Month: March 2010

Emerging energy related technologies

The Economist’s latest Technology Quarterly contains a number of articles with climatic significance:

These sorts of innovations (aside from the oil and gas extraction story) would surely be driven forward if carbon pricing made people care more about the consequences of their greenhouse gas emissions.

After the Ice

Having already read a great deal about climate change and the Arctic, I expected Alun Anderson’s After the Ice: Life, Death, and Geopolitics in the New Arctic to provide only a moderate quantity of new information. I was quite surprised by just how much novel, relevant, and important content he was able to fit into the 263 pages. The book discusses the historical and current relations between governments and Arctic indigenous peoples; ice flow dynamics and exploration; the changing nature of Arctic ecosystems and species, along with information on what climate change may do to them; international law and the geopolitical implications of a melting Arctic; oil, gas, and other natural resources, and how their availability is likely and unlikely to change in coming decades; the rising tide of Arctic shipping, and the special safety and environmental considerations that accompany it; and the feedback effects that exist between a changing Arctic and a changing climate.

Ecosystems

Some of the best information on the book is about biology and Arctic ecosystems. It describes them from the level of microscopic photosynthetic organisms up to the level of the megafauna that gets so much attention. Anderson argues that most of the large marine mammals (seals, walruses, whales, etc) are threatened to some extent or another by the loss of sea ice. This is for several reasons. First, it could disrupt the lowest levels of the food web they rely upon. Second, it could permit the influx of invasive species that could out-compete, starve, or attack existing Arctic species. Third, the lifecycles of Arctic animals are slow and deliberate, and thus liable to disruption from faster-breeding competitors. Disappearing sea ice off Svalbard has already completely wiped out what was once “one of the best areas for ringed seal reproduction.” Arctic species, argues Anderson, will need to “move, adapt, or die.” Generalists like beluga whales have promise, while the narwhal and polar bear may be the most vulnerable large creature in the ecosystem.

One consequence of the loss of multi-year sea ice that I had not anticipated is the potential for a massive migration of species between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, with invasive species potentially seriously altering the composition of ecosystems on both sides. Melting ice could therefore produce major changes in much of the world’s ocean. Even before that, expanded range for orcas could have a significant effect on life in northern waters. Where ice used to provide safety, by obstructing their pectoral fins, these powerful predators increasingly have free reign.

Resources, shipping, and tourism

Anderson makes an effective argument that most of the oil, gas, and resources in the Arctic will be effectively locked away for some time yet. There will always be ice in the winters, glacial ice calving off Greenland and other Arctic islands poses a significant risk due to its extreme hardness, and very high commodity prices are necessary to justify the risk and capital investment required to operate in the region. (See this post on the the Shtokman gas field.) He expects that, even if there is a boom, it will be short-lived and of limited benefit to those living in the region. In particular, he cautions people living in the north not to abandon traditional ways of life sustained by things other than oil and gas. Living for a couple of rich decades and then being left with nothing would be a tragic outcome.

The book also downplays fears about a scramble for resources and sovereign control. Anderson argues that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) already provides a clear legal framework and that negotiated outcomes are probable. That should provide some comfort to those concerned about diplomatic or even armed conflicts in the changing north. One danger Anderson does highlight is how the risk of collision with ice, increasing shipping and tourist traffic, and the absence of emergency response capabilities could combine. He describes plausible scenarios where major oil spills or massive loss of life could result, due to a problem with a tanker or a cruise ship (disproportionately full of elderly people susceptible to cold, as they are).

While Anderson does an excellent job of explaining some of the risks to species and human beings from a changing Arctic, he doesn’t take seriously the possibility of truly radical or catastrophic change, of the kind highlighted as possible by James Hansen. Anderson also completely fails to describe how the incremental emissions from burning oil and gas in the Arctic would inevitably increase the degree of climate change experienced by humans and natural systems. It is cumulative emissions that matter most, and extracting hydrocarbons from the far north can only increase those.

