyrenees was augmented by exceptionally good food. For my Ph.D. I did field work in eastern China, and while in general I thought the food was also quite good (can't say the same for the wine but that's OK), there were some things I was a little suspect of. Baozi, little steamed buns filled with pork, sweet bean paste, or nothing, were pretty standard both at breakfast and lunch (and pictured above.) I considered them pretty harmless, especially in constrast to the Thousand Year Eggs. That was until I read this article. In case you don't want to link to the article, a Chinese television crew found that at least some baozi makers will substitute up to 60% of the wheat or rice flour dough with cardboard softened with industrial solvents. Yes, you read that correctly, cardboard softened with industrial solvents. Allegedly the buyers couldn't tell the difference. In my experience, most baozi are pretty bland. To be fair I didn't have the pork ones (I'm a vegetarian), but the sweet bean and plain ones were not that memorable. Although my adviser and I did devise a genius plan to make them marketable in the US by stuffing them with cheese, beer battering and deep frying them and then serving them with a ranch dipping sauce.......I digress. My point is that even though they are not the most flavorful things in the world I am shocked that 1) someone would think of this, 2) someone would actually follow through on this once they had the terrible idea 3) no one could tell the difference, and 4) the folks at Hostess didn't think of this one first.

As a kind of side note, I also just [finally] finished Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. I will write a proper review, but suffice it to say it is an excellent book, and it got me thinking about all kinds of things. In the last part of the book, Pollan describes a dinner he prepared almost entirely made of food he collected (foraged, hunted, gathered, etc..) from the forest. I wonder if cardboard baozi count as a forest food?

Related Cartoon

I thought I'd link to this cartoon (from of my favorite political cartoonists Ann Telnaes) that relates to a recent post of mine

How much you pay for gasoline

Because gasoline is an earth science related commodity, I feel I can still call this post earth science related even though it will largely be an airing of grievances. As anyone in the U.S. who ever listens to the radio, picks up a newspaper, or clicks on a TV can tell, gasoline prices are at an all time high right now, just prior to a big travelling/driving holiday weekend. I am not sure what the average price is, but at the Exxon station down the street from my house it is $3.15 a gallon for regular. This seems to be a huge story, oil prices are down, but gas prices are up, oil companies are gouging us, what will congress do to save the consumer? The hard working American? The major news outlets are particularly fond of this, pointing out how gas costs are starting to really hurt middle class America. Even NPR is devoting an amazing amount of newstime to the issue, and to top it all off, the other day I got an email from MoveOn.org rallying for a petition to stop oil companies from price gouging, save America! While I agree price gouging for any product it wrong, and if that is happening I want people held accountable, I am shocked by the focus. Has anyone (even the "progressive" MoveOn.org) used this as a rallying cry for increased funding of public transportation? How about tighter fuel standards? Of course not, the focus is all on how much you pay at the pump. It burns me that spending an extra $30 or $40 a month shares headlines with all of the truly horrible things happening in the world.

This gets me riled up, because what everyone seems to be ignoring is that you decide how much you are going to pay for gasoline WHEN YOU BUY YOUR CAR. Fluctuations of the price at the pump really don't make that much of a difference. For example, my wife and I own 1 car, a 1999 Saturn SL, which easily gets over 35 mpg in the city, and often tops out of 45 mpg on the highway. We drive more than we like to; we now live in a city with poor public transportation, and previously lived in a situation where Mrs. Apparent-dip-but-with-a-different-last-name could either spend 5 hours round trip on public transport or make the same round trip in 1.5 hours in the Saturn. Anyways, my point is that we drive, but when we bought our car our first concern was mileage. The big myth is that if you want a high mileage car you have to plunk down over $20,000 for a hybrid, that just isn't true. Many 4 cylinder cars get good mileage, and are on the cheaper end of the car price spectrum (lik ours.) So, we bought a car, we take public transportation when we can, but we end up driving a fair amount. The recent spike in gas prices means that every month I pay maybe $25 more for gas now that I did 6 years ago. That's it. A few less schwanky coffee drinks per month? Maybe cut my own hair, instead of my usual expensive professional 'do? I am paying less for gas now than the driver of some behemoth SUV compensation monstrosity did 10 years ago. Even the most fuel efficient SUV's rarely break 20 mpg, which means that if they bought gas at half of it's current price they'd still be paying as much as I do now at the current record high prices. The point of this is that anyone who has bought a new car in the last 10 years intentionally decided how much they wanted to pay for gas and what kind of mileage they wanted, and if they went with a low mileage, then instead of complaining about oil companies they should realize that it is mainly the fault of their terrible decision making skills that fluctuations in gas prices cost them so much. Especially when they ponied up $25,000 or more for a 6 or 8 cylinder SUV or "luxury" sedan; you knew what you were buying, so stop complaining so much! And if this is a rallying cry for anything it should be for public transportation and intelligently designed (read walkable and bikeable) communities.

