Climate change again!

Frack! I had a huge post ready, and saved it along the way..Blogger and my knockwurst-esque fingers kicked me out. I'll be back tomorrow.

The drought no one is talking about, Californian tree die-off, and incoming cat.

Americans are very insular. Very. No one seems to be discussing the sub-Saharan drought that has been going on since the El Niño event of 2015-2016. Still the drought continues. The Christian Science Monitor seems to be the only US based major paper that has been covering this most devastating weather event. I almost used 'climatic' as it seems to be linked to climate change due to the warming of the Pacific Ocean's surface water, but I will leave that for others. The others have already labeled the drought an artifact of climate change.

The human toll has been devastating, and in typically ironic fashion, those that contribute the least to climate change feel it the most.

Since I am first a defender of biodiversity, I am most saddened and concerned that the Congo rainforest(2nd largest in the world) is under siege not only from logging operations, agriculture, and the current drought, but again, from climate change generally. There is a small video at the link that shaws the 'browning' of the Congo, and outright rainforest loss in West Africa. Current totals are a roughly 90% loss.

I grabbed the map below from NOAA. The map displays conditions through mid Feb. 2016. The drought has persisted since then.

(stupid CSS padding won't allow me to ctr image precisely..I am not messing with the template)

As you can see the Congo rainforest is under tremendous stress. I would have highlighted the area, but since you have already seen the NOAA data, you know where to look, right? ;)

At any rate, the Congo rainforest has a tremendous amount of biodiversity found nowhere else.

The Congo rainforest is home to some 11,000 plant species and in excess of 10,000 species of vertebrate life. This includes an astonishing 700+ species of fish, and ~1,000 types of birds. For the armchair lepidopterist fully 900+ species of butterflies and moths are known. I have no idea about beetles, but if typical biodiversity counts from other areas hold, there may well be as many species of beetles as all other insect and vertebrate life combined. Honest!

If you take nothing else away from this, please remember that the big fauna of the Savannah is vital to our well-being as humans, but even more important are the rainforest denizens. This is the home to the Mountain Gorilla, Bonobo, and Chimpanzee, as well as Leopard, Tanzanian cheetah, Masai lion and several species of giraffe.

From the small to the iconic of African wildlife, it can all be found in the Congo rainforest. No, I am neither tour guide, nor travel agent :)

It is ALL important. Let us save what we can.

________________________________________________

California dead trees.

Perhaps you haven't heard but given California's 5 year drought, there has been a massive die-off of trees. Just since May(05.2016) an estimated 36 million trees have perished, bringing this year's total to 62 million, and the drought to date total stands at 102 million dead trees. The rate is accelerating, and of course, much like climate change, there is a lag time between stressor(s) and effect.

I have stressed trees; and I almost certainly will lose more plants great and small before our drought relents.

Incoming cat is in holding pattern. Dobby has a conjunctive eye. He's getting put right as rain as I type. The handsome bloke is pictured below.

He only looks unhappy in that shot. He's a happy boy.

Trump's anti-science transition team and some implications

On this blog, we have discussed Myron 'Evil Bastard' Ebell already, but how about science and the scientific community generally? I filled out the Nature US election result survey as scientists not only in the US but around the globe are stunned and most likely saddened by the outcome of the US presidential election. I filled the survey out as both a computational physicist and as a working naturalist, albeit sans a biology degree. I was interested in everything while at Uni., and if anything my promiscuous interests have only grown since. They grow even now.

With the sale of my computer services business I have little in the way of financial worries, but that only sharpens my skepticism for anything that could jeopardize the future of scientific funding; and funding for climate change science most acutely. I am not in the habit of cutting large pieces out of articles to fill up what should be internalized, processed and restated data. Anyone can do that; and most bloggers do this very thing.

Sorry about that minor but vital digression :)

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies chief Gavin Schmidt has not stated that he will resign if the Trump administration takes the most vile stance on climate change as many conservative news outlets have asserted. Reading comprehension is not a prerequisite for journalism, yellow or not. Of course there is lots of uncertainty.

If Trump nixes funding for climate change research and the US goes on to burn more fossil fuels as it now seems likely under a Trump administration, never again will the phrase, "It's the economy, stupid" have any weight. At NASA, there will likely be a brain drain as climate scientists - and other scientists as well - move to other countries that are not antithetical to the pursuit of knowledge. That is really what this comes down to; the US' anti-intellectualism is likely to have major blowback. CERN and the Large Hardron Collider aren't here, folks. The Chinese are committed to particle physics, while we have to rent time.

That was too much of a wrap-up in the body of a document. I don't outline these things. They are simply a stream of consciousness that usually is of an A, C, B, F, D style. If this blog ever gets any readers, I will compose posts in tighter logical progression. at least it is all original stuff ;)

Since I mentioned brain drain in the above ramble, here are the results of a brain drain poll conducted just after Trump's victory was announced. Trump had been amenable to keeping STEM graduates here via the H-1B program but it appears that Trump's new brain, Steve Bannon, is diametrically opposed to this position. This article was posted on 22 Aug. 2016. Why this wasn't reported is simply another reminder that the US press is a non-functioning arm of the checks to power.

More fear and loathing in Marakkech. I wish I was as hopeful as Erik Solheim who is quoted as saying:

"Trump’s pragmatism and business sense was likely to score over ideology. “It’s clear there is uncertainty because of some of the statements made before the election. But I am certain we have crossed the Rubicon. There is no way back on climate change.”"

With Ebell heading the EPA transition team, I am really sour on anything good happening at the federal level.

Then there is this from some of the faculty at Harvard.

