A terrible video you have to watch

Everything that this woman says is completely wrong. I'm amazed that someone can be so wrong in such a short span of time.



Did you watch it?

In case you were thinking, well, maybe some of that makes some sense, let me point out a potential "flaw" in her "argument."

She is making a claim that homeopathy is all about energy. As a refresher, remember that homeopathic treatments use some kind of natural agent to cure symptoms, but the application is a very dilute solution. So if onion is the agent, and I think it sometimes is in homeopathy, the homeopath will take an onion, grind it up and add it to water. But then they take that water, divide it into two, and add it to more water, and so on and so on. Eventually the solution is so dilute that there is no meaningful amount of onion in the water, so the homeopathic treatment is just water. I'm not exaggerating, either, go look it up. Anyway, the woman in the video tries to make sense of this because mass is energy, so in some sense she is saying that they are putting the energy of the onion into the water, so it doesn't matter if there is mass in there. She justifies this because the mass term in E = m*c^2 is very small. In fact, she says you can ignore the m because it is infinitesimal. Wah? Yes, she says this several times, including in her introduction, saying that all the matter in the universe could fit into a bowling ball. I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean, but I do know how to multiply.

Let's take the speed of light, c. Roughly, c is 300-million meters per second, c = 3*10^8 m/s. That's a big number. Now square it, c*c = 9*10^16 m^s/s2, and that is a really big number. No wonder that homeopath thinks we can just neglect the tiny little amount of matter in an onion, since this number is so big. Let's say we have a really large onion of 1 kg. Now how much energy does that mass turn into, well, 1kg*9*10^16 m^2/s^2 = 9*10^16 kgm^2/s^2, which is just 9*10^16 Joules, the SI unit of energy. Now, that sounds like a lot of energy, so it is fine to divide it into a lot of water, right, and spread that energetic wealth. So the homepath puts the pulverized onion into the water, then splits the water into two and adds water, and so on and so on. Eventually you find that the mass of onion in each drop of water is negligible, or infinitesimal, just like the homeopath said. So let's take a very tiny number for the mass, say 1 millionth of the original mass of the onion, so that much energy is actually E = 1kg/10000009*10^16 m^2/s^2 = 90 billion Joules. Still looks like a big number, but remember 1kg divided into a million pieces is still far more than infinitesimal, what about 1 billionth of a kilogram, well that'd be 90 million Joules, and 1 thousandth of a billionth of a kilogram would be 90,000 Joules, and a kilogram divided by the number of atoms in a mole (= 6.02*10^23) produces about 1.5*10^-7 Joules. Ah, there seems to be a trend. If you keep reducing the mass, the energy drops. Even way before you have a single atom per drop of water, you have a negligible amount of energy, despite the constancy of the speed of light.

Just to belabor the point, the homeopath is missing a fact of basic arithmetic. Multiplying a large number by a small number doesn't mean you get the large number. Spreading the onion's energy over a very large amount of water doesn't imbue the water with magical curative properties. You end up with water, plain and simple.

And I haven't even mentioned an essential physical error in her interpretation, namely that squishing an onion does not release the energy of the onion. You apply energy to the onion to break the bonds that hold it together. This does not convert mass to energy; for all practical purposes mass is conserved. Only when we deal with relativity does the Einstein's mass-energy equivalence come into play.

Homeopathy is bunk. At best it is a placebo, and at worst it convinces people to forego actual treatment, fork over their money to some snake-oil salesperson and not get better.

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Updates on Kerry-Boxer in committee

Well, as expected, the republicans left the committee meeting yesterday, so no quorum could be established. There have been a lot of analogies thrown around, but I actually like Arlen Specter's statement the best: "We have a practice in the world's greatest deliberative body of disagreeing without being disagreeable. But you can't disagree with an empty chair." [link] Democrats appealed to the republicans to come to the meeting, but eventually the room emptied, and a stark scene emerged. Senator Barbara Boxer, alone in the room, waiting for republicans. From that WaPo story:

"I guess at this point I'm going to just sit here and wait till they show up," she said, consulting her watch. The hearing had begun three hours earlier.
"I will just sit here for a bit," she said later. "Talk among yourselves." Boxer checked her BlackBerry and rearranged her papers. C-SPAN filmed the empty seats. "Chairman Boxer (D-CA) is waiting for Republican members to come to this meeting," the network flashed on screen. After 15 minutes of silence, the lone senator in the room tapped the gavel. "We're going to stand in recess," she said.

