Asking Questions About Environmental Change

"Been nice knowing you."

The Washington Post ran an article yesterday providing some details of a report in the journal Science. The report deals with "planetary boundaries," variables that, if pushed to a certain point, will lead to a significant, and presumably, negative changes in the global ecosystem and climate.

Here are a few details, with my comments interspersed;

At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings. That is the conclusion of a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science by 18 researchers trying to gauge the breaking points in the natural world.

What is the "unnatural world?" Nothing humanity does is unnatural. We manipulate natural processes and materials using our intellect (the product of evolution) to do something that every species does; either adapt to an change in the environment or adapt the environment to best ensure our survival. You could respond with "Okay, smartguy, are airplanes natural? Do they grow on trees?" My answer would is, "As natural as a bird's nest or an ant’s tunnel." Those don't just happen; they are a manipulation of the environment. If you believe that a nest is "unnatural," then you are being consistent and I can't argue with you, because we define things differently. If you don't believe that, they you are buying into irrational propaganda.

The paper contends that we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries.” They are the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean.

“What the science has shown is that human activities — economic growth, technology, consumption — are destabilizing the global environment,” said Will Steffen, who holds appointments at the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Center and is the lead author of the paper.

Destabilizing it? Or just changing it? The human race has been changing its environment, for good or ill, for millennia. The question is, can our technology, the materialization of our intellect, advance fast enough so that we can cope with negative changes. So far, the answer is yes.

The researchers focused on nine separate planetary boundaries first identified by scientists in a 2009 paper. These boundaries set theoretical limits on changes to the environment, and include ozone depletion, freshwater use, ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol pollution and the introduction of exotic chemicals and modified organisms.

Some of these are definite problems, such as the flow of fertilizers (and other man-made chemicals) into the oceans.

Species extinction is a bit more debatable. Does it really matter, in the sense of survival of the human race, if Polar Bears go extinct? Of course not. It can be important as a gauge of how much a given local biosystem has changed; but human survival does not depend on the survival of many, if not most of the species on this planet.

There is the bio-diversity argument: that a natural system with more species is more resilient and we could find a species that has gone extinct to be critical to the functioning of a bio-system. However, I think it is clear that most of the species that go extinct are not irreplaceable, in the sense that whatever functions they perform will be filled in by another species. And, before you say, "What's your evidence" I will offer two items. First, we have experienced large scale extinction in the last 200 years and the world's biosystems seem to be functioning. Second, the global bio-system has experienced mass die offs - far more destructive extinction events - and recovered. This would seem to indicate that the global biosphere is very resilient and has very few ket species.

I want to be clear that I am not advocating for the mass destruction of species; just that we need to be careful not to over-estimate the amount of damage the extinction of a species can cause and not hamstring our own advancement because of this fear.

Finally, there are a few items - like the introduction of engineered species - that go directly against our own advancement. Further, through bioengineering, the human race can create lifeforms that a) are more survivable and b) can provide us with end products in a more eco-friendly and efficient fashion. For example, engineering plants with built in defenses against pests reduces the need for chemical pesticides.

The scientists say there is no certainty that catastrophe will follow the transgression of these boundaries. Rather, the scientists cite the precautionary principle: We know that human civilization has risen and flourished in the past 10,000 years — an epoch known as the Holocene — under relatively stable environmental conditions.

This is one thing I kind of agree with. However, in the past we lacked the ability to either correct or adapt to environmental shifts in the manner we do now. Human civilization today is not the same as it was 10000 years ago...or 100 years ago, for that matter. The question is, if there is some major shift in the global environment, can we correct it or adapt to it? The problem is, there is no way to know this.

Technology can potentially provide solutions, but innovations often come with unforeseen consequences. “The trends are toward layering on more and more technology so that we are more and more dependent on our technological systems to live outside these boundaries,” Ray Pierrehumbert, an expert on Earth systems at the University of Chicago, said. “. . . It becomes more and more like living on a spaceship than living on a planet.”

In the sense that we are existing on a world that is increasing a construction of human designed sub-systems (i.e., urbanization, agriculture, purpose designed life, etc) then this is comment is correct. Is this a problem? Or, is this just the human race doing what it evolved to do? I would say it is the latter. Identifying our Western, scientific, technological system of systems (metasystem) as a problem is missing the fact that that very system represents the current pinnacle of human development. It is that metasystem that gives our species the best change of survival and of weather the storms of the future, whether they are created by Man or are something the human race finds itself subjected to.

