Talking Science

This morning on Sounds Like Canada, Shelagh Rogers interviewed Dr. Sumaila about some comments made by fishers about harvesting hagfish off the East Coast, or something to that effect (I only caught the end of the fishers' comments). He notes that we're now harvesting the bottom-feeders (e.g. hagfish), literally, for food, and it will not only prevent the ecosystems that they're inhabiting from recovery in the future, but that our society has so little pride that we'd sink this low for food.

What was more interesting was Shelagh's question asking him about whether his use of everyday language to explain his concern meant that he was speaking as Dr. Sumaila the person or as the scientist. This of course implied that scientists, for all intents and purposes, always spoke in jargon. Dr. Sumaila plainly corrected her that he is speaking as both since he's merely using the right type of language for the right type of audience.

Of course, that's not always the case, as evidenced by the newly released "A scientist's guide to talking to the media". It's supposed to be a guide for scientists on how to interview and describe their work to popular media without having it misconstrued or misreported. Because as most people who reads newspapers or any reporting knows, everyone will hear or read about the incorrect fact, but rarely the correction. This puts scientists ill-at-ease when talking to the press because their reputation, and sometimes more, can be at risk over their work.

If it is as useful as it is described, then it will become an important text that all aspiring scientists should read. The Evolution/Intelligent Design debacle has shown the power of rhetoric and how that can sway public opinion over an issue. It is therefore incumbent upon the scientific community to argue in the popular media in an influential and convincing way that the research speaks for itself as truth, in all its messiness. Of course, that's the limitation. Scientific endeavour is a messy process and it can sometimes be difficult to describe. However, we shouldn't shy away from it.
It's also why I think Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is an interesting and important movie. He took the complex issue of climate change, with all the scientific research behind it and distilled it into a presentation that people of all education could understand. He simplified the message, but not the science. We know this because for all the minor errors that scientists have admitted, they have also stated that the core of his message is accurate. Also, his use of the stunning before/after images of glaciers, etc. to dramatize his point is just powerful.

This is how science should be presented.


P.S. Definitely a good Christmas gift for Katie. And if it happens that I should borrow it, then so much the better. Also made me want to re-read "Politics and the English Language" too.

Update 10/31/06 10:03 AM: By 'this morning', I meant yesterday, as in 10/30/06. I started writing this at 11pm and didn't finish til 1 am. Sorry for the confusion. h/t to Matt for catching it.

The Clean Air Act (I): Blowfish

(Mainly due to my slackery, I’m going to break up my analysis (such as it is) of the Conservative government’s Clean Air Act into a few parts. So bear with me.

Let me first say that the Liberals CAN NEVER attack the Conservatives on the issue of Climate Change. They had 13 years since the Rio Summit and nine years since the Kyoto Accord to do something substantial. Instead, we got years upon years of consultation and some half-hearted programs. It didn’t help that the Official Opposition (the Conservatives) attacked climate change as a figment of the world’s imagination (irony, no?). All the while, our country’s GHG (GreenHouse Gas) emissions have gone up while other countries (notably European ones) have been working hard to meet the Kyoto targets. So thanks, Liberal Party of Canada, for sitting on your hands instead of leading.

That being said, the Clean Air Act is good politics, but poor policy. Some good ideas are there, but the follow-through is weak, like spaghetti noodle weak.

So let’s deal with the politics first. Why is it good politics? Even though the policy IS weak (which I will explain in an upcoming post), it shows voters that they’re finally doing something about climate change (even though they’re hiding it behind the catch-all of ‘air pollution’). That’s the problem though. They’re doing something, not something substantial. While air pollution is a serious issue, climate change is much more serious especially considering it is a global-scale issue (where I would argue, often times air pollution is to an extent, a localized issue). The local concerns almost always trumps the global.
The Harper Conservatives only ever meekly admit in public that climate change is an issue (except for Garth Turner, and look what happened to him...)…and only when prodded while the spotlight’s on them. God forbid they say the name…you know, Kyoto (yes, yes, it’s still a Japanese city. It’s okay. You can say it). I don't know why critics have to still accuse the government of abandoning Kyoto...The Liberals left the Kyoto Accord bleeding and gasping for air. The Conservatives just put the final bullet in its head.

They’ve gotten praises from some industry groups and some fringe lobby group masquerading as speaking the truth about climate change, but that’s not a surprise since they’re the ones who would be happy with inaction. Meanwhile, the opposition parties, the environmental groups, many pundits, have seen this for what it is: A blowfish. It looks big, but really there’s nothing inside.

The opposition parties have even stated that they will kill this Bill (C-30) on second reading. So now, it plays even better to the Conservative’s advantage since, whenever the next election comes around, they can argue that, “we had a plan in place, except the Opposition killed it. So vote for us, because we actually tried to do something”. If that isn’t a win-win for them, I don’t know what is. They get to make the Opposition look partisan and unconcerned, all the while they don’t have to do something they never believed in. Not that it matters, because even if this bill passes, It won't have an appreciable effect on reducing GHG emissions anyways.

