Humanity’s hope for the future: A giant leap for mankind on July 20, 1969

It’s a day to remember history.  Do you remember that day, the first time humans set foot on the Moon?

(This is based on an earlier post.)

Southwest Elementary in Burley, Idaho, existed in a world far, far away from the U.S. space program. We watched rocket launches on black and white televisions — the orbital launches were important enough my father let me stay home from school to watch, but when he dropped me off at school, I was in a tiny band of students who actually made it to school. Potato farmers and the merchants who supported them thought the space program was big, big stuff.

By John Glenn’s flight, a three-orbit extravaganza on February 20, 1962, a television would appear in the main vestibule of the school, or in the auditorium, and we’d all watch. There were very few spitballs. Later that year my family moved to Pleasant Grove, Utah.

Moonrise from Apollo 11 prior to Moon landing. For a QuickTime movie from NASA on the 30th anniversary of the landing, click here.

Toward the end of the Gemini series, television news networks stopped providing constant coverage. The launch, the splashdown, a space walk or other mission highlight, but the nation didn’t hold its breath so much for every minute of every mission. Barry McGuire would sing about leaving the planet for four days in space (” . . . but when you return, it’s the same old place.”), then six days, but it was just newspaper headlines.

The Apollo 1 fire grabbed the nation’s attention again. Gus Grissom, one of the three who died, was one of the original space titans; death was always a possibility, but the U.S. program had been so lucky. Apollo’s start with tragedy put it back in the headlines.

The space program and its many successes made Americans hopeful, even in that dark decade when the Vietnam War showed the bloody possibilities of the Cold War. That darkest year of 1968 — see the box below — closed nicely with Apollo 8 orbiting the Moon, and the famous Christmas Eve telecast from the three astronauts, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William A. Anders. The space program kept us hopeful.

By early 1969 many of us looked forward to the flight of Apollo 11 schedule for July — the space flight that promised to put people on the Moon for the first time in history, the realization of centuries-old dreams.

But, then I got my assignment for Scouting for the summer — out of nearly 50 nights under the stars, one of the days would include the day of the space walk. Not only was it difficult to get televisions into Maple Dell Scout Camp, a good signal would be virtually impossible. I went to bed knowing the next day I’d miss the chance of a lifetime, to watch the first moon landing and walk.

Just after midnight my sister Annette woke me up. NASA had decided to do the first walk on the Moon shortly after touchdown, at an ungodly hour. I’d be unrested to check Scouts in, but I’d have seen history.

And so it was that on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon: “A small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind,” was what he meant to say in a transmission that was famously garbled (at least he didn’t say anything about jelly doughnuts).

Photo: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin salutes the U.S. flag on the Moon; for a gallery of photos from Apollo 11 from NASA, click here.

P. Z. Myers says he remembers a lawnmower going somewhere. It must have been very bright in Seattle. (Thanks for the reminder, P.Z., and a tip of the old scrub brush to you.)

2013 will mark the 44th anniversary.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) lists 11 dates for U.S. history as the touchstones kids need to have: 1609, the founding of Jamestown; 1776, the Declaration of Independence; 1787, the Constitutional Convention; 1803, the Louisiana Purchase; 1861-1865, the American Civil War; 1877, the end of Reconstruction; 1898, the Spanish American War; 1914-1918, World War I; 1929, the Stock Market Crash and beginning of the Great Depression; 1941-1945, World War II; 1957, the launching of Sputnik by the Soviets. Most teachers add the end of the Cold War, 1981; I usually include Apollo 11 — I think that when space exploration is viewed from a century in the future, manned exploration will be counted greater milestone than orbiting a satellite; my only hesitance on making such a judgment is the utter rejection of such manned exploration after Apollo, which will be posed as a great mystery to future high school students, I think.)

* 1968, in roughly chronological order, produced a series of disasters that would depress the most hopeful of people, including: the Pueblo incident, the B-52 crash in Greenland, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the nerve gas leak at the Army’s facility at Dugway, Utah, that killed thousands of sheep, Lyndon Johnson’s pullout from the presidential race with gathering gloom about Vietnam, the Memphis garbage strike, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., riots, the Black Panther shoot out in Oakland, the Columbia University student takeover, the French student strikes, the tornadoes in Iowa and Arkansas on May 15, the Catonsville 9 vandalism of the Selective Service office, the sinking of the submarine U.S.S. Scorpion with all hands, the shooting of Andy Warhol, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the Buenos Aires soccer riot that killed 74 people, the Glenville shoot out in Cleveland, the cynicism of the Republicans and the nomination of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia crushing the “Prague Spring” democratic reforms, the Chicago Democratic Convention and the police riot, the brutal election campaign, the Tlatololco massacre of students in Mexico City, Black Power demonstrations by winning U.S. athletes at the Mexico City Olympics, coup d’etat in Panama. Whew!

More, from Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:

• “Encore quote of the moment:  John Kennedy, ‘We choose to go to the Moon'”
• “Scouts shooting for the Moon:  The story of twelve Moonwalkers, and Scouting”
• “Hall of Fame: Debunking the Moon Landing Hoax hoax”
• “One more way to know Apollo 11 landed on the Moon”
• “XKCD debunks claims of a Moon landing hoax”
• “July 24: A day of arrivals”

And even more:

• Local man recalls his steps toward ‘giant leap’ (news-journalonline.com)
• The Secret Communion on the Moon: The 44-Year Anniversary (swampland.time.com)
• Apollo 11 F-1 Engine Finding Confirmed by Jeff Bezos on Eve of 1st Human Moonwalk (universetoday.com)
• When Will the Next Giant Leap for Mankind Occur? (And Will it be Appreciated?) (justdohistory.wordpress.com)
• Forget an Apollo 11 national park on the moon, let’s focus on next big mission | Santhosh Mathew (guardian.co.uk)
• 6 talks to watch this Moon Day (ted.com)
• Jardine: Moon landing date especially poignant for Modesto couple (modbee.com)
• “National Parks on the Moon? It’s an excellent idea,” Time magazine

Lake Superior, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Superior Fury – Lake Superior near Miner’s Beach in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore during a gale at sunrise. Photo: Steve Perry, via America’s Great Outdoors

Admit it:  That’s not how you usually think of Lake Superior, is it?

