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Australian cowboy & indian outfit 1951

2011-10-31T05:34:00Z

I was going to write something serious today on left versus right. My heart wasn't in it. Instead, a very short nostalgia piece.

This photo is from Christmas 1951. Brother David and I had been at Mum because we wanted a cowboy and Indian outfit. So she made us one for Christmas.

Cowboys and Indians were big things then, although this influence was not always welcomed.

During the 1930s the New England politician Sir Michael Bruxner, then NSW Deputy Premier and leader of the NSW Country Party, had complained about the American influence, about the way cowboy was replacing stockman in urban parlance, about the introduction of the term rodeo.

Perhaps under the influence of his cousin, noted Australian film maker Charles Chauvel, Bruxner attempted to introduce quotas for Australian films in cinemas, probably the first ever Government attempt to encourage Australian film production. The move failed.

Our outfit was very much an Australian variant made from local materials easily available to Mum including hessian bags. Still, it had holsters and feathers!

Growing up, westerns were a popular genre at the local cinema and one of the staples at the local news agency. Then they vanished.

Opposition to Keystone XL Pipeline Heating Up

2011-10-31T05:12:32Z

Tar%20Sands%20by%20Robert%20van%20Waarden.png

The fight against the Keystone XL Pipeline is heating up, with many positive and important developments occuring this past week, excluding the disgraceful, though unsurprising decision by the Obama for President 2012 campaign team to bring a former TransCanada lobbyist, Broderick Johnson (husband of NPR's Michele Norris), onto its upper-level staff.

Six main big ticket items stand out, in particular:

A call for a U.S. State Department Office of the Inspector General probe into the Keystone XL pipeline review process by 14 U.S. Congressional members.
A call for a special session to occur on November 1 by Nebraska Republican Governor Dave Heineman regarding pipeline safety concerns.
A meeting between leaders of the youth climate movement and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson on the pipeline.
A recent massive anti-pipeline action that took place in San Francisco, in which 1,000 protesters greeted Obama at one of his fundraising events for his 2012 presidential run.
An announced push-back of the Keystone XL pipeline final decision date by the State Department.
An acknowledgement, at last, by President Barack Obama that he is taking into consideration the concerns voiced by citizens nationwide about the potential risks to public health, water supplies and the global climate if he approves the Keystone XL pipeline.

Congressional Probe

The request for the probe, announced in a letter signed by the 14 Democrats and sent to the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. State Department, calls for "an investigation into the State Department's handling of the Environmental Impact Statement and National Interest Determination for TransCanada Corporation's proposed Keystone XL pipeline."

Key excerpts of the letter read,

Given the significant economic, environmental, and public health implications of the proposed pipeline, we believe that it is critical that the State Department conduct thorough, unbiased reviews of the project. Further, it is imperative that the State Department process be free of actual or apparent conflicts of interest…

(snip)

…[G]iven the importance of this project and the process regarding the State Department's review process to-date, a thorough investigation covering…any possible violations of federal law or improper conduct related to the State Department…a [probe is warranted]…for the Keystone XL

While only 14 out of 435, it shows that the issue is, at minimum, high on the radar of some politicians inside the Beltway and the voices of grassroots leaders are finally being heard, at least by some.

Nebraska Special Session

Nebraska has, in many ways, been ground zero in the fight against the pipeline, led in the forefront by Jane Kleeb's grassroots activist group, Bold Nebraska.

Public opposition to the pipeline got the attention of the governor of a Republican Party generally uninclined to accept scientific reality.

Having already urged President Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to deny the permit on a seperate occasion at the end of August, Heineman, hearing only the sound of silence from what DeSmogBlog has called "State Department Oil Services," Heineman called for a special sesssion regarding the pipeline.

"The purpose of the Special Session will be to find a legal and constitutional solution to the siting of oil pipelines within the state," according to a press release issued by Heineman.

Of chief concern, the current pipeline route runs directly over the Nebraska Sand Hills and the Ogallala Aquifer, both of which are vital pieces of the Nebraska economy.

Youth Climate Movement Meeting

Representatives of the youth climate movement met with EPA head Lisa Jackson - including former Obama volunteers, as well as the Energy Action Coalition, a coalition of 50 youth-led environmental and social justice groups working together to build the youth clean energy and climate movement. Keystone XL was among the topics of the meeting.

Activists' Push Against Pipeline Drawing Attention

The day after a protest in San Francisco, which drew a crowd of 1,000 anti-pipeline protesters to greet him, President Obama was again greeted by more protesters in Denver who interrupted his campaign stump speech.

Forced to acknowledge them, at last, Obama stated, "I know your deep concern about it…We will address it."

The decision process has been bottlenecked and pushed back by the State Department, which likely thought at first that, likely nearly all other ecologically destructive decisions it makes, it would be rubber-stamped.

Not the case this time around, though.

Upcoming next steps

This all comes ahead of a big November 6 action organized by the leaders of the Tar Sands Action movement, in a call to circle around the White House to demand that President Barack Obama reject the Keystone XL Pipeline.

As the late historian Howard Zinn once proclaimed, "What matters is not who's sitting in the White House, but who's SITTING IN the White House — and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change."

I saw a man blow his nose and Asian Values came out – republish

2011-10-31T05:14:45Z

This essay was written in February 2000 (11 and a half years ago) and published in the old Yawning Bread website. A comment-maker in the previous article was possibly referring to it in his comment, and for convenience, I am republishing it here.

——————————————————————–
I saw a man blow his nose, but the mucus just strung out, suspended half the distance from nose to ground. He was only a metre away from me having lunch at a coffeeshop. For an interminable one and a half seconds, I was confronted with this disgusting sight; time enough for me to retch up this essay about “Asian Values”.

Spitting and nose-blowing on public streets are habits that represent total disregard for the public domain. They are at the same time, among the more venerable traditions of the Chinese, yet they are never included in the package labelled “Asian Values”.

Why? Well, the answer is obvious: because what the politicians promote as “Asian Values” is a selection of “values” useful to their agenda. It is also interesting that in Singapore at least, when we speak of “Asian Values”, we often mean the things that others would recognise as Confucian precepts and Chinese traditions. So there is no great contradiction when I speak of “Asian Values” and Chinese practices in the same breath.

An exhaustive discussion of “Asian Values” would be impossible within the space I have. All I want to do is to talk about nose-blowing, and what it tells you about those values. Actually nose-blowing is only one side of the coin. The other face of the same coin is known as “strong family ties”. They’re one and the same thing, presenting in different ways, that’s all. So if politicians promote “strong family ties” as a virtue to be emulated, they really cannot deny nose-blowing.

At this point you may think this is all tongue-in-cheek, or that I’m talking rubbish. Maybe mucus got to my brain. But hang in there, bear with me.

* * * * *

Strong family ties become important in societies when outside of the family, threats abound. In such societies, family is what you can most rely on in the face of insecurity. If you become impoverished, no one else will help you. If you are injured, no one else will look after you. If you are treated unjustly, the system provides no remedy, you can only rely on your brothers and cousins to exact revenge for you, and in this connection, we should note that secret societies are a kind of surrogate family — their initiation rites stress blood-bonding.

In other words, this value that we praise — strong family ties — is in fact a reflection of the weakness of society itself. It’s an indictment of how poorly developed is that society.