Here's the quick response from the AAAS. I should point out here that one can join the AAAS and receive the journal Science as a free perk. Memberships start at $50/year..and if you opt into my scheme below, you'll be helping out in one of the best armchair ways!

Newsweek magazine asks: TRUMP: THE MOST ANTI-SCIENCE PRESIDENT EVER? Sorry about the all upper case. NEWSWEEK seems to be thrilled with the format :)

There has been much said about why Trump won. After trying to distill all of the reasons given which entailed accepting some things, and rejecting others, one set of traits fits both the Trump demographic of voters, and the Red states. This piece seems to best mirror the Trump voters I have witnessed online. In my ivory tower(a joke, folks) I do not know any admitted Trump supporters. The one person that I know that overtly supported Trump is a paranoid schizophrenic..not joking. He claimed that, "But Todd, he's bringing back jobs." This is simply not going to happen. Capital for production flows to where the cost of production is the least. Slap big tariffs on Chinese and Mexican goods, and other Asian and New World countries will become the centers of production. The immediate effect will be much higher prices for goods and a likely contraction of the US economy.

Ick. Enough armchair economics.

What can the US citizen do to counteract any Trumpian moves to defund science and other programs they deem worthy? My answer is both powerful and scary for the average person.

I am going to propose something radical here, and that is this; if you care about science funding and an inhabitable earth, take 25% of your federal income tax due, and directly fund the science organizations of your choice. I am going to call this 25 for Science. This will only work if it results in mass tax protests, so there has to high levels of participation. I am also going to implore that any other programs, or basket of programs, that get reduced funding or no funding under the Trump administration also get the 25 for x treatment. If large enough swaths of the populace do this, then enforcement of taxes due become untenable. Lots of people are not ready to truly govern themselves, and this is but a start, but the 25 for programs will surely shake the foundations(no pun intended). Do not forget the NGOs, as they too will need bolstering. I give 3% of all income to The Nature Conservancy, and do pro bono work for statewide programs. Every bit helps.

Lest you think my proposal too extreme, the future of the planet may be at stake; and hey, at least your money won't be going to these guys.

China to Trump...Suck on this!

Anyone that has been following the tragic joke that the US is playing on the planet, namely the election of DJ Trump to the position of President of the US, had undoubtedly heard his claims about climate change being a Chinese fabrication intended to hurt US business.

Well, yesterday, the The Empire Struck Back.

In the most typically used manner used to refute the short-fingered PE, the Chinese did it with facts!

During international climate change talks in Marrakech on Wednesday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin reminded reporters that climate change negotiations began with the UN's International Panel for Climate Change in the 1980s, supported by the US Republican-led administrations under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. It was the EU and the US who brought full climate change awareness to China, he said, according to notes sent to CNN by a Chinese delegate traveling with him. Liu reiterated that climate change was not a hoax and that it was possible for Republicans to continue to support the process of addressing it, the delegate said. The comments are something of a slap in the face to Trump, who painted China as an enemy of America, claiming the Asian powerhouse was "taking our jobs and taking our money."

What Liu Zhenmin stated is of course, true. Here is a link to George H. W. Bush making the case for anthropogenic climate change. Here's the quote in 1990:

"We all know that human activities are changing the atmosphere in unexpected and in unprecedented ways."

We ALL knew it then, but what has happened in the interim that has caused people to doubt not only the continually accumulating mountains of data, but what they can see all around themselves?

The primary driver is the public relations industry. For the English speaker, here is a free primer on how the seeds of doubt were sown.

One of the petro-drenched pitchmen is none other than Myron Ebell, Trump's pick to lead his EPA transition team.

Not only is Ebell not a scientist, he is a paid crusader for business over everything. Here's the Wikipedia entry for this soulless creature. In his stellar career he has denied that big tobacco was liable for killing people. He was, and presumably is, against the Endangered Species Act, because he is a simple and mean-spirited person. These 'all business all the time' know nothings do not understand that without a habitable planet, there is not going to be ANY business.

Here is the shorter video of the evil grandfather spewing his bile denying climate change. Beware the bespectacled walking bag of bovine effluent.

Oh, it may or may not be common knowledge that when one burns a gallon(3.75l) of gasoline, it releases roughly 19lbs.(8.8Kg) of carbon into the atmosphere. Given that a gallon of gasoline weighs somewhere between 6 and 7 lbs., how can this be? This is a really good synopsis as to how this is so. It is beyond dispute. Myron Ebell cannot tell you how it is so, but you, dear reader, can now do this very thing :)

Not checked for anything. It is going live sans any filtration!

Thomas Friedmen to Donald Trump: Don't F*ck Up The Climate Any More That It Is F*cked Up

Friedman's Plea. There is a lot to like in Friedman's piece, but accuracy counts.

Let us add up Friedman's good points:

Friedman nails the facts on human climate refugees. Already people are emigrating toward the poles.

He also gets the average price per KwH correct, but the costs are lowering every day of every week. Technology and economies of scale are the big drivers here.

Friedman also gets other bits and bobs correct, and of course his big pitch could be cast in truer terms, but that would frighten people, and people in the US are already plenty frightened. The 750 word Op-Ed cannot give one a nuts and bolts understanding of any issue. Friedman gets extra points for adding this bit into the piece:

And as the climate physicist Joe Romm put it to me, do you really want to risk “going down in history as the man who killed the world’s last, best chance to avoid catastrophic warming”?

Well played!

The inaccuracies are some of omission, and some of commission.

1) Miami FL's current flooding issues. Miami has spent $400 million to raise areas of the city and to install electric pumps to put seawater back into the sea. This is an ongoing project, yet Friedman makes no mention of this effort.(src: Miami Mayor Tomás Pedro Regalado)Backup Src. Error of omission, or lack of all salient data.

