Stoat
Taking science by the throat...
2024-10-16
Who knew what when, again?
2024-10-11
The Foundations of Morality
Other, failed, theories
Morality, Law, Manners
The curious case of Haidt
Notes
Refs
2024-09-21
By the sword you did your work and by the sword you die
Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites an ‘existential threat to astronomy’ - predictably, all the ideas are "more regulation". There's not even a thought of cost-benefit analysis: is Starlink a better use than radio astronomy? Or even "would we be better off doing this from space?"
Mario Draghi’s best ideas are those Europe finds least comfortable (full report). But his answers are always things like "unify decision-making on public investments" so its all doomed; the idea of dealing with over-regulation is still-born (he does manage to notice that "innovative firms that want to scale up are hindered by inconsistent and restrictive regulations" but his answer is to unify the regulations, not to think). And as the Economist says, the "recommendations are so numerous that policymakers will be able to pick and choose from among them"; this always happens. As an employee of a USAnian megacorp in the UK, I'm think I'm kinda insulated from the slow death of Yorp.
And then by happy chance, via Xitter, comes Foundations: Why Britain has stagnated. You'll notice, of course, that this compares Britain unfavourably with Yorp, particularly France, so is not perfectly in accord with me; nonetheless it is well-reasoned.
Update
[2024/10/02] Since I wrote the above the popcorn vendors have been making out like bandits. There's no shortage of talking heads proffering their foolishness, so I'll try to avoid adding much more. One notable theme has been of the "oh you know getting into these wars is very very dangerous" variety, written by idiots sat in comfortable arm chairs to be read by idiots sicacZZZ, as though the Israelis who are actually risking their lives haven't thought of it; a sort-of variant on Dumb America. When done by e.g. Al-Jazmagi it's whistling in the wind / what their base want to hear; when done by the West it is more, I think, "intellectuals" desperate to be relevant in a time of soldiers (this seems to be a more decent assessment, though still somewhat pro-H; notice that what has happened wasn't on their list of possibilities). As I write this the Mad Mullahs have flung a pile of missiles at the kikes to little obvious effect5 but seems likely to provoke interesting consequences. I don't have a good feel for what will happen, but let me attempt a prognostication just to show how wrong I can be: the Israelis will hit Iran, taking out air defences (quite likely with US help), missile sites, and some of the nuke programme, and a token hit on oil facilities. And if they have any sense, take out their navy including the spy ship that helps the Houthis.
[2024/10/04] Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has vowed that Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza will emerge with new leaders and will not back down says the Graun; this is convenient if you were under any illusion that Hammy or Hezzy were independent entities; but no, Iran speaks for them. He continued "the brilliant action of our armed forces a couple of nights ago was completely legal and legitimate”... any nation had the right to defend its soil and its interests in the face of aggressors. And yet it isn't clear to me how flinging a pile of missiles at Israel was helping defend his Iran; since the near-inevitable consequence is Israel attacking Iran, it might be the reverse.
[2024/10/08] Astonishingly, the Beeb manages Siniora is unflinching in his assessment of Lebanon’s lost sovereignty. "Practically, Lebanon as a state has been kidnapped by Hezbollah. And behind Hezbollah is Iran. They make up for that brief interlude of sanity by hiding it under a blame-misattributing headline of "Lebanon abandoned by international community - ex PM". And another note: from the Economist, which tracks attacks in Lebanon, I see that Hezbollah attacks on Israel haven't gone down, counting raw numbers. The Israeli incursion won't be a success until it goes to ~zero.
Notes
1. Absurdly, Wiki's article on "live by the sword" insists that the quote is biblical, despite the play preceeding the New Testament by centuries. I tried to correct them but they wouldn't listen.
2. Despite this being the bleedin' obvious, which I said in June, the fuckwitted meeja still haven't realised. Update: this is a fine example: Lebanon's economy minister Amin Salam says "It is very clear if we decide, or if Hezbollah decides, or the whole country decides to take a big risk and gamble more in this war, we will be paying a very, very, very big price that will take Lebanon to a very difficult place, and it will take many, many years to get back from that place". So, errm, why not decide not to take that risk? Why not decide not to fight? The answer, of course, is that he is unable to say "oh shit we have no control of Hezbollah we wish they'd all fuck off but if I say that they'll kill me".