This poverty is a poverty at many levels. At its highest, there is an absence of structures and systems that provide support and remedies for the individual. For example, there may not be a justice system he can trust. He may perceive it as corrupt or perhaps indifferent to the plight of the small guy. What is the victim to do then? Falling back on family, clan or triad, and through them, getting even with the perpetrators, must seem the most effective recourse. Another example: there may not be any kind of social security system, or any reputable insurance industry. If he falls ill, he has to depend on the family to pay the medical bills.

Below the level of the state, strong family ties also indicate weak fellow-citizen ties. The high dependence on family suggests that there are few groupings or platforms that may enable a person to publicise his grievance, and to persuade others to come to his assistance. The “mind-your-own-business” attitude that is prevalent here is another symptom of this. We don’t want to get involved in others’ causes or difficulties. Voluntary organisations are always saying Singaporeans are very reluctant to offer a bit of their time. Even at a personal level, for example, if your ceiling leaks badly, and you need to stay somewhere else for a while, most Singaporeans end up moving in with a sister or going back to mother. It’s rare indeed to move in with a friend. There is a great reluctance to open our hearts and homes to others in need.

The warmth of the family domain is a reflection of the coldness of the non-family, or public, domain. It is hardly surprising then that we do not value the public domain. We show our alienation from it, unconsciously of course, through our daily thoughtlessness towards others and the public space. We never clear our trays from Burgerkings. We push open a swing door to walk through, then let it slam back against the person behind us instead of holding it open for a little longer. Inside many Singaporeans’ flats, everything is spick and span, but five paces out in the common corridor, worn mops, short-circuited toasters and soiled pillows accumulate.

It’s not a huge leap from such thoughtlessness to blowing your nose while walking past a coffeeshop, flinging the mucus at another’s feet.

* * * * *

Can’t we have strong family bonds without so much disrespect for others in general? Perhaps, though what I have argued above is that family bonds grow strong in response to the paucity of alternatives. But such a question also indicates how we automatically see family ties as a “good” in itself, such that even as we might want to strengthen social ties, we wouldn’t want ever to weaken our existing closeness of family bonds.

I think once in a while, we should squint a little at this “social virtue” that is family ties. Except for our spouses, we never choose our families. We are bound to them by emotion and guilt. It is not obvious that all that sacrificing to help each other is truly satisfying to ourselves as individuals. Sometimes, our family obligations seem a very heavy burden, e.g. when we have to act as caregiver for years to an aging and dying parent, or to look after a Down’s syndrome sibling for the rest of our lives. Yet we can’t shirk that responsibility; we’ve been imbued with too great a sense of guilt, even as it greatly destroys our own freedom and happiness. Very often, there is no alternative, anyway. Either society is still so weak that there are no solutions outside the family, or, in Singapore’s case, the government, under the rubric of not undermining family responsibility (see how family responsibility is cast as something so precious, it must not be undermined?), is reluctant to provide the full array of social services. Either way, we feel trapped by our family obligations, as much as unhappy wives have been trapped in loveless marriages, cleaning up after drunk and abusive husbands, all in the name of family values. Or, to reduce it to something very immediate and personal to many Yawning Bread readers — gay men in their twenties and thirties — think of how difficult it is to move out of their parents’ homes, yet how oppressive it can be on some days to continue living there!

So already, the idea that strong family ties are an immaculate “good” is disputable.

Still, as a political message, it’s an easy sell. Chinese culture, courtesy of that Confucius of 2,500 years’ vintage, have long placed great store on filial piety, ancestral worship, and family obligations. People are brought up to believe that these are good and worthwhile objectives. If the government says so too, then it must be.

In the next step of selling Asian Values, strong family ties are presented as something Asian, at least as something that Asians have retained, while others have allegedly lost it. High divorce rates, juvenile deliquency are used to paint other societies as unenviable. Casting this virtue of family bonds as Asian dredges up racial or nationalist pride, maximising the chance that the audience would be uncritical with the next argument: that resonating with strong families as an Asian characteristic, we also have strongly communitarian values.

The theory goes: in our Asian societies, we are respectful and considerate of others. We see society as an extended family. We take care to give face, not to cause offence, and we are mutually co-operative.

This is where my nose-blowing comes in. It is difficult to reconcile the utter disrespect to the public domain represented by this act with the claim to be a society that is considerate of others.

And then the Asian Values argument is stretched further. From the credo that we are a communitarian society, it is argued that we are, or should be, respectful of hierarchy and authority. In other words, we should be proud that we are obsequious to our rulers. And thus, unchecked governments, suppression of the press, censorship, and equating criticism of the government with subversion of the state, become the natural order of the Asian universe.

My reading is that we are not really communitarian. We don’t give two hoots to our responsibilities to the community. We don’t modify our individual behaviour in the interests of others. (When I say “we”, I mean Singaporeans, albeit it could also mean the Chinese in general)

It only looks as if we modify our behaviour to be respectful of the community, but in actual fact we are just cowed by our government. We don’t speak up and criticise, not because we don’t want to cause offence, but because we fear punishment.

Where there is no punishment to be feared, noses are blown, loud as foghorns.

The best Australian writing of 2011

2011-10-26T23:50:05Z

The Best Australian Essays 2011 Ramona Koval brings us compelling voices on topics vast and varied. Paul Kelly meditates on Frank Sinatra, Inga Clendinnen dreams on cricket, and Anna Krien delves into the saga of the St Kilda schoolgirl. There is Peter Robb on Italian food, Anthony Lane on News of the World, Gail Bell on rats and Richard Flanagan on photography.

The Best Australian Poems 2011 John Tranter selected the most vigorous, varied and interesting poems of the last year. In his own words: ‘What a rich, strange and diverse lot these poems turned out to be … I suspect that these baroque and potent imaginings can only have come into existence as fragments of dreams or nightmares.’

The Best Australian Stories 2011 Cate Kennedy’s selections form a wonderfully eclectic collection brimming with new and familiar voices. Upon her last collection as editor, she reflects: ‘Great short stories have a power like a depth charge, subtext roiling up to the surface at precisely the right moment.’

For more information go here.

When you submit your response, please include in brackets which book you would prefer.

Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties

2011-11-01T06:26:03Z

Much ado is made about the phrase "the science is settled," but to what does the phrase refer? There are certainly a number of climate issues for which the scientific evidence is so conclusive and robust, they can reasonably be called "settled." For example, the fact that the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels is due to human emissions, the fact that the planet is warming (as confirmed once again by the BEST study), and the fact that the increase in CO2 is responsible for a substantial fraction of that warming.

New Scientist has published a useful resource on this subject, discussing climate knowns and unknowns.

Fake Skeptics vs. Real Science

Of course, the climate "skeptics" who want to delay and prevent action to address global warming love to argue that "the science is NOT solved." And of course it will always be possible to make that argument, because there will always be aspects of the climate system which we don't fully understand, as is the case for every field of science. For example, we know that there is a global energy imbalance, with more incoming than outgoing energy due to the increased greenhouse effect, which is the underlying cause behind global warming. However, it's difficult to precisely determine that energy imbalance using either satellites or measurements on Earth.

Over the past decade, the warming of global surface temperatures has slowed down. Studies have shown that climate model runs do predict that there will be periods on the order of a decade during which we expect to see this slowed rate of warming, even though the underlying man-made global warming signal remains in place (i.e. Santer et al. 2011):

"Because of the pronounced effect of interannual noise on decadal trends, a multi-model ensemble of anthropogenically-forced simulations displays many 10-year periods with little warming."

