Archive for the 'politics' Category

The heading of a recent article in The Guardian:

“Climate change making extreme events worse in Australia – report

Country faces more frequent and more severe weather events if it fails to make deep and swift cuts to carbon emissions”

Full article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/02/climate-change-carbon-emissions-australia

A recently published scientific report in Nature Geoscience has shown that forecasts about global warming have been remarkably accurate (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/27/climate-change-model-global-warming?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487)

Interesting, in this context, that Tony Abbott, the leader of the opposition, according to the Sun Herald, has signaled that Professor Tim Flannery’s job as climate commissioner would go if the Coalition wins government. “It does sound like an unnecessary position given the gentlemen in question gives us the benefit of his views without needing taxpayer funding.” Also “Mr Abbott said if elected as prime minister on September 14 and given the opportunity to revoke the carbon tax a whole range of climate change bureaucracies would also be axed.”

See here:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/victoria-to-suffer-extreme-weather-warn-climate-scientists/story-e6frf7kx-1226611210510

Of course, Tony Abbott’s views about climate change are well kown (see here: http://blog.une.edu.au/klausrohde/2010/07/26/politics-climate-change-big-business-and-the-press-in-australia/).

See also my article here: http://krohde.wordpress.com/article/on-the-way-to-fascism-climate-change-xk923bc3gp4-138/

A just published scientific article examines the mind of so-called climate change sceptics.

“
NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax
An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science
1. Stephan Lewandowsky1
2. Klaus Oberauer1,2
3. Gilles E. Gignac1
1. 1University of Western Australia
2. 2University of Zurich
1. Stephan Lewandowsky, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia E-mail: stephan.lewandowsky@uwa.edu.au
Psychological Science March 26, 2013, 0956797612457686

Abstract
Although nearly all domain experts agree that carbon dioxide emissions are altering the world’s climate, segments of the public remain unconvinced by the scientific evidence. Internet blogs have become a platform for denial of climate change, and bloggers have taken a prominent role in questioning climate science. We report a survey of climate-blog visitors to identify the variables underlying acceptance and rejection of climate science. Our findings parallel those of previous work and show that endorsement of free-market economics predicted rejection of climate science. Endorsement of free markets also predicted the rejection of other established scientific findings, such as the facts that HIV causes AIDS and that smoking causes lung cancer. We additionally show that, above and beyond endorsement of free markets, endorsement of a cluster of conspiracy theories (e.g., that the Federal Bureau of Investigation killed Martin Luther King, Jr.) predicted rejection of climate science as well as other scientific findings. Our results provide empirical support for previous suggestions that conspiratorial thinking contributes to the rejection of science. Acceptance of science, by contrast, was strongly associated with the perception of a consensus among scientists.”

(Cited from http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/03/25/0956797612457686.abstract

Australian elections are approaching. Opinion polls supposedly forecasting the outcome are becoming more numerous. Are the predictions accurate and do the polls contribute to the outcome?

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, a German political scientist, proposed the theory of “spiral of silence”, according to which an opinion becomes dominant because people “adjust” to the supposed majority opinion, being afraid of speaking out because of the fear of isolation, and other factors. “Mass media can create pluralistic ignorance by focusing on the spread of one opinion and muting the minority opinion, causing people to believe what they believe is what everyone else believes also”, and “in which predictions about public opinion become fact as mass media’s coverage of the majority opinion becomes the status quo, and the minority becomes less likely to speak out” (cit. from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_of_silence).

In Australia opinion polls are published every few weeks or sometimes more frequently, supposedly suggesting that Labour has practically already lost the coming elections due later in the year. To what degree do these polls actually contribute to the outcome? And to what degree are the polls meant to change the outcome?

I have drawn attention to this book in an earlier post (see here:

http://blog.une.edu.au/klausrohde/2012/08/10/new-book-the-balance-of-nature-and-human-impact/

Details of the book (contents, contributors, excerpts) can be found here: http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item6964672/?site_locale=en_GB

The book has now been published (Cambridge University Press, February 2013) and the Vice-Chancellor and Head of the School of Environmental and Rural Sciences will launch it on March 11 from 1-2 p.m. in the C.J. Hawkins Homestead foyer – W47.

Chinese have had a long history of “eugenic” selection, by putting those in positions of influence who had passed rigorous state examinations. It seems that this policy has now been brought up to date by incorporating findings of modern science. How has the “West” responded?

