Conservative Book Talk

By Arthur B. Robinson Ph.D., Noah E. Robinson, Ph.D., and Willie Soon, Ph.D.

Couple of notes. First this isn’t a review about a book, but about a paper published in the Journal of the American Physicians and Surgeons called Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. Second, while the authors of the paper have outstanding credentials, they aren’t climatologists by trade or training. (I don’t think that necessarily matters if the science is sound.) Third, I haven’t actually verified one of their foundational studies: determination of the global temperature over the last three thousand years based on core samples from the ocean. Not saying it isn’t so, just not convinced about the science until I actually verify the work done.

This paper makes the premise that Earth’s temperature has been significantly higher in the past (particularly in medieval ages). Then the temperature sunk a full three degrees Celsius in the 1700’s. According to Robinson and company the current global temperature has just reached the median for the last three millenniums. They also demonstrate that the shrinking of the glaciers began in the 1850’s, long before CO2 began to rise. The increase in sunspots also has coincided with the temperature increase.

Intriguingly, they quote studies that have shown that increased CO2 enhances plant life (obviously) but that it also decreases a plant’s need for water. So how hard would it be to cause the desert to bloom under increased CO2? Definitely some food for thought here.

Plenty of scientists have debunked the Global Warming Crisis. Not only does it not appear to be a crisis, but the current lack of sunspots and the very long La Nina effect have stopped, nay, reversed the temperature trends. Of course, Gore doesn’t typically mention that inconvenient truth. It is usually spun as predictable variations as the temperature trends upward. Which of course is true. That certainly happens, but when those fluctuations map almost perfectly to natural forces like the El Nino/La Nina effects and the presence of sun spots, why do we pretend that CO2 is the cause? Oh right, as the Czech president said, Global Warming Alarmism has replaced Communism. Its all about the control. That’d be power….

Yeah, I’m somewhat passionate about this, mostly because I enjoy my freedoms and I hate to see them taken over by some people who have created a false threat to gain power and control. Its almost as bad as labeling EVERYTHING a terrorist threat and using that to swipe freedoms. (No, I am not against the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan but I am against using the specter of terrorism to increasingly consolidate power amongst the few.)

This global warming scare is intriguing as it demonstrates the great power of the media. From Readers Digest to the 6 o’clock news, all assume that global warming is a threat and that radical action must be taken. I heard a caller on a radio show angrily proclaim that this debate is stupid. He stated emphatically that he didn’t need a GED to know that this is a real threat.

Right.

And its people like that who are well meaning but swallowing the party line that is fed to them that help keep this ball rolling.

This paper is the most scientific work I have read on the debate so far and when it comes to controversial subjects, I like academic. Especially when I agree with the premise, I want it in documentable and scientific format so that I can verify that what I believe isn’t screwy.

Please read a few of these links and at least the highlights of the paper and let me know what you think. If you disagree, why? What scientific evidence do you have for your side? Let’s frame the debate in quantifiable terms instead of hyperbole and opinions.

Also read Senator Inhofe’s blog. And yeah, that is an official US government blog.

Again the paper: Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

Tags: CO2, Current Events, global Warming, Matt Gardenghi, Non-Fiction, Robinson, Science, Soon

Edison & The Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death was one of the more interesting books that I have read in a very long time. And, it was highly pertinent to the current debate over the death penalty (in the US).

Amazingly, this is Mark Essig’s first title. I would expect a book with 46 pages of endnotes to be dry and scholarly instead of alive and riveting. I wouldn’t have expected a discussion about the nature of electricity to have been simple to understand, yet it was. I also would not have expected a discussion about death and the death penalty to be handled so clearly, concisely and competently. Such a discussion could have delved into excessive details or it could have been superficial. Essig did a great job of navigating the pitfalls while providing the necessary details to make the point.

Don’t assume that this book was dry and academic. Hardly. If anything, it was to lively considering the subject….

For those of you unfamiliar with Edison’s influence on the choice to use an electric chair for execution, let me give you the highlights. Edison backed direct current (DC) while Westinghouse chose alternating current (AC). Both are different approaches to delivering electrical current for use. Both have strengths and weaknesses. When Edison was queried about using electricity for execution, he originally declined the question as he was opposed to capital punishment. When pressed, he argued for the use of AC generators with the idea that their use would scare people away from AC into the arms of his DC. Unethical? Certainly. But, as Essig points out, Westinghouse was worse. Edison gets a bad rap today for trying to smear Westinghouse, but Westinghouse disregarded the public’s welfare and bribed plenty of legislatures/judges to bypass Edison. Neither was a saint…. Anyway, the debate was only part of the point of the book. The real purpose of this book is to look at execution.

Essig begins with a discussion of the history of electricity and the history of capital punishment in the US. Capital punishment (i.e. hanging) was designed as a ceremony to educate the public about the wages of sin. That attempt flopped. By the early 1800’s, execution was a festival or a carnival. People came to the execution the same way that they go to see the latest summer blockbuster films. This distressed the leaders who worked to prevent this occurrence. In fact, the migration of the execution to the prison yard was to prevent this carnival atmosphere.