If climate models were perfect, they could anticipate these short-term periods of little surface warming. However, there are many different effects which can cause short-term temperature changes. There are also important parts of the climate which we don't yet have good measurements for, such as the amount of heat in the deep oceans, and the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere. Because climate scientists had a difficult time explaining the short-term slowing of the surface warming trend over the past decade, Kevin Trenberth infamously said (in a stolen email),

"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."

There have been a number of recent studies attempting to address this short-term slowed surface warming, which were nicely summarized in this article by Paul Voosen, which quotes a number of different climate scientists who are studying the issue. Unfortunately, certain climate "skeptics" have grossly misrepresented these scientists, depicting them in a mocking caricature, and claiming that in trying to determine the cause of the slowed surface warming, they are just making "excuses." Such is the state of the climate denial community, that they equate scientific research with making excuses.

Many Causes

But back to the science and the causes of the slowed surface warming. As Susan Solomon put it,

"There is no silver bullet. In this case, it's four pieces or five pieces of silver buckshot."

Skeptical Science has discussed many of these contributors to the short-term slowed surface warming. For example, some heat has been temporarily transferred to the deeper ocean layers, as Meehl et al. (2011) demonstrate (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Diagram illustrating "natural variability" with a long-term warming trend.

Additionally, increased human aerosol emissions (primarily from Chinese coal combustion), and more frequent La Niña events over the past decade have had a short-term cooling effect, as Kaufmann et al. (2011) found. A decrease in stratospheric water vapor may have added another short-term cooling effect, as Solomon et al. (2010) concluded, and relatively small volcanic eruptions may be having a larger cooling effect than expected as well, as Vernier et al. (2011) suggest. On top of all that, we just experienced an unusually long minimum in the 11-year solar cycle.

Despite Short-Term Uncertainty, Long-Term Warming Continues

In short, it appears that nearly every significant short-term effect on the global surface temperature was in the cooling direction over the past decade. However, significant uncertainty remains regarding how large of a role each effect played in the short-term slowing of the increase in global surface temperature.

Kevin Trenberth believes the warming of the deep oceans was a major contributor. James Hansen, on the other hand, believes that the increase in atmospheric aerosols can explain most of the offset, and that based on recent research, that the ocean doesn't mix heat into its deep layers as well as climate scientists thought.

If Hansen is right, there is a smaller global energy imbalance, which means less heat "in the pipeline" (less warming that we will experience after we stop increasing atmospheric CO2). However, it also means that aerosols are offsetting more greenhouse gas warming than we previously thought, so as our air becomes cleaner, it will reveal more previously-hidden warming, as discussed in Hansen et al. (2011).

This means that although climate scientists still can't perfectly explain the temporarily-slowed warming of surface temperatures, they know that regardless of the explanation, there is much more global warming left in store. We know this because of the settled science discussed above. We are increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and through the greenhouse effect, that increased CO2 will continue to warm the planet.

The short-term effects can only temporarily dampen (or amplify) that long-term man-made global warming trend. For example, aerosols only remain in the atmosphere for a year or two before they're washed out, so the aerosol cooling effect can only continue to offset greenhouse gas warming if we continue to pump more and more aerosols into the atmosphere. However, because they have adverse impacts on human and environmental health (i.e. see the air in China, literally), most countries are trying to reduce their aerosol emissions (including China). El Niño and La Niña are cycles which cancel each other out over the long-term. And while we can't predict how solar activity would change, a solar minimum as big as the largest in the past several centuries would only offset 7 years' worth of man-made warming (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Global mean temperature anomalies 1900 to 2100 relative to the period 1961 to 1990 for the business as usual scenario. The red line represents temperature change for current solar levels, the blue line represents temperature change at Maunder Minimum levels. Observed temperatures from NASA GISS until 2010 are also shown (black line) (Feulner 2010).

The Climate Casino

We can think of the climate like a casino. Any given gamble is unpredictable, and you may very well take money from the casino in a given bet or after a given day's worth of gambling. But the odds are stacked in the casino's favor, so it is certain to make money on average from all the bets that are placed. The longer the timeframe and the more bets that are placed, the more certain the casino can be that it will make money from the gamblers.

Likewise, over short timeframes, global temperature changes can be difficult to predict. However, over the long-run, the underlying man-made global warming trend will dominate as all of those short-term effects average out. Right now the gamblers are on a lucky streak, but it simply cannot last indefinitely. The casino will aways win out in the end, as will the long-term man-made global warming signal.

And in keeping with the casino analogy, by continuing to pump more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we are all taking a very big gamble with the future of the global climate, and thus with the future of the human race.

Henrietta Lacks and property in body parts

2011-10-31T04:10:39Z

I have just finished reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2010). It raises all kinds of social, ethical, scientific and legal issues. I thought I’d explore them in this post. I don’t intend to offer any firm conclusions, but I would like to generate discussion about the kinds of conflicts medical research technology may give rise to.

The story in brief

Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old African American woman who attended Johns Hopkins Hospital for treatment of cervical cancer in 1951. She was a mother of five children, the youngest just four months old at the time of her diagnosis.

At that time, doctors were attempting to create a cell culture which would live outside the body, and had taken various cell samples from patients without their knowledge, but none of the samples had lived long outside the body. When the hospital operated on Henrietta, a sample of Henrietta’s cancerous cells was given to Dr George Gey who successfully cultured them. Henrietta’s consent was not sought, and nor (apparently) was she told of what had occurred. The cells became known as HeLa cell line (pronounced hee-lah). They reproduced at a furious rate, and are still widely used in scientific research to this day. They were the first ever successful cell line.

Dr Gey freely provided the cells to many researchers to advance scientific knowledge. The cells were instrumental in the development of the Salk polio vaccine, and were used to develop many other medical advances. They have helped our understanding of chromosomes, viruses and gene mapping.

Henrietta died some eight months after her diagnosis, in immense pain. The virulent cells which had so successfully produced a cell line had also spread throughout her body. One of the parts of the book which haunted me is the account of Henrietta begging her husband to make sure the children were cared for after her death. Unfortunately, the children had a very hard childhood. Her eldest daughter, who was apparently deaf, dumb and epileptic, died alone in the Hospital for the Negro Insane, and the other children had to live with various relatives while their father worked to keep them.

The family had no idea that Henrietta’s cells had been used as they were. Dr Gey did not profit from cultivating them, and apparently only thought to advance human knowlege, but the cell cultivation companies which sprang up thereafter profited immensely from the HeLa line. Meanwhile, the Lacks family lived in poverty, unable to afford medical insurance. They only became aware of what had happened to their mother’s cells in the 1970s when researchers contacted them to take blood tests. They did not really understand the full ramifications of what had happened.

The book describes the history of Henrietta’s life (insofar as Skloot could repiece it) and her interactions with the Lacks family in the present day (Henrietta’s three sons are still living, and Henrietta’s youngest daughter died in 2009). It also charts the history of medical research and cell research and changes in the law with regard to such research. I found it to be a gripping read. I recommend it.

Property in body parts

The book has made me think once again about the question of property in body parts. How far does someone (or someone’s family) have a right to profit from the use of a cell line derived from their body? There is a tension between utilitarian goals (the idea that free use of body parts has medical benefits for all, and should be encouraged) and individual justice (the idea that if something is derived from you, you ought to have some right to fruits generated from that thing). Then there is also the issue of consent, and what precisely one consents to when one undergoes a medical procedure, and whether people fully understand what they are consenting to.