For anyone with an interest in what is happening to the Arctic and what the medium- and long-term implications of that might be, this book is enthusiastically recommended.

Ontario could phase out coal in 2010

That is the message from the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, expressed in a post on BuryCoal.com. They argue that Ontario has enough non-coal electricity generating capacity to put its four remaining coal plants on “standby reserve” between now and their legislated closure in 2014.

It is an initiative worth applauding. In contrast to targets so far off in the future as to be politically irrelevant, this is something that could be done right away. That is important, given the degree to which every year that passes before emissions peak means more drastic cuts will be required around the world afterward.

Another option worth considering is converting Nanticoke, North America’s largest coal-fired power plant, to burn biomass instead. From a health and environmental perspective, that’s not as appealing as shutting it down, but it would definitely be an improvement upon the status quo.

On academic specialization and climate change

I have spent six years in university and taken two degrees: a B.A. with majors in International Relations and Political Science and an M.Phil in International Relations. The logical academic progression, if I were to continue, would be to do a Ph.D or D.Phil. That would take between 2+ (Oxford D.Phil) and 4+ (North American Ph.D) years, but I have my doubts about whether that would be the best use of time. The 2+ is generous for Oxford, given that my thesis was the weakest part of the work I did there. I would need a more solid research project to form the basis of a doctorate.

Doing a doctorate in something like I.R. or PoliSci would certainly involve some new learning: perhaps some more quantatative and qualitative methods, certainly more exposure to theory and a particular subject area for a dissertation. It would increase how much I know about PoliSci/I.R. compared with other people who have studied in those fields.

By contrast, spending 3-4 years studying something like engineering, law, or a pure science would certainly teach me more, relative to what I know now. It would involve whole new methodologies and areas of knowledge. By any objective measure, it would widen my knowledge enormously more than doing more work on PoliSci/I.R.

That said, academia isn’t like trivia; your ranking isn’t based on your relative level of knowledge on a broad range of subjects. Rather, the stature of students is determined by how much they know compared with their peers (and, between real academics, on the basis of publication history).

At this time, I don’t have any interest in trying to rise up in academia. It would surely be a tedious endeavour, full of weird infighting and ever-increasing specialization. My ambition, at this point, is to try to make a difference in how humanity responds to the threat of climate change.

Measured against that objective, the question ceases to be about the relative abstract knowledge value of study in different areas. To me, it seems clear that more PoliSci/I.R. work would be fairly pointless. Some sort of technical study could be useful, depending on how exactly I want to work on climate change. For instance, an engineering degree would give me a better ability to evaluate ideas about energy sources, efficiency, conservation, and so forth.

Despite that, when it comes to lack of action on climate change, I don’t think a lack of technical experts is our problem. We have the knowledge and skills to start building a low-carbon global economy. What we lack is the drive to do so. That drive is unlikely to arise out of academic study, and greater technical knowledge may not provide any insights into how to generate it. Focused on that issue, spending a few more years cloistered in school doesn’t seem like a good way to advance my objective.

Everything about climate change is steeped in uncertainty. Just as we cannot know in advance how the climate system will respond to our actions, we cannot fully anticipate how entrenched human systems will respond to any sort of effort to change them. For now, the best approach seems to be a combination of branching out (to pursue multiple strategies) and determination.

That said, if it ever seems like the world has finally gotten itself off a course towards destruction, it would be nice to go back and study something interesting for the sake of knowledge itself. It would also be around that time that I thought it was fair and potentially sensible to have children. Right now, we would be introducing them into a world fraught with such terrible risk that I question the ethics of doing so.

Digital photo frames have stupid aspect ratios

The aspect ratio of an image of photograph is the ratio of the length of one side to the length of the other. For instance, 35mm film, 4×6″ prints, and full-frame digital sensors all have proportions of 3:2. Most APS-C sensors, used in cheaper digital dSLRs are also around 3:2. Images from my Rebel XS are 3888 × 2592 pixels, which is a 3:2 aspect ratio.