I find, belatedly, "the one responsible for the fire from Lebanon is not only Hezbollah or the terrorist elements that carry it out, but also the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese state that allows the shooting from its territory" from csis.org/analysis/coming-conflict-hezbollah.
3. Holy Shiite Batman: the Graun actually quotes someone saying "Get the official Lebanese army on the ground on the Israel Lebanon border – not Hezbollah not Iran – get state authority back into the south Lebanon border." Admittedly, buried in other ideas and obvs the Graun doesn't take this up, but even a brief interlude of sanity is welcome.
4, More [2024/09/26] shitty reporting from Politico; the bit they're missing is the obvious: Hezbollah refusing to accept a ceasefire (and no, the fuckwitted tying it to Gaza isn't sane).
5. Ironically, the only reported fatality is "Sameh al-Asali, a 37-year-old Palestinian from Gaza living in the occupied West Bank". However - correctly IMO - people are regarding it as a serious attack.
6. There's plenty of that in The Economist; just recently they seem to change their tune somewhat with What Hamas misunderstood about the Middle East.
Refs
* Against Censorship and Its Academic Supporters.
* Galileo Galilei vs The Holy Roman Catholic Church – Round: 5555555555…………
*Preliminary Milei Report Card - ACX.
* SLS is still a national disgrace.
* "In light of the wars and crises that threaten Arab and regional security, we have no choice but to restore the concept of the nation-state and respect its independence and sovereignty. The era of militias with its sectarian and regional dimensions has cost the Arabs dearly and burdened the region. The future is for security, peace and prosperity with an independent Arab project reconciled with its surroundings" take that, Hezzy and Hammy.
* Who is really in charge of Lebanon?
* Conservatives Are Lying on Immigrant Crime.
* Compendium of Writings on the October 7 War and Western Reactions to it (including Far-Left Support for Hamas is not an Aberration).
2024-09-06
When will climate change turn life in the U.S. upside down?
Refs
2024-08-15
Good news on photovoltaics, perhaps
Refs
2024-07-22
Book review: A Heritage of Stars
Refs
2024-07-02
The Loper's so Bright, I gotta wear shades
Refs
Notes
2024-06-28
Mayflies
2024-06-24
Spinoza, Ethics
You can tell from the title (Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order) that its going to go wrong, being another (but perhaps the first (no: the rather more successful Leviathan predates it by 10 years)) to ape geometry. It doesn't take him long to go wrong, he doesn't really understand definitions / axioms well: thus he defines finite (not rigourously, obvs) and then uses infinite without defining; he uses eternal before deffing it; etc. We get a pile of propositions that all depend on e.g. exactly what he means by "substance" so I didn't care.
Then, the ontological proof of god, which no-one believes, including him, because he immediately follows it with another proof variant (see wiki: by God he may mean Nature; which may or may not be the simple material universe (in which case why bother prove it exists?) or some pantheistic god).
Later, he proves that you can't cut an infinite thing in half because it would then be two infinities which is twice as large. Duh. He also neglects to consider one part being finite. I hope we get past this dull stuff soon.
Doesn't like free will (prop xxxii) since will needs a cause which must regress to god; similarly (xxxiii) the world could not be other than is, since it proceeds from god and god cannot be different it would be absurd. Confusingly (corr to prop xxxi, but another ordering of props) things are contingent.
There's very little actual ethics in there. In discussing good / bad (mostly in terms of desire / aversion in which he is close to Hobbes) I think he goes wrong (e.g. later: good-v-evil is nothing but emotions of pleasure-v-pain). He is missing the key concept of societies only existing if they have moralities that allow existence. This is unsurprising but means all his stuff is broken. Note: it is important to realise when things are broken. Not doing so, and endlessly chattering, is a key failure of most philosophy. Of his many propositions re emotions, some are kinda interesting aphorisms, and so of some value, but the proofs are all uninteresting.