As a final note, I do want to say I find this kind of work - looking at the Earth as a system of systems and humanities impact on it - to be both fascinating and useful. My point is that we should be careful about anything that hinders our ability to survive as a species; anything that negatively impacts our technological development needs to be looked at critically.

The Politics Of "Free" Education

The White House has announced a new initiative to have the Federal government pay for two years of community college for all Americans. Of course, this is being sold as "free" community college. It is nothing of the sort. It is probably not going to happen. And, it wasn't designed to happen. Let's take each of those in turn.

First, it should go without saying, but nothing the government provides is free. Someone has to pay for it. We either pay for through revenue generation or resource re-allocation. Although exact numbers have not been provided, using information from the White House it is possible to arrive at a base cost of 34 billion dollars. Given how government programs tend to work, one can assume the actual number can only be higher. So, the Federal government either needs to raise taxes/tariffs/user fees, it has to borrow money or it has to take money from existing programs and move those funds into the new program. In what way is this free? It is to the average Obama supporter, I guess; but that only shows how lacking they are in critical reasoning. When the White House and its supporters say this is free, they are lying and they are assuming enough people are too ill-informed to understand this.

Those who are a bit more sophisticated will respond by saying "let's get the rich to pay for it." This response is more sophisticated in that it acknowledges that the notion of free is silly, but is so mired in classism that it fails to realize that there are limits to what the "rich" (however you define that; as a poor writer, that means to me anyone with more money than I have) can pay. Currently, the top 5% pay almost 60% of all income tax revenue. This is a huge amount of money taken out of the economy and filtered through the government, which is not an efficient way of generating economic activity. The "soak the rich" people have little understanding of the damage that can do to the overall economic health of the country nor do they seem to have a firm grasp of just how large that particular pot of money is. I think they have a vision of Scrooge McDuck rolling around on a pile of gold.

How the Left envisions the 1%. Yes, as ducks.

I think we can agree that there is no free lunch. There are limits to how much revenue you can raise through additional taxes. To make this "free" means borrowing money or moving funds from other programs. We'll have to see more details of the proposed program for an idea of how they address this.

Of course, that assumes that the White House actually thinks this program has a chance of being implemented. Which leads to my other two points, that it is not going to happen and was not designed to happen. It is unlikely that the Republican Congress, which would have to construct the legislation and approve the method of funding, is going to add billions to the deficit or enact massive new taxes. Not impossible, of course; but unlikely. They seem to have a few shreds of fiscal sanity left and this kind of program is not supportable, unless some other program is killed. I doubt that the White House would sign-off on legislation that closed down programs like the National Endowment for the Arts ($146 million) in order to help fund community college.

Which gets us to the real point of this proposal. He could have made it in 2009, when the Democrats controlled Congress. He could have made it in 2012, when the Democrats still held the Senate. He could have made it at any time before now. Why didn't he? Because he is counting on the GOP-controlled Congress not approving this program. He is looking for issues to galvanize the Democrat base and try to get the target audience for this proposal - young, not-too-bright people - out to vote for the Dems in 2016. Because, he knows that if the GOP keeps the Hill and gets the White House in 2016, they'll dismantle much of what he has done. As a diehard Leftist, the President is concerned that the expansion of government he has overseen might be rolled back. As unlikely as this is - the GOP is fairly statist as well - he's not taking chances.

He is putting something forward that will cost tens of billions every year under the assumption that it will never get through Congress. In 2016, he and the Dems can then blather about how Republicans hate education, community colleges, young people, etc. and get the drones to turn out on election day. It's a clever ruse, in that demonstrates a knowledge of what motivates the less thoughtful members of the electorate.

UPDATE: It was pointed out that I misspelled...education. In the title. Sigh. Maybe I should head back to school...

The Quran And Context

Or, if you are going to cite something, try reading more than just one sentence.

Apparently, there's a meme going around, trying to convince people that Islam is a peaceful religion. I won't go into how laughable this is on it's face to anyone who has any grasp of a) the history of Islam or b) Islam in theory and practice. I'm just going to focus on the verse that is being sent around. It is part of Quran 5:32. The verse (or a variation) is:

"...whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one - it is as if he had saved mankind entirely..."

Well, that seems pretty nice, doesn't it? Don't kill anyone unless they kill another person or if they "corrupt" people. Of course, then you read the rest of 5:32 and 5:33 and it becomes a little less "nice."