Standard definition televisions and many point and shoot digital cameras use an aspect ratio that is closer to square: 4:3. 4:3 is also used for Four Thirds system cameras and 645 medium format cameras. For instance, my old Canon A570 IS produces images that are 3072 x 2304 pixels, which is a 4:3 aspect ratio.

What vexes and perplexes me is the fondness digital picture frame manufacturers have for making wide-screen devices. They have ratios like 16:9 and 15:9, which means that images from virtually any sort of commonly-used film or digital camera will appear with relatively thick bands of black screen space on either side. This is akin to watching a VHS tape or standard television broadcase on a wide-screen high-definition television. Given how much digiframe manufacturers charge for screen space (a good 10″ frame costs around $300, whereas 19″ LCD monitors can be had for around $150), it seems foolish for them to throw away so much of it. Why spend $300 on Sony’s DPF-V1000 frame knowing that a good fraction of the screen space will be wasted with every photo you ever display?

A frame with a 3:2 aspect ratio would show images from film and higher grade digicams perfectly, and images from cheaper digicams with minor bars. Why this is not the standard for digital photo frames therefore bewilders me. It might have something to do with being able to brand them ‘high definition.’ Of course, you can have a 3:2 aspect ratio frame with any level of definition you want: it could be three billion by two billion pixels!

Aside on ‘megapixels’

It is also worth noting how the number of pixels along the long edge of an image gives a better idea of comparative resolution than megapixel count. After all, it follows that the size of each pixel will shrink by half, every time you cram twice as many of them along either edge.

Looking at the pixels, it is easy to see that the A570 has 79% of the resolution of the Rebel XS. By contrast, reading that the Rebel has a 10.1 megapixel sensor and the A570 has a 7.1 megapixel sensor might lead to a customer being mistaken about how much more image quality they are getting. The difference gets even more significant with higher end cameras. A consumer might naively think that a 21.1 megapixel 5D Mark II has three times the resolution of my cheap A570IS. In fact, it produces photos that are 5616 x 3744 pixels. The sensor in the A570 puts out 55% as many.

Admittedly, there are many properties of the sensor that are at least as important as resolution, such as noise level at high ISO settings. That is why I argue that – above 6 megapixels or so – resolution ceases to be an important issue in comparing cameras. Factors like noise and dynamic range are much more important

Black carbon and the Arctic

I have written previously about the climatic importance of black carbon – tiny particles of soot, mostly from burning diesel and biomass, that have a warming effect on the climate. This effect can be most acute when the black carbon falls on snow. It absorbs sunlight and accelerates melting. Andreas Stohl, from the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, has tracked pollution from satellite data and identified agricultural burning in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Baltic states as major sources of black carbon that ends up in the Arctic. Stohl and others have also applied trajectory models to determine how pollution from different regions ends up in the Arctic.

As shipping routes become more open, with the vanishing of multi-year sea ice, diesel-burning ships risk becoming a larger source of black carbon in the region. As one paltry step towards slowing the demise of the Arctic as we know it, the coastal states of the Arctic ocean should insist on better particle traps for vessels, both by imposing standards for new construction and requiring retrofits. Germany, Austria, and Switzerland all already have legislation in place requiring such filters. In addition to the climatic benefits, such filters could also benefit human health. Investigations between 1993 and 1998 showed that such filters “can intercept at least 99% of the sub-micron particulates in the range of heightened pulmonary intrusion.”

Governments could also insist on the use of cleaner forms of diesel that generate less black carbon. It is bad enough that oil and gas exploration in the Arctic might accelerate warming – to say nothing of the risks from methane. We don’t need little low-albedo specks of soot making things even worse.

Valve games for Mac

One significant downside of being a Mac user is gaming. The saddest part of the Apple store is definitely the thin shelf of largely-old, largely-mediocre, heavily kid-focused games. As such, it is a welcome development that Valve is bringing the Portal and Half-Life series to Macs.