Tip of the old scrub brush to America’s Great Outdoor on Tumblr.

More:

• Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan – National Park Service site
• The Pictured Rocks in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (airlandandsea.wordpress.com)
• Dog whose Lake Superior swim created Internet sensation dies (wisn.com)
• Great Lakes Water Levels (blogs.woodtv.com)
• Video confirms ID of 1913 Lake Superior shipwreck (nbc15.com)
• Tall Ship Soerlandet Visits Thunder Bay (netnewsledger.com)
• Schoep, The Dog, Passes Away At Age 20 (minnesota.cbslocal.com)
• The Pictured Rocks in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (airlandandsea.wordpress.com)

Herblock was a prophet

I have no idea whether he was Catholic, but some organization should consider canonizing the great political cartoonist Herblock.  He was a prophet.

See this cartoon of his from 1999, 14 years ago.

Herblock cartoon from 1999.  “Kids these days.  Craziness in schools, movies, video games — terrible!  Here [showing a handgun to a customer], try this little dandy.”

From a collection posted by the Boston Globe.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Dan Wasserman.  Another tip of the old scrub brush to Brian Cronin at Comic Book Resources.

2013 RFK book and journalism awards

Press release from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, July 15, 2013:

Announcing the 2013 RFK Book & Journalism Award Honorees

Author Joseph E. Stiglitz will receive the 2013 Book Award for The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future

(July 15, 2013 | Washington, D.C.) The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights announced the winners of its annual RFK Book and Journalism Awards.

Joseph E. Stiglitz will receive the 2013 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future.  Stiglitz presents a forceful argument against America’s vicious circle of growing inequality, examining the impact it has on our economy, our democracy, and our system of justice. Stiglitz explains how inequality affects and is affected by every aspect of national policy, and with characteristic insight he offers a vision and a plan for a more just and prosperous future.

“Joseph Stiglitz in The Price of Inequality explains in graphic detail the most compelling crisis of our time – the punishing impact that has resulted from the growing chasm of financial inequality in our society,” said John Seigenthaler, Chair of the 2013 Judges Panel. “The judges for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award unanimously agreed that this book by a Nobel Prize-winning economist is most deserving of this year’s prize.

The 33rd annual RFK Book Award will be presented by Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy at a ceremony at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., on September 26.

The ceremony will also feature the presentation of the 2013 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, which include student and professional categories. All honorees will receive a cash gift and a bust of Robert F. Kennedy by Robert Berks in recognition of their award.

This year’s winning journalists, in eight professional and three student categories, are:

• International TV: Lobster Trap; Catherine Olian/Natalie Morales; NBC News/Rock Center with Brian Williams
• Domestic TV: Poor Kids; Jezza Neumann; PBS/Frontline
• International Print: The iEconomy; Charles Duhigg; The New York Times
• Domestic Print: Prognosis: Profits; Ames Alexander, Karen Garloch, Joseph Neff, David Raynor, Jim Walser, and Steve Riley; The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer
• New Media: Beyond 7 Billion; Kenneth Weiss and Rick Loomis; Los Angeles Times
• Radio: An “Occupational Hazard”: Rape in the Military; Bob Edwards; The Bob Edwards Show, SiriusXM Radio
• Cartoon: Cartoons by Jen Sorensen; Kaiser Health News, Austin Chronicle, NPR.org, Ms. Magazine, The Progressive
• Photography: Embracing Uncle Charlie; Marc Asnin; CNN Photos
• College Journalism: M-Powered: University of Mississippi students learn through service in Belize; Patricia Thompson, Director of Student Media; University of Mississippi
• High School Print: Special Needs Cheer Squad Volunteer; Alexis Christo; North Star

The distinguished panel of judges for the Book Award included chair John Seigenthaler, acclaimed journalist, editor, publisher, and former aide to Robert Kennedy, as well as Michael Beschloss, American Historian and Author; Donna Brazile, Political Strategist, Commentator, Author; and Randall Kennedy, Harvard Law Professor, Civil Rights Expert, and Author. For the Journalism Awards, the expert judges panel included chair Margaret Engel, Director, Alicia Patterson Foundation, as well as Jennifer 8 Lee, Journalist and Advisor to Upworthy; Roberta Baskin, Investigative Reporter and Advisor, HHS Office of Inspector General; Kevin Merida, Managing Editor, The Washington Post; Delia Rios, Producer, CSPAN; Alicia Shepard, Freelance Journalist; and Karen Tumulty, Political Reporter, The Washington Post.

About The Robert F. Kennedy Book Award

The RFK Center presents an annual award to the book that, in the words of award founder Arthur Schlesinger, faithfully and forcefully reflects Robert Kennedy, his concern for the poor and powerless, his struggle for honest and even-handed justice, his conviction that a decent society must assure all young people a fair chance, and his faith that a free democracy can act to remedy disparities of power and opportunity. Past winners of the RFK Book Award include Vice President Al Gore, Congressman John Lewis, Taylor Branch, Toni Morrison, Jonathon Kozol, and Michael Lewis.

