Addendum to Turning History
Around:
and other folks we ought to know
by G.S. <george.salzman@umb.edu>, 20 September 2007
this page is at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/S2/2007-09-20.htm
A couple of folks in Brookline, Massachusetts wrote me about Mazin Qumsiyeh’s talk Sunday night 16 Sept at Brookline High School, both with very interesting observations that I want to alert you to.
Amy Hendrickson <amyh@texnology.com> of Brookline PeaceWorks said, We sponsored Mazin . . . There was quite an effort to cancel the event by the pressure group CAMERA [ Committee
for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in
America, a group describing itself as devoted to
monitoring and challenging
perceived anti-Israel news coverage] as well as other people who called
the
High School where the event was scheduled, the superintendant of
schools and
even the police dept. We were forced to hire a uniformed policeman
detail, but
fortunately the superintendant of schools stood up for free speech and
refused
to cancel the event --
Mazin is a
terrific speaker, as well as an organizer -- he walked into a room that
had
maybe 20 per cent really determined zionists, some of whom were eager
for a
confrontation, but was able to parry every question during Q and A, and
meanwhile did a good job of educating everyone there by showing slides
-- If
you know anyone that can sponsor him as a speaker, or can sponsor the
Wheels of
Justice, I'd highly recommend doing so.
Dennis Fox <df@dennisfox.net> of Jewish
Voice for
Peace maintains a very thoughtful blog, where he posted, on 18
September, a report
on Mazin Qumsiyeh’s appearance, with a couple of photographs. His blog
is at http://blog.dennisfox.net/index.php/
.
Another
contact who I find enormously
valuable is Manuel Garcia Jr. <mango@idiom.com>.
He
has written
the most meaningful discussion of climate change I know of. He seems to
have had
an initial bit of difficulty publishing it (perhaps because Alexander
Cockburn
of Counterpunch was unreceptive to this particular gem), but Dissident
Voice did the world a valuable service in posting it, as Climate
and
Carbon, Consensus and Contention on 4 June 2007, at http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/climate-and-carbon-consensus-and-contention/
.
Perpetuation
of essentially irrelevant debates is part of the corporate media’s
effort to establish
a framework of popular discourse in which ‘contentious’ issues are
substituted
for real issues. By accepting their presentation as a starting point we
let
ourselves be diverted from considering the really important questions.
Manuel usually
doesn’t let himself get diverted from essential matters. Here are some
excerpts
from his essay.
1. Introduction
Is the world heating up because of a
build-up of carbon dioxide (CO2) in
the atmosphere? If so, does human activity — like burning fossil fuels
—
produce enough CO2 to be a decisive factor, or is the process largely
natural?
Would such global warming be a good thing for humanity and life on
Earth, or a
danger? Can science give us an accurate measure of the amount of
heating per
unit of CO2 emission? Does such a process continue monotonically and
indefinitely, or does it change character by accelerating wildly — a
nonlinear
or chaotic behavior — beyond a certain concentration of CO2 in the
atmosphere?
Can nonlinear and chaotic behavior lead to a completely new climate,
like an
Ice Age? How quickly can such changes take place? How soon will we know
all the
answers? How much control will we have over our destinies? How will the
world
politics of global warming play out, and how can I be a winner in that
game?
This article will describe some of the
technical considerations that go
into making a climate model, and in this way give some context to the
many
claims and counterclaims made about global warming. As with any
phenomenon that
has the potential of changing the status quo of human socio-political
and
financial arrangements, there are many self-interest factions who each
have a
stake in the molding of public opinion on the topic. Unraveling the
truth from
the propaganda begins by listing the fundamental scientific
considerations
needed in order to understand the linked and complex phenomena we call
climate.
1. Introduction
2. A historical analogy with the birth of modern physics
3. How greenhouse gases hold heat
4. Water vapor and anthropogenic greenhouse gases
5. A note about ozone
6. How climate models work
6.1 Models and links
6.2 Space and time, scales and resolution
7. Solar Heat Into The Geartrain Of Climate
8. Justifying the IPCC consensus
9. Criticizing the IPCC consensus
10. The Open Cycle Closes
Endnotes
2. A
Historical Analogy with the Birth of Modern Physics
Climate research in 2007 may be at a
similar point of development as
physics research was in 1907, poised for revolution.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) found that the
mechanics of Isaac Newton
(1642-1727) was
only a low speed, low mass limit of “general relativity,” a reality
where
space, time and gravity are linked, as are mass and energy.
During these same years, Max Planck
(1858-1938) introduced his “quantum
theory,” which was soon expanded by Einstein and Neils Bohr
(1885-1962).
Quantum theory revolutionized the 19th century view of
electromagnetics, so
elegantly stated by Michael Faraday (1791-1867), James Clerk Maxwell
(1831-1879), and other scientists of their time and before (e.g.,
Coulomb,
Ampère, Biot, Savart, Hertz). The “old” electromagnetics assumed that a
“luminiferous aether” existed in otherwise empty space, and it was the
oscillations of this massless “material,” which manifested
electromagnetic
waves, and as a result all known electrical effects. This idea was a
logical
extension of the observation that mechanical waves in solids (e.g.,
elastic
waves, earthquakes) and fluids (e.g., water waves, sound waves) were
the motion
of vibrations through matter.