I am not pro price gouging, or a huge fan of all of the business dealings of oil companies, but they are companies, and the reason they make so much fricking money is because we use so much of their fricking product. Nail them for price gouging if they are doing it, but seriously, there are more than one party in the wrong here.

OK, have a good holiday weekend.

Foray into Politics marking an important anniversary

Disclaimer: I in no way pretend to be a historian or expert on war, politics, Haggar Slacks, or international relations. Geology posts will resume soon.

I was inspired today after reading ...Or Something and this post. I tend not to be too political on my blog, but seeing as today is a very important anniversary for my country, I wanted to get this out. First, some background.

Separating minerals for geochronologic analysis is a rather long and tedious process. There are many different steps, non of which are particularly difficult, but screwing them up can mean the complete loss of months of time and thousands of research dollars. Therefore, I can't juggle mineral separation with any activity that requires my eyes or hands, I have to keep those free for the task at hand. To keep myself entertained, I usually turn on my iPod and listen to music, a book on "tape", or, more recently, a podcast.

A few months ago I was "floating kspars" and listening to an American Radioworks Episode about the recently released audio tape collection of presidential phone calls and oval office conversations. I was struck by some of Lyndon Johnson's conversations, especially those that related to the Viet Nam War (although, for a true laugh I recommend his call to the Haggar clothing company requesting some custom made slacks, seriously, some of the funniest stuff I've ever heard). Back to Viet Nam. In particular I was struck by a conversation he had with Senator Eugene McCarthy (Democratic Representative from Minnesota) about the Viet Nam War. This conversation took place on February 1, 1966 (transcript and recording can be found here, more conversations from Johnson and other presidents are here or downloaded here including the aforementioned Haggar Slacks call).

President Johnson : What they [subscribers to the Walter Lippman - J. William Fulbright argument] really think is we oughtn't to be there [in Viet Nam] and we ought to get out. Well, I know we oughtn't to be there, but I can't get out. I just can't be the architect of surrender....I'm willing to do nearly anything a human can do, if I can do it with any honor at all.

As I said earlier, this conversation took place on February 1, 1966. This was the beginning of the escalation in Viet Nam, and just before the deadliest years of the war. According to the National Archives, as of 2/1/1966, there had been 2,670 American deaths in the Viet Nam War, less than 5% of the eventual total of 58,193. Hindsight is 20/20, but if Johnson could have looked ahead at the 55,523 more soldiers who would die before the U.S. got out of the war, you have to wonder if his definitions of honor and surrender would have changed. And why is the focus on honor anyways, shouldn't it be on doing the right thing and saving innocent lives? So when I hear talk of surrender now with Iraq, this is what I think of, I think of the 55,523 kids who could have been saved if someone would have had the guts and foresight not to think of their re-election, or even their short term legacy, but of the long term consequences of saving face. To realize that these are real lives, real people who will pay the price for their political ambitions.

I know that playing the "what if" game with history is dangerous and pretty fruitless. It is easy for me to look back and tell people what they should have done, years before I was even born. I just hope that in 41 years someone isn't writing the same blog entry about Iraq.