About The Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards

The RFK Journalism Awards recognize outstanding reporting on issues that reflect Robert Kennedy’s dedication to human rights and social justice, and his belief in the power of individual action. Winning entries provide insights into the causes, conditions, and remedies of human rights violations and injustice, and critical analyses of the movements that foster positive global change.

Impressive bunch — good to see Bob Edwards still pulling down awards.  I hope the Foundation will make the cartoons available online, and any other material they can.  Several tough environmental issues in the mix; Stiglitz adds to his list of awards (now, if only we could get any GOP Member of Congress to read the book . . .).

More:

• NY Times review of The Price of Inequality, by Thomas B. Edsall
• Jared Bernstein interview with Stiglitz, about the book, in Rolling Stone, June 25, 2013
• RFK: What we lost, what we learned (news.yahoo.com)
• Obama Toast Highlights RFK’s 1966 Trip to Tanzania (Photos) – Wall Street Journal (stream.wsj.com)
• 45 years after RFK died, still poverty, plenty and a call to justice (newsobserver.com)
• R.F.K.: Life and Death on the Campaign Trail (newyorker.com)

If class size doesn’t matter, why do the charter schools list it as a key selling point?

Classroom in Edgewood ISD, San Antonio, Texas, in 2010. Republican legislators want more classrooms like this one, crowded, to save money paying teachers and heating the rooms. Or maybe they have a real reason — it can’t be a good one. What’s the ratio, three kids to one desk? Did one kid fail to shower this morning.  Texas Tribune photo, by Bob Daemmrich

Steven Zimmer, a member of the board of the under-assault Los Angeles Unified School District, lays it on the line:  Class size is important, and legislative efforts to expand class size in public schools are intended to sabotage public schooling — and that action harms students.

Description of the video at YouTube from the OTL Campaign:

Small class size isn’t about protecting teachers’ jobs or making their work easier — it’s about providing every student with quality attention in the classroom. Steve Zimmer, Board Member of the Los Angeles Unified School District and a former teacher, asks why we tolerate or dismiss crowded public school classrooms when charters and private schools use small class sizes as a selling point?

More:

• Steve Zimmer on Why Class Size Matters (dianeravitch.net)
• Fresno Unified officials plan for extra $15 million (fresnobee.com)
• LAUSD Debating New School Funding Options (losangeles.cbslocal.com)
• Does class size affect the learning process? (voxxi.com)
• ARIZONA: Charter schools seeing growth across the state (charterpulse.com)
• Call Your Representative Today! And Tomorrow Too! (dianeravitch.net)
• Local districts shouldn’t bear burden of funding charter schools (bangordailynews.com)
• Charter schools offer scant edge over neighborhood schools: study (news.terra.com)
• Tend to Wake County schools (newsobserver.com)
• Learning Journal Week 2 (chiraphatch.wordpress.com)

“OK, Class . . . How many of you are students adn how many are teacher consultants?” J. D. Crowe cartoon from the Mobile, Alabama, Press-Register, August 18, 2009.

“It could be worse — this could be a public school classroom during budget cuts.” Cartoon by Mike Keefe, Denver Post, March 18, 2011

 

Postage stamp tempest: Why can’t the U.S. have scandals like this?

Hey, David Dewhurst:  Do you really think the women who opposed your oppression of them were out of line?  None of them has said you must lick her derriére.

Here’s how they do it in Europe; from The Guardian:

Femen-inspired postage stamp angers French right

Designers say youthful depiction of Marianne for new stamp was partially inspired by Femen founder Inna Shevchenko

You know enough about France from your world history class to know that the nation has, for decades, used an image of a woman as their symbol of liberty (“liberté“).  For obscure reasons, the French have come to call their Liberty, Marianne.  Her image appears on coins, stamps, and wherever else an image can be used.  Most often an artist uses a beautiful French woman — Catherine Deneuve was the model for years — but about as often the name of the model is more obscure.  This is the first time anyone has said a non-French woman might be the model, though the woman named is living in France now, as a refugee from the Ukraine.

Francois Hollande at the unveiling of the new Marianne stamp. Photograph: Francois Mori/AFP/Getty Images

 

It was supposed to be a straightforward new postage stamp to mark François Hollande’s presidency: a more youthful depiction of Marianne, the feminine symbol of the French Republic, reflecting the Socialist president’s promise to help the younger generation.

Instead, the portrait has sparked a spat on the political right after one of its designers said it was partially inspired by Inna Shevchenko, a leading member of the feminist activist group Femen.

The designers, David Kawena and Olivier Ciappa, had previously said their inspirations ran from the Renaissance to French comic strips and Japanese manga. But after the stamp’s launch on Sunday, Ciappa tweeted: “For all those who are asking who the model was for Marianne, it’s a mix of several women, but above all Inna Shevchenko, founder of Femen.”

Probably the most famous image comes from the painting by Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the Nation:

Eugene Delacroix’s paiting, Liberty Leading the Nation, commemorating the 1830 uprising against the French King. That’s “Marianne” holding the flag.

That painting is in a division of the Louvre; it was defaced just this past February, in an odd September 11 protest, by a wacko who insisted the attacks on the World Trade Center and the United States were government-sponsored.   But I digress.

Christine Boutin, a former minister under Nicolas Sarkozy and founder of the Christian Democrat party, tweeted her disgust and her party called for a boycott of “this outrageous stamp”, saying it was an attack “on the dignity of women and the sovereignty of France” and should immediately be withdrawn.

Inna Shevchenko, a member of the women’s rights group Femen. Photograph: Charles Platiau/Reuters

Femen, which often stages topless street protests, was started in Ukraine but is now based in Paris after Shevchenko was granted political asylum following outrage at her felling of a giant cross in Ukraine in support of the Russian band Pussy Riot.