Of course, in the case of the Lacks family, any enforceable legal rights are long gone. The statute of limitations has long run its course, and in any case, the general practice at that time was that it was unnecessary to seek consent from patients whose body parts were used for research. There were no statutes or other laws requiring consent to be sought or that people should be told of risks that might eventuate from participating in medical studies. If the Lacks have any remaining rights, they are moral rights.

Other unsavoury experiments indicate that it was generally regarded that African American people and other disadvantaged people (such as prison inmates) were fair game for medical research. The Tuskegee syphilis experiment was run by the US Public Health Service between 1932 and 1972. Researchers infected poor African American men with syphilis and attempted to prevent them from being treated so that the progression of the disease could be studied. The men were induced to enter the study by the promise of free health care. Many of the subjects died, and their children or wives were infected.

Skloot and others have set up The Henrietta Lacks Foundation for the benefit of families where members have made important contributions to scientific research without personally benefitting from those contributions, particularly those used in research without their knowledge or consent. And it seems that in the wake of Skloot’s book, Henrietta is getting the recognition she deserves.

Moore v Regents of the University of California

As Skloot’s book notes, and I have mentioned before at this blog, there is a famous US case called Moore v Regents of the University of California 793 P 2d 479, (1990) about property in body parts. It is directly on point with the Lacks case.

Moore was treated for leukaemia at the University of California Medical Centre. His spleen was removed as part of his medical treatment. His doctor and a researcher established a cell line (named Mo) with his spleen cells. The cancerous cells produced a particular protein in large quantities for an indefinite period. Moore continued to visit his doctor for some seven years to have samples taken from his body. The University of California patented the cell line in 1981 and, as part of that, the researchers made a profit of about $450,000. Moore sued the reseachers and the University, saying that he had not consented to the use of his cells in this way.

One of Moore’s claims was that the spleen cells were his property, and that by using them without his consent, the University had committed the tort of conversion. The California Court of Appeal held that the University had committed conversion.

On appeal, a majority of the Supreme Court of California said that they were not Moore’s property, as he had to establish either ownership or a right to possession. As Moore did not retain a right to possession after the cells were removed from him, he had to establish a right of ownership, but he failed to do so, because there was no analogy with the right to protect reputation, the Health and Safety Code severely restricted the use of excised cells and the patented cell lines were factually and legally distinct from Moore’s body – human skill and ingenuity had gone into developing the cell lines. However, the majority and the minority found that the University breached its fiduciary duty towards Moore (namely its duty not to profit at his expense without obtaining his consent).

Panelli J of the majority said the overriding policy considerations in ths case were (a) the protection of a patient’s right to make autonomous decisions, to be balanced against (b) the necessity of encouraging socially useful activity and medical research. Utilitarian considerations of social welfare militated against extending liability in conversion, as the patient’s right to make autonomous decisions was already protected by fiduciary law, and it was for the legislature to decide if proprietary rights should be extended to patients.

Two judges dissented, Broussard J and Mosk J. Mosk J’s judgment rebuts various arguments made by the majority. Of particular interest in the present discussion is the following passage:

In any event, in my view whatever merit the majority’s single policy consideration may have is outweighed by two contrary considerations, that is, poliies that are promoted by recognizing that every individual has a legally protectible porperty interest in his own body and its products. First, our soceity acknowledges a profound ethical imperative to respect the human body as the physical and temp0oral expression of the unique human persona. One manifestation of that respect is our prohibition against direct abuse of the body by torture or other forms of cruel or unusual punishment. Another is our prhibition against indirect abuse of the body by its economic expoloitation for the sole benefit of another person. The most abhorrent form of such exploitation, of course, was the institution of slavery. Lesser forms, such as indentured servitude or even debtor’s prison, have also disappeared. Yet their spectre haunts the laboratories and boardrooms of tody’s biotechnological research industrial complex. It arises whenever scientists or industrialists claim here, the right to appropriate and exploit a patient’s tissue for their sole economic benefit – the right, in other words, to freely mine or harvest valuable physical properties of the patient’s body…

A second policy consideration adds notions of equity to those of ethics. Our society values fundamental fairness in dealings between its members, and condemns the unjust enrichments of any member at the expense of another. This is particularly true when, as here, the parties are not in equal bargaining positions … In the case at bar, for example, the complaint alleges that the market for the kinds of proteins produced by the Mo cell line was predicted to exceed $3 billion by 1990. These profits are currently shared exclusively between the biotechnology industry and the universities that support that industry …

There is, however, a third party to the biotechnology enterprise – the patient who is the source of the blood or tissue from which all these profits are derived. While he may be a silent partner, his contribution to the venture is absolutely critical: as pointed out above, but for the cells of Moore’s body taken by defendants there would have been no Mo cell line at all. Yet defendants deny that Moore is entitled to any share whatever in the proceeds of this cell line. This is both inequitable and immoral … There will be such equitable sharing, if the courts recognize that the patient has a legally protected property interest in his own body and its products …

I am still not sure about the idea of body parts as property: I find it easier to accept the idea of dead body parts (as opposed to live cells) as property. But then again, if I found a valuable oil well which I could not exploit on my property, I would be entitled to sell it to someone who could.

Incidentally, Mosk J’s lines about slavery are particularly haunting if one thinks of Henrietta Lacks, because she was the descendant of slaves, and worked as a tobacco farmer from childhood on the planation where her forebears had been enslaved.

Thoughts

Something else keeps bothering me – all of the people whose cell lines are utilised in such technology are unwell, perhaps terminally unwell. It seems to me that if someone is deriving a benefit from someone else’s illness, then the ill person should be compensated in part for those societal benefits which we all derive from their illness (at least morally, if not legally). The HeLa cells which have proved so beneficial for the rest of the world were devastating for Henrietta Lacks and her family. Of course, Henrietta’s cells were the first to be exploited in this way, and there was no realisation how commercially valuable they were at the start, nor any notion at the time as to how doctors and researchers ought to deal with consent. But the case provides a useful illustration. It makes me think that perhaps we should have some kind of way of recognising the contribution of people like Henrietta Lacks, whose cells benefitted us all. I’m glad Skloot’s book may result in help for Henrietta’s family.

A Visit from Raph

2011-10-31T01:48:00Z

A definite highlight of October was the visit to the Twin Cities of my good friend Raphael (Raph).

As I’ve mentioned previously, Raph is one of Mike and Bernadette McGowan’s seven children. I first got to know the McGowan family in Goulburn, N.S.W., where Mike was the principal of the primary school at which I taught from 1988-1993. Before relocating to the U.S. in 1994, I taught two of the McGowan children – Jeremiah (in 1989) and Tess (in 1992).

I’ve stayed friends with all the members of the family ever since our time together in Goulburn, and I always try to catch up with as many of them as I can each time I visit Australia from the U.S. (See, for example, the previous Wild Reed posts: Travelin’ South, Return to Wagga, Travelin’ North, Newtown, Return to Ellenborough Falls, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, A Day Roving the Mid North Coast, A Bushland Wedding, Angourie, and Yaegl Country). Earlier this year, rising flood waters stranded Raph and I and members of his family in the Australian town of Maclean.

Back in 2004, Raph came and stayed with me in the Twin Cities for four months. It was a great time. We visited Minnesota’s North Shore; took a train trip to Washington, D.C; and flew out to San Francisco.

Raph most recent visit to the States saw him spend about two months cycling the Trans-America Trail with two friends. Then, after spending time with relatives in Tennessee, he journeyed to Minnesota for a week-long visit.

Above: Raph, amidst the colors of a Minnesota autumn!