5:32 - Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one - it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors.

5:33 - Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment,

5:34 - Except for those who return [repenting] before you apprehend them. And know that Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.

This was written because of sectarian clashes between Muslims and Jewish tribes in Arabia and the conquest of the Levant (including Jerusalem) by Arabian Muslim armies in the mid-7th Century CE. Basically, the Jews were being warned that Allah was sanctioning retaliation against them for either physical attacks or for "corruption" of Muslim populations with, one has to assume, Judaism. So, even early on, Islam was not friendly to competing belief systems.

The problem for the modern world is that it can also be applied to anyone who harms Muslims either psychically (war) or spiritually (corruption). And that is what the Islamists say they are doing; retaliation for perceived physical harm and attempting to destroy the "corruption" of Western civilization. Far from demonstrating how peaceful Islam is, this is one of the justifications for unlimited war with the rest of the world until they "repent" - i.e., convert or accept the subjugation and destruction of non-Islamic civilization in order to end its corrupting influence.

Kickstarter, Ottoman Empire Style

Crowdfunding is great. Go to Kickstarter (or a similar site), list your project and get a lot of people to donate enough money to fund it. Or, if you are a donator, search out stuff you find neat and throw a couple of bucks at it. Movies, books, software, music, science projects...you can find just about anything out there, looking for funding. Anything, that is, except a battleship. For that, you have to go back to the first decade of the 20th Century.

The Ottoman Empire (aka Turkey) had been in decline for some time by the dawn of the 20th Century. However, they were still considered a regional power and did control a substantial amount of territory in the Middle East. Their empire would be impacted by develops in the Black Sea, the Aegean (where they had a long-standing conflict with Greece over a number of islands) and the Eastern Mediterranean. This meant they needed a navy, able to compete - or at least inflict damage on - the other nations that could project power into the region.

The problem is that the central government didn't have the funds to buy the dreadnoughts that were the core of a modern battle fleet. So, they formed the Ottoman Navy Foundation and solicited public contributions. They were able to raise enough funds to order two battleships from England, Sultan Osman I and Reşadiye. However, by the time the ships were finished, August 1914, World War One had broken out. Although Turkey was not yet a combatant, the British feared (correctly) that the Turks would join the war on Germany's side. The British Admiralty seized both ships and added them to the Fleet (as Agincourt and Erin), where they served into the 1920s.

This decision is seen by some as pushing the Turks into war, although the Ottoman Empire had been aligning with Germany for some time prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Turkey formally entered the war a few months later, an act which would result in the final disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the ramifications of which we still deal with today.

The lesson of all this? If you have to crowdfund your navy, you probably are in no shape to go to war. Now, crowdfunding an awesome project like God Hates Dinosaurs is a much better idea.

The Depths Of Savagery

An attack has been launched on a Paris-based satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. The attack has resulted in the death of 12 people, a mix of staffer members and police officers. The attackers, two men wearing black balaclavas and armed with AK-47s, rushed into the office and opened fire, while shouting Islamic slogans. The magazine had a long history of making fun of everyone; but what motivated this attack? The magazine has made fun of Mohammed. Recently, it had focused on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS. Of course, they also made fun of French politicians, Christians, Catholics...basically, everyone.

Of course, most of the magazine's targets are not blood thirsty savages. Which is what the Islamists are. They are barbarians armed with assault rifles and a savage creed mired in the depths of the Dark Ages. There is no hope for coexistence, no common ground to be had with the Islamists. Not because we, the civilized people of the world, cannot live with them. It is because they have no interest in living with us. At best (as ISIS has shown) we are potential slaves. At worst, they want to exterminate us.

People like Howard dean have no understanding of this. Howard Dean is representative of the mindset of to many people in the West. He had this to say on today's Morning Joe

WILLIE GEIST: 11 people dead, at least ten injured and five more seriously.

MKA BRZEZINSKI: We're looking at journalists being among the dead, too.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Howard?

HOWARD DEAN: You know, this is a chronic problem. I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists. They're about as Muslim as I am. I mean, they have no respect for anybody else's life, that's not what the Koran says. Europe has an enormous radical problem. I think ISIS is a cult. Not an Islamic cult. I think it's a cult.

BRZEZINSKI: Interesting, yeah.

