New York Times Reports Al Gore Inaccurate and Alarmist on Global Warming

 

   Al Gore lectures.  Source of photo:  online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

 

(p. D1)  Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his three-alarm film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which won an Academy Award for best documentary. So do many environmentalists, who praise him as a visionary, and many scientists, who laud him for raising public awareness of climate change.

But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

. . .

(p. D6)  Geologists have documented age upon age of climate swings, and some charge Mr. Gore with ignoring such rhythms.

“Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet,” Robert M. Carter, a marine geologist at James Cook University in Australia, said in a September blog. “Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change.”

In October, Dr. Easterbrook made similar points at the geological society meeting in Philadelphia. He hotly disputed Mr. Gore’s claim that “our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this” threatened change.

Nonsense, Dr. Easterbrook told the crowded session. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts, he said, were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century.”

Getting personal, he mocked Mr. Gore’s assertion that scientists agreed on global warming except those industry had corrupted. “I’ve never been paid a nickel by an oil company,” Dr. Easterbrook told the group. “And I’m not a Republican.”

 

For the full story, see: 

WILLIAM J. BROAD.  "From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype." The New York Times  (Tues., March 13, 2007):  D1 & D6.

(Note:  ellipsis added.)

 

EasterbrookDon.jpg   Geologist Don Easterbrook.  Source of photo:  online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

 

GE Stands Up for Innovation and Free Choice

MoorheadRandallLightBulbs.jpg   Randall Moorehead’s Phillips Electronics wants the government to force us to switch from the incandescent bulb on the left, to bulbs like the Phillips bulb on the right.  Source of photo:  online version of the NYT article cited below.

 

WASHINGTON, March 13 — A coalition of industrialists, environmentalists and energy specialists is banding together to try to eliminate the incandescent light bulb in about 10 years.

In an agreement to be announced Wednesday, the coalition members, including Philips Lighting, the largest manufacturer; the Natural Resources Defense Council; and two efficiency organizations, are pledging to press for efficiency standards at the local, state and federal levels.  . . .

. . .

The Australian government said on Feb. 20 that it would seek to ban incandescent bulbs and replace them with compact fluorescents. Shortly thereafter, the environment minister of Ontario, Laurel Broten, said her province was considering a similar step, and a California assemblyman, Lloyd Levine, introduced a bill to do the same.

“Incandescent light bulbs were first developed almost 125 years ago,” Mr. Levine said, “and since that time they have undergone no major modifications.”

Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network, one of the groups in the alliance seeking to end the use of incandescent bulbs, predicted, “I think you’re going to see these disparate efforts adding up to this great tidal wave.” The problem, she said, was that “the incandescent spends most of its life making heat, not light.”

But General Electric, which traces its origins to Edison, said that could change.

“It’s shortsighted to freeze technology in favor of today’s high-efficiency compact fluorescent lamps,” the company said in a statement. ”We’d rather keep innovating and offering traditional, commercial and industrial consumers more energy-efficient choices — not fewer choices.”

 

For the full story, see: 

MATTHEW L. WALD.  "A U.S. Alliance to Update the Light Bulb."  The New York Times   (Weds., March 14, 2007):  C3.

(Note:  ellipses addd.)

 

Hospital Heart Care Better on Weekdays, than on Weekends

   The open spaces in the weekend hospital parking lot on the left, compared to the crowded weekday lot on the right, is consistent with the findings of lower weekend staffing levels.  (These photos are from Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital.)  Source of photos:  online version of the NYT article cited below. 

 

An extensive study of heart attack patients in New Jersey finds that those who arrived at hospitals on weekends were less likely to receive aggressive treatment and were slightly more likely to die than those who arrived on weekdays, researchers are reporting today.

The study, based on an analysis of 231,164 heart attack patients admitted to New Jersey hospitals from 1987 to 2002, found a gap of almost 1 percentage point in heart attack death rates over one three-year span, 12.9 percent for weekend patients and 12 percent for weekday patients.

The deaths occurred within a month of admission.

In that period, 1999 to 2002, 10 percent of weekday patients had angioplasty to open blocked arteries on the day they were admitted, compared with 6.7 percent of weekend patients. Angioplasty within a few hours of the start of heart attacks can interrupt the attacks and save lives.

The study, led by William J. Kostis, a fourth-year medical student at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., who also has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, is being published today in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Donald A. Redelmeier, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto who wrote an accompanying editorial, said the higher death rate on weekends “has everything to do with staffing in hospitals.” It can mean, Dr. Redelmeier said, that not enough expert medical staff members are available on weekends for prompt and aggressive treatment.

“It’s not just that there are fewer people around, but those who are around are often spread thinner,” he added. “And there is a shift in seniority, as well. The most skilled and savvy people don’t work weekends.”

 

For the full story, see: 

GINA KOLATA.  "Death Rate Higher in Heart Attack Patients Hospitalized on Weekends, Study Finds."  The New York Times  (Thurs., March 15, 2007):  A19.

 

 

Communist Hugo Chávez: Is He Loco to Fight Inflation with the Locha?