Left: Raph snapped this photo of me as I was preparing for the "Welcome Back to Minnesota" soiree I hosted for him on the evening of October 12, 2011. It was a great night, as the following images attest!

Above: Liana, Curtis, me, Phil and Raph – Hare House, October 12, 2011.

Above: Jenna, Raph and Jim.

Above: Paula, Phil, Noelle, Kathleen, Brian and Bob.

Above: Joey, Kathleen, Raph and Phil.

Right: Kathleen and Brian.

Above: Phil and Raph.

Left: Paul and Michael.

On the afternoon of Thursday, October 13, Raph and I took a road trip to Red Wing, MN. We traveled to this picturesque river town via Prescott, WI (right), and scenic Highway 35, which runs south along the Mississippi River through rural areas all the way to La Crosse. Before then, however, it provides access to Red Wing, MN, via US 63.

Above: Well, hello! . . . Raph in Prescott, WI – October 13, 2011.

Left: The Hit and Run Bar in Prescott, an establishment I highly recommend as a place to stop in for lunch!

Above: "It remains a mystery"! . . . Wisconsin's "Bow and Arrow," which can be seen in the distance at the top left of this photo.

Above: At the overlook above Red Wing, MN – October 13, 2011.

For photos from a previous visit to Red Wing, see Climbing Barn Bluff and Remembering a Very Special Time.

Of course, Raph's recent visit proved to be a "very special time" too. Not surprising, really, given that he's one of the most thoughtful, inspiring, fun and generous people I'm honored to have in my life! Thanks, Raphie! And see you sometime soon, I hope, back in Australia!

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Australian Floods
Rising Waters
"Flooded In but Loving Life"
In Maclean, An End to the "Siege"
Yaegl Country
A Bushland Wedding
A Day Roving the Mid North Coast
Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast
Return to Wagga
Travelin' South (Part II)
Travelin' South (Part III)

US Double Standard: Gaddafi Bad, Karimov Good

2011-10-30T17:57:21Z

Ted Rall

"After four decades of brutal dictatorship and eight months of deadly conflict, the Libyan people can now celebrate their freedom and the beginning of a new era of promise," President Obama said last week.

The Class War Has Begun

2011-10-30T16:45:22Z

Frank Rich

During the death throes of Herbert Hoover’s presidency in June 1932, desperate bands of men traveled to Washington and set up camp within view of the Capitol. The first contingent journeyed all the way from Portland, Oregon, but others soon converged from all over—alone, in groups, with families—until their main Hooverville on the Anacostia River’s fetid mudflats swelled to a population as high as 20,000. The men, World War I veterans who could not find jobs, became known as the Bonus Army—for the modest government bonus they were owed for their service.

Happy Anniversary Padmini And Raju.

2011-10-31T01:59:42Z

Forty years ago this day, my sister Padmini wed Raju. Like all marriages theirs has been a roller coaster ride but for me they have always been very close relatives. Raju’s family adopted me and my late mother as their own and that will take another full blog post to write about.

Today, Padmini and Raju are grand parents to two lovely grand daughters, Uttara and Madura and parents in law to Viren; their daughter Nitila’s husband and Vandana, their son Jai’s wife.

Unfortunately, Viren does not feature in this family photograph. Luckily however, their son Jai’s mother in law, Prema and sister in law, Reshma feature in it.

Back row, L to R: Reshma, Vandana, Nitila and Jai.
Front row L to R: Prema, Madhura, Padmini, Raju and Uttara.

Happy Anniversary Padmini and Raju and here is sending best wishes for many many more.

The Urban Scene – the Real Transition to Socialism (1953 to 1956)

2011-10-31T01:46:00Z

So Mao adopted his first Soviet-style Five-Year Plan for the years 1953 to 1957. Its key strategies involved (apart from the development of rural productivity as I discussed in an earlier post) rapid development of heavy industry and dependence on Soviet advice and technical and economic assistance. The workers became a privileged class, socially, economically and politically, over the peasants for the first time.

The peasants began to be relatively more exploited, though the workers were, too, as they were all pressured to meet Mao’s goals that turned out to be quite unrealistic in this period and with this style of economic development. Consumption was also explicitly limited. Hierarchy and bureaucracy became pervasive as the work place and its demands assumed the positions of centres of all urban life.

Almost all of this was at obvious odds with Mao’s innovation of the Yan’an-style ‘mass line’ and Mao himself would soon become a critic of this centralisation of control along with his people.

The next main problem was that agriculture simply could not be equipped so quickly for its role as funder of industrial growth (which occasioned excessive pressure and performance anxiety in the countryside to meet central goals).

Finally, there was the natural cultural conflict between the careerist bureaucratic style of new cadre and the old style Yan’an cadre of self-sacrifice.

The work unit (danwei) system had also created egalitarian collectivism which clashed with the hierarchical ‘one-man-management’ methods of the Soviet-style bureaucracy. This clash didn’t sit well with the masses any more than the new style cadres did.

There was also a lot of the city/country divide in the new contradictions.

In the cities the bureaucrats quickly became unpopular with the workers the bureaucracy was supposed to be serving as things seemed to not live up to their promise (the Obama effect with bells on).

A Hallowtide Reflection

2011-10-31T01:36:00Z

To mark All Hallows Eve (October 31), All Saints Day (November 1) and All Souls Day (November 2) I share the following reflection by Ed Hays, shared this morning as part of the liturgy at Spirit of St. Stephen’s Catholic Community.

Death is the greatest terrorist. So feared an enemy is death that we avoid thinking about it, unless forced to do so as when attending a funeral. We even find the word “death” unspeakable, and so replace “died” with “passed.” In prayer, we refer to the dead as the “deceased” or “departed.”

When someone dies in parts of Africa they don’t say they “have passed” or “departed,” but rather that they “have arrived!” This beautiful expression is saturated with the belief that their beloved dead have finally arrived at the destination toward which they have been traveling all their lives.

Upon hearing of someone’s death, our Muslim brothers and sisters say, “We have come from God, and we return to God, and we are on this journey each day of our lives.” Regardless of our age or health, you and I are at this very moment on a journey back to God, and none of us knows if today is the day of our arrival.

As you pass one milestone after another, live your homeward journey wisely and passionately praying words like these every day: Inspired, I squeeze the last drop of joy out of each day, not because I’ll die, but because You have made life’s joys appetizers of the delight of arriving.

– Ed Hays
Excerpted from Book of Wonders: Daily Reflections for Awakened Living
Ave Maria Press, 2009

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
All You Holy Men and Women
Halloween Thoughts
Halloween Hijinks
Quote of the Day – November 1, 2010
The Signalman: A Ghost Story by Charles Dickens

Image: Michael J. Bayly.

Climate science in a nutshell – Part 1

2011-10-30T23:09:19Z

James Hansen’s Storms of my Grandchildren has been affectionately described as having “a rambling quality that’s sometimes evident in Hansen’s speeches”. However, the same reviewer also noted that “the book does get to a focused and well-supported conclusion: that business as usual will bring climate catastrophe, and our time to act is running short”.

Based on over 20 years of professional hydrogeological work experience, I believe that probabilistic computer models are useful, as does James Hansen. Undoubtedly, he would be very quick to point out, as does Clive Hamilton, that the only uncertainty in model predictions arises out of uncertainty in emissions forecasts; and not out of any uncertainty regarding climate sensitivity to changes in atmospheric CO2. Despite all this, the most remarkable and challenging thing about Hansen’s book is its focus on what we can learn from studying changes to the Earth’s climate over geological timescales (i.e. palaeoclimatology). It is therefore clear that Hansen sees this, rather than climate modelling, as the best available evidence of the need for urgent recognition of – and response to – the fact that human activity is endangering all life on Earth.