Hazlitt
Hazlitt, in The Foundations of Morality, quotes Spinoza for "In no case do we strive for, wish for, long for, or desire anything because we deem it to be good, but on the other hand we deem a thing to be good, because we strive for it, wish for it, long for it, or desire it" (written between 1661 and 1675). That would make me think him worthwhile, had he originated it. But it is just a rip-off of Hobbes: "But whatsoever is the object of any mans Appetite or Desire; that is it, which he for his part calleth Good: And the object of his Hate, and Aversion, evill; And of his contempt, Vile, and Inconsiderable. For these words of Good, evill, and Contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them" (Leviathan, published in 1651).
Refs
* Two Federal Courts Rule Against Biden's New Student Loan Forgiveness Plan on the Same Day.
* France 2023 part four: Les Deux Alpes to La Berade; around; Dibona; and to Bourg D'Oisans.
2024-06-22
In Defence of War
Notes
2024-06-21
Sherwood B. Idso suffers hard delete
Refs
Notes
2024-06-17
Polling Pales
Before going on, it's worth noting the finding that A majority of 58% expected Hamas and Israel to reach a ceasefire in the next few days while 39% did not expect it. That's 58% delusional or reporting their hopes rather than actual expectations1, which you should factor into your reading of all the other answers and my notes.
Most interesting to me is the figure below2.
Yes that's right: slightly fewer people have been injured; and the number killed has increased by less than a percent. We could excuse this by sampling difficulties, perhaps, but the lack of increase of dead is weird. Of course it isn't the number of dead, it is the proportion of "families" with at least one dead, but still the lack of increase over the last three months suggests to me that these numbers just aren't reliable. Bizarrely, the report itself makes absolutely no comment on this oddity.
Support for Hamas's attack remains high, at 73% (fig 1), perhaps partly because only 3% think Hamas committed atrocities (fig 4) and 67% expects Hamas to "win" the current war. They carefully avoid explaining what "win" might be. 61% would prefer Hamas to control Gaza (fig 7); though if you prefer a slightly different perspective, Most Palestinians Don't Want Hamas Rule, Poll Shows3.
But what should be done? We have: When asked about its support and opposition to specific policy measures to break the stalemate: 66% supported joining more international organizations; 49% supported resort to unarmed popular resistance; 63% supported a return to confrontations and armed intifada; 62% supported dissolving the PA; and 22% supported abandoning” the two-state solution and demanding one state for Palestinians and Israelis. Three months /’, 55% supported a return to confrontations and armed intifada; 45% supported resort to unarmed popular resistance; 58% supported the dissolution of the PA; and 24% supported abandoning the twostate solution in favor of one state. Unfortunately they weren't offered the option of "surrender; stop fighting" which is my suggestion, but I doubt that would have been popular. Fig 22 provides another view on this, with 54% up for armed struggle 25% for negotiations; and 16% for popular non-violent resistance. "66% supported joining more international organizations" is amost sweet in its delusion; but more likely it indicates despair of other ideas. [Note: the weird "Three months /’" is in the original; I don't know what they've been smoking.]
It does seem that these people are motivated by hatred: The poll found significant opposition of three quarters to Saudi-Israeli normalization, even if it is conditional on Israel accepting a Palestinian state and taking concrete and irreversible steps toward that goal.
Somewhat more speculatively, I notice that the Palestinians invariably refer to their dead - all and any of their dead - as martyrs. That doesn't seem healthy. Whereas the Israelis usually call theirs murdered.
Update: Lebanon / Hizbullah
I'll write a few hasty words here before the world explodes, so I know what I thought (around 2024/06, I think).
The major oddity is that the Lebanese govt gets very sniffy about Isreal violating their sovereignty (example; notice that doesn't mention why the naughty Israelis are attacking, which is of course Hizbullah). And that would be fair enough, were they indeed sovereign in southern Lebanon. But if they are, then they're responsible for the rockets being fired into Israel from there (alternatively, they condemn the rocket attacks and would like to stop them, but can't, in which case they do not have actual sovereignty over the area). And if they're flinging rockets at Israel, they can hardly complain if Isreal bombs them back.