If you are interested, this conversation is on tape WH6602.01 9602, the part I highlighted starts at about the 1:28 mark (you can download the .mp3 from here).

Follow Up to the Last Post - Cheap Food

To follow up on the last post with something related, I offer this article. It describes how the governer of Oregon has decided to try to live on food stamps for a week. I know nothing about the governor of Oregon but I am a big fan of experiments like this. A week isn't a terribly long amount of time, but so many people in charge have absolutely no idea what life is like for the average American (let alone the average citizen of the world, that is of course a completely different story). The total budget for a weeks worth of food (if you are on food stamps) is $21.00, which makes my occasional trips to the Wegmans olive bar seem completely extravagant.
This is kind of interesting, after the shootings at Virginia Tech last week I had thought about blogging about my experience working in the mental health field, specifically my frustrations. I decided not to, but now thinking about the price of food my experience at this job comes up again. During the year after college and before graduate school, I worked as a counselor at a residential treatment facility (read: group home) for severely emotionally disturbed teenagers. It was a definite change of pace for me. An odd job, the average work day could be spent restraining 200lb violent 17 year olds for a few hours and watching against suicide attempts, or I could spend all day playing football and bar-b-qing. Anyways, where does food come in? Well, seeing as we were contracted by the State, we had to provide a set diet for the kids. Every two weeks we got menus, and then had to do the grocery shopping and cooking for the group. We would get in trouble if we strayed too far form the set diets. Technically the kids were supposed to help with the cooking but with the frequency of problems they were usually kept off limits from any kind of cooking implement. It turned out that of the counselors working during my shift, I was the only one who was much of a cook at all. As such, I got very familiar with the official state recommended diet for 11-7 year old boys. The food we had to provide was amazingly unhealthy, very meat, cheese, and starch heavy dishes, very few fresh vegetables (save for iceberg lettuce "salads"), and almost no fruit. A typical weekend breakfast would include either pancakes or french toast, scrambled eggs, sausage or bacon, regular toast, and occasionally a banana. Follow this with a grilled "cheese" and french fry lunch, and cheese burgers, tater tots, canned corn, chip and salsa dinner. What made this worse was that the budget we were give to shop with was just appalling, so that even when a decent cook like myself was around, there was no way to afford anything of any quality at all. Mushy apples (the kind you buy in the 10lb bags), fake cheese, kleenex style bread, etc. And they wondered why the kids always gained weight; add the food to the fact that many of their medications sapped their energy, easy path to obesity. On the upside, I did learn to cook a mean pot roast (quite an accomplishment for a vegetarian), and my french toast was pretty solid. But still, with all of the money spent trying to address the kid's many mental issues, I was always amazed at how little attention was paid to their physical health. And, since we were their legal guardians, what kind of life lessons were we really teaching? OK, this has turned into a ramble, good night.

More on Reviews

Recently Lab Lemming started a good discussion on some of the issues involved with scientific reviews, specifically reviewer anonymity. This, and related posts throughout the geoblogosphere were especially timely for me. In the past two weeks I have reached two milestones in my scientific career. First, I wrote and submitted my first official review of a paper submitted to an honest to god reputable scientific journal. I was pretty excited about this to begin with. I have heard many of my bosses and older sciencey folk talk in exasperated tones about all of the papers they have to review and what a pain it was. I suppose after I've done this a hundred times I'll be sick of it, but for now it made me feel like a real professional geologist person. Anyways, I spent a lot of time on this review, wrote and re-wrote my comments, slept on it, read the paper a fourth time, and finally sent in the final comments. In general I was positive in my review, although I did raise some excellent points, which I hope to be thanked for generously in the acknowledgements paragraph of the final paper. How will I be thanked? Well, as an anonymous reviewer of course. This was a tough call for me. Theoretically I do not like anonymous reviews. I stand behind my comments and evaulation, so why don't I attach my name to them? I wasn't overly harsh or negative, and I even pointed out lots of good things. But why do I still fear retribution because I recommended acceptance only with revisions? Truth is, I think as a post-doc who will in the not too distant future be on the job market, I am not sure how much I want to risk souring potential search committee member's opinions of me. I do not yet have the position or name recognition to feel insulated at all from negative vibes. Even though I know I gave a fair and honest assessment, I left my name off the final review. Maybe Thermochronic is just a big old chicken?