In pages 36 to 51 of Storms of my Grandchildren, Hansen provides an introduction to what we can learn from palaeoclimatology. However, one basic fact is not clearly stated, which is a shame. This fact, however, is clearly stated in the first episode of David Attenborough’s new BBC series, Frozen Planet: Most people are probably familiar with the fact that warm air holds more moisture than cold air, but how many are aware that water at 30 Celsius can only hold half as much dissolved CO2 as it can at 10 Celsius? Furthermore, how many could say why this is so fundamentally important to climate science?

In this post and those that follow it this week, I intend to unpack all this sort of stuff; and demonstrate why the time is well overdue for climate sceptics to stop denying that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is happening, significant and bad; and why it is therefore a problem that we simply must try and mitigate. However, for now, let us just focus on this issue of CO2 solubility in water, which is a key to understanding the palaeoclimatic record (e.g. as revealed from studying ice core data from holes drilled through the Antarctic ice cap).

Although Antarctica was first glaciated (i.e. covered in ice) 35 million years ago, the current ice cap (over 4 kilometres thick in places) only provides a record of several 100 thousand years but, believe me, this is enough for us to understand how planet Earth works. From this data, we know that there have been 8 ice ages in the last 750,000 years, and we know that they were all caused by regular wobbles in the angle of the Earth’s axis of rotation and less-regular variations in the non-circularity (i.e. eccentricity) of its orbit. We also know that changes in the CO2 content of the atmosphere, which match those in the Earth’s temperature exactly, happened several hundred years later in each and every case. This is because of the way in which the Earth regulates its temperature (ensuring an energy balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing infra-red radiation) using the solubility of CO2 in water:

Put very simply, when the oceans cool down (during the onset of an ice age), they absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and, because it has been removed from the atmosphere, more heat is lost to space. Thus the Earth stays cold until the natural forcing induces warming (e.g. axis of rotation becomes less vertical again). Then, as the oceans warm up they release CO2 into the atmosphere, trapping more heat in, keeping the planet warm. Thus, both glacial and interglacial periods represent times of energy balance; whereas periods of transition represent times of energy imbalance that are eliminated by atmospheric CO2 changes.

The next step in understanding palaeoclimatic changes is to differentiate between forcings (that bring about change) and feedbacks (that amplify or accelerate any change). It is the existence of amplifying feedback mechanisms that make artificial changes to the atmospheric CO2 concentration so dangerous. However, quite how dangerous, we can only discover by looking in detail at changes that have occurred over the last 400,000 years. This, then, is what I will do tomorrow.

#249 – Pauline Hanson

2011-10-30T23:13:30Z

There was once a time when claiming that bogans enjoyed the nasal whine, fierce ignorance and misguided nationalism of Pauline Hanson would be misguided in itself, and begging for a backlash. While the bogan insists that it is not racist, it is more than happy to broadly stereotype and generalise on the basis of ethnicity or skin colour. The bogan of today is, however, cognisant enough of the forces of Political Correctness Gone Mad to avoid making blanket statements in public about the country being swamped by Asians, and instead its racism was never entirely of a piece with that of Ms Hanson. The result was that the bogan was deeply conflicted over the former member for Oxley.

On one hand, it secretly agreed that it was indeed being swamped by Asians (who couldn’t drive), was having its taxpayer dollars siphoned off to layabout aborigines (who were all alcoholics) and that it was subject to reverse racism because it was neither of those things and didn’t receive sufficient support in Making Ends Meet. On the other, it was not racist. The result was a strange kind of mental stagnation, as the bogan’s rigorously programmed brain was confronted with an unsolvable paradox. The result was that Pauline Hanson really attracted only the votes of those completely happy to be racist – old people.

But that was then. The past five years has given the bogan every chance to engage in Hanson’s very public rehabilitation, as the trashmedia, short of anything it could legitimately call ‘celebrities’ settled for people that were at least ‘recognisable’. Midway through realising that her 2004 attempt to re-enter federal politics was doomed, she instead opted to fail more generally at life, by featuring on Dancing with the Stars. Immediately sensing the chance to ‘forgive’ a ‘celebrity’, the bogan instantly propelled her to the final, only to be confronted by a choice between a forgiven Hanson and an ascendant Hewitt.

After that, Hanson released an autobiography called Untamed and Unashamed, two things the bogan, rebellious Underbelly viewer that it is, certainly considers itself to be. Less mentioned is Hanson’s earlier book called The Truth, which suggested that Aborigines routinely engaged in cannibalism. Nonetheless, Hanson’s journey to bogan forgiveness is now complete, as she competes alongside a series of utterly failed semi-public figures in Celebrity Apprentice, a program that is effectively designed to see which low-rent, feckless Australian is most willing to debase themselves in order to garner a few more moments in the public eye.

Today, Pauline Hanson is comfortably ensconced in the bogan pantheon, with a lifetime of income to be drawn from her continued public exposure for no reason beyond the fact that the bogan recognises her. Once, she was (allegedly) driven to electoral fraud in order to make a crust, but from now on, she may suckle on the nourishing, engorged teat of the bogan’s ignorance. And she will.

As Qantas totters a little bit of dinky di Aussie life-saving will fix what ails ya ...

2011-10-30T19:49:00Z

(Above: when in doubt, always book the horse and cart).

Wonders never cease on the pond - the world is a wondrous place - and one of the wonders of the commentariat world this morning, right up there with the Taj Mahal, is Field Marshall Grumpy Paul Sheehan (known to some as trollumnist in chief of Fairfax) scribbling Spirit of Australia is faltering.

After a ritual bashing of pilots, and of Qantas International, and of Tony Sheldon, and of the Fair Work Act, Sheehan then discovers that in a domestic context Virgin is unionised and at industrial peace with its staff while paying relatively similar rates ...

Cognitive dissonance.

So Sheehan spends the rest of his column working out that Qantas management might have found a more subtle way to resolve its industrial issues than strand, without warning or suitably structured assistance, thousands of customers around the world.

It must have been some kind of Eureka moment ... and it leads Sheehan to compare and contrast the board decision to appoint the confrontational Alan Joyce, as opposed to John Borgetti, now heading up Virgin Blue, and to wonder if the board made the right call in appointing Joyce. Wonders will never cease ...

Sheehan even comprehends that amongst all the crimes by all involved, the worst belongs to Joyce. You can't call unions and unionists greedy - though they might well be - if you've just supped at the trough of greed yourself, and taken a mighty big slurp at that. It leaves you fatally compromised in negotiations.

Better to have righteously turned down the offer, made it known you'd turned down the offer, then bashed the unions around the head for their greed, then stick out your paw six months or a year down the track, or do a Dixon and take the cheque on the way out the door ...

So it's left to John Lloyd of the Institute of Public Affairs to carry the ideological can at Fairfax, in Airline fracas is IR blister waiting to burst, and blame it all on the government and unions and Fair Work, proving that wonders, like rainbows, only happen every so often, and zealotry and ideological blinkers usually reign supreme ...

In the process, proving you head off to the IPA if you don't have the first clue about management. Perhaps they could offer Joyce a gig as head of the place and so help out Qantas?

It takes a special kind of blindness to think that any party involved in the dispute can walk away heads held high, and think it's all the fault of the Federal Government ...