2) India's investment in clean energy. India has invested a lot in clean energy, but has 300 million citizens without electric power, while sitting on massive coal reserves. India is going to use lots of that coal before India makes big moves toward renewables. Error of commission. Source.

Friedman is a neoliberal, hence most all of his stuff is couched in neoliberal terms. Even something so far above any theory of economic policy as the planetary future has to meet certain standards of economic viability.

Friedman is boring. On to better things in a bit.

COP22 Day 2 and More Data Mining

It looks like Day 2 of COP22 is shaping up to be a Trump Administration versus The World while UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon sought to assuage fears of a US pullout of the Paris Agreement stating in part:

"As a very successful business person, I believe that he[Donald Trump] understands there are market forces already at work on this issue, and that we need to harness these forces for the good of the planet."

I know that Trump is not a very good businessman as he has vastly under-performed the S&P 500 index with reinvested dividends since he inherited many tens of millions of dollars from his family, and would be wealthier today.(sources are everywhere)

Still, pretty shrewd politically.

In other COP22 news Sarkozy floats plan for carbon tariffs on US goods if Trump tears up Paris Agreement, and to his credit Sarkosy first proposed such a vehicle in 2010. Of course he's part of the French contingent that, along with the Chinese, fabricated the global warming hoax in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive. Or some such nonsense. Yep. That's our president-elect. Not a deep thinker, that one.

In later yesterday COP22 news, Reuters reported that Germany and the European Commission rejected -- for now at least-- a call for a carbon tax on US emissions. This could get pricey. The EU members trade greenhouse gases via a market; which yesterday traded at $5.79/ton(yes, that's the US measurement as we are too lazy to learn the metric system). At 5,334,000,000 tons(again US units) that would be a lot.

Despite what is so glaringly obviously in the best interests of the 7.1 billions of humans that do not live in the US, it will never happen as whatever the US says, goes.

Only the US, and those the US authorizes, can flaunt international agreements.

That's all from COP22.

Now, regarding yesterday's post concerning oceanic carbon scrubbing capacity declines, I have a bit more color.

The issue is simple chemistry(apologies to chemists). When the oceans absorb CO2, they become more acidic. Here's the chemistry:

The very definition of an acid is a substance that donates hydrogen ions. Thus, when every molecule of CO2 is dissolved in sea water, two hydrogen ions are released via the above reducing the pH, as carbonic acid is a product. The arrows represent the manner in which the reactants are reversible. That's enough chemistry :)

Without resorting to thermodynamic equations, colder water supports more gases dissolved per unit, so polar waters have grown the most acidic of all(terribly sorry about the lack of a segue there, but I am tired, and I will onlt rewrite if time and inclination warrant such)

Two takeaways here. One, the polar waters will lose their ability to absorb atmospheric carbon as they reach the saturation point, and two, as the polar waters heat those waters will radically lose their ability even faster due to heating. It is these types of feedback mechanisms that have been known about for a very long time, but only in the past few decades have people though much about doing anything about mitigating the worst effects of climate change.

Fun facts!: Joseph Fourier discovered the greenhouse effect in the 1820s. Following right along and dramatically expounding on Fourier's work was John Tyndall. "Tyndall explained the heat in the Earth's atmosphere in terms of the capacities of the various gases in the air to absorb radiant heat, also known as infrared radiation. His measuring device, which used thermopile technology, is an early landmark in the history of absorption spectroscopy of gases. He was the first to correctly measure the relative infrared absorptive powers of the gases nitrogen, oxygen, water vapour, carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, etc. (year 1859)." Tyndall did other amazing work, but this work really makes me feel how stupid humans are.

One more aside.. I cannot find this on the Interwebs, but it is inside one of James Lovelock's books or a news article from the early to mid 1980s. I'll need to paraphrase. Lovelock entertained the idea of going before the National Academy of Sciences(why not the Royal Society I know not)and proposing to pump millions of tons of CO2 and other gases into the atmosphere as an experiment. He asked, 'can you imagine how ridiculous that would seem?' But that is precisely what we as a planet have been doing for scores of years, but now it is billions of tons! I did not need the question. I have been espousing a cleaner, greener planet since the 1970s.

Getting back on track..

In shallower parts of the world's oceans where photosynthetic plant life flourishes, the carbon retention rate is 15 times that of even the best of forested terrestrial land according to The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). That's an older report(2009), but I have seen no contradictory data. Human activities are destroying these true 'lungs of the earth.' Sorry rainforests, I love you, but I have to follow the data.

The loss of coastal ecosystems at present is somewhere in the 4% to 7% annual range. Much as one might do in computing compound interest in savings or in the stock market over time, this loss too is compounded. This rate has been accelerating of late(see Waycott et. al.). The reasons are all anthropogenic. The losses come from runoff pollution, coastal development(an oxymoron if ever there was), fishing operations that use trawl nets, logging of mangroves, and aquaculture...in addition to acidification and coastal waters heating. It not only sounds dire, it is dire.

I'm not very fond of humans at present, but it is estimated that 1 billions of us get our protein in form of fish from these very ecosystems.

I have more to say, but I am going to close by giving you one film to view, and some popular books to read.

I finally watched DiCaprio's Before The Flood last night, and it was pretty good. If you are reading this there likely won't be much new information, but in this one instance I will recommend that you find a public torrent site, download the film and distribute it to your climate change denying family and friends. Nat. Geo. and Mr. DiCaprio offered free viewings prior to the release, and I feel certain that both bodies would encourage you to do likewise.