And, let's add smarmy hypocrite to big old chicken, because I have also spent the past week grumbling about the second milestone of the past two weeks that I have achieved, namely getting an off-the-mark and anonymous negative review of a paper. This is not a paper I am first author on, but that has not stopped me from cursing anonymous reviewer #n under my breath. I don't know if anonymity played much of a role in making this review crappy, but I would at least like the name of a geologist to google and curse at while I take breaks from revisions. What kills me about this review is that (1) all of the other reviews were very positive, and (2) the comments actually didn't raise any significant issues, just the reviewer's unfamiliarity with some of our standard laboratory techniques.

I like the suggestion of Lab Lemming to include signed copies of reviews with tenure packages. I actually think we could take this a little farther and make reviewer anonymity temporary. If a paper gets published, and a year later the names of the reviewers are made available, then as long as the reviews were honest I think many of the fears of pay-back would be gone. Right now I am all hopped up, stomping around when I think of anonymous reviewer #n and his/her goofy comments, but when the paper is published, a year from now, the emotion of the rejection would be largely gone, and I'd be able to see the review in a much clearer light. Come to think of it, as I sit at the "Scientific Paper of the Year" awards banquet with my co-authors we will probably laugh about the whole incident. So, how's that, a statute of limitations on reviewer anonymity.

Global Climate Energy Project, Big Oil, and Big Benefactors

I read this article today about a recent decision by a major benefactor of Stanford University to withdraw a $2.5 million dollar gift to the university because Stanford recently accepted a $100 million dollar gift from ExxonMobil. The ExxonMobil gift was part of a combined $250 million dollar grant from a variety of of donors to create a new research institute at Stanford called the Global Climate and Energy Project. This institute will bring together scientists from a wide variety of disciplines to look for ways to "meet future energy needs without worsening global warming." Included in the article is this quote.

“Exxon Mobil is trying to greenwash itself, and it’s using Stanford as its brush,” Yusef Robb, who has worked with Bing on climate issues, told The Mercury News. “We think that people who give to Stanford do so because they want to help the future leaders of this nation, not because they want to advance the agenda of ExxonMobil.”

I am by no means a fan of ExxonMobil in the political or environmental sense, I am sure they, like most any other company in the world, make decisions based on short term profits and not on some sun-shiney moralistic ideal. But I think Bing's logic is twisted for a few big reasons.

1. I don't see the problem with a company trying to "greenwash" it's image. I don't believe companies can be moral or immoral, they can just do good things or bad things. ExxonMobil has plenty of bad company points, as I have already blogged about (and then some for sure), but why should that stop them from doing something good? Giving money to research aimed at developing energy alternatives seems like a good thing (as long as there are no strings attached, see point #3.)
   