Femen’s most high-profile protests in France have targeted the street demonstrations against same-sex marriage. It also recently staged an anti-fascist protest in Notre Dame cathedral and attempted to ambush the French president at an airshow.

Ciappa, whose exhibition of photographs of imagined gay couples was vandalised in Paris the anti same-sex marriage protests, wrote on Facebook on Monday that he had received “messages of threats and hatred” against him on Twitter, “some violent and some funny, such as Christine Boutin’s call to boycott my stamp”.

Yeah, but here’s the money line:

Shevchenko tweeted: “Femen is on French stamp. Now all homophobes, extremists, fascists will have to lick my ass when they want to send a letter.”

Several French artists have designed different Mariannes for French stamps, but this is thought to be the first inspired in part by a woman who isn’t French.

I have some bad news, perhaps, for U.S radical right-wing wackoes:  I understand that the model for the French symbol of Liberty, Marianne, was really Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis.   The artist was seeking a model who demonstrated the French ideal of a woman standing up to lead her nation against the supposed juggernaut of Fascist oppression and repression.  President Hollande is fearful of noting that, however, because he doesn’t want Texas Gov. Rick Perry to make a trip to France to poach businesses to move to Texas.

Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis reading documents at her Senate desk, in the photo perhaps used as a model for the new Marianne.

Hollande doesn’t fear any businesses would actually relocate from France to Paris; he just doesn’t want to waste any good French cheese or wine on a visiting Rick Perry.

In other Austin rumors, according to my sources at the groseille à l’oignon,  the Texas Republic asked France for rights to the image for their own anti-State of Texas postage stamps just to tick off Rick Perry and the FBI, and the Texas Tea Party is considering using Marianne as their image on their stationery, posters and bumper stickers.  If only they knew.

In the end, we have an entirely pointless, postage stamp tempest, with an artist sneaking in as a model a topless protester to play the role of the top-slipping symbol of French liberty, and typical French insouciance in arguments.  You know darn well that Harry Reid would love to use that line Ms. Schevchenko Tweeted — and so would Wendy Davis, and Rick Perry, and Joe Biden, and even Orrin Hatch.

Maybe all they have to do is pose topless, protesting some infringement on freedom.  Would they do that, even for freedom?

More:

• Topless protester inspired Marianne (bbc.co.uk)
• Topless protester wins French asylum (bbc.co.uk)
• National Report Offers FEMEN Members Asylum at Corporate Office in Los Angeles (NSFW) (nationalreport.net)
• “Marianne in Tunisia,” Foreign Policy
• The Postage Stamp That Has France in a Frenzy (foreignpolicy.com)
• French stamp with activist’s likeness raises ire (kansascity.com)

Delcroix’s painting on display in Lens, France, earlier in 2013. Foreign Policy image.

The 2008 version of Marianne, under President Sarkozsy. This is the immediate predecessor of the 2013 version.

From Stampboards.com: “Marianne” is a national emblem of France and an allegory of Liberty and Reason. She has been portrayed in various ways on a number of stamps issued by France over the years, often wearing a Phrygian cap, symbolic of Liberty. Here is an image of a stamp featuring my favorite version of her: the “Grande Marianne de Gandon,” designed and engraved by Pierre Gandon, and issued by France on March 12, 1945, Scott No. 556, Y&T No. 733.

Bust of Marianne sculpted by Théodore Doriot, in the French Senate.

 

Again: Why do we worry about global warming? It ain’t the climate, it’s the people

This is almost entirely an encore post, repeated for the benefit of the millions who missed it the first time who make fools of themselves when they argue we don’t need to save trees.  It’s not about trees.

Kids hiking in a forest. These are the humans environmentalists worry about, these four, and a few billion like them. Photo from American Forests.

Alun Salt gave great advice about not bothering to engage idiots, pigs, denialists or trolls (here, among other places).  He said I should avoid lengthy answers to blogs that have little audience.

This is probably one of those occasions.

But in a running attempt to stimulate serious thought at a denialist blog, I got a question that has been rather common, and a question which indicates the deep serious misunderstanding denialists and even some well-meaning, overly-skeptical sensible people have:

Why worry about  climate change, since the climate is changing all the time?  Especially, why are people like Al Gore urging that we stop climate change, when CO2 has no great direct effect on human health?  Shouldn’t environmentalists be cheering climate change on, since it’s a “natural process?”

The answer is lost on the other blog, as Mr. Salt predicted it would be.  But since I’ve gotten some version of the question repeatedly in the last month, I may as well repeat the answer here, for the record.

The short answer to why we worry about climate change is that, as with almost all environmental protection, we are worried first about the quality of life of humans, and ultimately about the ability of human life to survive at all.

Here’s the question put to me there:

Ed I’m a little confused. I thought we were talking about the effect of co2 on the climate not the effect of co2 on human health. Co2 is not a toxic gas and would have no effect on human health. The fact that humans weren’t around when co2 was 10-20 times higher has absolutely nothing to do with its effect on climate.
Ed there was no runaway greenhouse effect [link added here] or climate catastrophe. The planet was fine during the phanerazoic. There is actually a lack of co2 in the atmopshere comapred to that time.

Here’s my answer, with a few more links than their format would allow:

No, you’re not a little confused.  You’re a lot confused, greatly misinformed, and not thinking hard.

We worry about CO2’s effects on climate only because we worry about the future of humanity.  Many of us who have children and wish them the same blessings of having children and grandchildren, have thought through the truth of the matter that we don’t possess and rule the Earth for ourselves, but instead act only as stewards for future generations.

No Earth, no humans; but at the same time, no habitable Earth, no humans.  In the long run, Earth doesn’t care.  It’ll do fine — without humans.

We can’t damage the planet.  We can only damage its habitability for humans.