Books

Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life by E.O. Wilson. It's a Pulitzer winner, and a damned fine read.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert is another Pulitzer winner, and like E.O. Wilson, this staff writer for The New Yorker can really tell a story. I told her how much I enjoyed the book and how important I found it. I am going to send a brand new copy to her and have her autograph it.

No links to purchase film and books. Copy and paste titles into the search box of your favorite store for more ;)

That was way too much to try and accomplish in an hour, but I have bills to pay and I need food, liquids and rest :)

Oh. I would have really cleaned this thing up prior to posting but I am thinking in HTML and left no paragraph breaks in this rambling text. It's a dense block of text and I am posting from my tablet. Bad call.

Slowdown, ya move too fast

As day number two of two Conference of the Parties (COP 22)United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) begins in less than a day, the delegates have already been told some sobering news. The delegates were told that 2016 is almost certainly going to be the hottest year globally since we apes started being able to measure such things. The press release is from the World Meteorological Organization; and the link is to the body's press release.

With 2016 nearly guaranteed to break the instrumentally measured all-time hottest year(2015 will be downgraded to second hottest..until it's third), some media outlets are parroting this line: 2016 set to break heat record despite slowdown in emissions. This could well be short-term harmful from an ecological stand. If you simply read the headline it seems that "Hey, we're doing great! Not putting as much carbon into the air..terrific!"

The headline is not wrong, but it is misleading. There has been a slowing in the growth of carbon discharged into the atmosphere, but the trajectory is still upward. In one odd AP piece we find this:

"It is far too early to proclaim we have reached a peak," said co-author Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo. The study, published in the journal Earth System Science Data, says global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry are projected to grow just 0.2 percent this year. That would mean emissions have leveled off at about 36 billion metric tons in the past three years even though the world economy has expanded, suggesting the historical bonds between economic gains and emissions growth may have been severed. "This could be the turning point we have hoped for," said David Ray, a professor of carbon management at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved with the study. "To tackle climate change those bonds must be broken and here we have the first signs that they are at least starting to loosen."

...and this:

China, which accounts for almost 30 percent of global carbon pollution, pledged to peak its emissions around 2030 as part of the climate pact adopted in Paris last year. Many analysts say China's peak is likely to come much earlier — and may already have occurred.

I would like to believe that, but then I would like to believe in God, too. I need third party evidence. The best evidence is that carbon emissions are up slightly year over year.

The stated goals of the UNFCCC are to keep global temperatures to a 2°C over pre-industrial levels. The linked to piece at the top of this entry shows that the earth is at least at the +1.2° point as of now.

President-elect Donald Trump needs to know that his wacky "clean coal" initiative won't really be clean, and even at that it is projected to cost the global community upwards of 17 trillion dollars to get everyone on board. Wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, and tidal would likely cost less to implement.

The one(that's ONE) clean coal plant under construction in the US is currently two years behind schedule and $4 billion over budget. Pipe cleaner dream. That was a cruel pre-election trick to have pulled on those in the former coal producing states. "Coal. Clean coal!" - DJ Trump Look at the chart in the link. Some of the greatest job losses in Appalachian coal country occurred under "De-Regulation Ronnie's" reign, and the only real uptick from a vastly lower starting point was during GWB's guiding hand. One has to remember, that graphic is not granular at all. That is all coal related jobs. From janitors to CEOs, they are all likely in there.

One last thing..

Up until now(or nearly now..see last link) the earth has been able to absorb roughly half of the atmospheric carbon we keep putting into the atmosphere. This is NOT the same as total sequestration as there will be a breaking point. The earth has given us a break -- for now. At some point the oceans are going to reach saturation point, and the land won't be able to help. Think of only thing...say, thawing tundra. This already does, and will accelerate the pumping of massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, and enormous amounts of methane. The oceans are already beyond maximum carrying capacity. See how quickly new improved data supersedes old data? The Woods Hole data was from 1.5 years ago. The Nature data was just published today.

I think I'll revisit the declining oceanic carbon sinks tomorrow and add some stuff about COP22 if there is anything new there.

Yesterday's post, apologies, and the way forward

I must apologize for the acrimonious nature of yesterday's post. I stand by it, but the tone was too harsh. I will do better over time...maybe.

The way forward is where I want this reboot to go. I am going to toss up some science links and provide commentary, but I see this morphing more into a climate change data dump with an emphasis on the nexus between climate change and politics. The incoming US president has some really scary people allegedly lined up for this dept. or that slot.

For instance, PE Trump has Myron Ebell heading his EPA transition team. If you open the link, you'll see a few of Trump's choicest global warming/climate change tweets as well as a host of other scary stuff.

Since I do not engage in ad hominem attacks, let us look at Myron(can you imagine the amount of time this guy spent inside high school lockers?) Ebell's scholastic training. Mr. Ebell has a B.A. in philosophy, and an M.Sc in economics. He states: "[I am] not a climate scientist. I'm just giving you the informed layman's perspective." He drops another pearl: "If science is going to be discussed in the public arena, then shouldn't people other than scientists be allowed to participate? Isn't that what a representative democracy is?"

I believe that all voices should be heard, but all voices should not be heard at equal volume. I have far more sci-cred than Mr. Ebell, but I too listen to real leaders in the field. One of my go to papers is Shaun Lovejoy's Scaling fluctuation analysis and statistical hypothesis testing of anthropogenic warming. While the paper's conclusions are clearly alarming, the figures and mathematics are delivered in the circumspect manner typical to most scientific papers.