2. I am sure the Bing family has in the past had plenty of money invested with oil companies (perhaps without them even knowing about it.) Most banks and mutual funds and things of that sort do. So why would it be OK to have investments that use companies like ExxonMobil to make money, but not want anyone else to benefit. Bing could of course only have "socially responsible" investments. I don't know all that much about him, other than what I can find on imdb.com and related entertainment sites, so if Mr. Bing does only have socially responsible investments, flies commercial airlines (so as not to waste energy with private planes), takes public transportation as often as possible and drives a hybrid when he can't, lives in a modest home complete with native fauna in the garden and of course, no swimming pool (I am guessing he lives in Southern California since he is a Hollywood dude), a nice compost pile where he can put the scraps from his locally grown vegetarian cooking, then I will perhaps agree with his decision.
3. This institute could be very important. It makes sense that energy companies want to invest in the future of energy, but isn't this something we all have a vested interest in. It states explicitly that Stanford University will own any and all patents produced by the institute, so they won't directly make money from this.
4. The gift he is rescinding was a general gift to the university; the gift he is complaining about is building a new institute. So, the general student population will be hurt, but those involved in the institute won't.
5. I think oil companies are easy targets to complain about. Truth is, like almost all large companies, they do some pretty bad stuff. I have no problem passing laws that regulate oil companies or the use and/or acquisition of energy, but I also think that the first place we need to look is at our energy use. If there wasn't such an absurd demand for oil, then oil companies would just be another podunk company, it is our use that gives them the power they have. Another example, I think, is Ted Turner. I again agree with him on most things, but he flies around the world in a private jet, perhaps the most energy inefficient mode of transportation known to man (well, except for perhaps spotted owl powered space shuttles or other monstrosities). Fly first class if you must, mingle with the dregs of society and enjoy the average in-flight movie; a small price to pay for your planet. Hell, they could even afford those super sweet Bose noise cancelling headphones, those would make even coach seats bearable. This kind of reminds me of people who drive SUV's to Whole Foods so they can buy organic arugula.
   
6. Stanford, I am sure, has had investments in ExxonMobil for a long time, as does anyone, or anything, with a diversified investment portfolio (see point #1). Why is it an issue now? Why doesn't Bing work with Stanford to create a socially responsible investment portfolio, or encourage Stanford to use it's shareholder clout to help redirect wayward corporations?
7. Let's pretend that every major oil company in the world except ExxonMobil had contributed to the institute, my bet is that people would then complain about how ExxonMobil isn't doing enough to help find energy alternatives.
8. Does his action help solve a problem, or is it simply a publicity stunt? If the end goal is to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and reduce the production of greenhouse gases, does this help, hinder, or do nothing? Would he rather take away $100 million dollars from the institute, would that solve the problem?
   

I have no problem with Mr. Bing's positions or politics, I just think this is an odd reaction. Perhaps he could direct the gift into something that directly counteracts what he dislikes about ExxonMobil. Maybe create his own institute, one that develops oil company free investment plans. This isn't the first time a major benefactor has broken a promise of support to Stanford, and I don't think in either case the decision made much sense.

I am, however, excited to see that Steve Bing is producing a film version of Beowulf, which ranks as my #1 all time solo--road- trip book-on-tape. It got me to and from Seattle many times.

Peak Oil and Biophysical Economics

I recently had the chance to see Charlie Hall (from SUNY-ESF) give a lecture on Peak Oil. I think like many geologists I've either seen and/or read quite a bit about the concept of peak oil recently, so the material itself wasn't entirely new, but Dr. Hall also introduced an idea I was not familiar with, but have had in my head since the talk. I'll get to that in a second, first, for the uninitiated:

The figures I am using are all from the wikipedia Peak Oil page, just a disclaimer

Peak Oil is an idea first developed by one of this century's great geologists, M. King Hubbert. He introduced his theory in the late 1950's as a way of predicting future oil supplies. The idea is fairly simple, and is based on the fact that oil is a non-renewable resource, and there is consequently a finite supply of oil in the world. Oil production will follow a bell shaped curve. As the demand for oil increases, oil companies increase their supply as much as they can; pumping fields at full capacity and discovering new reserves. Demand continues to increase, but fields begin to dry up, and new fields just don't exist, so production declines. Whatever the exact shape of the curve, the logic is pretty plain, the integrated area under the curve is equal to the total amount of recoverable petroleum reserves in the world. This is Peak Oil, the idea that there will (or has been) a peak in oil production, and that at some point production will decrease, about as rapidly as it initially increased. This model works very well for individual oil fields, or even national reserves

The red curve shows US oil production versus time, with a peak in 1970, and a slight secondary bump thanks to the north slope of Alaska. World oil is in blue.
This is the theoretical production curve (red) and actual data for Norwegian production. I don't want to argue the specifics of the model; whether or not the curves are symmetric, how much technology can help (answer jack squat), when the peak is, etc.. There are some truths that you just can't get around, namely that the amount of oil in the world is finite. and that at some point we will be using more than we can extract, and production rates will decline.

