Seattle Divestment Forum, Oct. 17-18

Just a public service announcement for this climate divestment discussion. I'll do my best to make it, probably just for the 18th. If you're going, drop a comment.

They Shudda Asked Eli

Back sometime ago, Eli pointed out that one Richard S. Courtney, IPCC expert peer reviewer and scientist, was not Richard S. Courtney, Professor at Kutztown University, pictured on the left so that if you should meet him on the street and not know, and that he would appreciate someone at the Heartland Institute recognizing this, and Richard S. Courtney replied that he never went near Epsom, Surrey, to which Eli replied that he was a mere DiplPhl and not a DPhil, a (a bunny had to be there to appreciate the humor).  Turns out that EIKE, the bunnies remember EIKE, and their peerless leader, H.-L. Lüdecke, have the same interesting member on their Advisory Board, one Prof. Dr. Richard S. Courtney, Geologe, Kutztown University, Pennsylvania USA.  One wonders if the Richard S. Courtney, IPCC Expert Peer Reviewer might have informed them of this problem.

Eli thanks John Mashey for pointing this out.  Shall Rabett Run leave EIKE to their pleasant delusions or not.

Inside the Third Reich

I had planned to review two memoirs, Ulysses Grant and Albert Speer, but it's just been too long to say anything coherent about Grant's book other than it's well worth reading and escaped from copyright. Both books are well-written which is the key thing, much more so than honesty or historical value. It relates to my guess as to why I prefer Roy Spencer over RPJr. despite Roy being even more wrong:  Roy's a good writer.

To finish up with Grant, he's probably not worth reading though if you don't like military history. His account of the Mexican-American War, where he served with Robert E Lee, filled a substantial gap in my own knowledge. He never discusses his mostly-failed administration, which is unfortunate. He does put the war criminal/racist-for-his-time Nathan Forrest in his place. More than worth the price.

As is Speer's memoir about his life as one of Hitler's top officials and a potential heir, although the need to be cautious about viewpoint for any autobiography goes into overtime for the repentant Nazi. I have an amateur interest in World War II and in psychopaths, so a person who knew Hitler well could have an interesting story. My amateur guess after reading this and other accounts is that Hitler wasn't a psychopath, or at least not in all respects. Just a monster. His inability to form personal bonds seems psychopathic, but his deep emotional currents don't match the profile, nor his kindness to animals.

The missing element from Speer's account is what made Hitler so electrifying and dominant. Speer himself was clearly under Hitler's thumb for many years but doesn't make you really feel why that was so, and Hitler's many flaws weren't all that hidden, even early on. I didn't realize how boring the man was. The whole concept of charisma is mysterious to me, a poorly-defined, quasi-supernatural characteristic that makes me skeptical. Maybe it's a combination of hypnotic skills at a distance and pheromones up close. Anyway, Speer doesn't help clarify it.

It's pretty clear I'm not going to write the definitive review of WWII, Hitler, or even Speer, so I'll just recommend the book, and after the jump I'll just call out a few interesting points:

(click here for the full post)

Cargo Cult Administration

As Eli says in the little blurb at the left about his place of business

the administrators vary day-to-day between homicidal and delusional

Over at Science Blogs, Steinn Sigurðsson (he's Icelandic, accounts for the weird ð) has discovered Cargo Cult Administration.  Richard Feynman described Cargo Cult Science as without function or sense not quite getting the point but trying very hard to appear to.  In short the fussing that appears at Willard Tony's everyday.  According to Steinn

It is increasingly obvious that many administrative actions are really manifestations of Cargo Cult Administration. These administrations are following processes that only superficially resemble actual administrative actions: administrations talk of “best practices”, and “stakeholders”, and “consultation” and “transparency”, but do not act accordingly. 

Rather policies are put in place that are either irrelevant or inconsistent, if not actively counterproductive.

No consideration is made of whether the actual issue at hand is essentially comparable to whatever “best practice” is being applied was developed for, much less whether its implementation is effective. 

Stakeholder groups are assembled based on criteria other than whether those consulted actually have a stake in the issue, and others who clearly do have a stake are ignored and shut out. 

Consultation becomes a pro-forma process, either intended to reinforce preconceptions or to provide a distraction with the input received promptly discarded. 

Transparency is opaque, or a one-way mirror, and rarely leads to actual reception or adoption of feedback. It is forgotten that transparency is a means, not an end. 