Mr. Ebell is Fukushima and Chernobyl squared where acceptance of data sets that he is likely not well enough versed in physics and maths to understand without interpretation. He should be able to understand the statistical drill down of the various data sets, but unless you do this sort of thing on a regular basis, the gears get rusty. These is another set of thins that might be a bit of a hurdle for a non-physics person to need help with; and those are the symbol sets peculiar to physics.

<---//Begin digression I took two years of quantum physics baby courses, and the special maths one must know, in order to understand semiconductor limitations as process sizes shrunk and while I could pass the tests, I knew nothing of quantum theory until I was working afield..and then only after perhaps two years. Much like Feynman said, "One does not, by knowing all the physical laws as we know them today, immediately obtain an understanding of anything much." Truer words have never been uttered. End digression//--->

So, I can do the math as I used it - or variants of it - for 30 years. I am over that now. See this bit of tripe.

It seems unbelievably short-sighted to back out of the weak Paris Climate Agreement. Paris is far too little far too late, but it is a start. It is like the US ACA(Affordable Care Act ofttimes derisively referred to as Obamacare) for the global climate. It is nowhere near being the best solution, but one has to start somewhere or we'll be Venus. Okay, not real Venus, no unaided lead melting, but a really bleak place to inhabit.

I was going to respond to a commenter in a piece concerning CO2 and periods of waxing glaciation(I'm too much a stickler for accuracy to call them 'ice ages'), but it is not my job to educate people. The gist of the commenter's argument was this: "How come there were ice ages when CO2 levels were higher than they are today?" To fully answer this gets into some speculative stuff, and the paleo-climate data gets hazier and hazier the further back in time one goes. How does one answer such a query? If I had answered the question I would have kept my answer limited to the last 800,000 years. This eliminates nearly all continental drift. No need to bring up Gondwana and/or Pangaea unless pressed :) I also tossed out the "Snowball Earth" period as that would have taken the reader back some 715 million years. I also rejected pre-photosynthetic earth as old Sol was pretty weak from 4.55 billion years ago, but there was likely more energy from radiation sources and impactors..too complex. Lots of CO2 in that atmosphere, but not germane.

My answer is here. I will use a link to this post the next time this comes up. First of all, the graphic below shows CO2 fluctuations over the last 800,000 years. This data has been gathered by sampling gas trapped in ice cores -- a very reliable method.

As you can see in the past 800,000 years, there has not been a time - until the present - where atmospheric CO2 levels exceeded 300ppm. I should note, that since this image was compiled, Mauna Loa(the CO2 station for the northern hemisphere) stays above 400ppm all year round. We are terrific stewards of the earth! Just great!

Here is a graphic displaying "ice age" temperatures and volumes - which includes interglacials - going back 450,000 years.

Lastly, I have this .svg file showing temperature and CO2 variations(blogger says no dice to my nifty graphic, so it is now a jpeg). Each image tells a different story; and when taken together make a compelling argument that we have, and will continue to, pee in the only pool in which we can swim.

There you have it. A nice correlation. Even if the collective "we" stopped putting CO2 into the atmosphere today, the earth's troposphere(the air we breathe on terra firma) would continue to warm for approximately 40 years. Why? Because the world's oceans would release all the heat absorbed since the start of the industrial revolution..and maybe even earlier. So let us agree on 50 more years of warming if we ceased dumping carbon into the atmosphere now. It would still get a lot uglier before the climate levels off and then perceptibly makes the transition back to pre-industrial temperatures.

What fun!

I am more concerned about saving biodiversity than about saving humans. With 7.4 billions of us here I imagine a few will survive. I cannot fathom a planet with people, rats, mice, ticks and mutant bacteria. No thanks! What a pale world that would be.

Is Elon Musk seriously considering Mars? His eco-friendly stuff is to be lauded, but humanity needs to see that this rock remains habitable before pooping an another rock. He almost had the right idea. Smart buses with smart routes would be world's better for the earth to produce. That is a topic for another day.

In closing, I was championing mass public transportation in 1983. The ozone hole was becoming a 'thing,' and I gave impromptu talks to anyone that would listen about the crushing mass of humanity. I read The Population Bomb while in junior high school as well as Carson's Silent Spring before I was 14. I was a weird kid.

Tails From The Crippt

Well folks, it is time to revive the old blog.

We has a new president elect in 'MeriKKKa, and whilst I am not represented by any political party, the Reich Wing must be counterbalanced. In my case it is to be counterbalanced by blogging in the wilderness..as long as wilderness lasts. I am an enviro-anarchist by inclination and deed. On another blog, I started blogging about the environment and my wetland restoration attempts. These efforts continue, but due to New Hampshire being in the longest drought in the last hundred years, my best attempts dried up this year.

Our drought started in July of 2015 and has been very persistent. We have had a bit of relief lately but over the time spanning the drought we have received approximately 30% of normal precipitation.

I have had lots of my gardens collapse, and hace trees that are very stressed if not outright died. Since El Niño was superseded by La Niña our weather has been very desert-like. New Hampshire On average, my micro-climate receives some precipitation 131 days per year. Just this rainy season YTD we are down 9"+ of rainfall, and that is, or course on top of a very dry 2015-2016 winter where we merely had 29.8" of snow where the average at my elevation is slightly in excess of 90."

I could not water my gardens as my well level is perilously low, and the town aquifer is imperiled hence the ongoing water ban concerning most all outdoor use.

With the incoming president ambulating Creamsicle a climate change denier and all around douche canoe, we must fight to preserve what little protections we have for our mother.

I have decades of time invested in my gardens, and nearly a decade invested in my wetland. I will not allow anyone to take these things from me. I need to eat food so that I will have energy to fight tooth and nail against the incoming misadministration.