See this very interesting article by an evolutionary psychologist. And see many other responses to the question of what one should worry about most.

http://edge.org/responses/q2013

What is the truth behind the Cuban missile crisis? Western media almost unanimously reported that it was resolved by the courageous actions of John Kennedy, who repelled an “unprovoked” Soviet attempt to install nuclear-armed ballistic missiles right under the nose of the USA, in Cuba, thus averting a nuclear war.

The official story as spread by the US government:

” On October 16, 1962, John F. Kennedy and his advisers were stunned to learn that the Soviet Union was, without provocation, installing nuclear-armed medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. With these offensive weapons, which represented a new and existential threat to America, Moscow significantly raised the ante in the nuclear rivalry between the superpowers—a gambit that forced the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. On October 22, the president, with no other recourse, proclaimed in a televised address that his administration knew of the illegal missiles, and delivered an ultimatum insisting on their removal, announcing an American “quarantine” of Cuba to force compliance with his demands. While carefully avoiding provocative action and coolly calibrating each Soviet countermeasure, Kennedy and his lieutenants brooked no compromise; they held firm, despite Moscow’s efforts to link a resolution to extrinsic issues and despite predictable Soviet blustering about American aggression and violation of international law. In the tense 13‑day crisis, the Americans and Soviets went eyeball-to-eyeball. Thanks to the Kennedy administration’s placid resolve and prudent crisis management—thanks to what Kennedy’s special assistant Arthur Schlesinger Jr. characterized as the president’s “combination of toughness and restraint, of will, nerve, and wisdom, so brilliantly controlled, so matchlessly calibrated, that [it] dazzled the world”—the Soviet leadership blinked: Moscow dismantled the missiles, and a cataclysm was averted. ”

For the truth, as reported by Benjamin Schwarz based on research by the American historian Sheldon M. Stern and others, see here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-real-cuban-missile-crisis/309190/?single_page=true

Oswald Spengler’s book “The Decline of the West” (“Der Untergang des Abendlandes”) has influenced influential historians and philosophers. Robert W. Merry, who has written extensively on American history and foreign policy, has given a concise and well argued discussion of the book and its implication for the present state of world affairs and particularly American politics. Some excerpts in the following:

“IN ASSESSING our own time through the Spenglerian prism, a number of perceptions emerge. First, Spengler predicted with uncanny foresight a number of Western developments of the past century, including the rise of world-cities and the money culture, the emergence of a powerful feminism focused on the yearnings of the Ibsen woman, the force of money in politics, declining birthrates and the popular embrace of avant-garde cultural sensibilities, awash in cynicism and cosmopolitanism and bent on destroying the cultural verities of old.

Second, Spengler makes a powerful point when he says these are not characteristics and developments found in ascendant civilizations. On the contrary, many are signs of cultural and societal decadence and decline. Although the hallowed Idea of Progress has shrouded this truth from Western society, the reality is clear: the Western cultural decline, as understood and predicted by Spengler, is now complete.”

“Third, Spengler’s rejection of the notion of a universal culture provides provocative fodder for Western thinking at a time when that notion is embraced widely as a bedrock of American politics.”

“The era of Western cultural health is dead, and it died pretty much as Spengler predicted it would. And no doubt his study of previous great civilizations did in fact accurately identify pressures and forces that emerge at particular points in civilizational development and push toward empire and Caesarism. This push can be resisted by a free people dedicated to the protection of their institutions of old. But they won’t be protected if events are placed on autopilot. The American impulse toward imperialism will prevail if it is not rebuffed consciously by the American people and their leaders.”

Merry’s full article here:

http://nationalinterest.org/article/spenglers-ominous-prophecy-7878?page=show

Has the world learned anything from previous wars? Unlikely!

http://www.thenation.com/article/171484/brutal-peace-postwar-expulsions-germans#

Note: the article may lead to some misunderstanding: the vast majority of Germans driven from their homes were not “Volksdeutsche” but “Reichsdeutsche”, i.e. they lived in provinces (East Prussia, Silesia, parts of Pomerania and Brandenburg) which had been part of Germany for many centuries and were inhabited by close to 100% Germans.

Two thirds of proven fossil energy sources must stay in the ground; put a price on carbon:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/11/20121118123349598830.html

See the previous post on this topic.

A new book, dealing with effects of climate change, habitat destruction and fragmentation, and invasive species, will be published by Cambridge University Press early next year. I am the editor and about 30 leading scientists from around the world have contributed chapters. A further 20 have contributed by reviewing chapters.

