Airport Security Sense

Metro has a story (p12) this morning on the end of the airline liquid ban.

Finally, 4 years after the ridiculous bans were introduced to prevent the Movie Plot Threat of binary liquid explosives which explosives experts say could never have worked, we're going to be rid of this stupid and arbitrary restriction on air travel. Well, within 36 months, anyway.

Liquids will now be screened, presumably in a non-invasive way. Perhaps by NMR (magnetically 'pinging' atoms and measuring their vibrations to determine what they are) or IR spectroscopy (shining a light through the bottle and detecting, from which patterns of 'colours' are absorbed, what it contains). These technologies are relatively stable and well-understood, and spectroscopic techniques in particular are a staple of astrophysics - we can't yet go to moons and exoplanets, but we can see light shining through their atmosphere and hence detect the presence of various chemicals.

This is a much better option than simply banning liquids (which can be smuggled in body cavities, "smurfed" across 1oz make-up containers, etc.). It also means that, as well as looking for explosives, security can look for such completely harmless things as dimethylmercury, wolfsbane, potassium cyanide, arsenic, polonium-210 and concentrated nitric acid. Sure, none of those would make the plane go "boom" and fall out of the sky, but they're all lethal in their own ways.

Of course, we will still - in the words of the great Dara Ó Briain - "have to show our genitals to a man in a box before we can go on holiday", so there's a long way to go yet.

- KoW

Left Foot in Mouth

Will Straw's blog Left Foot Forward has posted an article (h/t Old Holborn) on the great climate-skeptic conspiracy. Apparently, some "research" conducted by a marketing agency - but not yet published - has shown that bloggers on the internet link to each other, and claims that this is part of an orchestrated plan "to have maximum impact on the Copenhagen negotiations".

Apparently this "research" was conducted for Oxfam. Anyone remember when they were a charity that cared about famine, not a political pressure group demanding Tobin Taxes and promoting global warming hysteria? How times change, eh? Ironically, Oxfam's current policies seem designed to exacerbate famine, but I doubt they care about that when there are political bandwagons to jump on - and policies which keep people starving and in poverty gives the "charity" a reason to keep existing.

The post claims that "the story was picked up by a wide range of media outlets, and went global – the culmination of a concerted effort to push it into the mainstream". That's not how I remember it. I remember the story being completely ignored by most of the media, despite UEA denials, Lord Lawson opening a global warming think-tank, and a scathing blog article from arch-climatista George Monbiot, until "climategate" became one of the biggest search terms on Google in a week and, eventually, the press felt they had to say something about the story people were already talking about. If there's a conspiracy, it looks rather more like it was amongst the BBC and Fleet Street soi-disant elite trying to ignore the story in order to push their own COP15 agendas.

He then goes on to cite some pseudoscience about the Overton Window and a linguist called Lakoff talking about "Framing" (straight out of NLP!) the debate, as if the public are simple-minded sheep who will believe everything they're told. No. People mistrust authority figures, and climate skepticism is deep-rooted in personal experience: no matter what the "global average temperature" figures claim, people over 40 can actually remember warmer and colder years and so the ever-greater catastrophes that are prophesied are in direct contradiction to experience. You've oversold it and now nobody is buying.

Then the author claims that "Oxfam’s study shows that almost no-one bothered to back [Monbiot] up in defending the integrity of the science" - which is largely because Climategate showed that there has been no actual science going on at the CRU: irreproducible "results" are nothing more than anecdote, no matter how many bent "reviews" they go through, how many times they're cited, or how pretty the graph looks.

So, co-conspirators, watch out for an organised pro-AGW propaganda campaign being directed through marketing agencies. Don't let them convince you that things didn't happen the way you remember them!

- KoW

What is Rape?

The front page of today's Metro screams "One in 4 women 'is rape victim'" based on a report from Havens.

This is clearly a shocking figure, and it's clearly intended that way, but is it actually meaningful? Have 25% of women been forced down an alley at knifepoint and abused? No. It turns out that the definition of rape they're using is "having sex when they did not want to".

So, yeah, "Not tonight dear, I've got a headache. Oh, go on then..." is rape. Who knew? Not feeling horny makes you a rape victim. Wonderful. So a substantial number of men will have been raped, too, when their wives were in the mood but they weren't.

Sometimes people have to do things they're not keen on, but which mean a great deal to someone else. It's hard work, and people are not entitled to happiness or effortless utopian relationships.

Why are these morons conflating a heinous life-destroying crime with harmless relationship obligations?

This sort of idiocy is why rape convictions are so "low" - the term has been devalued to the point where any doubt or remorse can count as "an offence", causing the number of reports to explode, but the number of actual rapes prosecuted (substantially all of them) is about the same. And that number is very low because the vast majority of the human race finds rape abhorrent.

- KoW

Austrian Physicist Demonstrates Explosives Smuggling

Seen in Metro this morning - not on their site though - but mentioned here and also in the original German (with video): "Full body scanners fail TV bomb demo". Says it all, really.