Business sale status, AND my Google+ moment of shame and infamy(situation too new to judge impact)

The business formerly known as Wright Computer Services, LLC is being subsumed into a larger concern. I do not yet have the physical check in hand, but I have seen the image, and it was mailed on 05. Dec. 2014. I have been contacting customers regarding the change of ownership, and tying up loose ends prior to the final exchange of all rights, assets, and liabilities. Over the past month I have not slept a full night's sleep, and on many a night not even a wink. This situation will resolve once I get the new owner's staff up to speed on my oddly constructed software configurations and codings.

Over the past three nights the situation has become acute as I have slept no more than five total hours over that span. That segue leads me to my next item..

My Google+ moment of infamy and shame

Okay, so this went horribly awry as I tried to catch up on my few commenters' posts whilst responding to comments following this post. In the 10th position of comments, I entered the following: "Why do these Apple posts garner so much attention, both positive and negative?'

"I may have answer. Scientists: Apple Makes Your Brain Go All Religious'

"That this was likely the situation in 2011, would almost invariably lead to the conclusion that this unreasonable sort of devotion--and detraction--is even more pronounced today. My post was meant to be only an account as to what tech. cos. typically do when faced with legla[sic] action, not as an indictment of Apple's particular practices. Nearly all successful, tech. concerns have closets full of skeletons.'

"Thanks for reading, and leaving comments (responder one), and (responder two).'"

To my sleep-deprived, acting God of business transfer, and hence, manifold addled brain, this came out as a sort of merely factual post completely devoid of indictments to the comments--or commenters--subsequent to the post.

Within minutes, I found out just how wrongly placed my confidence in that position was mis-placed. I was dressed down by one of the two mentioned by name. Upon rereading my addition to the comments, I saw just how twisted my interpretation was..I have rarely felt such humiliation, shock, and shame at something I have done by inclusion or by exclusion. I would say 'never,' but my few friends that read this, are certain to bring equally poor lapses in judgement to mind(so that easily plucked fruit is gone!)

How could I have been so wrong...and in so few words? The answers are that i am horrible deficient when it comes to pre-judging the import of socially inexcusable actions, and my sleep-deprived self did not see the all-too-obvious trap that i had set for myself. That my attempt at providing merely factual information was seen as tarring my commenters with the brush intended only for people outside the group speaks volumes about my mindset. I only posted that a few hours ago, and the only thing that has changed is cognition of my deficit. One cannot take back something loosed on the Internet, so I let it stand unaltered. I have only one intention for the post. I hope that it serves the longer-term goal of making me really think about what i am about to loose on the Internet before doing so. If I never err again in this life, I have erred enough. We shall see how this one comment affects the few people in my circles on G+. I only started using "Plus" as a way to relieve some of the stress that has been building since the post business sale has limited the time and energy I can devote to missives on the Web.

It is now abundantly clear that I should have simply waited until the dust settled and resumed posting to this Blog. Perhaps some sleep will alter my perception of things in a more positive way as I feel abject misery over the comment. It may get worse given sleep, bur that is likely to be a short-lived artifact given my level of horror over what just transpired.

It is a given that I am terrible at initially anticipating what effect my nonsense spilling will engender, but this was egregious to a whole new level for me.

I do have a tech. laden post that is ready to go as well, but I had better reread that several times to be as sure as possible that I do not replay that awful event.

One hopes only to do better in the future.

Once the business sale is totally wrapped up I should be back to posting on a regular basis. I only have until the end of 2014 to get the staff prepped to transition so that will almost certainly mean long days and nights spent in a foreign land(another state) until the very end of the year. I will be taking a full-on break from doing anything business/job related lasting at least several months, so I hope to put my brain back as right as it can be.

Thanks(!), and I will be back within a day, and then almost certainly off until 01/2015.

All in all it has been a great year save for the current catastrophes. As financially rewarding as the business sale has been, in all other respects, it has been a sting of awfuls. If 2015 is even half as rewarding on so many levels, it will be a great year.

Oh, and by the way, this post was composed on my tablet, so all errors of logic, grammar, and any other errors that I typically try and avoid have been left as this stream of (un?)consciousness has been unaltered and I have spell-check turned off as the supplied dictionary(sorry Google, but it flatly sucks) makes creative use of the language and typing tech. jargon a very painful affair(the tech. jargon is in the as-yet-yo-be-loosed post that I also composed on the Nexus 7 tablet, of which I now have two).

Again, as always, thanks for reading, and I hope to really return a much more rested, less addled version of my current self.

Oh, and any joy that I felt once negotiations were concluded, have now been consumed by the monster of responsibility that has befallen me since.

"This really sucks" does not even begin to describe my feelings of utter exhaustion and ongoing tension that has accompanied the post-sale process. That is in some part why no names will ever be given--and there are legal issues regarding certain outright disclosure that would take teams of attys. decades to find any loopholes contained therein--so my name dropping reticence is mostly borne out of fear of financial ruin.

I have more work to do before I can even consider calling this day done.

SOLD!

I sold my computer services business. I was not really interested in selling the thing, as I have spent 17 years growing it up. I sold it for six years of gross receipts plus a 5-year non-competition compensation package. That's fair market value. The negotiations seemingly took forever--or six months of heightened angst.

I should be celebrating, but I am cerebrating in its stead. What the 'ell am I going to do now?

I am not ready to retire. I do not want to simply do charitable work, either. My home needs attention, so that will take up a few months of time.