Does this appear familiar to anybunny?  Now Steinn (one of the old sci.environment bunch) is a fairly temperate fellow, and when asked what set this off responded with a temperate

I can not do that 

Actually, to be precise - I may not do that at this stage without getting myself in serious real life trouble. 

At least I can not name topical names of realistic names of realistic examples that I had in mind without getting into serious real life trouble. 

Sometimes obliqueness is necessary.

Eli, Eli is, less, shall we say, cautious and would like to share with the bunnies two recent examples of Cargo Cult Administration at his place of instruction.

About two weeks ago, Eli was innocently sitting in the coffee room when a well tempered colleague fumed in.  Wassup, said the Bunny.  "The goddamn ''graduate school" is demanding that my student pass Human Subject Training before they admit her to candidacy."  Said colleague's work is computer based and there is debate as to where he would stand on a Turing Test, although Eli finds him quite nice.

That's nuts saith the Rabett, let us Google the forms, which he do, to find that the requirement is "if necessary".  Problem solved, but sadly no.  In the next couple of days Eli hears this crazy from a number of others.  Finally Eli starts climbing up the tree towards reliable information (after lots of years in any organization you learn who to ask and who to listen to).  Turns out that the Human Subjects IRB paperwork, was, let us say of a low volume and sorely lacking and they got dinged on inspection.  So, what to do?  Generate more paperwork, of course, and so it was decreed from on high . . . . .

Number two is something that Eli has been fighting for about six months.  Every now and then Emails from his Rabettness don't go through, but a curious message is sent

New ZixCorp secure email message from Rabett University Hospital 

Open Message

To view the secure message, click Open Message. 

The secure message expires on Apr 29, 2013 @ 04:17 PM (GMT). 

Do not reply to this notification message; this message was auto-generated by the sender's security system.  

If Eli and his colleagues are lucky, they get a WTF reply from the real addressee.  If not, which usually happens, they have discarded the message as pfishing.  About two days later Zix Corp sends you a letter saying that hey, your friend didn't pick up that very important message, but of course, then you have lost two days and you have to figure out how to get an Email to your friend telling her to pick up the other Email, which has already been terminated as pfishing, and if that gets trapped. . . .

What it is, of course is making Eli and his colleagues pay for other's screw ups.  People at Rabett University Hospital had been sending confidential information out in open Emails, and they got dinged for that, so we all now have this system which automatically scans all Emails for who knows what (and the Cargo Cult Administrators won't tell because that would be telling and someone might be able to beat the system) and, of course, Eli can't be allowed to turn off the system for his Email account because that would be another expensive bell and whistle, or it would let him beat the system.

As Ms. Rabett points out (compliance with privacy rules is her business) good secure Email systems always ask you whether an Email should be encoded, and keep an archive of those you say no to to check compliance.

Dear Bjorn: if you spend money to reduce a problem and the problem's reduced, that doesn't magically mean the problem reduced itself

One piece of Lomborg's alleged evidence that climate change hasn't produced extreme weather:  "Damage from flooding in the United States has declined from 0.2 percent of gross domestic product in 1940 to less than 0.05 percent today."

I vaguely remembered seeing this lame argument before, and after I clicked his source link I saw a familiar piece of liver. Should've guessed.

The problem with this argument is that the vast majority of money spent on flood control activities happened after 1940, and the damage-reduction effect of those flood control expenditures is incremental (flood control projects typically last 30-50 years, and rebuilding is cheaper than the original building). Extreme storm precipitation could get worse and the damage could still decrease, if you put in some effort at flood control. There's no accounting in the data set for the cost of that effort.

That's only one of many problems with Lomborg, but it's in my bailiwick so I had to call it out. And btw, the data doesn't include Sandy damages (the NOAA flood loss data set ended in September 2012), so that also might end up being a disturbance in the Force of the trend line.

California carbon caps will overcome challenges; California climate polling has good news

California in the next half-decade will face a similar challenge the European carbon market faced, but with a better outcome and better reason for it.

Future emissions are now projected to be lower than anticipated under the cap and trade program, and with many allocations given freely, the price of allocations to be auctioned could have been at risk. However, unlike the European system, California included a price floor. That floor increases over time, as does the percentage of allocations auctioned instead of those wasted on giveaways. These steps together with a gradual tightening of the overall cap will keep the market functioning. This is happening in large part just because the Europeans went first and we learned from them. The European system could be improved, as could California's, but having problems that others learn from doesn't make their system a failure.