Concurrently with this shift in execution came the introduction of pain killers. This revolutionized the way people approached life. Prior to pain killers, pain and death were a part of life. Not only were they expected, but no one thought about them. Once they could be avoided though, that attitude changed. Now, it became the mission of people like the newly formed SPCA to prevent pain in all animals (humans were included as Darwinian thought was developing strongly).

Mix both developments throughout the mid-1800s and shake. What comes about? A new approach to execution that seeks to prohibit cruel and unusual punishment. When deciding on how to execute someone via electricity, there were some interesting discussions. Should the person stand? There is dignity in that but, they might fall away from the contacts. What about laying down? That was too clinical and undignified; to much like having experimentation on the condemned. (At this time, the idea of experimentation on people was more frightening then the death penalty itself.) So a chair was decided as a compromise to practicality and dignity.

Was electricity to cruel a manner for execution? If I had to guess, I would have said no. Then again, I suspect that most people should die in the same manner they killed others, but that’s me. I would never have guessed that electrocution would have been botched as often as it was. I would never have guessed that EVERY form of execution has been botched countless times. But so it is.

Still the fact remains: execution is commanded by God and is the duty of the state. However it is done, and a civilized manner like lethal injection is best, execution should still be done. Today, using the same arguments that the anti-death penalty advocates put forth in the 1880’s and 1890’s, lethal injection is currently being debated in our courts as excessively cruel. I find this intriguing. Mix another hundred years of pain killers, Darwinian thought, and the belief that man can be trained like an animal and shake it up. Now, the most painless death we can develop is still too painful. Or at least it has the possibility of extreme pain.

So we should do away with the death penalty because it could be painful? What about restitution to the families of the victims? Of those murdered? Should we put these killers in a penitentiary forever? Does the penitentiary actually develop penitence? So what should be done?

Essig doesn’t preach and give us the answers. He lays out the facts and leaves the decision to you. But I would recommend that you read this book in light of the current debates. Personally, I have moderated my views on execution somewhat as a result of this book. I am not in favor of using public punishment as a method to educate the masses. Its been tried and failed in a more religious America to boot. No, I am not in favor of brutal punishments. History has shown that both of these tend to develop an appreciation for violence and we have plenty of that now. No, I am in favor of the death penalty, but done humanely and quickly.

You?

Tags: Edison, Electric Chair, History, Mark Essig, Matt Gardenghi, Modern Events, Politics

About a month ago I joined Team Cringely, a group of volunteers looking to put a rover on the moon as a part of the Google Lunar X Prize. This group is a loose organization of volunteers who want to participate in space but haven’t the opportunity to do so. Growing up, only two careers interested me. One was to be an astronaut. I loved to see pictures of space and wistfully dreamed of space travel to see those sights in person.

I remember disappointment upon discovering that I would need to have multiple doctorates and being lucky to get a place on a NASA shuttle.

Talk about a depressing day.

Now I can live my dream vicariously through this mission. But those of us consisting of Team Cringely (and our opponents) weren’t the first to desire the opportunity to go to the moon. NASA wasn’t the first organization either. For more than a century, men like Jules Verne looked at the mistress of the night and wondered what men would find on the moon.

In this classic pair of stories, Barbicane, Ardan, and Nicholl overcome cultural and personal grievances to join forces as emissaries to the moon. It all began with the bored members of the Baltimore Gun Club. The Baltimore Gun Club consisted of men who had studied (invented and experimented) gunnery during the Civil War; now, bored, they sought a new challenge. This new challenge was to launch a cannonball at the moon. Eventually, the Frenchman, Michelle Ardan, decided that he wanted to fly to the moon and sailed to Florida to enter the projectile.

This action of Ardan, led to a prolonged discussion about the habitability of the moon and the precautions necessary for a man to travel in space. Much of the story lies in discussions about the nature of the moon, it’s past and present state of habitability, and the nature of space travel. Much of this will probably be a tad bit tedious for some, but I found it somewhat interesting. Given that hindsight is 20-20, it is easy to see the errors being made. But, when one tries to look at it from the perspective of an author writing in 1865, the science and reasoning is much less comical and far more impressive. Verne had many facts correct or at least close to correct.

As an aside, one flaw that I have noticed with the reasonings of this generation of authors is this: They made many assumptions that appeared reasonable at first blush, and never challenged them. In this work, the assumption of the three was that Selenites must exists. Ardan was very typical of the thinking. He wanted it to be so and so it was.

But, that was typical Verne. He lived in a world decades or centuries ahead of his time. Verne obviously had great respect for the Americans. Though often in a backhanded manner, Verne continuously praised the American people for their ingenuity, skillfulness and bravery. It was his opinion (as seen in this work) that only Americans would be brave and foolhardy enough to pull off an endeavor of this magnitude.

And that brings me back to the present: Can a disparate team of men and women put a rover on the moon for less than $4 million? Normal people say no. Team Cringely begs to differ.
This is not one of Verne’s better stories, but worth reading if for no other reason than that it is Verne.

Here are the links:
Amazon: From Earth to the Moon; Round the Moon
Gutenberg: From Earth to the Moon (text)
Librivox: From Earth to the Moon (audio)
Gutenberg: Round the Moon (text)
Librivox: Round the Moon (audio)

Tags: books, fiction, Google, Google Lunar X Prize, Jules Verne, Matt Gardenghi, moon, review, Science, Team Cringely