The answer, of course, is that the Lebanese govt is too weak to control Hizbullah in southern Lebanon, but doesn't want to admit it, and won't upset its people by telling Hizbullah to stop. The best solution would be for Iran to stop funding Hizbullah; that seems unlikely; second best is probably the upcoming Israeli attack.
2024/09: see me. But also see e.g. this, which shows zero evidence that the Lebs want Hezbollah gone, which makes them dorks.
Update: Hobbes
it is a precept, or generall rule of Reason, "That every man, ought to endeavour Peace, as farre as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of Warre." The first branch, of which Rule, containeth the first, and Fundamentall Law of Nature; which is, "To seek Peace, and follow it." The Second, the summe of the Right of Nature; which is, "By all means we can, to defend our selves." - Hobbes, Leviathan, CHAPTER XIV. OF THE FIRST AND SECOND NATURALL LAWES, AND OF CONTRACTS, The Fundamental Law Of Nature.
Notes
1. Speaking as a SWeng or mathematician, when people ask me a question I tend to answer it, and become unhappy when I can tell that my answer to their question, given literally, will mislead them; or when their question is so badly posed that no accurate answer is possible. But most people, I observe, treat a question more as an invitation to say whatever they like on a given topic. So I have no faith at all that survey reports are literally accurate.
2. I don't know why they've labelled that as "Jun 24"; the text says surveys between May 26 and June 1, 2024.
3. There's some wishful thinking going on there. Another way of saying it is Among those intending to vote, support for Hamas stands at 46%, Fatah 25%, third parties 6%, and the undecided at 25%.
Refs
* The flower of justice is peace.
* Meritocracy, democracy and competition.
* Words for the word god: "He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees".
* France 2023: part two: around Vallouise and Ailefroide.
* The Gap.
* Are the Rich Antisocial and the Poor Emotionally Intelligent?
2024-06-14
The morality of not meddling in other people's business
We're back to the olde feldes with Supreme Court preserves access to abortion pill at which all right-thinking people shout hurrah! Although one senses that the Graun isn't fully comfortable, or even cognisant, of what happened. The issue is one of Standing: just because you happen to care deeply and passionately about a given issue doesn't give you a right to stick your twitchy nose and grimy fingers into the legal pie. Which I link to my previous advice to care less.
This is a legal principle1. But elevated - carefully - to a constitutional provision in some suitable fashion I would tout it as a solution to the Great War: in the sense that the govt really has no cause to be making laws about things that are best left to individuals. I've said this before to the inevitable great acclaim.
Refs
* Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight / Where ignorant armies clash by night.
* The Supreme Court Inches Towards Liberty - Richard Hanania.
* Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18th.
* Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson.
Notes
1. For an opposing view, see The Case Against Restrictive Constitutional Standing Requirements; and for discussion of standing, see many comments on Murthy.
2024-05-16
Why do we have so many bullshit plans?
Notes
Refs
2024-05-14
Your right to lorenorder
Refs
2024-05-13
Bad Beekeeping, spring 2024
View from above onto the brood box. No, I didn't lift the queen excluder. Do you think I'm mad?
My friends back garden remains idyllic-looking in the sunshine.
Refs
* "Hive B" didn't survive the winter; but did provide a refuge for a shrew. Video.
2024-05-02
End of the line for the photogenic ex-teens
Refs
* Photogenic teens sue US government, part 2
* North Korea ‘may not be performance art’, say experts.
* Katy Perry - Hot N Cold (Official Music Video).
* Mir McLuhanism by Arnold Kling; see-also (stretch) The Languages of Pao.
* The Latest Environmental Shrieking - We're Gonna Run Out Of Rock.
* Federal Court Rules Laws Restricting Interstate Travel for Abortion Violate the Right to Travel.
2024-04-24
Your right to protest
Notes
Refs
2024-04-16
There is no human right to a safe or stable climate
Notes
1. Sorry DA and RS. You can try again here if you'd like more intelligent conversation.
Refs
* 2021/11: Lust for suing.