 

   Hugo Chávez expects to end inflation by bringing back the "locha" 12 ½-cent coin (held in this picture by coin dealer Antonio Allesandrini).  Source of photo:  online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.   

 

(p. 8)  CARACAS, Venezuela, March 17 — Of all the startling measures announced by President Hugo Chávez this year, from the nationalization of major utilities to threats of imprisonment for violators of price controls, none have baffled economists quite like his venture into monetary reform.

First, Mr. Chávez said the authorities would remove three zeroes from the denomination of the currency, the bolívar. Then he said the new bolívar, worth 1,000 old bolívars, would be renamed the “bolívar fuerte,” or strong bolívar.

Finally, at the behest of Mr. Chávez, the central bank said this week that it would reintroduce a 12.5-cent coin, a symbol of Venezuela’s prosperity in the 1960s and 1970s before freewheeling oil booms ended in abrupt devaluations, after three decades out of circulation.

Mr. Chávez champions these ideas, which will take effect in January, as ways to combat inflation, which in recent weeks crept up to 20 percent, the highest in Latin America.  . . .

. . .

“We’re witnessing policy in the form of window dressing, all carried out at the whim of one man whose strong point is not economics,” said Hugo Faría, an economist at the Institute of Higher Management Studies, a private business school here. “Anyone who sees a 12 ½-cent coin as a remedy for this country’s problems isn’t thinking too clearly.”

 

For the full story, see: 

SIMON ROMERO.  "Venezuelan Lender Sets Siights on Currency Valuation."  The New York Times, Section 1  (Sun., March 18, 2007):  8.

(Note:  ellipses added.)

(Note:  the online version of the title is the slightly different, "Venezuela to Give Currency New Name and Numbers.")

 

To the Ultimate Luddites: “Build Coffins, That’s All You’ll Need”

   Charlton Heston as Robert Neville, the last scientist on earth.  Source of photo:  http://datacore.sciflicks.com/the_omega_man/images/the_omega_man_large_09.jpg

 

In the 1970s, one of my favorite films was "The Omega Man" (1971) starring Charlton Heston as the doctor/scientist who was the last healthy man on earth.  A plague had killed most of humanity, leaving a few in a demented "tertiary" condition.  Heston as "Robert Neville" had developed a vaccine, but only had been able to test it on himself, as the world collapsed.  

Those in the "tertiary" state had been organized by a former broadcast commentator named "Matthias" into the "family" whose goal it was to burn books, and destroy all remnants of science and technology. 

At one point near the end, the family captures Neville, and as the family destroys Neville’s paintings, and laboratory, Matthias rants that Neville is the last scientist, the last remnant of the old world, and that all will be well when they have destroyed him.  Then comes one of my favorite exchanges.

 

Matthias: Now we must build.

Robert Neville: Build coffins, that’s all you’ll need.

 

When I saw the movie again today (3/16/07) for the first time in decades, I was worried that I had built it up in my memory, and that the reality would be way disappointing. 

I was relieved to see that the movie, though not perfect, was still plenty good enough.

 

Pushing the Flywheel of Business (and Life)

 

FlywheelGiant.gif   A flywheel lathe from the mid-1700s.  Source of image:  http://www.stuartking.co.uk/articles/lathe.htm

 

In Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, I really liked his flywheel analogy, that makes the point that in business (and life), success often is mainly due to the day-in-day-out exertion of effort and care.  The version below is from a Collins article, based on his book.

 

Now picture a huge, heavy flywheel. It’s a massive, metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle. It’s about 100 feet in diameter, 10 feet thick, and it weighs about 25 tons. That flywheel is your company. Your job is to get that flywheel to move as fast as possible, because momentum — mass times velocity — is what will generate superior economic results over time.

Right now, the flywheel is at a standstill. To get it moving, you make a tremendous effort. You push with all your might, you make a tremendous effort…and finally you get the flywheel to inch forward. After two or three days of sustained effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire turn. You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move a bit faster. It takes a lot of work, but at last the flywheel makes a second rotation. You keep pushing steadily. It makes three turns, four, five, six turns. With each turn it moves faster, and then – at some point, you can’t say exactly when – you break through. The momentum of the heavy wheel kicks in your favor. It spins faster and faster, with its own weight propelling it. You aren’t pushing any harder, but the flywheel is accelerating, its momentum building, its speed increasing.

 

Source: 

Jim Collins.  "Good to Great."  Fast Company 51 (September 2001):  90.

 

Under Capitalism, the “Innately Conscientious” Usually Earn More

 

In the excerpt below, the WSJ summarizes an article that appeared in Forbes on March 12, 2007.  The summarized study implies that those who are innately conscientious end up being rewarded with higher income.  I hope it is true.  My guess is that the world comes closer to working that way under capitalist institutions, than under other economic systems.  (Note that this study was done by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, which implies that we’re talking about what happens in the United States.)

 

The insight originates in 1979, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics paid 12,700 young people $50 to take a range of tests, one of which required a simple code to be deciphered. The BLS has since surveyed the test takers regularly. Going through the data, Carmit Segal, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Business School, found a strong relationship between someone’s score in the coding test and his or her income over 20 years later, even taking into account differences in IQ.