So Part II, dealing with the actual policy will arrive shortly.

In the meantime, for ACTUAL climate change answers and information, go to RealClimate. It’s a blog written by the actual scientists working on this issue, the people on the ground, in the air, everywhere, as it were.

PS: I'd like to say I wrote that last paragraph before I read the Maisonneuve article and while we pretty much say the same thing, I liked the way they said it. That's why that person's a journalist, and I'm just a blogger sitting at home.

What the world needs more of...

Jon Stewart just showed it on his show tonight: Microwaveable pancake-wrapped sausage on a stick! That's right, it comes in a multitude of flavours too.

Ahh, just like how mom used to make it...

Garth Turner, where will you go?

As mentioned in various outlets today, Conservative MP Garth Turner was kicked out of caucus today because of alleged breaches in confidentiality and attacks on caucus members stemming from his blog. While he expressed surprise about his ouster, others less so. Some viewed it as hypocritical, others thought it was punishment for not fully towing the party line, while others humourously likened it to 1984.

Meanwhile, Garth urged everyone to "go and read it, and make up your own mind."

So I did. Here's what I found. Not much.

Granted, I only read October's worth of posts, but I couldn't really find anything close to resembling attacks on party members. True, he was skeptical of the Conservative's action plan on climate change, but then anyone with some education on the issue would be skeptical too. I still wouldn't characterize it as an attack.

As for the confidentiality breach, the closest thing I could think of was his thoughts after a Finance Committee meeting (that he's on) and his speculation on what the Budget Update might look like. But here's the thing. It was all speculation. His exact words were:

"As a consequence, I have no idea how this committee will end up recommending anything. Which is why Jim Flaherty is not waiting, telling an audience today that more personal and business tax cuts are coming, along with some new measures to help lower-income people get back into the work force...So, I’d wager the coming budget will look pretty much like this:"

And he goes on to list some things he thinks will happen and/or wants in the Budget. But he never out and out says "Jim Flaherty is promising these things will happen". Is that splitting hairs? I don't think so. Not once in the entire post did he elude to knowing exactly what Finance Minister Flaherty will report to Parliament. Plus, it wasn't even a caucus meeting. It was a finance committee meeting, which I'm assuming (and maybe that's my mistake) other non-Tory members do sit on and would know whatever MP Turner knew. So unless there were actual instances of breaching confidentiality in his earlier posts and the Ontario caucus decided to do nothing until now (for whatever reason), then I don't know where the accusations are coming from.

His detractors, however, are glad to be rid of this 'maverick', especially for being too cozy with the Green Party leader Elizabeth May. I find it disappointing that you can be branded pretty much as a traitor if you so much as talk to someone from a different political stripe or share common views and opinions. And if people use his MPTV vlog segments as proof of this coziness, they needed to be reminded of the fact that he's also interviewed Liberals, Tories and Dippers too.

The other thing that bothers me is that many commenters (not the posters) on right-wing blogs have already accepted the fact that he breached confidentiality, even though no one's offered proof. Please, for the love of all that is logical, read his damn blog before making a judgment about whether he did breach it or not. I don't doubt that I may be wrong, but as I said, if there were earlier breaches, why did it take so long for something to happen?

Matt, I would love to hear your reaction to this event, particularly this comment on Stephen Taylor's post:

"...Our system is based on an adversarial approach. It is important that the party stick together and oppose the opposition, not each other. Turner has shown thru his blog and interviews he has the right, despite being elected as a member of a political party to act as an independent without consideration for his party and colleagues. His disloyalty to the party and the leader has now come to bear. Mr. Turner should sit as an independent and see how much attention he will get from the media now..."

As a capper, those same detractors think he'd fit right in with the Green Party. I wonder if that's because they've actually read the Green Party platform and found that they mesh well with Garth's views or whether they've just read about his environmental views and pigeonholed him into the one party which has a broad environmental mandate? And what does that say about conservatives' stance on the environment?

The blogging equivalent of cocktail wieners

Via Metafilter:

- Once again, a school's banning the game of Tag because...well, I don't quite know.

- A scathing invective from Rolling Stone on how bad the 109th Congress has been. Apparently, really, really bad.

- I wonder if weapon designers ever get ideas from NERF...or vice versa?

The life and death of the electric car

image courtesy EV1 Club.
Scenario: If a car company like Honda or Chrysler discontinues a line of automobiles citing insufficient sales and demand, would you expect them to recall all leased vehicles of that model so that they could be destroyed?

Probably not. So why did GM recall, round up and destroy almost every EV1 (one was given to a museum)?

This is one of the main question stemming from the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car" that I watched this weekend with Wade at the Screening Room in Kingston.

The documentary narrative spann California's intiative in the early '90s requiring automakers to develop ZEVs (Zero-Emission Vehicles), the introduction of several electric vehicles, most famously GM's EV1, the subsequent cancellation of its sales, the complete recall of every EV1* (since all were only available for lease), the grassroots campaign to buy out the vehicles (which was refused), and the subsequent destruction of all the EV1 vehicles on the GM proving Grounds in California.