* 2021/04: Yet moaah climate suing; and City of New York v Chevron Corp, again.
* 2020/06: Yet moah climate suing.
* 2019/12: Exxon Found Not Guilty of Deceiving Investors Over Climate Risks; and Historic Urgenda Climate Ruling Upheld by Dutch Supreme Court.
* 2019/02: Moah suing news.
* 2018/08: Yet more climate suing.
* 2018/06: Holy Alsup, Batman!
* 2018/03: A little bit more climate suing stuff.
* The People Will Save the Planet, Not the Courts (arch).
* We Don’t Need a ‘War’ on Climate Change, We Need a Revolution? and Words for the word god.
* Bruce Schneier points us to Dan Solove on Privacy Regulation: Murky Consent: An Approach to the Fictions of Consent in Privacy Law. This gets one thing right: both the US version (by using this service you consent to our terms) and the EU version (a zillion cookie popups that everyone clicks through) are not "real consent". His answer is, astonishingly, more regulation, how could we possibly have guessed (Murky consent should be subject to extensive regulatory oversight with an ever-present risk that it could be deemed invalid: in other words, yet again, overturning contracts (see-also Sandel: Liberalism and the Limits of Justice) and thus providing more work for lawyers). A better answer is: yes, this is not real consent, but no-one gives a toss so just move on. There is general public apathy in this area, which is good grounds for believing that no new law is needed.
* Sabine has a video on the general subject but it is shallow; and she has forgotten - or never heard of - Alsup or the ex-photogenic ex-teens.
2024-04-09
Retread: Lowell Ponte: The Cooling
Analysis of Lowell Ponte: The Cooling
For many years I have been tantalised by quotes from the semi-mythical book "The Cooling" by Lowell Ponte. Now (thanks to the zShops second-hand booksellers program, a part of Amazon) I got hold of a copy, shipped across the Atlantic in little more than a week, for only $10.The book is "popular science": as it says (remarkably) in the preface by Reid Bryson: "...There are very few pages that, as a scientist, I could accept without questions of accuracy, of precision, or of balance..." and any claim to utility it may have would have to come from bringing interesting ideas to the general public (of the time).
In this analysis, I'm interested in whether the book accurately reports the state of science as then known and what issues it chooses to focus on. Its also interesting to see what uses other people put it to, now. Its often cited in the "but 20 years ago people were predicting cooling" type pages.
Lets just prove that, shall I?
The cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people in poor nations... If it continues, and no strong measures are taken to deal with it, the cooling will cause world famine, world chaos, and probably world war, and this could all come by the year 2000. Lowell Ponte, The Cooling, 1976 (from http://www.princeton.edu/~strasbrg/ruseScare.html).
What global warming proponents don't want people to remember is that just 20 years ago, they were predicting that global COOLING would destroy the world. Lowell Ponte wrote The Cooling on the subject in 1976 (which incidentally, can be found in Hodges Library). The theory then said that particulates reflected sunlight into space, thus preventing heat from reaching the earth. Predictions of a new ice age abounded. Then the earth started warming up. Whoops. (from http://beacon-www.asa.utk.edu/issues/v76/n35/tipton.36v.html).
Book Structure
- Foreward (by US Senator Claiborne Pell)
- Preface (by Professor Reid A Bryson)
- Part I: Forces that change climate (3-76)
- Reports of decrease is sunshine / aerosol & dust / ice-albedo feedback
- Cooling interrupts predicted warming / "GH" effect & CO2 / CFCs and ozone / Heat pollution / Warming vs Cooling
- Some dodgy climatology / Why cooling might be accompanied by warming
- Milankovitch-y stuff / Sunspots / Gravity weakening!?! / "Summary"
- Part II: The human side of climate (77-176)
- Part III: Options in a changing climate (177-246)
- Appendices: (247-296)
- Back-cover quotes from Pell, and Stephen Schneider. Inside quote from Emilliani.