One reason why emission projects are low is that cap-and-trade is only one part of California's system to reducing emissions. Per the link above, regulations affecting renewable power and carbon fuel standards are eating into overall emission levels. In effect, the system has a certain redundancy with cap-and-trade backing up other components - again, that's not a showing of weakness. I don't know if it's the policy-optimal design, but it beats nothing, regardless of Naomi Klein may have to say.

Maybe in a few years we'll have the political willpower to enact improvements. A recent poll showed 79% of Californians think global warming is happening. Of them, 71% are very sure or extremely sure it's happening (p. 20). I don't like how they did the follow-up question of what's causing the warming (p. 11), however. They asked all respondents to assume warming was happening and then asked whether humans or nature are the cause. They should've asked only the ones who accept it as happening, so we can see what percent believe there's a problem and humans are the cause, as they'd be likely supporters of actions to address climate. It's a shame that only 55% think there's a scientific consensus (p. 22) - seems like there's an information deficit among those who should be receptive to the concept that a strong consensus exists out there in support of their own beliefs.

Other datapoints:  some 68% support more renewable power even if it costs the average family $100/year, and the public is evenly split on fracking (p. 37). I was really hoping for age breakdowns so I could chortle, but that wasn't provided.

I generally take specific poll numbers with a grain of salt, but trends over time seem more credible. Hopefully they'll repeat the poll over the next few years.

Pernicious Progress

Well, everybunny is waiting for the real IPCC WG1 report to come out, and Eli has to amuse himself with a number of hobbies, one of which is bedeviling a certain poor Thoreau about the structure of STEM education in the United States.

It is, indeed, a bundle of we want this, so we ask for that that, which is, surprise, not what we wanted.

Let Eli start with a simple observation:  Since the time that the US stole the secrets of the Awkwright thread making machinery the US has always imported scientific and technical talent.  It's a tradition.  The American way as it were.

To beat another drum, Thoreau and his friends constantly bemoan the sorry situation with hiring of STEM graduates.  They can't understand why the various funding agencies are tearing their hair out about getting more kids into the pipeline when they and their friends are going crazy finding a job.

From Eli's point of view, and the Rabett has been viewing the farce for many a year now, since the last good year for hiring, 1968, or was it 69, the answer is structural.  US STEM education is based on a pyramidal system, with a small number of research universities at the top that feed new faculty to wanna be research universities, non-research habituated teaching institutions and community colleges.  Of course, there are also industry, Wall Street, national labs and natural migration out of the pipeline elsewhere, including rock bands.  Everyone has to run harder to keep up.  It's classic capitalism, grow or die.  In cartoons, this is the Mickey Mouse version of the sorcerer's apprentice.




The research universities each have major and expensive infrastructure needed to support modern research and the accounting that the federal government demands of how grant money is spent.  Each faculty member is expected to bring in grants and contracts to support the infrastructure, it ain't cheap, which requires that the faculty member have a large research group composed of graduate students and post docs to do the work on several grants.  Groups of more than ten are common, and some exceed twenty.  Each person is expensive to support.  Graduate students with tuition, fees and stipends are of the order of $50-75K per year, post docs are probably on the level of $75-100K per year when you consider salary, fringe benefits and overhead.  That is without equipment, materials and supplies.   Maybe it includes travel.

As bad as this is for the physical sciences, it is much worse in medical schools because of the fall in NIH support.  Medical schools have been habituated to hiring increasing numbers of faculty on a partially funded basis with the faculty expected to bring in the rest of their support.  As grants become harder to get these faculty are increasingly stressed, the medical schools are less able to keep feeding new bodies into their maws because overhead is falling and not generating enough set up money and the number of jobless trainees in holding positions (permadocs) is growing by leaps and bounds.  (see Drug Monkey for discussions).

US colleges are not graduating enough STEM majors to fill the research university groups.  Therefore the research university departments recruit a large number of international students.  Anybunny can see this by looking at the number of international students in research groups and departments.  The number of graduates from these groups including the international students overwhelms the job market and today, with decreasing support from grants, has begun to overwhelm the ability of the R1 schools to support them.

While some of these students return home after earning their doctorates, many international students  stay in the US producing an oversupply matched against STEM position openings. However, this pleases the educational nomenklatura as it allows them to have a large group and maintain a jet set life.

It pleases Deans at all levels , because they can low ball hires (an Asst. Prof. position is a giant step to a green card) and it pleases industry, because it keeps costs down. And, of course, once the international students become immigrants they compete for the other types of jobs.  While international students have contributed mightily to US science, thee numbers staying have increased steadily since 1980 and  (see immigration debate), an obvious consequence is that currently their larger number are overwhelming the STEM job market.