I don’t know what sort of dystopian Randian future you and other Do Nothings hope for, but it’s a future contrary to human life, American values, and all known religions.

We’re talking about the future of humans.  I tell “skeptics,” “If you don’t care, butt out.  You’ll be dead in the short run anyway, but that’s no reason to stand in the way of action not to ensure a livable planet for our grandchildren.”

You also fail to understand chemistry, pollution, and how the world works.  CO2 is indeed a toxic gas.  For about a century now we’ve had indoor air standards that require air circulation to keep CO2 down below concentrations of about 500 5000 ppm [see comments], because at that level it starts to have dramatic effects on humans working.  It clouds their thinking and causes drowsiness.  CO2 is a conundrum, in that it is also necessary to trigger mammalian breathing.  If CO2 drops too low, we don’t take in enough oxygen and may pass out.  Too much oxygen in place of CO2 is a problem in that regard.  A substance can be both essential and a  pollutant, at the same time. (This has vexed food safety experts for years, especially after the 1958 Delaney Clause; substances we know to be essential nutrients can be carcinogenic, in the same concentrations, or in the same concentrations with a slight twist in chemical formula — how do we regulate that stuff?)

Main symptoms of carbon dioxide toxicity (See Wikipedia:Carbon_dioxide#Toxicity). References: Toxicity of Carbon Dioxide Gas Exposure, CO2 Poisoning Symptoms, Carbon Dioxide Exposure Limits, and Links to Toxic Gas Testing Procedures By Daniel Friedman – InspectAPedia Davidson, Clive. 7 February 2003. “Marine Notice: Carbon Dioxide: Health Hazard”. Australian Maritime Safety Authority. Model: Mikael Häggström. To discuss image, please see Template talk:Häggström diagrams (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CO2 is toxic in much greater proportions — it was a CO2 cloud that killed thousands in Cameroon 30 years ago or so, if you know history.

Clearly you did not know that we’ve regulated indoor CO2 for decades.  Clearly you haven’t looked at the medical journals‘ discussion on CO2 — and I’ll wager you’d forgotten the Cameroon incident, if you ever knew about it.

CO2 is a toxic gas (the dose is the poison); CO2 has dramatic effects on human health — too little and we die, too much and we die.

The fact that humans were not around when CO2 was much higher is exactly the point.  That was presented here, as it is in most venues, as support for a claim that we don’t need to worry about CO2 pollution.  Well, that’s right — if we don’t care about a habitable Earth.  But when CO2 was higher, life for humans was impossible.

I think it’s reckless to run an experiment on what would happen with higher CO2 levels, using the entire planet as a testing place, and testing the hypotheses on just how much CO2 will kill us all off, and how.

How about a control group, at least?

In the past, massive CO2 created massive greenhouse effects that would devastate us today — not as a toxic gas, but as a result of the warming that greenhouse gases do.

Let us understand the physical conundrum of CO2 here:  Without the greenhouse effect from the human-historic levels of CO2, this would be an ice planet.  Our lives today depend on the greenhouse effects of CO2.

Consequently, anyone who claims there is no greenhouse effect fails to understand physics, chemistry, biology and history.  (Heck, throw in geology, too.)  Life would be impossible but for the greenhouse effect.  Life is impossible without water, too, but you can’t live totally surrounded by water.

Can it be true that there can never be too much of a good effect, with regard to greenhouse gases?  Ancient Greek ideas of “all things in moderation” applies here.  We need a Goldilocks amount of CO2 in our atmosphere — not to much, not too little; not too hot, not too cold.

To the extent that higher CO2 levels didn’t produce a total runaway greenhouse effect, as some hypothesize exists on Venus, we know that was due to other feedbacks.  Early on, for example, CO2 began to be reduced by photosynthesizing life.  Animal life today would be impossible but for that occurrence.  Few if any modern chordates could breathe the very-low oxygen atmosphere of the early Earth, and live.  Those feedbacks and limiting situations do not exist today.

Greenhouse Effect. Wikipedia image

So now we face a double or triple whammy.  The reduction in CO2 in the air was accomplished through a couple billion years of carbon sequestration through plants.  In fact, a lot of carbon was sequestered in carbon-rich fossils, stuff we now call coal and oil.  Oxygen replenishment was accomplished with massive forests, and healthy oceans, with a great deal of photosynthesis.  This created a rough CO2 equilibrium (with fluctuations, sure) that existed we know for at least the last 50,000 years, we’re pretty sure for the last 100,000 years (we know that from carbon-dating calibration exercises).

Today we have removed fully 30% of the forests that used to replenish oxygen and lock up a lot of CO2 (some estimates say 50% of the forests are gone); modern plant communities cannot pluck CO2 out fast enough.  Plus, we’re releasing a lot of that old, sequestered carbon in coal and oil — at rates unprecedented in human history.

Will more CO2 warm the planet?  We know from the fact that the planet is warm enough for life, that more CO2 will warm the planet more.  Anyone who says differently does not know physics and chemistry, nor history.

Is there anything that can stop that effect?  Sure — healthy, massive forests, and healthy oceans.  Reducing carbon emissions could help a lot, too.  But we’re committed for about a century.  CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t fall to the ground like particulate pollution.  it drifts until it is incorporated into something else, either through photosynthesis or other chemical reactions.  It takes a mole of CO2 a couple of centuries to come out of the air.  We’re stuck with elevated and elevating CO2 regardless our actions, for a century or two, even if we are wildly successful in reining in emissions and creating sequestration paths.