But enough of the Qantas dispute, which has produced an enormous media frenzy, of little interest to those who've who long ago made the long haul jump to the likes of Singapore Airlines, and the short haul jump to Virgin.

It's only an airline, not the spirit of Australia - unless Australia is totally fucked - and if Joyce wants to re-invent it as a low cost Asian carrier competing with other low cost Asian carriers, its days are already numbered ... especially as Joyce and the unions go about the business of trashing the brand with a ferocity even their competitors couldn't manage ...

No, with the news from Afghanistan bad yet again, as Australian soldiers go about the business of training locals in the business of killing them, the pond felt in need of a lighter moment to start the week, so come on down Rowan Dean's Islam soft-sell has got legs, but note the fine print.

It seems that local Muslims, courtesy of MyPeace, have embarked on an advertising campaign to overcome branding problems which are even bigger than Qantas.

If you watch the campaign, it seems Islam is as dinky di as vegemite and lifesavers (and once upon a time a comely Qantas hostie ...)

And across the aisle, the Christians are also mounting an advertising campaign, Jesus - All About Life.

Yep, it's advertising agencies at ten paces, and you couldn't get a better insight into the wretched level religion has fallen to in the community, but not to worry, the pond felt compelled and trotted off to the mypeace site, and the top ten misconceptions about Islam.

Sadly the top ten conception that religion doesn't care about typos or good grammar was quickly confirmed, but the misconceptions also proved to be a marvel:

A child is also not allowed to get hit in the face or hit by anything larger than a pencil.

Well that'll be a great relief to children everywhere. Jeeves bring me a pencil, so I can strike that child on its naughty buttocks. Even better:

Children are even permitted to take moderately from their parent?s wealth to sustain themselves if the parent declines to give them proper funds for living.

Yep kiddies, make sure you get the pin number, head off to the auto teller and claim your proper funds for living, if your parents fail in their duty of care ...

Meanwhile, the rulers of Saudi Arabia are in for a shock:

There is nothing in Islam that forbids a Muslim woman from exiting her house and is allowed to drive. Also in regards to education, a woman is obligated to seek knowledge and it is considered a sin if she refuses.

Wouldn't you know it, all those sinful women living in Saudi Arabia. Which is why a few might snigger at:

Islam has given women more rights than any other religion on the face of the planet which is the main reason why the majority of converts to Islam are women.

Well Islam might do it, but it's a damn shame that all those Islamic countries seem not to have realised that's what Islam does.

And as for that notion of jihad?

... it is believed that anyone doing anything for the sake of god and is killed becomes a martyr. A person who dies while performing pilgrimage in Mecca, a woman who dies while giving birth, or even someone who dies in a car crash while he was on his way to the mosque are all considered martyrs.

Hmm, is catching Sydney transport the stuff to turn a Sydney sider into a martyr? What about being stranded by Qantas? Is that the short cut to heaven?

And then there are the ten rules of warfare every Muslim army must obey, including:

7. Do not harm or burn trees
8. Do not destroy buildings
9. Do not destroy an enemy?s flock, unless you use it for your food

Tree huggers! An army of greens, though perhaps not as vegan as they should be .... who could have imagined an IED would be so discerning?

But it's the historical revisionism that most appeals. Contrast ...

Historian De lacey O?Leary states ?History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated.? There is no record in history that shows people being forced by sword point to convert to Islam. When Islam spread through countries they would set up private churches and synagogues for the non Muslims they were governing and because of the good treatment they had received they themselves would convert.

with Steven Runciman's thoughts:

The first point to be made in defense of the Crusades is that they were initially a response to Islamic aggression. Islam, from its inception, had espoused the use of force. Where Jesus had died for his beliefs, the Prophet Mohammed had wielded a sword. Though Christianity was later to be exploited for political ends, the Christian religion as such had, in the first three centuries of its existence, spread peacefully--thriving, in fact, on the blood of its martyrs. I say this not to score a point in favor of Christianity but to emphasize an historical truth: The spread of Islam from the Arabian peninsula to southwestern France in the eighth century; and to the gates of Vienna in the seventeenth, came as a result of conquest by Islamic armies.

You see, there is a record of Islam sweeping through the world, especially in the early days and often at the point of a sword.

Perhaps it's a misconception of the pond, but it seems that first of all you need an army to take a territory before you can set up a privately funded mosque so that the locals can of their own free will convert, or find out what happens when you stay an unbeliever ...

Well there are other misconceptions, including the notion that all Muslims are Arabs and Muslims hate Jesus, and Muslims are terrorists, all dealt with in fine style, but truth to tell, if they'd sorted out the misconception that Muslims use ? instead of an ' or a ", things would have been a lot clearer ...

Sadly, after all these wonders, it was a tad disappointing to head off the Jesus. All About Life Campaign site, and read the following ...

Jesus didn't come to start an institution or an organisation ...

... followed by a list of the seventeen institutions, denominations and organisations supporting the campaign.

Ah well, it took our minds off the darker news of the day, and by slagging off Islam, it allow the pond a religious trifecta, and in this holiest of weeks, the feast of the Melbourne Cup, that's what counts ...

(Below: come on guys, get with the advertising campaign. First of all, you need to study lifesaving, add a touch of sun tanning lotion ...

and bingo, Bob's your uncle. The Alan Joyce of Aussie beaches).

Next thing you know, we could all become latter day Edie Kiefts ...

Edie Kieft?

Edie Kieft was possibly the first woman to qualify for the Surf Bronze Medallion in Australia. Although she passed the test with Tweed Heads and Coolangatta SLSC in 1923, and was given a bronze number, she was not awarded a medal because she was female.

By golly, it seems the Islamic tradition is strong in Australian lifesaving. And the dress is suitably modest too:

Keep it up MyPeace, I can feel the hunger of Australian males to return to the old ways and the good old days ...

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SkS Weekly Digest #22

2011-10-31T14:16:52Z

SkS Highlights

For the second week in a row, the findings of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study (BEST) were again the primary topic of discussion on SkS with the publication of two additional SkS articles, Bad, Badder, BEST and Yes, It's Still Us, and It's Still Bad. In addition, the recent dialogue between SkS and R. Roger Pielke Sr. was wrapped-up in Pielke Sr. and SkS Dialogue Final Summary.

Toon of the Week

The Week in Review

Here's a list of aticles posted on SkS during the past week.

Extreme Melting on Greenland Ice Sheet, Reports CCNY Team by John Hartz

Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial by John Cook

Pielke Sr. and SkS Dialogue Final Summary by Dana

Yes, It's Still Us, and It's Still Bad by Dana

Amazon Drought: Heat Stress Linked To Mass Tree Die Off In 2005 & 2010 by Rob Painting

Bad, Badder, BEST by Rob Honeycutt

Not so Permanent Permafrost by Agnostic

9 Months After McLean by Dana

Coming Soon

Here's a list of articles that are in the SkS pipeline. Most, but not necessarily all, will be posted during the week.

Extreme Events to Increase with Global Warming (Rob P)
Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties (Dana)
Watts, Surface Stations and BEST (logicman)
Singer's comments on BEST results: a debacle (Riccardo)
Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline (Dana)
Eschenbach's BEST? (Rob Honeycutt, Dana, Glenn, Kevin C)
Economic Growth and Climate Change, Part 1 (perseus)
Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 1 (James Powell)
The Last Interglacial: Part Five - A Crystal Ball? (Steve Brown)
New tool clears the air on cloud simulations (John H)

SkS in the News

Yes, It's Still Us, and It's Still Bad was re-posted by TreeHugger.