Without international students there are not enough US citizens to fill the tree and that is what NSF/NIH are trying to work on. The second order effects are more subtile. The large number of international students allows R1 professors (the nomenklatura) to maintain large groups. Of course to have a large group, you need a lot of support, which starves those lower down the tree. And then, of course, there is the third order effect, since for an international student a faculty position in any tertiary institution is the ticket to immigrant status, and they have a hard time getting a visa which allows them to work in industry/national labs, so there has been over the last 50 years an imbalance in faculty hiring with the faculty of many not R1 places being predominantly (maybe too strong, but you better bring data) from former international students.

But wait, there is more.  and this is an increasing problem in many other countries (UK for example), universities pursue international students at the undergraduate level because they pay full tuition and fees as well as housing and meals. This is similar to what has happened in the US in state universities where out of state students have an advantage in admissions. It can be traced back to a fall in government support for the universities. So yes, there is an advantage to international students in admissions at the undergraduate level. Second, departments need majors to stay departments, and there are not enough US students majoring in physics, so there are Departments of Physics and Chemistry, Departments of Physical Sciences, Departments of Natural Sciences and so on.  So, yes, one purpose of recruiting international undergrads is to maintain faculty slots and departments.

Third, those from elsewhere are depressing the standard of living of US citizens in STEM fields because while there are more than enough jobs with a smaller number of international students staying on, the large number who wish to overwhelms the number of openings.

And finally, the major over-representation of new immigrants on university faculties brings a role model issue, that, some, not all US students can’t see themselves as being in the mold of the faculty and thus are alienated from STEM departments and majors.

It's a bitch all around.

Who Used the Poison Gas in Syria?

CIA veterans demand that Obama show what evidence he has about Syria. It is undisputed that someone used poison gas. It is unclear who that was. The Obama administration has simply repeated the claim that the Syrian government used chemical weapons. The Obama administration claims to be as confident in 2013 as …the Bush administration was in 2002 of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction - which turned out to be a baldfaced lie.

There are two competing stories about who used the poison gas.

The US government claims it was the Syrian government. Congressman Allen Grayson (D-FL) has been given the classified briefing, and remains unconvinced that the Obama Administration is telling the truth.

A Minnesota-based news service, Mint Press News, reported "Syrians in Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack".

Journalist Jim Naureckas of the media watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), asks, "Which Syrian Chemical Attack Account is More Credibie?" Naureckas makes the case the the Mint Press Account is more credible. Naureckas points out that the Obama Administration's account is far more vague and less specific than…Colin Powell's address to the UN on Iraq, which turned out to be full of lies.

But read Naureckas' account and make up your own mind.

Sister Soljah and Naomi Klein

Well, better put Bill Clinton and Sister Soljah and Naomi Klein and the Sierra Club.  Tossing a body out the Overton Window in order to strengthen you argument is an old sport.  Somebunnies even encourage those they disagree with, that unless they disown, let Eli speculate, Al Gore, Joe Romm, Michael Mann, Eli Rabett, they are not part of the World of Reality, as in, if you want us to take you seriously you have to do X or Y or Z.

That is, of course, what Naomi Klein is doing with the Sierra Club, EDF and others.  Klein's real focus is forcing a radical change in the organization of society, climate issues are a club to be used in the battle for a socialist economic system, to force the change, and the lace shoe environmental groups are her Sister Soljah stand-ins to rally the troops.

Joe Romm, recognizes the need for allies, believes that climate issues can be resolved within the current society, and has no desire to suffer through a Cultural Revolution.  Joe is not Pol Pot, Naomi would enjoy the chance to audition.

Eli Observes

Eli is by nature an observer.  Wait till the rubble bounces and then speak up was the advice he got from Mom Rabett, and in this the bunny has been quietly chewing his carrots while thinking about the Syrian situation.  Darkly thinking The Bunny has reached some conclusions, or perhaps better put, some speculations.

First, there was a poison gas attack that killed a World Trade Center (this is 9/11 and we mourn those lost) level of people

Second, that the attack was by the Syrian Army.  The Assad government it self has been pretty quiet on this after some initial claims and the level of sophistication was not rabble level.

Third, it is reasonable to believe that under stress, tightly controlled chemical weapons were dispersed to operating units of the army so that they could not be easily captured in toto.