Some examples of chapters are: physics of climate, effects of climate change on Arctic vegetation, amphibian decline, the futures of coral reefs, emerging infectious diseases, effects of climate change on insect populations, alternative stable states of plant communities, the mathematics of species invasions, effects of climate change on North American and Australian birds, and a concluding chapter dealing with measures necessary to conserve biodiversity.

Details can be found here:

http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item6964672/The%20Balance%20of%20Nature%20and%20Human%20Impact/?site_locale=en_GB

Here are some excerpts from the book:

“It is clear that nature is undergoing rapid changes as a result of human activities such as industry, agriculture, travel, fisheries and urbanisation. What effects do these activities have? Are they disturbing equilibria in ecological populations and communities, thus upsetting the balance of nature, or are they enhancing naturally occurring disequilibria, perhaps with even worse consequences? It is often argued that large-scale fluctuations in climate and sea-levels have occurred over and over again in the geological past, long before human activities could possibly have had any impact, and that human effects are very small compared to those that occur naturally. Should we conclude that human activity cannot significantly affect the environment, or are these naturally occurring fluctuations actually being dangerously enhanced by humans? This book examines these questions, first by providing evidence for equilibrium and non-equilibrium conditions in relatively undisturbed ecosystems, and second by examining human-induced effects.”

Contents:

“Preface
Introduction Klaus Rohde
Part I. Nonequilibrium and Equilibrium in Populations and Metapopulations: 1. Reef fishes: density dependence and equilibrium in populations? Graham Forrester and Mark Steele
2. Population dynamics of ectoparasites of terrestrial hosts Boris Krasnov and Annapaola Rizzoli
3. Metapopulation dynamics in marine parasites Ana Perez del Omo, Aneta Kostadinova and Serge Morand

Part II. Nonequilibrium and Equilibrium in Communities:
4. The paradox of the plankton Klaus Rohde
5. A burning issue: community stability and alternative stable states in relation to fire Peter J. Clarke and Mike J. Lawes
6. Community stability and instability in ectoparasites of marine and freshwater fish Andrea Simkova and Klaus Rohde
7. Ectoparasites of small mammals: interactive saturated and unsaturated communities Boris Krasnov
8. A macroecological approach to the equilibrial vs. nonequilibrial debate using bird populations and communities Brian McGill

Part III. Equilibrium and Nonequilibrium on Geographical Scales:
9. Island flora and fauna: equilibrium and nonequilibrium Lloyd Morrison
10. The turbulent past and future of arctic vascular plants: climate change, spatial variation, and genetic diversity Christian Brochmann, Mary E. Edwards and Inger G. Alsos

Part IV. Latitudinal Gradients:
11. Latitudinal diversity gradients: equilibrium and nonequilibrium explanations Klaus Rohde
12. Effective evolutionary time and the latitudinal diversity gradient Len Gillman and Shane Wright

Part V. Effects Due to Invading Species, Habitat Loss and Climate Change:
13. The physics of climate: equilibrium, disequilibrium and chaos Michael Box
14. Episodic processes, invasion and faunal mosaics in evolutionary and ecological time Eric Hoberg and Daniel R. Brooks
15. The emerging infectious diseases crisis and pathogen pollution Daniel R. Brooks and Eric Hoberg
16. Establishment or vanishing: fate of an invasive species based on mathematical models Yihong Du
17. Anthropogenic footprints on biodiversity Camilo Mora and Fernando Zapata
18. Worldwide decline and extinction of amphibians Harold Heatwole
19. Climatic change and reptiles Harvey B. Lillywhite
20. Equilibrium and non-equilibrium in Australian bird communities – the impact of natural and anthropogenic effects Hugh Ford
21. Population dynamics of insects: impacts of a changing climate Nigel Andrew
22. The futures of coral reefs Peter Sale

Part VI. Autecological Studies:
23. Autecology and the balance of nature-ecological laws and human induced invasions Gimme Walter
24. The intricacy of structural and ecological adaptations: micromorphology and ecology of some Aspidogastrea Klaus Rohde

Part VII. An Overall View:
25. The importance of interspecific competition in regulating communities, equilibrium vs. nonequilibrium Klaus Rohde
26. Evolutionarily stable strategies: how common are they? Klaus Rohde
27. How to conserve biodiversity in a nonequilibrium world Klaus Rohde, Hugh Ford, Nigel R. Andrew and Harold Heatwole

Index.”