*At the time, EV1s were touted to be very clean, fast and efficient, because there were no combustion engine, just a set of batteries and a motor. It had a range of about 100 miles on a single charge and had comparable speeds with regular sedans. This would conceivably meet most city dweller's needs since, for the most part, a daily commute very rarely exceed 100 miles.

image courtesy EV1 Club.

To this day, no one really knows why GM decided to round up all these cars to be destroyed. This resonated with me because it reminded me about the cancellation of the Avro Arrow program and the subsequent destruction of all test planes, models and documents. In both cases, it just seems illogical by both parties to destroy technology that was ahead of its time when it could have been stored away for a future opportunity to revisit the techonlogy.

I can understand cancellation of sales if there was insufficient demand (though that's disputed in the film of course). But if existing customers who've already leased your vehicle and want to buy out the lease, why refuse? It doesn't make any sense to alienate customers like that. It can't be because of worry about litigation over maintenance since companies warn about products they no longer provide technical support for all the time. And it's these element that brings a feeling of a sinister agenda behind this action.

One interesting point was the fact that it was a paradoxical product that could never reach its potential. I mean, why would automakers want to sell a product that exposes the inadequacies and inefficiencies of your other products, right? There was never a willingness to push the electic car onto the public consciousness. The ad campaign for the EV1 evokes a stalker movie, for crying out loud. 'I wouldn't want an EV1 to eat my children', is what the message was telling me. An iPod campaign it ain't.

Another interesting point dealt with the maintenance of the vehicle. They interviewed a mechanic who had serviced both types of vehicles. He commented that when an EV1 came in for a service check, all he really did was refill wiper fluid and rotate the tires. He laughed about how his hands were so much cleaner than when servicing regular cars. A car with an internal combustion engine required oil changes, new mufflers, timing belts, etc. Think of the resources saved not having to produce these products and the money saved by consumers not having to purchase these products.

While the EV1 is now dead, others have risen to take it's place, namely Tesla Motors' Tesla Motor and Feel Good Car's (a Toronto company no less) ZENN neighbourhood vehicle. Providentially, there was an article in Monday's Toronto Star about the push for plug-in hybrids (gasoline/electric hybrid cars that can also be run by soley charging the battery, ala EV1 and the rest). The money quote:

"...A few weeks later, Bloomberg News — citing unnamed sources — reported that General Motors was developing a plug-in hybrid. GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz has more or less backed up that report, writing in his corporate blog last month that the auto giant is studying plug-in hybrids and "will have more to say about those soon."

Is GM kidding me?! They're doing research on technology they already have? They could've been ahead of the curve if they improved and pushed the EV1 and are instead playing catch-up. With technology constantly improving, there are already batteries available that can provide the same mileage as conventional cars or hybrids. Way to go guys. I can see why your market share's been dropping.

"No doubt, they're also facing pressure from the U.S. government. Because large-scale introduction of plug-in hybrids has the potential to dramatically reduce oil consumption, and therefore U.S. dependence on foreign oil, George W. Bush is all over the idea..."

You know what would drastically reduce oil consumption more than plug-in hybrids? Cars that didn't rely on gasoline at all. Now where in recent memory did we have cars that could do that...?

P.S. Scariest/Funniest moment in the movie: the documentary interviews Mel Gibson about him owning an EV1. Unfortunately, they were interviewing him when he still had that giant "I've been in the jungle for the last couple years filming 'Apocalypto' so I didn't shave and oops I've now been arrested for drunk driving and saying anti-semitic remarks so it makes me look Ca-Razy" beard. I couldn't pay attention at all to what he was saying because the beard was just too big and scraggly and mesmerizing...

Aurora...Borealis, that is.

Sorry for another embed. I would've commented on the Conservative Government's Green Plan II, except well, no one technically knows what it is except for some vague commitments and even then, many in the blogosphere and the mainstream media have already made critical comments. I won't make mine until the actual plan is presented to Parliament (though a supposed leaked plan already have some environmental groups worried and the idea of capping emissions by intensity is just not effective).

Instead of that, you can all watch an amazing time-lapse video of a night's worth of the aurora borealis (northern lights). Since I didn't get the junior planning job in Iqaluit, this is the closest I'll get in the next little while to seeing them:

Got a case of the Humans?

Confused? This should explain things:



Hat tip to Wes.

See Vous Play

While the buzz all this weekend in Toronto was Nuit Blanche, the self-described, "free all-night contemporary art thing", International Music Day (supposedly) was overlooked on Sunday. CBC Radio 3 and its French partner, Bande A Part, hosted "See Vous Play", a free concert that night at the Kool Haus, featuring four bands, two English, two French: Les Breastfeeders, Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton, Les Trois Accords and the Joel Plaskett Emergency.

My recent travels and laziness caused me to pretty much both events, including the live webcast of See Vous Play. Luckily for me and for you (if you're so inclined), CBC Radio 3 has it available in streaming radio and podcast format.

So what are you waiting for?