Fourth, the attack was (and here we are deeper into speculation and a bit of evidence leaking into the press) not ordered by Assad, or those immediately under him.  This was a freelance by a low level unit.

Fifth, one thing that came out of the US bellicosity is that Syria no longer denies that it has chemical weapons.

Sixth, return of the weapons to central control is seen by the Syrian and Russian governments as a necessity.

Seventh, that putting the Syrian chemical weapons under "international" control, in practice means putting them into a well defended (by the Syrian army) central location with seals on the storage bunkers from Russian or UN observers

Eighth, that destruction of the weapons under those conditions will take a long, long time.

Ninth, that Assad believes that come the Gotterdamthe seals can be broken. 

Tenth, Obama backed the US into a nasty corner and would be lucky to escape.  Perhaps there is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel and it is not an onrushing train.

Attacking Syria would be a war crime

Much of the discussion among the political class in Washington concerns the details about a threatened US attack on Syria. The questions under discussion are: How much will it cost? How long will it take? Is success guaranteed? Etc. The discussion among the pundits assume implicitly that the US has the right to attack Syria.

A logically prior question is: does the US have the right to attack Syria?

In fact, it does not. Consider Article 2 of the Charter of the UN. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Notice that this bans the use of force and also bans the threat of force. So Obama is violating the UN Charter even by threatening to attack Syria. Since the US has signed the UN documents, this provision of the UN Charter is binding on the US government.

Syria has never attacked the US. If the US does attack Syria, that will constitute a war crime. Launching a war of aggression was termed "the supreme war crime, a crime against peace." Top German leaders were hanged at Nuremberg for this war crime. Justice Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, declared that “To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Mike Ratner, head of the Center for Constitutional Rights, makes the point that a US attack on Syria Violates International Law.

In his speech this evening, Obama went on and on about how terrible chemical weapons are. He claimed that the US was working to ban chemical weapons. However, he omitted four very relevant points.

(1) The US used chemical weapons - Agent Orange and napalm - against the civilian population of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. We killed three million people in order to demonstrate to the world American "leadership".

(2) In 2004, the US attacked the Iraqi city of Fallujah using white phosphor and depleted uranium, which of course are chemical weapons.

(3) It is a fact that Israel used chemical weapons against Gaza in recent years, burning civilians with white phosphorous. That was a war crime and a crime against humanity, in the words of the Goldstone report, commissioned by the UN. Nobody held Israel accountable, nobody talked about bombing Israel. Instead the US government voiced full support for Israel's use of chemical weapons. There is no way Israel would have attacked Gaza refugees without US support.

(4) Finally, while Obama was eloquent about how terrible it is to kill women and children, he forgot to mention that he has killed about 3,000-4,000 people in Pakistan and Afghanistan using drones, and an estimated 74% were civilians who happen to be in the wrong place. Here is a story from the Washington Post two days ago. Here's a story from last year by Gareth Porter, the source of the 74% figure, Cover-Up of Civilian Drone Deaths Revealed by New Evidence.

Funny how Obama omitted these four devastating points. Most of the pundits and politicians never mention these inconvenient facts. These facts have disappeared down an Orwellian Memory Hole. But while few are voicing these sentiments inside the Washington beltway, many are voicing them around the world.

Unloading

Brian pointed today to Joe Romm unloading on Naomi Klein for endowing the circular firing squad so beloved of hippy haters.  Klein is trying to make believe she never said it, her thoughts are so complex, that Joe never heard it, and oh yeah, she ain't gonna play nice any more.  Rabett's have limited ability to read, so he didn't get much past the image at the top of Joe's post, provided courtesy of Michael Tobis

No need, of course, because Justin Gillis filled in the dots.  As everybunny knows, it ain't just the popular press, but the IPCC

In one case, we have a lot of mainstream science that says if human society keeps burning fossil fuels with abandon, considerable land ice could melt and the ocean could rise as much as three feet by the year 2100. We have some outlier science that says the problem could be quite a bit worse than that, with a maximum rise exceeding five feet. 

The drafters of the report went with the lower numbers, choosing to treat the outlier science as not very credible 

In the second case, we have mainstream science that says if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles, which is well on its way to happening, the long-term rise in the temperature of the earth will be at least 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but more likely above 5 degrees. We have outlier science that says the rise could come in well below 3 degrees. 

In this case, the drafters of the report lowered the bottom end in a range of temperatures for how much the earth could warm, treating the outlier science as credible.

