worse than predicted

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Our worst case climate change scenarios are quite possibly much better than the reality will be.

From a discussion of hurricanes in The Weather Makers:

Some commentators believe that the discrepancy between the computer models and conditions in the real world somehow indicates that global warming is not responsible for the increasing cyclone activity. Others, however, believe it suggests what they have long suspected: that the global circulation models used to simulate future changes in climate are deeply conservative. [emphasis mine]

Trees rings are are often used to reconstruct climate. A recent paper about the affect of bugs eating those trees on the climate reconstructions had a similarly worrying conclusion:

Here, we have shown that herbivory by insects can result in the overestimation of the amplitude of variation. If overestimation has been a problem in past reconstructions, recent periods of extreme wet and dry may be further outside of the bounds of normal variation than previously realized, making current estimates of the magnitude of climate change overly conservative.

Now go buy some energy efficient light bulbs.

Stop Dieting

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proud and fat

Someone really needs to do something about companies like weight watchers. And our idea of fat people needs to change. Fat is not ugly or lazy or even unhealthy in many cases. And dieting does not work.

There is a reason that fat people cannot stay thin after they diet and that thin people cannot stay fat when they force themselves to gain weight. The body’s metabolism speeds up or slows down to keep weight within a narrow range. Gain weight and the metabolism can as much as double; lose weight and it can slow to half its original speed.

In fact, it can be pretty unhealthy:

fat people who lost large amounts of weight might look like someone who was never fat, but they were very different. In fact, by every metabolic measurement, they seemed like people who were starving.

And not just physical health is affected:

The Rockefeller subjects also had a psychiatric syndrome, called semi-starvation neurosis, which had been noticed before in people of normal weight who had been starved. They dreamed of food, they fantasized about food or about breaking their diet. They were anxious and depressed; some had thoughts of suicide. They secreted food in their rooms. And they binged.

It turns out that weight is inherited genetically. And it’s more strongly inherited than almost any other condition. Your body works hard to maintain that weight by controlling metabolism and appetite. Telling a fat person to diet, that all you have to do is eat less and exercise more, is wrong.

“Those who doubt the power of basic drives, however, might note that although one can hold one’s breath, this conscious act is soon overcome by the compulsion to breathe,” Dr. Friedman wrote. “The feeling of hunger is intense and, if not as potent as the drive to breathe, is probably no less powerful than the drive to drink when one is thirsty. This is the feeling the obese must resist after they have lost a significant amount of weight.”

double the mushrooms

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Means more food (for trees!)

The climate is getting warmer and winter is coming later. This means fungi have more time to grow. And fungi make tree food!

Fungi play a key role in forest ecosystems, breaking down leaf litter and returning nutrients to trees via their roots. The expanded fruiting season implies a major increase in nutrients available to trees and thus increased tree growth.

Small-fries

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The media has handled the large number of Democratic presidential candidates badly.

The Washington Post‘s David Broder declared (4/27/07) that “six of the eight declared candidates” at the Democrats’ debate in South Carolina “showed themselves to be both substantive and direct in their responses.”

The other two he’s talking about are Kucinich and Gavel, who happen to represent the many many many Americans who are opposed to the war.

And the media thinks it can make decisions for the American people about who we should take seriously.

Describing the Democratic debate, the Los Angeles Times argued (4/27/07) that the wide debate format “allowed each candidate a total of 11 minutes to talk—giving Kucinich and Gravel, both of whom have a negligible showing in polls, equal time with the front-runners, which they used to take aggressive hits at [New York Sen. Hillary] Clinton and Obama.” At this point, more than half a year before the first actual voters have a chance to weigh in, poll numbers should not be the prime determiner of who gets to participate in a debate; even so, Kucinich and Gravel are in what amounts to a statistical dead heat in many polls with candidates treated more seriously by the corporate media, like Biden and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

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