On the plus side, the executive branch is strongly supporting legislation [link], which could buoy the process in some important ways. Mostly, I think that if Obama et al. can keep pushing on the Congress to get a bill passed, it will prevent the bill from dying in committee; something will get pushed through. We can only hope it happens soon, before Copenhagen if possible, since that would give the USA some bargaining power and a least a modicum of credibility.

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, the Europeans are going through negotiations in the lead up to next month's meeting in Copenhagen [link]. It sounds like the Environment ministers are ready to take serious action,

Last week Europe toughened much of its stance further. Environment minsters agreed to slash the EU’s long-term emission reduction targets from 80 percent to 95 percent by 2050, if a deal is reached at Copenhagen, while retaining its relatively ambitious mid-term goal of a 20 percent cut by 2020, rising to 30 percent if other countries promise similar measures (both cuts use 1990 emissions levels as a baseline).

And they also resolved that aviation should cut its emissions by 10 percent, and shipping by 20 percent, by 2020, using 2005 levels as the baseline (both sectors have been exempted from the Kyoto Protocol). And the European ministers said they had decided on vigorous measures to tackle deforestation.

Unfortunately, they Environment ministers don't have power to negotiate the financial side of the deal, and that is where things are stalling out. If the EU can't get their own agreements settled, it is likely that the EU won't come into the Copenhagen meeting with any real power, which is likely to derail the whole proceeding.

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Delay tactics

Well, while I've been neglecting the blog, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has been arguing over the Kerry-Boxer Climate legislation. From what I can tell [example link], the Republican committee members are trying to derail the legislative process. Essentially, they are threatening to just not go to their meeting, which would nominally mean that no rewriting or votes on the bill would be allowed since there wouldn't be a quorum present. Senator Boxer is saying that she hopes the R's will show up, but if they don't she might go ahead with a "different interpretation" of the rules. It is worth noting that the ranking R in this committee is James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a notorious climate denier of the worst ilk.

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Another day, another survey

And today we have less positive numbers. This is a newer poll of 1500 Americans, conducted by Abt/SRBI Inc. for the Pew Research Center [LINK]. This poll is a repeat of earlier ones focused on global warming (the science and the policy). The interesting part is that the Pew Center is reporting on the trends over the past few years, showing that there has been a strong decrease in the belief that global warming is supported by solid evidence and a decrease in the belief that global warming is a very serious problem. The numbers seem to suggest that this signal is mostly carried by the 365 Republicans and the 543 Independents in the survey, but even the 473 Democrats show a decline.

The news is not all bad, and not all contradictory to the older survey I reported on yesterday [LINK]. Despite the decline, the survey shows that 57% of respondent think there is solid evidence the earth is warming, and 65% think it is somewhat or very serious. That's a strong majority. Things get a bit dicier when you consider that only 36% believe there is solid evidence the earth is warming because of human activity; this is a ridiculously low number, and Jim Hoggan thinks this has a lot to do with the well-funded anti-environment, pro-coal lobby [LINK]. The other positive result is that of the participants 50% favor limits on carbon emissions, even if it means higher energy prices. Even more people, 56% of the participants, say that the USA should join other countries in global initiatives to address global warming.