What happens when CO2 levels get higher than 350 ppm?  History, physics and chemistry tells us glaciers will melt, rainfall patterns will alter dramatically, sea levels will rise, carbon will be absorbed by the seas in increasing amounts (causing acidification — simple chemistry).  [See the counter in the right column of this blog; by July 2013, CO2 temporarily climbed above 400 ppm in a spike, and rested dangerously close to 400 ppm constantly.]

It’s a very exciting experiment.  The entire human race is at stake. How much CO2 will it take to produce the effects that kill us all?  It’s likely that changing rainfall patterns and rising sea levels will produce wars over resources, long before CO2 itself starts being physically toxic.  That’s what the Pentagon’s big thinkers say.  That’s what the Chinese big thinkers say, which is why they are working to reduce emissions even without an enforceable treaty.

As experiments go, I think it’s immoral to use humans in experimentation without getting their consent, and without passing the entire experiment through the Institutional Review Board to make sure the experiment is useful, necessary, and done ethically.

Do you have those consent statements?  All seven billion of them?  Have you got approval from the research overseers of the institution?

If you don’t have permission to proceed with this progeny-killing experiment, why do you propose to proceed?  Many people believe that, if the courts on Earth don’t get us, a higher court will.

How will you plead wherever the call to justice is delivered?

More:

• James Hansen: Fossil fuel addiction could trigger runaway global warming (guardian.co.uk)
• The Moist Greenhouse Effect Could Be the One That Destroys Our Atmosphere (motherboard.vice.com)
• “Global Warming is Real and We Should Be Worried,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 22, 2010
• “Indoor carbon dioxide concentrations and Sick Building Syndrome symptoms in the base study revisited:  Analysis of the 100 building dataset, ” Proceedings: Indoor Air 2002, USEPA; “Very large increases in ventilation rates, sufficient to reduce indoor CO2 concentrations to approximately outdoor levels, would be expected to decrease prevalence of selected symptoms by 85%.”
• EPA IAQ guide for indoor air pollutants in schools; “Health Effects: CO₂ is an asphyxiate.  At concentrations above 1.5 percent (15,000 ppm) some loss of mental acuity has been noted.  (The recommended ASHRAE standard of 700 ppm above the outdoor concentration is to prevent body odor levels from being offensive.)”
• ASTM Standard Guide for using CO2 levels as an indicator of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)
• Global greening, the other ‘greenhouse effect’, is underway (science.nbcnews.com)

Living with a pirate cat: Cap’n Jack

A true story.  I know the woman who wrote it.

Cap’n Jack Sparrow, the pirate cat. Note the hole in his right ear, no doubt left from when he wore an earring. This photo was in the vet’s office, the day he got his cone of shame off, after his tail stub had healed sufficiently.

From the Animal Rescue Site, back in April:

I was walking to my truck at the commuter rail parking lot when I heard a cat crying loudly. He was under the truck. I knelt down and held my hand out and he came over for scratches. Of course I scooped him up — no way was I leaving him in that parking lot on a cold December evening. He sat next to me the 8 miles home purring loudly while I petted him. He was a small, very dirty black kitty with a hole in one ear, a terrible wound all the way around his tail, scratches on his face, worms and fleas — he was a mess. The vet had to amputate his tail, now a little nub. We weren’t going to name him, because we already had an elderly dog and older cat and didn’t want more animals, so we figured to find him a good home and let the new owner name him. The vet had other ideas. She looked at the hole in his ear, announced his name as Captain Jack Sparrow and we just HAD to keep him because he was such a love sponge. We thought he was a kitten because of his size, but she said the worms had stunted his growth and he was actually a young adult. Four months later he is a healthy, very finky force to be reckoned with — tearing around the house, tormenting the older cat and dog. But when he puts his paws around my neck, purring and rubbing my face, all is forgiven. The name really does fit him — he’s a fierce little pirate who knows the way to your heart.

Anonymous
Dallas, TX

More:

• Cats as Healers (espirational.com)
• Getting Hoomans to Bend to Your Will (stickythekitty.wordpress.com)
• Q: Why do cats Purr? A: A purring cat is (cedarwoodvet.wordpress.com)
• Why and How a Cat Purrs (todayifoundout.com)
• Cats are Equal Opportunity Affection Givers [Infographic] (loupdargent.info)

Epic political cartoons: Steve Benson on GOP and women’s rights

Hard to believe this cartoon was published back in May.

Steve Benson cartoon for the Arizona Republic, May 10, 2013: “Speaking of holding women in captivity . . .”

 

Apparently the Texas Lege thought it was a model for action, and not a ridiculing of their ideas.

More:

• Steve Benson biographical sketch
• Benson’s page at the Arizona Republic site
• Benson at The Cagle Post (the most ardent promoter of political cartoons in the world)
• David Fitzsimmons: Cartoon glitterati crave laughs but don’t clown around on deadline (azstarnet.com)
• Steve Benson cartoon: Shelf life (oregonlive.com)
• Political cartoons, trivial and inconsequential? I think not | Russ Radcliffe (guardian.co.uk)
• Cartoons: Fourth of July (photos.mercurynews.com)
• Steve Benson cartoon: Who may I ask is calling, please? (oregonlive.com)

About Florida

I don’t know.  It seems a little extreme.

But I don’t see anybody trying to stop Bugs.  Bugs Bunny, Florida, Zimmerman Trial, Stand Your Ground

Undoubtedly copyrighted by Warner Bros. This is fair use. Thanks to Coyote Crossing.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Chris Clarke at Coyote Creek.

More:

• Zimmerman found not guilty in Florida (radionz.co.nz)
• “Zimmerman’s lawyers should realize it’s not over yet,” Teacher Ken Bernstein, at Daily Kos

A depiction of Bugs Bunny’s evolution through the years. Regardless how Bugs looks, he usually reflects some of the more popular views of the day. Wikipedia image

Return of the roadrunners

Our move to Texas in 1987 offered as one amenity, local roadrunners.