Arguments against peak oil seem to follow the lines of "the market solves everything." As supply decreases, price increases, and demand decreases, thank god for the market, it will save us all. Oil will get expensive, and some budding entrepreneur will devise some amazing technology that will save the world! At some level I suppose that is true; if there are humans around in 500 years, they will undoubtedly not be using oil as their primary energy source (they will of course be using flux capacitors). Whether or not it happens isn't the problem, but instead what happens during the transition. Dismissing peak oil with some dreamy ode to market forces ignores how nasty things can get in the face of scarce resources. Technology will find alternatives, but when? Do we decide now to solve the problem before it gets too hairy, or do we wait until something resembling this happens? Hell, remember when stores would run out of Beanie Babies and all hell would break lose? I think oil might be worse.

This brings me to biophysical economics. The term, as used by Charlie Hall, refers to an economic theory that does not violate the laws of nature, especially trivial little ideas like thermodynamics. This is of course a major problem with simple supply and demand, it assumes that supply is only limited by something like factory output. For example, no matter how much the price of oil increases, the supply cannot, and any reasonable replacement would take much longer to develop than the oil would last. Economic theory rooted in physical realities, I like it.

I am less an economist than I am a petroleum geologist (not much), so this post is really not in my wheelhouse. This has sparked my interest though. Are there any more econ-minded folks out there who know about biophysical economics, or any economic theory that explicity takes into account the laws of nature? Any notable economists who consider the natural world, or economics programs that require some line of study like this?

Lake Tahoe and the evil 1098-T

Today I've been thinking quite a bit about Lake Tahoe. Why? Well, because I did my taxes. Let me explain. This post will begin largely as a rant about 1098-T forms, and the absurdity they represent. 1098-T forms are what you get when an educational institution gives you fellowship or scholarship money. For most of my graduate career, somewhere around half of the money I made came in the form of one of these things. In the last few years, it was almost all of the cashola. Because the money was given in order to facilitate research, it was untaxable. Money I made as an hourly employee TA-ing, or RA-ing, or whatever-ing, was taxed, BWRU paid payroll taxes on that salary, taxes were deducted from my paycheck, and I'd receive a W-2 at the end of the year. Easy. It was even decided in a few tax court cases that if you were a student pursuing a degree, then money given in the form of fellowships and scholarships was intended to further your education, and therefore not taxable income. This all changed a few years ago (from what I can gather, although the exact timing is difficult for my non-accountant brain to figure out, perhaps if the DZA is reading he can contribute his mad skillz). Now it doesn't matter at all what the money was given for, it all depends now on how it is spent, and the list of what is a "qualified education expense", and therefore non-taxable, is exceedingly short. All of the money you are given, except that spent on tuition and items required for attendance counts as taxable income. Items required for attendance includes things like books required for a class and certain fees, but absolutely nothing else. If you use your fellowship to buy a laptop, or do field research, or attend a meeting, maybe buy lab supplies, thesis paper, safety glasses, sample bags, field books, a hand lens and brunton compass... none of that counts as "qualified educational expenses." Room and board? no way. So, if you received 27,000 in fellowship money, and out of that was paid 9,000 in tuition and you bought no required textbooks, you must, at the end of the year, pay taxes on the remaining 18,000. That's right, you owe something over a grand. I'll pause here if you need to change your newly soiled pants.

I am no anarchist, and truth is I have no problem paying taxes, but the logic of this defies me. The university pays me in a way that they do not have to pay payroll taxes; no social security, no medicare, no disability, nothing. But then I have to act like an employee and pay taxes on the money, even though I get none of the benefits of being an employee (my social security pay-ins, for example, stagnate when I am on fellowship). It also astounds me that if I use the money for research related expenses, I still have to pay taxes on it, because none of them count as "qualified tuition expenses." Even though I was getting paid this way I was still officially a TA and/or RA, so how does BWRU get away with it? And how hard would it be for them to send a form letter to every student on fellowship telling them that they should pay estimated taxes or else expect to owe a few grand come April? Of course if I was loaded and owned a house then I could deduct the expenses as business related, but seriously, own a house? Pay mortgage? Qualify for a loan? What burns me up even more is that the focus of what is a qualified tuition expense really has nothing to do with the bulk of most graduate careers. Even in class-intense fields, you are usually done taking classes, at least for credit, by the third year. So, after that, during all of your research, you can deduct jack squat.