Okay.... but wait a minute. Let me just state that I'm skeptical of the robustness of these results. To be fair, there is a plus or minus 3% on all of these, according to the methodology [LINK]. But even with that in mind, I have to wonder how 50% of the responses favor limiting emissions to address global warming and 56% want global action while only 35% of people think global warming is a "very serious" problem and only 36% think there is "solid evidence" of human-caused global warming. Maybe people are just really pragmatic about environmental policy, so they favor erring on the side of action because of the large risk. I'd support this, as it seems the most rational response (in the absence of "solid" evidence (of which there actually is a mountain)), as discussed in this video. I'm pretty sure people are not nearly that pragmatic nor rational, so I have to wonder whether there is something else happening. I don't really have an alternate hypothesis. One would be a biased sample, but the methodology does seem pretty good (but I'm no expert). A second alternative is that Jim Hoggan is right, but this just seems a little to conspiratorial. Another possibility is that in the past year or so Americans have gotten a little bit edgy because the economy went nuts, and now they are a bit shaken up, not knowing what to think about things like global warming. If this were the case, we'd see a shift in the numbers toward the more moderate or the "don't know" position. However, looking at the responses from April 2008 and October of 2009, the percent of people who think the earth is warming (at all) went from 71% to 57%, and the number of people who think there is not warming went from 21% to 33%. That'd pretty much mean people have changed their minds. However, the question is stated as:

From what you've read and heard, is there solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades, or not?

So we are restricted to "solid" evidence, so we can not reject my moderation hypothesis.

In this case, I think that we have to take these results with the figurative grain of salt. What would be more informative is to see the results showing whether people have shifted to what they might perceive as the more moderate position. Is there "solid", "compelling", "preliminary", "unconvincing", or no evidence at all that the earth is warming? My guess is that what has really happened is that people, in a haze of fear of the economy collapsing, have shifted to the more conservative position, adopting a more "wait and see" attitude. However, some of their previous thinking remains, and they are taking the more pragmatic position on action because of this. In fact, as a bit of evidence that this is the case, we can look at the follow up question:

Do you believe that the earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, or mostly because of natural patterns in the earth's environment?

The "human activity" answer changed from 47% to 36%, but the "natural patterns" stayed about steady, going from 18% to 16%. If Hoggan's conspiracy were the correct mechanism for the change in opinion, then more people would be jumping on the "natural patterns" bandwagon, since that is a very prevalent denial argument. Instead, I would suggest people are just feeling more skeptical about issues that they don't know much about (e.g., the economy, global warming, etc). Either way, it will be interesting to watch how public opinion changes in the coming months. And the fact that still half of Americans are in favor of action supports my repeated call for the current government to actually do something.

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How many Americans don't believe in climate change, or don't care?

There was a survey conducted in the Fall of 2008 that asked detailed questions about climate-related issues. The study was conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. The report is available for download [LINK], or you can read a summary at the Center for American Progress [LINK]. You should definitely start with the summary, and take a look at those graphs. The bottom line is that report breaks the American population into 6 groups based on their beliefs about climate change. Notable about this analysis is that it finds 51% of Americans are quite concerned about global warming, and are prepared to take actions (by voting and spending). That is terrific, as it shows that the message has finally penetrated to mainstream America. Even better, only 7% are "dismissive" of global warming, meaning they don't believe it is even happening. This makes all the deniers on the internet seem even more out of touch and fanatical. There are another 11% that are "doubtful," which is a mix of people who don't know what to believe or think it might be a "natural cycle." So, even if we take all 18% on this side, they only balance the "alarmed" on the other side. Of course, taken a different way, it means almost 1 in 5 Americans still don't think global warming is important.

I guess there are a couple of important things to take away from these results. First, that we can now confidently say that "most Americans" believe global warming is real, caused by humans, and should be addressed. Next, there are at least 18% of Americans that are willing to take strong action to be part of addressing global warming, and in fact, 34% think large-scale action should be taken by the USA government even if it costs a lot. These are the people who will engage in "consumer activism," meaning they will reward or punish companies based on their environmental stands. This means that companies that are eco-friendly should (and already are in many cases) say so, while companies that are not will try to obfuscate their views. In terms of activism, environmental groups should point out companies that are both ends of the spectrum to promote this consumer activism, as knowing which companies are where is a big impediment to actually acting.