Which makes the creatures of the fields wonder.  Mr. Gillis too

Obviously, the high estimates are even scarier. So it would be nice to hear an explanation from the drafters of this coming report as to why they made decisions that effectively play up the low-end possibilities. But with the report still officially under wraps, they are not speaking publicly. We are thus left wondering whether it is a matter of pure professional judgment — or whether they have been cowed by the attacks of recent years. 

Assuming these decisions withstand final review, it will be fascinating to hear the detailed explanations in Stockholm.

What Joe Romm said about Naomi Klein's 'you're with me or you're against the planet' argument

That is all.

Alkalinity

This is the second of who knows when it will end series of post whose goal is to provide some of the background needed to understand the mechanism by which increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere acidifies the oceans, leading to a decrease in dissolved inorganic carbon which is needed by sea creatures such as corals and oysters to build shells. 

Continuing what Eli started about a week ago, a Revelletion as it were, discussing how the carbonate concentration of the oceans buffers changes in acidity (expressed as pH = - log10[H]⁺(aq)], because much of the excess hydrogen ions produced in the forward reaction (2)

(R2)  CO2(aq)+ H2O = HCO3^-(aq) + H⁺(aq)

 when carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean are consumed in the reverse reaction (-3).  

(R-3) H⁺(aq) + CO3^2-(aq) =  HCO3^-(aq)

The bunnies know that the pH as  - log10([H⁺](aq)) where the square brackets are the concentration of whatever is in between them.  The concentration of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in the ocean is

 (1) [DIC] = [CO2(aq)] + [HCO3^-(aq)] + [CO3^2-(aq)]

where the carbonate ions, CO3^2-(aq), are the stuff from which the shells are made.  Decrease the carbonate ion concentration even at constant or increased DIC and the little critters shells never form or dissolve.  Since some of the little critters are beautiful (corals) or tasty (lobsters), this is not good. 

Alkalinity is defined as the total concentration of species which can neutralize acids, that is combine with H⁺(aq)

(2) alk = [HCO3^-(aq)] + [CO3^2-(aq)] + [OH^-(aq)] - [H⁺(aq)] + [B(OH)₄^-(aq)]

This pretty much follows Revelle Revisited by Egleston, Sabine and Morel, who, in turn are following, somewhat more elegantly, a lot of folk.  The definition of alkalinity offers a hint of why decreases of pH, even above pH 7 are referred to as acidification not dealkalification, because alkalinity includes a lot more than hydroxide, OH^- concentration.

At this point, some chemistry is needed. A weak acid, call it HA,  is an acid that does not completely dissociate into  H⁺(aq) + A^- (aq).  The degree of ionization is  captured by the acid ionization constant Ka

(3)  Ka = ([H⁺(aq)] [A^-(aq)]) / [HA(aq)]

looking at Reaction (2) we can write

(4)  Ka = ([H⁺(aq)] [HCO3^-(aq)]) /( [CO2(aq)][H2O])

since the concentration of water does not change during the reaction it remains pure water this can be written as

(5) Ka = ([H⁺(aq)] [HCO3^-(aq)]) /[CO2(aq)]

and rearranged to

 (6) [HCO3^-(aq)]= Ka [CO2(aq)] / [H⁺(aq)]

The same idea goes for Reaction 3 from the earlier post

(R3) HCO3^-(aq) = H⁺(aq) + CO3^2-(aq)

where

 (7) Ka2 = ([H⁺(aq)] [CO3^2-(aq)]) /[HCO3^-(aq)]

and again rearranging in the same way as in (6)

(8) [CO3^2-(aq)] = Ka2 [HCO3^-(aq)] / [H⁺(aq)]

 Subtituting (6) into this we get

(9) [CO3^2-(aq)] = Ka Ka2 [CO2(aq)]/ ([H⁺(aq)]²

The reason for all this algebra is to write the DIC, the carbon in the ocean accessible for forming shells as a function of  [CO2(aq)] and [H⁺(aq)] (or pH if someone prefers)

(10) [DIC] = [CO2(aq)] + Ka [CO2(aq)]/[H⁺(aq)] + Ka Ka2 [CO2(aq)]/[H⁺(aq)]²

or

 (11) [DIC] = [CO2(aq)](1 + Ka /[H⁺(aq)] + Ka Ka2 /[H⁺(aq)]²)

 The concentration of hydrogen ions, [H⁺(aq)], can be precisely measured by measuring the pH.  Measuring [DIC] or [CO2(aq)] is a story for later. 

So what happens after the second and third major uses of chemical weapons by Assad?