As good as Halo and Warcraft III are, it will be nice to have some more variety. This may also be a signal that increasing market penetration is leading to game companies getting more serious about Apple.

(Oh, and I am aware that I could install a Microsoft OS on a partition. I just don’t think it is worth the expense and bother.)

Chaudiere Bridge and Domtar Mill

For two years, the Chaudiere Bridge and Domtar Mill were between home and work for me. Indeed, throughout Ottawa’s long winter bus strike (and much of the time in nicer months), I would walk through both most days of the week. The mill is mostly shut down now, though part of it has been converted into a run-of-river hydroelectric station.

While there are still security personnel and vehicles around, most of the mill seems to be shut down and locked up. The area is full of fences, locks, and barbed wire.

I love how malicious this lightning creature looks, striking down the small boy. It is certainly an effective warning sign.

High-pressure steam pipes run all around the complex. At regular intervals there are pressure release systems that vent steam every few seconds.

Both upstream and downstream, there are signs and barriers to warn boaters about the dam.

For several months last year, the Chaudiere Bridge was either closed or taking restricted traffic, because of concerns about its structural stability. Ottawa’s freeze-thaw cycles are brutal on infrastructure, especially roads and bridges.

I have always found bridges to be especially elegant and compelling structures. It has something to do with the mathematics of them, as well as the way in which they serve as an interface between human desires and the natural environments in which people live.

These green struts extend around the bridge, mostly supporting thick steam pipes that run between different parts of the mill.

Most of the metal in the area is corroded to one extent or another. Part of that must be the result of constant exposure to the salt used by the city to keep the roads and sidewalks relatively clear of ice in the winters.

Even on a Sunday evening, the bridge always has traffic. Walking to and from work may have contributed to my increasingly genuine hatred of automobiles. Single individuals, needlessly spilling greenhouse gases to propel themselves around in giant hulks of metal and glass, splashing and killing pedestrians and cyclists alike.

Even in the more remote accessible corners of the Domtar complex, you can see papers and personal effects behind windows. It is hard to tell whether these are active offices, or abandoned workspaces.

The complex is full of interesting structural details – power cables, girders, metal and concrete works built to constrain the flow of the river.

One of the taller Domtar buildings has been converted into an indoor climbing gym. As far as I can tell, this one has just been boarded up and abandoned.

On the eastern side of part of the complex, some sort of big recycling effort is underway. These girders may eventually find their way into something new.

The giant recycling bins themselves are corroded, with peeling paint and sharp edges.

Apparently, there were three previous Chaudiere bridges: 1827, 1845, and 1892.

Renewable energy and the budget

Tim Weis, from the Pembina Institute, does a good job of showing why Canada’s most recent budget is not well aligned with the government’s target on renewable energy, namely to move from generating 77% of our energy from non-emitting sources now (mostly hydro and nuclear) to generating over 90% that way by 2020. It’s a laudable goal, but one hardly advanced by the investment of a mere $25 million in renewable energy in the forestry sector, or continued inaction on the regulation of greenhouse gases.

If Canada is serious about becoming a “clean energy superpower,” we need to do better than this.

The Lindzen Fallacy

The Lindzen Fallacy is a sub-genre of the fallacy of petitio principii (begging the question) that I have named after MIT Meteorology Professor and climate change delayer Richard Lindzen. I define it as such:

The assumption that fears about catastrophic or runaway climate change are overblown, based on the assumption that climate change can never truly imperil humanity.

Many people have a deep, intuitive sense that the world wil remain as it is. In particular, that it will continue to provide the basic physical requirements of humanity, such as breathable air, acceptable temperatures, and conditions suitable for continued agriculture.

This perspective is clearly a bit of circular logic: climate change cannot be dangerous, because if it were truly dangerous, it would be dangerous. (Repeat as often as you like.)