Ponte gets some points for noting (p13) that the "greenhouse effect" is misnamed. But that is the high point of his science.
Evidence for Pontes inability to tell sense from nonsense (or at least to check speculative results) is his assertion (p70) that gravity is weakening in the universe, and that this is proved by the moon moving away from the earth at 4 cm/year.
The first chapter starts off with stuff about decreases in sunshine (from few measurements from industrialised areas; I'd guess that was consistent with aerosols) then notes the Rasool and Schneider 1971 science paper (but only in passing. See main page for more on R+S). Ponte asserts that R+W estimate that man's potential to pollute will increase six- to eightfold in the next fifty years. I think this is wrong: R+S actually say it is still difficult to predict the rate at which global background opacity of the atmosphere will increase with increasing particulate injection by human activities. However, it is projected that man's potential to pollute will increase 6 to 8-fold in the next 50 years.... I think they are reporting other peoples estimates to use as feed for their model, not making their own.
Stephen Schneiders quote
The back cover of the book has this from Stephen Schneider:The dramatic importance of climate changes to the worlds future has been dangerously underestimated by many, often because we have been lulled by modern technology into thinking we have conquered nature. But this well-written book points out in clear language that the climatic threat could be as awesome as any we might face, and that massive world-wide actions to hedge against that threat deserve immeadiate consideration. At a minimum, public awareness of the possibilities must commence, and Lowell Ponte's provocative work is a good place to start.
I'd say this is a regrettable quote. But its not really the ringing endorsement that it is often presented as.
Reid Bryson's Preface
Bryson's preface is rather odd, because it indirectly contradicts much of what is in the "science" sections of the book. Lets read it, shall we:The Cooling will be controversial, because among scientists, most of the matters it deals with are hotly debated. There is no agreement on whether the earth is cooling. There is not unanimous agreement on whether is has cooled, or one hemisphere has cooled and the other warmed. One would think that there might be consensus about what data there is - but there is not. There is no agreement on the causes of climatic change, or even why it should not change amongst those who so maintain. There is certainly no agreement about what the climate will do in the next century, though there is a majority opinion that it will change, more or less, one way or the other. Of that majority, a majority believe that the longer trend will be downward. Nevertheless, it is an important question, as this book points out, and it is time for some of the questions to be settled. Lowell Ponte has summarized the data and theories very well, and has reasonably concluded that a rapid change in Earths climate is possible, perhaps even likely, within the next few decades, and that this would have serious consequences for mankind.
OK, lets stop there for a moment and compare this to what Ponte has to say:
Opening words of chapter 1: "Our planets climate has been cooling for the past three decades. Most experts agree on this, for it has been carefully measured by scattered monitoring stations throughout the world. Climate in the southern half of our planet has been warming rapidly, according to the few measurements available. But in the hlaf of our world north of the equator, where most human beings live, the annual mean atmospheric temperature has plunged by 0.7 oC, more than enough to offset the southern warming and to lower the average temperature of the whole planet by 0.5 oC."
Some disparity with Bryson, I hope you can agree. Looking at Pontes words further, note how, despite asserting that there are few southern measurements, he is nonetheless happy to assert that the globe as a whole is cooling. Where he gets the 0.7 oC cooling is a mystery: he cites no source; the graph reproduced in appendix 1 of the book shows a cooling of possibly as much as 0.4 oC. [Somewhat later, p45, the 0.5 global warming is qualified as "according to available measurements".]
This failure to acknowledge uncertainty is not something trivial, to be passed over rapidly. It is crucial. Brysons central point, that people are not really sure whats going on, was a good one to make at the time and thoroughly justified by hindsight.
OK, on with the preface:
"There is surprisingly little argument among those who have actually studied climates over multi-millenial time scales that we will be in an Ice Age 10,000 years from now. There is, however, less agreement about how soon and how rapidly the transition from the present interglacial will take place...".
I quote that to point out that (AFAIK) it was indeed typical of the views of the time (at least amongst those that extrapolated the past into the future); that it is probably not accepted widely now [TS Ledley, 1995, ???]; and to wonder if "among those who have actually studied climates..." is a dig at some other group.