UPDATE:  I agree with Josh Marshall that turning over the chemical weapons for destruction is fine as an alternative, and IMO much better than a strike. If Assad only plays along for a while and then refuses, we could reassess whether to strike then or wait for him to use them again.


I'm glad that Obama is going to Congress, and he obviously shouldn't move ahead if Congress doesn't pass the resolution. The US moves too slowly on domestic matters. We have at times like World War II, Libya, and Syria itself, also moved too slowly on military involvement overseas. The more typical pattern though is for military involvement happening too quickly and on false pretenses. Getting Congress involved is a good idea in the long run, even if it results this time around in the mistake of tying Obama's hands. Waiting so that we can go from 97% sure of what happened to 99%+ sure is also a good idea.

Lots of stupid arguments being made on both sides. The antis say that anything short of overthrowing Assad is a failure as a deterrent and that a military strike will harm domestic programs at home. The pros say that failure to strike puts the US in immediate danger, and continue with the old chestnut of conflating chemical weapons with nuclear weapons as "weapons of mass destruction." The antis make sadly laughable claims that diplomacy is going to do anything about chemical weapons or about the problems in the Syrian opposition (Rep. Chris Smith says a military strike won't deter Assad but Smith's proposal to eventually set up a war crimes tribunal may help). I heard another Republican Congressman criticize Obama for not attacking when the previous, ambiguous chemical weapons uses occurred, and then say he'd vote against authorization.

The key issue is that the chemical weapons use and what to do about Syria overall are separate issues, despite the desire of extremists like McCain to tie them together. Obama seems to understand that. A reaction by the US and France to the chemical weapons use, either a military or non-military reaction, would succeed if it leaves Syrian decisionmakers thinking that doing it again would not be in their best interest (or if it really was just a mistake, then realize they had to get their system under control). I just can't think of a non-military reaction that has that effect.

I think it's not ridiculous to argue that the outside world should do nothing (sorry, do diplomacy only) after further chemical weapons attacks - we can't solve all the world's problems - but I think on balance it's a bad argument. I'm guessing that if the authorization goes down, Obama will just wait for further attacks, and then most likely strike without asking Congress (even though he should ask Congress).

Yes, the US is being hugely hypocritical in opposing Assad while doing nothing elsewhere, like Bahrain. That's not a reason to do nothing but instead a reason to fix our act in Bahrain.

For those who think the current bad news in Libya proves our involvement there was a mistake, my bet offer is still open, and updated.

Water

Eli of course, admires Ed Darrell.  So when Ed "borrows" from Eli that is a lesson.  John Fleck dug up a stunning graphic of the LA water aqueduct from the Colorado River., and who is Eli not to take advantage.  Besides, John has not exactly been a buddy.  It's open season bunnies.

More on plug-in v gas engine infrastructure

My post in August suggested that as plug-in hybrid and EV sales rise to several percentage points and more of market share, we'll start to see incremental degradation of the societal infrastructure supporting gas engines, mainly a loss of gas stations and car maintenance shops. I argued that range anxiety and "range irritation" will be an issue for gas engine vehicles in some urban areas within a decade or so.

Some pushback happened in comments over whether gas engine range anxiety will really be an issue and when it might occur. James Wimberley correctly points out that the current average age of vehicles is 11 years for a lifespan of 20 years, not 10 years as I said. Wiki says that's an increase from 9.4 year average in 2007 which suggests it may lower some as the economy improves. More importantly, wiki says "many Americans own three or more vehicles. The low marginal cost of registering and insuring additional older vehicles means many vehicles that are rarely used are still given full weight in the statistics." What we care about is more likely to be the median age of the vehicle that gets median usage. Still, I agree that it will take more than five years for that median vehicle to reflect current year market share.

On range anxiety, I did some unscientific (yes I know) checking around on Google Maps of two areas I know pretty well - South San Francisco Bay area and upstate New York. You have to get out to the more distant suburbs before gas station density really starts dropping and range anxiety seems more likely. In the exurbs, you usually travel on arterials where the gas stations are located, and people choosing to live in exurbs tend to accept lots of driving as part of the tradeoffs they're making.

Still, not every trip in exurbia is a long one that will pass by a convenient gas station. And while other people may be perfect, I certainly have let the gas tank get low enough to be more than a little anxious, even in the more urban-ish area where I live. Any decrease in gas station density could intensify that.

I had previously suggested a five mile trip just to get gas as problematic, but there's nothing magical about that number. While gas engine range irritation is probably more important, I still think range anxiety complaints will happen somewhere within a decade.