Negative feedbacks

Lindzen has told the US Coast Guard Academy that: “Extreme weather events are always present. There’s no evidence it’s getting better, or worse, or changing.” He has suggested that there simply must be negative feedbacks that counter the warming effects of greenhouse gases, possibly through the increased radiation of heat into space, caused by columns of tropical cumulus convection carrying large amounts of heat high into the atmosphere. Satellite data from NASA’s Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) mission raises serious doubts about this being a negative climate feedback. His perspective on climate sensitivity appears dubious both in relation to climate models and the paleoclimatic record. Lindzen also argued to the Vice President’s Climate Task Force, in the US under the Bush Administration, that action should not be taken to mitigate climate change. Climatologis James Hansen speculates that: “Lindzen’s perspective on climate sensitivity… stems from an idea of a theological or philosophical perspective that he doggedly adheres to. Lindzen is convinced that nature will find ways to cool itself, that negative feedbacks will diminish the effect of climate forcings.” Back in 1999, Hansen responded to Lindzen’s hypotheses about negative feedbacks by encouraging the scientific community to investigate two things: a) whether water vapour feedbacks can be observed, and b) whether the ocean heat content is increasing in line with the model predictions. In the view of climatologist Gavin Schmidt, subsequent evidence has been supportive of the Hansen view and has drawn into question the Lindzen perspective.

Just showing that negative feedbacks exist is not enough to prove that climate change is dangerous, or that we should do nothing about it. As I argued in a discussion with a different climate denier:

What specific mechanism counteracts the infrared absorbing effect of greenhouse gasses? If such an effect exists, why has it automatically been getting stronger as concentrations rise? Also, what proof is there that even if there were such an effect, it would protect us from any amount of increased GHG concentrations. For instance, continued business-as-usual emissions could push concentrations to over 1000 ppm of CO2 equivalent by 2100, compared to 280 ppm before the Industrial Revolution and about 383 ppm now. Even if there were negative feedback effects that significantly reduced the total forcing resulting from increased GHG concentrations (that is, lowered climatic sensitivity), it is possible that they would break down when presented with such a significant change.

It is not enough to show that there are one or more negative feedbacks in the climate system. It is necessary to show that they will be sufficient in magnitude and durability to counter the warming caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. The fact that concentrations of those and temperatures are still rising suggest that this is not the case in today’s climate, and the existence of massive potential positive feedbacks (Arctic sea ice albedo, permafrost methane, etc) make it dubious for future climates.

Further to that, the point I am raising here is not about the technical means by which Lindzen or anyone else thinks the climate will automatically rebalance in response to changes caused by humanity. Rather, it is to highlight the faulty assumption that such rebalancing can be taken for granted, regardless of the specific means by which it might occur.

The Lindzen Fallacy is dangerous because it offers us false comfort. If mainstream climate science is correct, and a business-as-usual course will produce far more than 2°C of warming by the end of the century, future generations will think back with regret about all those in our time (and before) who falsely believed that the world could never become inhospitable to humans.

A related bit of faulty thinking

The Lindzen fallacy relates to another flawed and potentially dangerous perspective: namely, that humanity is so adaptable that, no matter how much climate changes, humanity will be able to adapt. While it is hard to see how humanity could survive runaway climate change, it is easy to see why someone would think the empirical evidence supports this view. After all, nothing has wiped us out yet. Unfortunately, this logic suffers from the same fault as that of a chicken famously described by Bertrand Russell in The Problems of Philosophy:

And this kind of association is not confined to men; in animals also it is very strong. A horse which has been often driven along a certain road resists the attempt to drive him in a different direction. Domestic animals expect food when they see the person who feeds them. We know that all these rather crude expectations of uniformity are liable to be misleading. The man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken.

In short, inductive reasoning is dangerous, whenever there is a chance of something truly unprecedented taking place.

There are good scientific reasons to believe that climate change could be just such a dangerous, unprecedented phenomenon in relation to human beings.