Ms. Segal argues those who did well on the test were driven entirely by an innate conscientiousness, because candidates had nothing to gain from doing well on it.

 

For the full story, see: 

"The Informed Reader; Workplace; Job Test That Predicts Effort Gets Help From Professors."  The Wall Street Journal  (Mon., February 26, 2007):  B6.

(Note:  the online version has a different subtitle:  "A Tricky Test Could Reveal Job Applicants’ Work Ethic")

 

“We In Las Vegas Reinvent Ourselves All the Time”

 

   Dust from the implosion of the Stardust.  Source of the photo:  online version of the NYT article cited below.

 

If any city in the United States has dynamism, it is Las Vegas.  Yet, note in the passage below, that even in Las Vegas there are those who want dynamism to die.  

 

Las Vegas has become known in recent decades for tearing down the notable resorts that first put the Strip on the map, and famous places like the Dunes, the Hacienda and the Sands have been replaced by the Bellagio, the Mandalay Bay and the Venetian.

“The Stardust was the Bellagio of its day, the most dazzling casino out there,” said Nicholas Pileggi, who spent four years researching the exploits of Frank Rosenthal, the mobster who ran the Stardust, for his best-selling nonfiction book “Casino” and the fictionalized screenplay for the Robert DeNiro film of the same name. “But time moves on.” 

The oldest casino structure on the Strip now is a part of a coffee shop at the Sahara and dates back just 55 years.

“Unlike most other cities, we in Las Vegas reinvent ourselves all the time,” Mr. Boyd said. “In order to keep up with the competition, you have to keep improving your product. That’s what we’re going to do here at the Stardust. But we still have great memories.”

Some are not so accepting of the changes in the city. Joel Rosales, 23, owns the Web site LeavingLV.net, which pays tribute to each property that is razed.

The loss of the Stardust, Mr. Rosales said, is particularly disappointing.

“Having been born and raised here in Vegas, it’s always been a rock,” he said of the resort. “I wouldn’t say I’m as upset as I am disappointed that we as a city have no sense of preserving our past and heritage, no matter how tacky or out-of-date it may be.”

 

For the full story, see: 

STEVE FRIESS.  "Aging Resort Demolished to Make Way for a Young One."  The New York Times  (Weds., March 14, 2007):   A14.

 

    Celebration of, and then demolition of, the Stardust.  Source of the photo:  online version of the NYT article cited above.

 

George Stigler on Astrology

 

I remember George Stigler saying (I think in conversation with me, but maybe as an aside in a lecture), that at first he had been inclined to reject a paper for the JPE that empirically tested astrology.  His reason was that, while he liked what the authors were doing, he was not sure that what they were doing, most appropriately belonged in an economics journal.

But when the authors convinced him that they would not be able to publish it anywhere else, he changed his mind and published it.

The episode tells us something about Stigler, and something about scientific method.  About Stigler, the episode provides strong evidence of the importance that Stigler placed on evidence, relative to theory.

On scientific method, the episode can be taken as an illustration of Karl Popper’s distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification.  There are many sources of hypotheses (the context of discovery).  Famously, Kepler’s inspiration for the elliptical paths of planets, had a somewhat mystical source in the "perfect" solids.  But what makes a theory "scientific" is not its context of discovery, but its context of justification, viz., is the theory subjected to empirical test?

Hypotheses are not ruled out of science ab initio, but by being inconsistent with the evidence.  I agree with this view, which explains why I am a (passive) member of the Society for Scientific Exploration, which is devoted to the empirical testing of politically incorrect theories (such as UFOs, the Shroud of Turin, ESP, the Loch Ness Monster, etc.)

 

The JPE astrology article, accepted by Stigler as editor, was: 

Bennett, James T., and James R. Barth. "Astronomics: A New Approach to Economics?" Journal of Political Economy 81, no. 6 (Nov.-Dec. 1973): 1473-75.

 

A more recent empirical test of an astrological hypothesis is:

Wong, Ka-Fu, and Linda Yung. "Do Dragons Have Better Fate?" Economic Inquiry 43, no. 3 (July 2005): 689-97.

 

For more on Popper’s views of science, consult:

Popper, Karl R. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Basic Books, 1959.

 

Venturing Into the Mean Streets to Get the Job Done

 

(p. 108)  It is worth pausing for a second to reflect on Snow’s willingness to pursue his investigation this far.  Here we have a man who had reached the very pinnacle of Victorian medical practice—attending on the queen of England with a procedure that he himself had pioneered—who was nonetheless willing to spend every spare moment away from his practice knocking on hundreds of doors in some of London’s most dangerous neighborhoods, seeking out specifically those houses that had been attacked by the most dread disease of the age.  But without that tenacity, without that fearlessness, without that readiness to leave behind the safety of professional success and royal patronage, and venture into the streets, his "grand experiment"—as Snow came to call it—would have gone nowhere.   The miasma theory would have remained unchallenged,

 

Source: 

Johnson, Steven. The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006.