I guess the last big point that strikes me is that these results are not in line with the USA government's actions in climate change and energy policy. As I have repeatedly pointed out, the government has done little of substance to address global warming. The current administration talks pretty good talk, but the congress has decided to sit on their hands and worry about getting re-elected. The big Copenhagen meeting is coming up, and it isn't likely that a binding resolution will come out of that. So the American people now have to make their voices heard on these issues. Since most Americans now believe that action should be taken, and since the basic science supports this majority opinion, and emerging science suggests impacts are already being felt in sensitive ecosystems and climate regimes, it seems no good can come from putting off actual action. When I say actual action, I mean (1) consumer activism as mentioned above, (2) political activism via voting for candidates who pledge to take action on climate policy, (3) political activism via pressuring congress to pass climate and energy policy, and (3) domestic legislation and international agreements with binding targets to reduce carbon emissions and punish those countries that do not participate or do not comply with the agreements.

Maybe a way to start is by visiting the up-and-comer in climate activism, 350.org. Sign a petition or send your congressperson a message. Go support climate change policy by participating in the International Day of Action on 24 October. As much as it doesn't sound like it, one of the most useful ways to help galvanize meaningful action is to donate money to organizations that interface more directly with lawmakers.... sigh, yes, these are "lobbyists." But there are good organizations out there that are really fighting for rational policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Examples are the Union of Concerned Scientists, 350.org, the Environmental Defense Fund, or the Save Our Environment Action Center (which is a confederation of other groups).

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Water vapor movie from NOAA

Just was directed to a mesmerizing animation of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season via Jeff Masters. You definitely should go and watch. They have stitched together all the GOES water vapor imagery over a nice topographic background. You get to just watch the large-scale flow swirling and pulsing over the course of several months. Amazing. This is the kind of thing that has inspirational power... for casual passers-by, school kids, and even those of us actively in the field. I can watch this all day.

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Watching Wave

I've been passively listening to some of the reaction to Google Wave lately. Yesterday (via Daring Fireball), I found a blog post by Daniel Tenner that explains how Google Wave will "replace" email for corporate environments [LINK]. I think Tenner is presenting a good case that the people currently testing Wave aren't really the audience that will most benefit from such a product. Where I think he's going slightly wrong is by using the "corporate" environment (which is what DF says too) as the model. Wave is collaboration software, and the way it is presented by Tenner, it really does sound like it could replace email to a large extent for projects and collaboration. It doesn't replace email for correspondence, and it doesn't replace Facebook or Twitter for "status updates" or "microblogging," and it doesn't replace your favorite IM software. But for people who use any of these tools to actually do work, and especially for people who switch between them (or want to be able to switch between them) for a project, Wave sounds like it will be amazing. The essential idea seems to be that you can start a "wave" as a virtual conversation, including having documents and files and thing, and you can add or drop people from the wave at any time (and they get to see everything, not just what is "happening" now), and Wave makes sense for seamless transitions from email to IM type communication. That is, you upload a document, and everyone has it and can read it and edit it, and everyone can see all versions of it. No more attachments. You can walk away from your computer and come back and get caught up with what is going on, or you can be sitting at your computer going back and forth with others in the wave.

Maybe my vision of Wave makes it better than it can possibly be. But I got excited by Tenner's post. I think this would be an amazing way to do collaborative science. Tenner presents things as problems with email and why Wave fixes it, and for every one I though, yes, that is a problem with email! In science there are many collaborations that could benefit by replacing the normal email with a more efficient communication stream. Examples are reports of all kinds, like when people have to report on the status of a project to the funding agency, or when a dispersed team is writing a paper about a project and different people are writing different sections. Another example might just be a grad student working on her/his thesis, their advisor could observe progress and give feedback using Wave, and postdocs, researchers, or committee members could be brought into the wave as needed for further advice and feedback. It could also work for planning projects, working on code, or even doing homework. Wave seems to be a way to clean up your communication stream, bringing different pieces all into one "wave" seems like a better way to get things done. But we'll see.

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