My EE degrees are not of much value as my skillsets are a couple of decades from current technologies. I could go to work as a coder or a networker, but I love my freedom. With the sale, wages are not to be an issue. The one IT company that I have conveyed the sale to is trying to get an inkling as to what I would need for a compensation package to work on their team, but it is an actual commute with crappy hours...so "a lot" is where I am with that proposal. I love working there on site but they too have just been swallowed up by a much larger enterprise, so whether or not the new ownership retains the culture that is currently in place. At any rate, I am taking enough time off between official responsibilities to fix up my home and tend my gardens.

I now have at least some notion as to how a parent must feel when a child leaves the nest. Yes, the money is great, but my child has left.

Nokia N1 AND I have started my icon set for Android 5..which is better than having Android 5 at this juncture

I am going to test drive a Nokia N1 tablet as soon as possible. It looks like next year at the earliest. If Nokia's native apps aren't too intrusive, this could be my next tech. buy. Of course much needs to be finalized. Specs-wise, it's a killer. As what is now high end hardware becomes mid-to-low end hardware, phones and tablets will become less expensive. Commodification is great for the end user, but really tough on margins from the silicon on up. The N1 should certainly land on these shores at no more than 349USD, and will likely be discounted from there over time. Now, on to my project X...

I have the Android Material Design SDK installed--along with the Eclipse ADT--and it's pretty easy to use. I do not think I am oversimplifying things as I grabbed a .png image, used Android Asset Studio>Eclipse>Presto!(well, "presto" isn't part of deal, but compiling my one icon--in five sizes--into an APK was too easy. No need for the SDK as yet. I may cheat a bit as I have a current copy of Axialis IconWorkshop, and I am never satisfied with UI elements that I author. I am going to read up on IconWorkshop a bit, and reason whether or not it will save me much hair pulling and use of foul language.

Go figure..The Nexus 7 Android 5.0 is buggier than I thought possible. Bad Google, bad!

Well, now there are numerous reasons why I haven't received my Android 5 OTA downgrade for my Nexus 7.

Yep. It is really awful. I was thinking about side loading the new OS, but I am certainly glad that I did not. I have said it before, and I will say it again, Microsoft has the least buggy mobile OS--save for perhaps Blackberry--in the very latest and greatest iteration.

If you are having issues with your N7 wi-fi let Google have it..or perhaps simply know about it.

This is really inexcusable. If I shipped a package as bug ridden as this, I would expect my customer to send it right back. Thankfully, that has never happened in 30 years of coding. Test everything under all available scenarios. I was once running six differently configured Windows boxes..plus VMs to test software prior to shipping.

Since the Chrome browser doesn't even get a passing grade, this is very ungood. There is a new release of Chrome that may play better with Anroid 5--as it has Material Design elements--but if so, that should have pushed out well in advance of the 5.0 release.

Apple and Google are really having issues. Applesauce..8.1.1 is a non-fix.

Surely these two tech. giants can do better than a team of three coders.

I am taking on an easy Android task. I am going to construct an icon set that hopefully won't suck. Any UI work that I engage in is never good enough, but I will be using as my goalpost the truly excellent Moonshine+ Launcher Theme. I will only shoot for 100 icons. I am going to leave the new Android Material Design icons essentially alone, save for a dew small tweaks that will be display more minimalistic than Mat. Des. icons. Three icone per day is my goal, so I will have my set done by the end of the year. I think I'll do all mine in 192x192px so they'll display well on most any screen. I have a cool hedgehog search icon done, but it is too busy for my Mat. Des. pack.

Ho hum. I am still waiting for my OTA update to Android 5. I would rather get a stable shiny new OS than a buggy one. After reading about iOS 8 and its need for updates every few days, patience is indeed a virtue. Apple is already up to 8.1.1 and no doubt, there will be more versions. I am certain that Android 5 will go through similar teething pains, so I do not rely on mobile devices to get real work done.

I am sort of ticked off about the XDA Developers Premium app that is taking seemingly forever to accept my new log-in creds. Yep. 'Twas my fault in that I changed my passwords whilst at breakfast, and figured I would kill off all app data while I was at it. I paid 0.99USD for the app. I expect results!

the website data and app data should sync momentarily.

I would buy LastPass for mobile if it was a one-time fee. A subscription based service is not for me. I think I'll crib my passwords in my tablet protector. I have another app that I paid for, but it is certainly not LastPass. These free for PC, pay for mobile apps are a pricing model that I just do not get. I have hundreds of passwords in my LP vault, but visit very few websites via mobile. Wolfram Alpha is likewise. Of course I can tote notebook and get full privileges of LP, and Wolfram Alpha, so it is truly no big deal.

I would buy Wolfram Alpha if Amazon Ppps store carried it, as I have enough coins to make the purchase. Meh. Too much whining

Being ill sucks..Where's my Android 5 OTA? And another thing..

I have been ailing to varying degrees since 11.09.2014. I would suspect Lyme(borreliosis), but since I feel better today, it isn't likely to be that. My symptoms have mainly been an overwhelming sense of enervation and general malaise. Given such non-specific symptoms, it could simply be that the change to DST. I nearly always have a bout of some level of difficulty directly after the change--which occurred on 11.04, but this time(no pun intended) it has been a four day event. Given that I had no fever, or other outward manifestation of real illness A wee bit of seasonal affective disorder(SAD) seems the likeliest culprit. Unfortunately, I am back.

WTF, Google? I want my over the air(OTA) update to Android 5.0 AKA Lollipop. I do not want a buggy release, but the image for my Nexus 7 is available for download..and has been for a couple of days. I have resisted putting any not "5" compatible applications on my tablet..and I have foregone rooting the device. I am going to clean up my tablet before I apply the update. I would flash the image, but I do not need to go through the process of reinstalling everything and remembering what settings I prefer.