Range irritation, which I'd define as annoyance at the time spent filling up and maintaining gas engine vehicles, is the main issue. Driving even a quarter mile in heavy traffic can take time and that will get worse as station density decreases/population density increases. Drivers can plan their gas trips to avoid busy traffic, but that puts them in the same planning constraint situation that EV drivers face. When plug-ins can charge both at home and wherever they normally drive to, they're the more convenient vehicle.

In related news, plug-ins captured 6% of the August market share in Norway, presumably even more than that in Oslo. Significant financial incentives in Norway balance out the negative externalities from gas engines. Maybe Oslo will be the first place where the infrastructure favors plug-ins over gas.

In less cheerful news, Australian voters look likely to have scrapped their carbon tax on the most polluting businesses. Instead they'll have taxpayer tributes to the same businesses in return for reducing the harm they're causing to Australia and the world. While this was likely a secondary issue in the election, I think it does indicate the reason why it's helpful to make political compromises in order to get broader support for climate solutions.

Albert Speer's memoirs on Nazis rejecting gas warfare

Recently finished Speer's memoir, Inside the Third Reich. I'll have my own comments on the chemical weapons issue, but in case they're useless, I'll separate out a piece of history from late 1944 (at pp. 413-414 of the paperback):

Hitler, to be sure, had always rejected gas warfare; but now he hinted at a situation conference in headquarters that the use of gas might stop the advance of the Soviet troops. He went on with vague speculations that the West would accept gas warfare against the East because at this stage of the war the British and American governments had an interest in stopping the Russian advance. When no one at the situation conference spoke up in agreement, Hitler did not return to the subject. 

Undoubtedly the generals feared the unpredictable consequences.

Hitler, btw, had been temporarily blinded in World War I from a British gas attack.

Cultural cognition model versus "powerful groups are lying" model

Fair amount of Twitter discussion of a Dan Kahan paper setting up a lab battle between information deficit as explaining people's policy misunderstandings (Science Comprehension Thesis or "SCT") versus a psychological reaction to facts that conflict or confirm with personal and group ideology (Identity-protective Cognition Thesis or "ICT"). Kahan et al. found that people with better numerical ability applied that ability when the conclusions favored their ideology and sometimes didn't when the conclusions were problematic for them. This has the effect of increasing political polarization for people with higher numerical ability, which he says shows ICT as better explaining the effect than SCT. Chris Mooney has a decent writeup here.

With that throat-clearing done, the main issue is what Steve Bloom and Michael Mann said, in effect that the Powerful Groups Are Lying (PGAL) model better explains why the public has problems accepting climate science. Some organizations and people are lying and acting in bad faith, feeding into and creating the cultural identity that Kahan researches. My own suspicion that climate deniers are cozying up to evolution deniers is a conscious effort to snuff the Creation Care evangelical movement and preserve a conservative religious group identity, so this identity that Kahan talks about isn't a fixed thing - it's manipulated.

Secondary to all that, Mooney overplays it when he asks whether the Kahan paper will "slay the 'deficit model' once and for all." The study showed that highly numerate people were better than innumerate ones at understanding a problem, even when that understanding conflicted with their group identity. In the paper, Kahan says (p. 25):

ICT predicts that more numerate individuals will use that ability opportunistically in a manner geared to promoting their interest in forming and persisting in identity-protective beliefs.
The results in the experiment suggest that high-Numeracy partisans did exactly that in the gun-ban conditions. 

That seems to be either wrong or sloppy writing because the highly numerate people did better despite the group identity cost, presumably by using their better skills. The general argument in the paper is fine that polarization increases - both groups do better at high numeracy but one will do far better than the other when it reinforces their identity. If both improve then the deficit model isn't slain.

Mapping this directly to climate change, it suggests that both reasonably-educated conservatives and liberals will benefit from more science education on climate, although it will penetrate better with liberals. The real need, though, is for the PGAL effort to stop manipulating group identity and force-feeding disinformation.

Kahan's right though when he says "people, once predisposed, misinform themselves, summoning all their reason." That may be a common flaw, but it's still a moral flaw. The disinformers who feed this weakness are the crack dealers of politics.

I should also say not all the deniers know they're lying, and from my conversations with some of them I'm sure they believe what they're saying. Others though are a different story.

Weekend Frights, Boogie Nights

Oh, all right Russell, anyone who wants can view the video here Auto play is hard to stop sometime.