So this got me thinking about Lake Tahoe, South Lake Tahoe specifically, poor man's Vegas, a place a geologist like me could make my fortune! But I hate Vegas, and casinos, so let me forget the ginormous check I have to write the government to help fund this, and focus on the nice part of Tahoe. The geology, the scenery, the skiing, the hiking, the fact that if I hid in the forest the IRS could never find me...

Lake Tahoe sits astride the California-Nevada border at the crest of the Sierra Nevada. It is a very large and deep lake (roughly 500m maximum depth, that's the 12th deepest freshwater lake in the world), and is considered by many to be the westernmost basin and range graben. The lake is deep because there are active normal faults cutting through the middle and sides of the lake, separating the Carson Range to the east (Basin and Range) from the Sierra Nevada. These faults downdrop the block that makes up the bottom of the lake, thus creating an enormous bowl that holds water, and is therefore a lake.

figure from Garner et al (2000), GSA Bulletin v. 112, n. 5, p. 736-746

The following pictures are from the summer of 2005, and were taken at the southern end of the lake in Emerald Bay. If any of you are realizing for the first time that you somehow have to come up with a few grand because of how you were paid, well, at least these pictures are free. Actually, considering I am on the hook for about a month's wages, if anyone wants to purchase the original photos for some absurd price....

Letter to the Editor

Yesterday I wrote and submitted a letter to the editor of the student paper here at ESRU in response to another letter written by an undergraduate discussing intelligent design. My thoughts on the matter are best summer up in this post, but I thought I'd post the original version of my letter nonetheless. I had to shorten the final submission to 250 words, yes, 250 words out of a 12 page paper. I will have less room than a Dominoes ad, but that's the rule! Doesn't matter how many letters are submitted. Anyways, here is the original version, with names omitted to protect the innocent.

In his recent letter to the editor entitled “Consider Creationism without bias,” Mr. Snuffleupagus confuses intelligent design, creationism, evolution, and a belief in God. Believing in God and evolution are not mutually exclusive, just as supporting the teaching of intelligent design is not a pre-requisite for people of faith. The reason intelligent design should not be taught in a scientific setting is because of how drastically it changes the definition of science. For hundreds of years, the scientific method has been applied in roughly the same way, creating testable hypothesis, conducting experiments, and refining those hypotheses. Inherent in this is the assumption that there are natural laws that govern the world. What intelligent design does is enter supernatural forces into the mix, something that by definition does not follow natural laws and is therefore untestable. It is one thing to push for supernatural explanations in branches of science most people consider esoteric, but the true test for intelligent design is whether or not you would accept supernatural explanations in all branches of science. Would you accept them from your doctor? Would you accept them from the building engineers or FDA food inspectors? How about physicists who handle nuclear waste, or forensic scientists providing evidence in a murder trial? Of course not, if you went to a doctor deathly ill and they came back with a supernatural diagnosis, you’d find another doctor, one who would run tests and perform experiments until they determined what was wrong using the scientific method. If the engineer’s assessment of the structural stability of your new office building was based on supernatural forces, you’d find another engineer. If you will not accept supernatural explanations in branches of science that directly affect your life, then you cannot accept supernatural explanations in any branch of science.

Please do not confuse evolution with atheism, or intelligent design with science. Evolution, like gravity or plate tectonics or electromagnetism, is a scientific theory; one that has been tested and refined thousands of times and is still the topic of very intense study. Intelligent design is not science, because it profoundly changes the meaning of science and of the scientific method in a way that is potentially very harmful. Belief in science does not preclude belief in a higher power.