DEAN: And I think you got to deal with these people. The interesting thing here, is we talked about guns the last time in regarding the United States, regarding how guns get in the hands of the kind of people that kill the two police officers here two weeks ago. France has tremendous gun control laws, and yet these people are able to get Kalashnikovs. So, this is really complicated stuff, and I think you have to treat these people as basically mass murderers. But I do not think we should accord them any particular religious respect, because I don't think, whatever they're claiming their motivation is, is clearly a twisted, cultish mind.

His failure to acknowledge the religious root of this attack and his failure to understand that a significant number of Muslims support attacks like this is troubling. Not because I care what Howard Dean thinks; he's an idiot. Instead, it is because what he thinks reflects what many people with power think. As long as people with power fail to correctly identify the root cause of the problem - ideological Islam - then we will continue to suffer from atrocities like this attack. Update: French authorities have announced they are looking for three terrorists, not two as originally reported.

Sources: BBC, Newsbusters

Drone Pilot Shortage And The Path To Machine Autonomy

A recent story in The Daily Beast reports on an Air Force memo that warns the US drone fleet is at "the breaking point." The Air Combat Command, which handles training of Drone operators, is failing to provide an adequate number of pilots for the increasing number of requests by the combat commanders for drone support.

Here are a excerpts from the memo:

“ACC believes we are about to see a perfect storm of increased COCOM [Combatant Commander] demand, accession reductions, and outflow increases that will damage the readiness and combat capability of the MQ-1/9 enterprise for years to come,” reads an internal Air Force memo from ACC commander Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, addressed to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh. “I am extremely concerned.”

“ACC will continue to non-concur to increased tasking beyond our FY15 [fiscal year 2015] force offering and respectfully requests your support in ensuring the combat viability of the MQ-1/9 platform,” Carlisle added.

[...]

“The reduced offering of 62 CAPs (plus a 60-day Global Response Force) has been submitted to the Joint Staff; however, the Joint Staff has indicated their desire to circumvent normal processes while proposing their own offering of 65 MQ-1/9 CAPs,” Carlisle wrote. “This simply is not an option for ACC to source indeterminately.”

[...] >p? “ACC squadrons are currently executing steady-state, day-to-day operations (65 CAPs) at less than an 8:1 crew-to-CAP ratio. This directly violates our red line for RPA [remotely pilot aircraft] manning and combat operations,” Carlisle wrote. “The ever-present demand has resulted in increased launch and recovery taskings and increased overhead for LNO [liaison officer] support.”

It gets worse. The Air Force has been cutting short training of new operators to keep drones in the air and has been doing such career and morale damaging things as canceling training from existing operators and cancelling leave. This is leading to operators leaving the service.

It is not clear how much this problem at the front-end (among the pilots) is reflected in back-end operations (e.g., support and maintenance personnel, intelligence officers to analyze the information the drones are producing). However, it is doubtful that his high level of operations tempo is not negatively affecting all aspects of the US drone fleet.

Historically, it is not a good sign when a military is cutting training or sending trainers into operations. During World War Two, for example, the Luftwaffe's training program completely collapsed as the war progressed, with training time cut and senior pilots sent into combat, rather than passing on their skills and experience to the next generation of pilots.

If we cannot correct this problem by increasing the number of operators being trained and making certain that each operator is fully qualified, then that will be even more of an incentive to move towards autonomous systems. The problem we are facing here is not about platforms; if each of these could fly without any human intervention, beyond giving it an initial mission, then manpower could be focused more on support and battle management.

We are already moving in this direction. Any manpower crisis that impacts the ability to conduct operations in the field will only accelerate the process. And it should. Autonomous systems present new challenges and vulnerabilities; but the benefits outweigh these costs. The biggest benefits are the removal of Americans from harms way and the reduction in the number of people needed to maintain a robust defense. Given that manpower costs are one of the biggest items in the defense budget (and entail lifetime spending on pensions and medical care) reducing this is critical to developing new technology and procuring and supporting weapon systems.

There is an odd bias against autonomous combat systems. I understand why some military personnel are opposed. If I pilot an F-22, I don't want to be told that the next generation of fighters won't need me. But, I think most of the opposition comes from people who have visions of Terminator in their head. Or, they think that using machines will make it easier to use force. The former fear is unlikely. An autonomous bomber, for example, does not need to be intelligent; it just needs to be able to conduct it's mission. There is no way for a system like this to suddenly decide it hates humans or wants to do some other off mission action. As for the latter, this may be true. However, that means people have to be willing to hold their leaders accountable, not that we reject a promising technology.