The Arab Intellectuals Who Didn’t Roar

2011-10-30T18:35:46Z

Another piece by Robert Worth in the NYT Magazine:

IN mid-June, the Syrian poet known as Adonis, one of the Arab world’s most renowned literary figures, addressed an open letter to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. The stage was set for one of those moments, familiar from revolutions past, in which an intellectual hero confronts an oppressive ruler and eloquently voices the grievances of a nation.

Instead, Adonis — who lives in exile in France — bitterly disappointed many Syrians. His letter offered some criticisms, but also denigrated the protest movement that had roiled the country since March, and failed even to acknowledge the brutal crackdown that had left hundreds of Syrians dead. In retrospect, the incident has come to illustrate the remarkable gulf between the Arab world’s established intellectuals — many of them, like Adonis, former radicals — and the largely anonymous young people who have led the protests of the Arab Spring.

More than 10 months after it started with the suicide of a Tunisian fruit vendor, the great wave of insurrection across the Arab world has toppled three autocrats and led last week in Tunisia to an election that many hailed as the dawn of a new era. It has not yielded any clear political or economic project, or any intellectual standard-bearers of the kind who shaped almost every modern revolution from 1776 onward. In those revolts, thinkers or ideologues — from Thomas Paine to Lenin to Mao to Vaclav Havel — helped provide a unifying vision or became symbols of a people’s aspirations.

The absence of such figures in the Arab Spring is partly a measure of the pressures Arab intellectuals have lived under in recent decades, trapped between brutal state repression on one side and stifling Islamic orthodoxy on the other. Many were co-opted by their governments (or Persian Gulf oil money) or forced into exile, where they lost touch with the lived reality of their societies. Those who remained have often applauded the revolts of the past year and even marched along with the crowds. But they have not led them, and often appeared stunned and confused by a movement they failed to predict.

#OccupySunday: Blood-Boiler du Jour

2011-10-30T18:06:15Z

In case you missed it... In an OpEd titled, "What the Costumes Reveal," New York Times columnist Joe Nocera wrote about a Halloween office party thrown by the N.Y. law firm of Steven J. Baum, an outfit that specializes in real estate foreclosures -- a "foreclosure mill," if you will -- where, apparently, employees came costumed as homeless and foreclosed-upon families.

Extreme Melting on Greenland Ice Sheet, Reports CCNY Team

2011-10-31T08:08:56Z

The following is a reprint of a news release posted by the City College of New York (CCNY) on Oct 13, 2011

Glacial Melt Cycle Could Become Self-Amplifying, Making it Difficult to Halt

The Greenland ice sheet can experience extreme melting even when temperatures don’t hit record highs, according to a new analysis by Dr. Marco Tedesco, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at The City College of New York. His findings suggest that glaciers could undergo a self-amplifying cycle of melting and warming that would be difficult to halt.

Marco Tedesco standing on the edge of one of four moulins (drainage holes) he and his team found at the bottom of a supraglacial lake during the expedition to Greenland in the summer, 2011. (Credit: P. Alexander)

(click thumbnail for larger-size image)

“We are finding that even if you don’t have record-breaking highs, as long as warm temperatures persist you can get record-breaking melting because of positive feedback mechanisms,” said Professor Tedesco, who directs CCNY’s Cryospheric Processes Laboratory and also serves on CUNY Graduate Center doctoral faculty.

Professor Tedesco and his team collected data for the analysis this past summer during a four-week expedition to the Jakobshavn Isbræ glacier in western Greenland. Their arrival preceded the onset of the melt season.

Combining data gathered on the ground with microwave satellite recordings and the output from a model of the ice sheet, he and graduate student Patrick Alexander found a near-record loss of snow and ice this year. The extensive melting continued even without last year’s record highs.

The team recorded data on air temperatures, wind speed, exposed ice and its movement, the emergence of streams and lakes of melt water on the surface, and the water’s eventual draining away beneath the glacier. This lost melt water can accelerate the ice sheet’s slide toward the sea where it calves new icebergs. Eventually, melt water reaches the ocean, contributing to the rising sea levels associated with long-term climate change.

The model showed that melting between June and August was well above the average for 1979 to 2010. In fact, melting in 2011 was the third most extensive since 1979, lagging behind only 2010 and 2007. The “mass balance”, or amount of snow gained minus the snow and ice that melted away, ended up tying last year’s record values.

Temperatures and an albedo feedback mechanism accounted for the record losses, Professor Tedesco explained. “Albedo” describes the amount of solar energy absorbed by the surface (e.g. snow, slush, or patches of exposed ice). A white blanket of snow reflects much of the sun’s energy and thus has a high albedo. Bare ice – being darker and absorbing more light and energy – has a lower albedo.

But absorbing more energy from the sun also means that darker patches warm up faster, just like the blacktop of a road in the summer. The more they warm, the faster they melt.

And a year that follows one with record high temperatures can have more dark ice just below the surface, ready to warm and melt as soon as temperatures begin to rise. This also explains why more ice sheet melting can occur even though temperatures did not break records.

Professor Tedesco likens the melting process to a speeding steam locomotive. Higher temperatures act like coal shoveled into the boiler, increasing the pace of melting. In this scenario, “lower albedo is a downhill slope,” he says. The darker surfaces collect more heat. In this situation, even without more coal shoveled into the boiler, as a train heads downhill, it gains speed. In other words, melting accelerates.

Only new falling snow puts the brakes on the process, covering the darker ice in a reflective blanket, Professor Tedesco says. The model showed that this year’s snowfall couldn’t compensate for melting in previous years. “The process never slowed down as much as it had in the past,” he explained. “The brakes engaged only every now and again.”

The team’s observations indicate that the process was not limited to the glacier they visited; it is a large-scale effect. “It’s a sign that not only do albedo and other variables play a role in acceleration of melting, but that this acceleration is happening in many places all over Greenland,” he cautioned. “We are currently trying to understand if this is a trend or will become one. This will help us to improve models projecting future melting scenarios and predict how they might evolve.”

Additional expedition team members included Christine Foreman of Montana State University, and Ian Willis and Alison Banwell of the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, UK.

Professor Tedesco and his team provide their preliminary results on the Cryospheric Processes Laboratory webpage. They will will be presenting further results at the American Geophysical Union Society (AGU) meeting in San Francisco on December 5 at 9 a.m. and December 6 at 11:35 a.m.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the NASA Cryosphere Program. The World Wildlife Fund is acknowledged for supporting fieldwork activities.

On the Internet:

2011 Melting in Greenland report
http://greenland2011.cryocity.org

Cryospheric Processes Laboratory
http://cryocity.org/

Professor Tedesco Tracks Life and Death of Greenland Glacial Lake
http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu/advancement/news/Tedesco-Greenland-Glacial-Lake.cfm

Map of expedition location
http://tinyurl.com/66h67so

Expedition Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cryocity/124269854300408

Expedition Twitter Feed
http://twitter.com/#!/Cryocity

Marco Tedesco profile
http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu/prospective/gsoe/ese/directory/profile-record.cfm?customel_datapageid_1237265=1252241

For the Media: The ABCs of Occupy

2011-10-30T13:52:21Z

Robert Freeman

It would be comical if it weren’t so pathetic, watching the media desperately trying not to understand what the Occupy movement is all about. So, for the aid of the occupationally obtuse bobble-headed bloviators, I’ll spell it out in Braille:

THE SYSTEM ISN’T WORKING!