Thermochronic
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Department of Earth Sciences

Tc of Thermochronic, or, the temperature dependence of thermochronic's activity level

This weekend, for the first time in a long time, we had sunshine and temperatures above 20°F. This week we are going to get above freezing, well above freezing according to the local weather guy. I have now lived through the human equivalent of a diffusion experiment, and can report with some accuracy about the temperature dependence of activity and movement across phase boundaries. Temperature dependent diffusion is of course something I spend a lot of time thinking about, so here we go.

At moderate temperatures, I diffuse easily into the outer world, going for walks, running errands, bopping around outside with my camera. As the temperature approaches 20°F, it becomes increasingly more difficult to get me to diffuse out of my house. Once we get below about 5°F, willing diffusion (as opposed to going for the mail or shovelling snow) is essentially done with. Once you are over about 40°F, my outdoor activity levels have reached their maximum; this lets me define the ThPAZ (Thermochronic Partial Activity Zone) as the range of temperatures from 5° to 40°F, of course analagous to the HePRZ (Helium Partial Retention Zone) and FTPAZ (Fission-Track Partial Annealing Zone), just at much lower temperatures.
Of course the biggest difference between this diagram and similar ones you may be used to seeing for the HePRZ is the odd behavior at high temperatures, where activity again begins to decline. This high temperature inversion is highly dependant upon the partial pressure of water vapor in the system. At high humidities, the inflection point is at much lower temperatures, 80°F and I am done; at lower humidities the decrease does not begin until well over 100°F.

***I apologize for using Fahrenheit, but for discussing weather it is the only way my brain works. I have no feel for outside or room temperatures in Celsius. On the flipside, I can only think of science in metric terms. I have no idea what the range of granite melting temperatures in °F would be, or the average temperature at the base of the lithosphere. I'd have to do the conversions if I cared either way. We really need to standardize our units of measure.

Watch as thermochronic speeds through the 5 stages of grief after a horrible performance by the Bears in the superbowl.

1. I can't believe the Bears just lost the superbowl, there must be some mistake, this isn't happening! Someone must have paid the refs! The Colts are on steroids! Were those french figure skating refs? Maybe the real game is next week, yeah, this can't be real, must be a dream, I'll wake up soon.

2. What the bleep! The bleeping defense couldn't stop anything, damn them, damn them to hell! And come on, make a fricking tackle! Catch the fricking ball! What, another fumble! Bleeping overpaid donkeys! My rabbit could block better than that! That's it, I am done with these jackasses, done, D-U-N done, I give up on these losers, overpaid crybaby can't tackle losers!

3. OK, come on, I'll trade you, you can let the Cubs not make the playoffs for the next 100 years, let Cal win the big game, let Duke win the NCAA tourney, I don't care, come on, we can make a deal! Here, take my helium lab, I don't care, I'll make you first author on this paper I am writing, you can have my office, let's just go back and end the game 30 seconds into the first quarter. No one will know! We can do this, just a little favor for a friend!

4. I can't believe this, I'll never be able to recover. I think I'll call in sick tomorrow, drink my sorrows away. It is dark outside, like in my soul. Will the sun ever shine again? Not on me it won't. Darkness, sadness, Mazzy Star and Hank Williams, Stan Rogers' First Christmas, that movie "Leaving Las Vegas", Ben Harpers first album..Sniff sniff, how could this happen, and why does this always happen to me !?!? (now picture me with my fists raised up towards the sky cursing the world, then breaking down into a fetal position and crying, just like Jimmy Bakker, in the rain, alone, with people laughing at me, very very sad).

5. It's OK, it's just a game where millionaires run into each other for 60 minutes, and Prince wasn't that bad, and that "Mapasaurus" commercial, that was kind of funny, and hell, it beats picking apatites all day. I can get through this. Next year, Grossman will be better, Urlacher will be back, our defensive line will be healthy.... I'll be OK. March Madness is almost here, things will be OK. It's just a stupid game, right?