Skipping over, we come to: "...There are very few pages that, as a scientist, I could accept without questions of accuracy, of precision, or of balance... but he then goes on to say that the book is worth reading for its presentation of the arguments. I'm somewhat surprised the publishers let him keep that bit in, its not really very complementary.
Ponte's Misuse of the 1975 NAS report
Ponte says (p4) "Are we at the dawn of a new Ice Age? In 1975 the US National Academy of Sciences issued a report saying that if the present cooling trend continues, there is a "finite" chance an Ice Age could begin "within 100 years". How much chance? The NAS panel...set the odds of this happening at no better than one in 10,000. The number was not random [Oh good, thats a relief - WMC]. As their report noted, Earths climate in the past has tended to change in fairly regular cycles, and if the past patterns continue we should now be entering a 10,000 year period of cooling climate.The NAS report was shocking...".
The NAS report was not shocking. Anyone reading it would be more likely to describe it as "soporific". See here for some notes I made from that report. But to quote some of it here:
- "The climates of the earth have always been changing, and they will doubtless continue to do so in the future. How large these future changes will be, and where and how rapidly they will occur, we do not know" (from the intro; note how how this resembles Brysons initial words)
- The recommendations were: Establish National climatic research program; Establish Climatic data analysis program, and new facilities, and studies of impact of climate on man; Develope Climatic index monitoring program; Establish Climatic modelling and applications program, and exploration of possible future climates using coupled GCMs; Adoption and development of International climatic research program; Development of International Palaeoclimatic data network. There was no recommendation for action.
Bibliography
It occupies pages 296-269=27, so there are 28 pages of bibliography.I thought it would be interesting to look in Ponte's book to see which statements are backed up by which references. Its easy, after all, to stuff a bibliography full of references - but what matters is which statements are backed up by respectable scientifc references, and which are backed up by fluff from the newspapers. But (yet another flaw in Ponte's book), you can't do this, because the bibliography is just a "selected bibliography", *not* a directed source of references for particular statements. So its impossible to tell what statement a given reference is intended to support, or indeed which statements are supported by references, and which are fluff.
Anyway: the bibliography is largely non-scientific. Page 269 (the first page):
Science (ie, as in the prestigous mag): iii esquire: i science news: iiii los angeles times: iiiii fortune: ii readers digest: i n y times: ii playboy: i "african genesis": i "the ends of the earth (asimov)": i smithsonian: i unesco courier: ii time: i "readings in man, the env and ecology": i sci am: ii "lao tzu": i "western amn and env ethics": i "harvest of the sea": iand I've no reason to believe that untypical.
Lazy people have complained that one needs to index the whole bibliography to be sure of the sci/non-sci content. Are you one of these people? Then please do the said indexing and send it to me.
Misc bits: peoples use of LP's misquotes of NAS 76
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=lowell+ponte+cooling&hl=en&safe=off&rnum=3&selm=348aef32.99949219%40news.nucleus.com:In January 1975 the National Academy of Sciences issued a report entitled Understanding Climatic Change: A Program for Action. There is, it said "a finite possibility that a serious worldwide cooling could befall the earth within the next hundred years...
Misc
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=lowell+ponte+cooling&hl=en&safe=off&rnum=6&selm=3ra7gi%24bnt%40spool.cs.wisc.edu - post by mt.
Other text
A search of the citation indices reveals that the only other publications by Ponte, L were in Readers Digest, the most recent in 1991. Read something about him here. John McCarthy has a quote that he asserts comes from the book.Here is some text I was mailed:
For nearly three years, Lowell worked as a futurist in the high tech think tank International Research & Technology; Inc., as first assistant to Dr. William Van Leave (who later served as chief weapons advisor to America's SALT I delegation and as chief strategic advisor to presidential candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980). Lowell wrote a prophetic 1976 book about global climate change, The Cooling (Prentice-Hall; forward by U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell, preface by Univ. of Wisconsin Climatologist Reaid A Bryson), which was widely reviewed and went through five printings.