The last thing on my enfeebled mind is that I still have 100 bulbs to put into mother earth. I must accomplish this within the following two days. Than I will mulch a few things, and be done until spring 2015..save for starting a bunch of plants. But that's not until Feb. 2015 at the earliest.

What I learned on the Internets today.

I learned that while global climate change doesn't exist, 2014 is on track to the hottest year in recorded history. Please do not use the first link. Climate change deniers are a most mediocre type of creature. The site owner--and principal oddball--has no expertise in climate science. I am not going to make an ad hominem attack..non-specialists in lots of disciplines make breakthrough contributions. However, there is more evidence for anthropogenic climate change on our blue rock than for a great many things in science which people by and large believe to be true. Scietists do not often state that things are true. All of the findings of science can be overturned via contrary evidence.

That is all I have today. I planted 100 allium bulbs at just above freezing temperatures and I need water, heat, and to go take photos of my new garden plots.

150 more bulbs in ground today! 100 to go..Yippee Ki-yay!

I am (nearly) so done planting bulbs this autumn. I should go back to UNH and get a post-grad degree in something to do with plants. Dang. I just checked the pre-reqs. for an MS in plant biology..and I am certain that I could do this.."Applicants are expected to have adequate preparation in plant biology and in the fundamentals of physical and biological sciences. They must submit current scores (within five years) from the general test of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE)". Screw the current scores. I took enough bio., physics, and math to maybe even go for a PhD.

Here are the PhD pre-reqs: "Students will complete a program of study as determined by their guidance committee. Students will be advanced to candidacy after successfully completing comprehensive written and oral qualifying examinations covering a broad basic knowledge of their major and minor fields and their ability to design and carry out basic research in plant biology. Candidates must successfully defend a dissertation based on original research in plant biology".

Now I just need a few years of time to get this done.. :) I need to get hooked up! I can do research..heck, it's what I do nearly every day. I was born in a laboratory.

The link.

My biggest issue in my academic career was being unable to teach undergrad courses. I expect students to know the material before it is presented. The out is this: "Teaching experience is required of all M.S. and Ph.D. degree students. The requirement may be fulfilled by enrolling in a supervised teaching course, by serving as a teaching assistant, or by having previous professional teaching experience. I am not even certain that I could assist in teaching. I am still willing to give it a go..

Who wants to pay for me to go back to school? Come on! I need to learn more stuff.

I have always had a had a difficult time with the use of "Icthyosaur."

I mean, come on.."icthys" is Greek for fish! Of course when you are a big bad-ass marine reptile some taxonomist just had to steal the prefix for reptilian use. Enough word games.

Icthypod? Amphisaur?. Nope. The fossil's existence was already known and named well nigh.

I am sure that this transitional form between terrestrial and marine reptiles will do for reptilia what Tiktaalik did to bridge the divide between fishes and tetrapods.

Well, Tiktaalik did nothing to convince the irrational mind to accept naturalistic evolution. C lenticarpus will surely have the same fate.

Certain religious belief systems are not only demonstrably in error, but are injurious to the rest of us that would like to be good stewards of the earth.

The fact that we have even the diversity in the fossil record that we have yet seen astonishes me. This needn't have been so.

Every time evolutionary science offers up an arrow that points toward greater understanding, certain segments of society clutch their feeble shields and hide behind them.

In Nature today...

No, not the esteemed science journal, but in my very backyard.

Okay, this is about natural beauty. Way back on 11.05 I tossed in a sentence about planting some bulbs. Here is a quick rundown..I had 660 bulbs at the beginning of my autumn planting, and with today's modest output, I now have but 250 left to plant. Planting bulbs is a great way to get started in gardening.

I think that I have spent perhaps ten hours of aerobic intensity gardening in getting the plots ready, depressing the bulbs, and covering them over. I tamped things a bit as well. All looks good.

Once all bulbs are in ground, I will add mulch here and there as some of the plants are just zone hardy for this area.

All the varieties I planted are not hot house hybrids, but flowers as found in the wild from my native New Hampshire USA, to the mountainous regions of Turkey. Barring any really crazy weather events, the planting looks well done. I have been gardening since before I can remember--my great grandfather had me planting vegetable garden seeds at no later than 2 years of age.

I fell out of it as school and work intervened, but have now spent seven years back in the garden. Of all the types of therapy that one could choose, gardening and exercise are especially rewarding.

I am not really a 'personal anecdote' kind of guy, but I do have my passions.

Back off Seinfeld, or solve this tensor equation!

Jerome seems to believe that he is somewhere on the autism spectrum.What is this, some sort of coming out fortnight? Tim Cook, now Seinfeld.

Jerry, don't fuck with the turf of geeks. You dig?

Tim, your sexual preferences are fine as long as you stick to acceptable social mores. However, if you, Tim Cook come out again and claim that you too are somewhere on the continuum of spectral autism disorders, while you have the geek cred, coming out as gay points to you being socially boring ;)

In all seriousness, it is difficult to know just what Jerry has been pondering. Seinfeld claims that he is very literal. That's what makes for good comedy, not necessarily social blind spots. He further claims he never pays attention to the "right things" whatever that might mean. Maybe it is simply that Jerry is not getting any younger, and now lacks the mental nimbleness he may have once had. Is this a mid-life epiphany? An all too close look inside? If everyone analyzed themselves in fine detail, they would likely find all sorts of things in the DSM-5 that they believed applied to themselves. Self-analysis is certainly not for everyone. Put the DSM down, Jerry. You're okay.

I am watching you, Tim Cook.