Camp Wisdom road was mostly two lanes then — it’s six, now.  Clark Road was two lanes.  It’s expanded to six, with a direct link to the freeway Spur 408.  Wheatland Road was two lanes.  You guessed it: Six now.

Not sure about baseball fields any more, but with roads, if you build ’em, people will come.  The empty prairie and cedar forests favored by golden-cheeked warblers, and favorable to lizard-eating roadrunners, gave way to bulldozers putting up apartment complexes, strip shopping centers (still mostly vacant), self-storage businesses, and more roads.  Roads bring automobiles, and autos provide collision courses for roadrunners.

In the summer, I used to see a roadrunner at least weekly at the intersection of Camp Wisdom and Clark; once watched one hunt down a very large Texas fence lizard and dash off with the lizard dangling from either side of its beak.  In the era before electronic cameras.

All that development takes the habitat of roadrunners, and that is the slow death of much wildlife.  Roadrunners dwindled down.  About 2009 we discussed how rare they were.  In 2011 Kathryn and I saw one lone roadrunner along Old Clark Road in Cedar Hill, precariously living in a 50-yard swath between two roads (which are slated to be widened), sharing a railroad track.  Nothing since.

Mama roadrunner gives me the eyeball from the safety of the cedar tree, while the chick grooms. Is it safe to go out into the sun?

Until two weeks ago.  Kathryn called me, excited that she’d seen a roadrunner crossing Mountain Creek Parkway, where Wheatland Road dead-ends into it.  It’s good roadrunner weather.  We were happy to know at least one survived.

Then, last Thursday I was driving along Old Clark Road.  I brought along the Pentax K10D because I was hopeful of catching the hawk family living a block off of Wheatland and Cedar Ridge Roads.  A roadrunner dashed across the road from a small ranchette into a “vacant” field of wild prairie grasses dotted with Ashe cedars.  My experience is they are reclusive, and don’t like to be watched.  I grabbed the camera and got a couple of shots of the bird, running under a tree and meeting up with another, smaller one — a chick!

I doubled back and u-turned, hoping they might at least dash.  The larger one danced on the edge of the shadow of the tree for a minute, then uncharacteristically strutted out, hunting something to eat.  She got something that looked like a lizard, or a fantastically large grasshopper, and a few other tidbits from the grass.  She strutted around, and headed back to the shade, and to the younger one.

Mama Roadrunner flaps happily after ingesting a large something.

Roadrunners, the greater roadrunner, Geococcyx californianus (which means “Californian Earth-cuckoo,” a description of many politicians in the Golden State, perhaps).

I shot stills, with a 50-200 mm telephoto zoom, and I got a bunch of shots.  I strung them together in Windows Moviemaker.

Are the roadrunners doing okay?  Not really.  They’re not gone, but much of their old habitat disappeared from this hill, the highest point in Texas between the Louisiana border and the Rockies — swallowed by human development, homes, suburban shopping, and the roads that go with that development.

How are roadrunners doing in your area?  Got pictures?  (Cindy Knoke has a longer telephoto than I’ve got, and photos to prove it; go see.)

Greater Roadrunner doing what roadrunners to, back to the shade of a cedar tree and her chick. It was 102 degrees F, after all.

More:

• A roadrunner in a tree, at Bob Zeller’s blog
• “Tree runner,” at Nature Novice
• “Greater Roadrunner,” at Colorado Fauna
• Greater Roadrunner of Malibu pays Dawn Ericson a visit at home, makes the local newspaper cover… (mantapublications.wordpress.com)
• Kansas zoo bird euthanized after being beaten, severely injured (examiner.com)
• The Phoenix Roadrunner: The Fastest Bird That can Fly (local.answers.com)
• Nature Lovers List: The Birds of Arizona (local.answers.com)
• The Top Five Phoenix Birds (local.answers.com)
• A roadrunner visited Kenne Turner, too – note the very nice photo of the red and blue patch behind the bird’s eye.  Feathers?

Thunder is impressive, but it’s lightning that does the work

Nice photo from Texas Storm Chasers:

Finally, a good lightning photography night! Here's one shot I took around 10 PM in Norman, OK. -DR #okwx #txwx http://t.co/jvN3SS28sR

— Texas Storm Chasers ⚡ (@TxStormChasers) July 12, 2013

David Reimer’s great shot of lightning, about 10:00 p.m. in Norman, Oklahoma, July 11, 2013

Good luck, and keep ’em coming, David!

(Mark Twain observed:  “Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.” (Letter, August 28, 1908))

July 10, 1850, Millard Fillmore succeeds to the presidency

Millard Fillmore was elected vice president largely because he was on the ticket with the very popular Gen. Zachary Taylor, hero of the Mexican War.

About 15 months into his presidency, President Taylor took ill  after presiding over July 4 festivities in blazing heat.  He died on July 9, 1850; Vice President Millard Fillmore took the oath as president the next day, and served out the term.  163 years ago today, Millard Fillmore served his first day as President.

Millard Fillmore in an 1850 lithograph by Francis D’Avignon after a photograph by Matthew Brady (unclear if this was before or after his ascending to the presidency) – Library of Congress image

Taylor had encouraged New Mexico and California to draw up state constitutions, which would have disallowed slavery in those states.  To southern leaders who threatened secession, Taylor promised to personally lead the army that would hold the union together by force, and personally hang those who had proposed rebellion.

