Archie

I have to admit I was skeptical at first. What can a pile of trash bricks, mud and sand do, on a barren poisoned wasteland? Or some pouches of dirt around this and other abandoned post-industrial zones in the city? Apparently, a month later, the most awesome party ever, where everybody makes their own pizza and bakes it in the centerpiece of the whole happening, Archie the dome oven. Pumpkin, Zucchini, Beetroot, Onion farmed by the city farmers. Even the honeybees had participated. A huge thanks to everyone!

Building Archie

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Loxia, Again

Curvirostra, I think, in the blog header picture. (Shot through a scope. My parents’ camera’s light baffle fits over the eyepiece almost perfectly.) It’s probably not Pytyopsittacus or Leucoptera. The latter dines in larch but these didn’t have the clear white stripes in the wings and it’s more rare anyway.

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Glaciologists on Himalaya

However, the oft quoted the Himalayan glacier may be gone by 2035 is still not a realistic conclusion based on the recent ongoing significant retreat of the many still large Himalayan glaciers.

Glaciologist Mauri Pelto commenting in November 2009. What’s ironic is that the main subject of Nature’s Climate Feedback’s blog post was some random offhand claim of no global warming glacier melt from an Indian geologist that made headlines. And Mauri was complaining why something like that gets the headlines and not real methodically prepared papers.

So why is this non-peer reviewed Himalayan report by another worth commenting upon, when many very important peer reviewed papers on glacier change are ignored? A read of this Ramesh report indicates the widespread and significant glacier retreat. The report also notes that all the glaciers observed have negative mass balance. After observing the significant and widespread retreat and mass loss the author deems it to slow to be due to global warming, without any real analysis of the climate data or what could be causing the loss. This simply does not warrant our attention. However, the oft quoted the Himalayan glacier may be gone by 2035 is still not a realistic conclusion based on the recent ongoing significant retreat of the many still large Himalayan glaciers. Can we stick to covering better material?

He was proven not only doubly but triply right. IPCC, the Indian geologist and the media representative – all three could be observed not holding the ball at that instant in time and subject by the astute commenter. I remember reading that.

There are probably more mistakes in the IPCC reports that are yet to be found, that’s how it is. This one was pretty bad though. Though no matter the exact subject, there will be a gate on every possible subject in rapid succession for months until people are numbed to the whole word. It brings hits. 2035 Gate. Himalayagate. Glaciergate. Pachaurigate. Sad.

Also, William has more on how it is, or could be.

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The Noughties in Retrospect 2000-2010

Perhaps the biggest phenomenon from a western view has been the rise of China as a superpower.

Internet services and applications, terrorism and wars in the middle east, oil, global warming politics, are some of the big things as well.

What will 2010 see? Well, my bet is that energy will be a big part of it. Oil is limited and is getting more expensive, coal is not. But coal is bad in the global warming sense. The big coal powers USA, China, Germany, UK, Canada, Australia at least are probably just going to keep burning it and not care what it does to the rest of the world.

During the noughties, CO2 rose from about 365 to 385 ppm. If the decadal rate is constant at 20 ppm per decade, then 600 ppm, a doubling from 1950s levels will require 215 ppm more, or about 110 years. Of course, the decadal emissions rate is probably going to accelerate. Local climate change phenomena will come earlier than things like significant sea level rise but it’s harder to point out that greenhouse gases are responsible for them. A fascinating experiment, this atmosphere alteration.

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Economics and the Price of Nature

Assume a glacier that provides summer water for a billion people. What is its value, if it is destroyed by global warming? Since it currently provides services for free, it could be calculated as zero, according to some. Hence, a hypothetical economic activity by those people that gave them one dollar in total while destroying the glacier completely, would be worth doing? That’s suicide economics.

The word VALUE, it is to be observed, has two different meanings, and sometimes expresses the utility of some particular object, and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods which the possession of that object conveys. The one may be called “value in use”; the other, “value in exchange.” The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarce any thing; scarce any thing can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use; but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it.

Who’s the radical greenie who wrote the above? Mark Sagoff wrote an essay on stupid valuation of nature’s services back somewhen, where he made the above quote. Find out there, who said it…

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Loxia Curvirostra

Or Pytyopsittacus, I’m not very good at this.

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