The great difficulty of 19th century
experimental physicists was that
they could never devise any experiment to actually detect the
luminiferous
aether, despite the obvious reality of electrical effects and the many
motors,
generators, radios and other devices built by Nikola Tesla (1856-1943),
Thomas
Edison (1847-1931) and other electrical engineers. An experiment to
detect the
aether (in 1887), by Albert Michelson (1852-1931) and Edward Morley
(1838-1923), was famous for establishing that the speed of light in a
vacuum
was a constant (299,792,458 meters per second, a
standard value adopted in 1983)
regardless of any motion by the measuring device itself (Einstein’s
interpretation). Another paradox was that light could exhibit a
wave-like
nature, as when it refracted (bent) on passing through a glass-air or
water-air
boundary, and when it diffracted (separated by color) on passing
through a
prism or narrow slit; and light could also exhibit a particle-like
nature in
its very precise and selective initiation of luminescent or electron
(charged
particle) emission from atoms.
Einstein and the quantum theorists resolved
the paradoxes of
electromagnetism with the quantum theory. It stated that the
luminiferous
aether did not exist (thus agreeing with all experiments) and that the
seeming
contradiction of light (and all electromagnetic radiation) having both
a wave
and particle nature simultaneously was in fact true. The “wavelength”
of a
particle or “quantum” of light was exactly proportional to its energy
content
as given by Planck’s formula, E = h×c/wavelength, where h is Planck’s
constant,
and c is the speed of light in a vacuum. Despite the seeming oddness of
ascribing a wavelength to a single particle (quantum), this model of
electromagnetic radiation has proved to be consistent with all
measurements.
Light has both a wave and particle nature, a fact exploited in
electrical,
communications, optical and photo-electronic technology.
Now, consider the analogy to climate
research today. A consensus has
developed, and is voiced by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel
on
Climate Change (UN IPCC), that the accumulation of CO2 in the Earth’s
atmosphere does cause an accumulation of heat in the atmosphere and
biosphere
of the Earth. Furthermore, human activity, primarily the burning of
fossil
hydrocarbon fuels, is a significant cause of this CO2 accumulation.
This case
has not yet been definitively proved, but the majority of scientists
and their
professional organizations have reached the conclusion that this case
passes
the test of being true beyond a reasonable doubt. They see an improving
agreement
between the many complicated and highly regarded (for theoretical rigor
and
predictive abilities) numerical (computational) models of climate, and
the
growing body of paleo-, historical, and current climate data.
The vastness of this entangled problem
makes it impossible to know and
calculate every conceivable detail “exactly,” so there are many
scientist
critics of the IPCC consensus. Exceptional scientists and many others
of
equivalent learning and capability to the consensus scientists are
among the
critics. However, they appear to be in the minority of scientific
opinion on
the issue of CO2 and climate change.
We can ask, are the climate change critics
of today like the relativity
and quantum theory revolutionists of 1900, their ideas not yet
expressed
compellingly enough to overturn a highly developed consensus view like
luminiferous aether, which was orthodoxy taught in the universities by
the
teachers of Einstein and his generation? If so, then the “real story”
has yet
to emerge and revolutionize thinking on climate change.
The other possibility is that the
revolution in understanding climate
change has already begun, being the IPCC consensus, which will be borne
out as
more data is gathered, bigger computers are used and models of superior
refinement
are devised. Are the critics resistant to adopting a still fairly
nebulous new
idea, and to abandon the certainties of their long-standing views —
like
luminiferous aether a century ago — and the technical doubts they have
about
the new models, doubts which some can articulate with great logic and
precision?
Science will march along and in time we
will know the answers. However,
our social and political problem is that if the IPCC consensus is
correct (and,
worse yet, if it is conservative) then we have little time to do
anything about
the predicted negative consequences of CO2 accumulation in the
atmosphere.
. . .
10. The Open Cycle Closes
. . .
As the
expanding impact of global warming cracks through the filters on
consciousness
of more people, there will be an increasing competition to escape and
profit
from the consequences. One obvious example of this is the nuclear power
industry’s enthusiastic adoption of the fearfulness of global warming,
“we are
the solution” they say. The profit motive is shameless.12
Environmentalists
of Luddite persuasions will urge a repentant return to a
de-industrialized,
agrarian style of life. The military-industrial complex will see the
possibilities of “getting into the green” with sales of “green” high
technology
to the equally messianic capitalist elite, revolted at the idea of
sliding
“backward” into Third World experience, hence thrusting “forward as to
war” to
save “our way of life.” Photovoltaics, engineered materials and
solid-state
micro-electronics are impressive and capable technologies, but they
cannot be
produced in the quantities and at the costs needed to meet the energy
needs of
the Third World.13
I think the
best response to global warming is to greet it as the next challenge to
human
development — it certainly presents delectable problems to be solved by
any
engineer and thermodynamicist interested to devise machines and
structures that
convert sunlight to electricity. It is time to move beyond our
dependency on
the burning of paleontologic leavings. It is time to ride the wave of
heat
washing over the Earth from the Sun. We would leave behind many
outmoded
technologies, political economies, behaviors and ideas, in making this
change.
There is nothing “dooming” humanity with the approach of global
warming, except
the mental inertia that seeks to preserve our petty ignorance,
prejudices and
greed. The laws of physics present no barrier, and economics is always
an
artificial construction, which we could choose to configure for the
benefit of
everybody.
At the end of
the above article is the
following: Manuel Garcia, Jr. is a physicist (fluid mechanics, gas
dynamics,
thermodynamics, plasma physics) interested in energy technology; he
also has
many other interests and opinions. His e-mail address is <mango@idiom.com>. Read other
articles
by Manuel, or visit
Manuel's
website.
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