Fillmore had presided over the Senate during months of furious debate on issues that always seemed to come down to slavery.  Because he didn’t hold to the views of the Whig Party which had elected the Taylor-Fillmore ticket, even more than Taylor had strayed, the cabinet resigned.  Fillmore appointed Daniel Webster as Secretary of State, and proceeded to push for compromise on issues to avoid war.  His machinations helped get California admitted as a free state, but left New Mexico as a territory.  His support of the Fugitive Slave Act alienated even more Whigs, and by 1852 the Whigs refused to nominate Fillmore for a term of his own.  He left office in 1853, succeeded by Franklin Pierce.

Fillmore’s greatest accomplishment as president, perhaps, was his sending a fleet of ships to Japan to force that nation to open up to trade from the U.S.  The political furor over the Fugitive Slave Act, the Missouri Compromise, and other issues around slavery, tend to eclipse the memory of the good that Fillmore did.

Nota bene:  Controversy surrounded the death of Taylor.  Because he had threatened southern secessionists and incurred anger from several other groups, from the time of his death there were rumors he had been poisoned with arsenic.  Officially, the cause of death was gastroenteritis; popular accounts note that he had, in the heat of July, drunk milk and eaten cherries and cucumbers.  Certainly strep, staph or other bacteria in the milk could have created a problem.  In 1991 a team led by George Washington University Law Professor James Starrs exhumed Taylor’s body from his Louisville, Kentucky burial plot, and tested his remains for arsenic at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  Analysis presented to the Kentucky medical examiner indicated arsenic levels way too low for a poisoning victim.

[This is an encore post, in parts.]

More:

• A presidential death and averting two constitutional crises (constitutioncenter.org)
• Wretched Richard’s Almanac: And He Bought His Soap from a Guy Named Smith (richarddaybell.wordpress.com)
• 1850-Zachary Taylor and the Medical Geniuses-Almanac of Absurdities 7/9/20123 (timemarcheson.wordpress.com)
• President Millard Fillmore [Part 1] (worldhistorydaily.wordpress.com)
• This Week in History (abcnews.go.com)

“An Available Candidate: The One Qualification for a Whig President”. Political cartoon about the 1848 presidential election which refers to Zachary Taylor or Winfield Scott, the two leading contenders for the Whig Party nomination in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War. Published by Nathaniel Currier in 1848, digitally restored. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)  Despite the cynicism of many , Zachary Taylor won the Whig Party nomination, and the presidency.  Taylor died just over a year after his inauguration.

History of America, or art in America, or American art, or . . .

Brilliant piece from Grant Snider — history teachers, this should be a poster in your classroom, no?  Art teachers?

Grant Snider’s “American Art, exploring a country through its paintings”

In the course of a junior-level, high school U.S. history class, students should experience each of these works, and many others.  This is one whimsical way to work with serious and uplifting material, no?

Mr. Snider has a short essay — inspiring — and the information on each of the works he portrays, at the Modern Art site (I’ve added links below, here).

Since that formative vacation, the art museum is always one my of first stops in visiting a new city. In the comic above, I’ve curated my ideal collection of 20th-century American art. Here’s a list of works in order of appearance:

Jasper Johns, “Flag”

Edward Hopper, “Morning Sun”

Ellsworth Kelly, “Red Blue Green”

Wayne Thiebaud, “Refrigerator Pie”

Grant Wood, “Young Corn”

Roy Lichtenstein, “Whaam!”

Stuart Davis, “Colonial Cubism”

Andy Warhol, “Campbell’s Soup Cans”

George Bellows, “Dempsey and Firpo”

Jackson Pollock, “Autumn Rhythm”

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Sky Above Clouds III”

What are your favorite American art works, and what do they portray or demonstrate that you like?

More:

• Art Talk: Edward Hopper’s Drawings Are… Boring (wnyc.org)
• Years in the making, greatly expanded Colby Art Museum readies for public viewing (bangordailynews.com)
• National Medal of Arts Award for Ellsworth Kelly (galleristny.com)
• 30 Americans on Display at Milwaukee Art Museum (themilwaukeedrum.com)

Doubt climate change? Here, have a cigarette . . .

From Smithsonian Magazine: The Colorado River Runs Dry A boat casts a forlorn shadow in a dry river channel 25 miles from the river’s historical end at the Gulf of California. Photo by Peter McBride (Go see the entire slide show; spectacular and troubling images)

As John Mashey has been quietly but consistently warning us for some time . . .

From ClimateRealityProject.org:

Join us and stand up for reality. http://climaterealityproject.org – This film exposes the parallels between Big Tobacco‘s denial of smoking’s cancer-causing effects and the campaign against the science of climate change — showing that not only are the same strategies of denial at work, but often even the same strategists.

If you watched that all the way through, odds are high you’re not a denier.  If you can’t watch it, you really should think about it, hard.

More, and useful resources:

• Annals of global warming:  Arizona wildfires 2013 and the “new normal” (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
• One more time: Basic climate science with Bill Nye (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
• Discovery of Global Warming, at the American Institute of Physics (Spencer Weart)
• Killer CO2 cloud (see especially comments)
• Abstract of “Carbon Dioxide Poisoning,” Toxicology Review, 2005
• Industry’s anti-global warming misinformation campaign reminiscent of Big Tobacco’s strategy, Scientific Activist
• Big Tobacco then, global warming now (desmogblog.com)
• Canada: Welcome to climate change, Toronto (crofsblogs.typepad.com)
• Pacific leaders look to link climate change and disaster policy (radioaustralia.net.au)
• Climate Change Denial now available as Kindle ebook (skepticalscience.com)
• The GOP’s Creeping Climate Crackup. Don’t Blame Us. It’s Al Gore’s Fault. (climatecrocks.com)
• “Colorado River Runs Dry,” Smithsonian Magazine; see especially the slide show, photos by Peter McBride
• “Science as the Enemy – the traveling salesmen of climate skepticism,” Der Spiegel (in English)