The German name - Nacktscanner (naked scanner) - is rather more appropriate name than "full body scanner". As if the metal detectors only scan your kneecap or something! "Full body" neglects to mention the fact that it's an imaging scanner, and is designed to penetrate clothes but not flesh.

As Ben Wallace MP has pointed out, and that video ably shows, these new technological (anti-)terrors are completely useless. Sure, they are claimed to have maybe a 60% chance of detecting explosives - though, is that a near-certain chance of detecting 60% of explosives, and no chance at all of detecting the rest? That would fit the physics better as objects aren't probabalistically visible, they're either visible or not. And if that were the case it'd be a real shame if the Bad Guys™ thought to use one of the undetectable types, wouldn't it? We'd have pissed away millions on completely worthless invasions of privacy... again...

- KoW

News in Brief

Lots happening today, so just a few short notes...

Rocking the Boat

Following on from the story yesterday evening, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt have sent out a letter calling for a secret ballot on Gordon Brown's premiership. There are claims that Charles Clarke is associated with it, and rumours that Harriet Harman might be behind it - as deputy PM, a leadership challenge would make her de facto Prime Minister for a few weeks. Haven't heard anyone reporting anything from the Milibands yet...


"I'm just big-boned"

Metro (p11) this morning - 'Bone risk to diet girls' - saying "Those with higher levels of fat tended to have larger and thicker bones, Bristol University scientists found". In other words, they've proven that a fattie/big-bones correlation exists, so we can expect to hear that line a lot more now that it's been scientifically proven.


DNA F-A-I-L

Metro (p12) this morning also has a story on the DNA database. It only helps in 1 case in 150. On burglaries - a crime characterised by the culprit having buggered off by the time the homeowner returns, so theoretically ideal for tracking technology like DNA or fingerprints - the database has less than 40% success. Shouldn't we be scrapping this huge, expensive, illegal mess and spending money on solving crimes?


Flav still 'fit and proper'

Flavio Briatore's lifetime ban from F1 has been overturned, so he can keep his QPR job, and he's been awarded a paltry £13,500 in compensation. The FIA says it will appeal but, now that Max Mosley has gone, does anyone really care? Bury it with the other scandals of the last decade and move on...


Monsters from the ID

Cambridge is to be used as a testing ground for ID cards for foreign nationals, according to David Howarth MP (h/t fanf). I wonder if this is designed to wind up the local NO2ID and security research people? Or to scare off world-class academics/scholars in an anti-elitist move? Or if it's just a conveniently large location sufficiently far from London that they can expect lower press scrutiny?


Also, it's snowing. Bet the 18:23 out of King's Cross is cancelled.

- KoW

Climategate: Review Announced

Yesterday afternoon, the UEA announced that their independent review of the CRU will be conducted by Sir Muir Russell KCB FRSE, a distinguished physicist, civil servant and former principal of the University of Glasgow.

The terms of reference for his review are much broader than previously indicated, and include that he should

determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes

which is what is needed, not merely a whitewash over data security policy. This review fulfills all of my wish list points from Wednesday, and so I hope you'll all join me in wishing Sir Muir all the best and looking forward to reading his review next spring.

- KoW

Heads start to roll... but not very far

The CRU has just announced that Prof Phil Jones is stepping down until after the Independent Review. So, nearly two weeks after his position became untenable, he's been put on Gardening Leave.

Before anyone gets too excited, though, that link also contains Prof Trevor Davies' (Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at UEA) description of the Review - it:

will address the issue of data security, an assessment of how we responded to a deluge of Freedom of Information requests, and any other relevant issues which the independent reviewer advises should be addressed

That isn't good enough.

Prof Jones stands accused of blatant academic fraud, conspiracy to withhold data, deleting data subject to FoI requests, and generally falling below the standards of conduct expected of a scientist... yet those terms of reference would allow the review to "exonerate" him based on nothing more than an INFOSEC policy review.

The Review needs to be beyond reproach and truly independent: no IPCC or UEA connections, probably no climate scientists at all, given Prof Wegman's social network analysis of the field. There are plenty of respected academics from fields such as physics, engineering, chemistry and mathematics. They can, and must, provide sound analysis of the data handling at the CRU and whether - as some have claimed - (allegedly) faking results and smearing rivals is "business as usual".

- KoW

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

The CRU is now in full spin trying to limit damage. Apparently what they consider the most damaging is this email, which (presumably) they admit is genuine, given that they're arguing over its context.

The relevant passage is:

"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline"

Now, there are several different meanings of 'trick'. It could mean a deception, which is clearly what some took it as; it could also mean a skillful technique - like a 'trick shot' in snooker. Clearly Prof Jones would like us to believe it's the latter, and has provided two images and an explanation. This image is the one that was published (WMO1999), including the trick, and this one (which looks rather hastily prepared) shows the series separated.

First, looking at that second image, I'm going to point out a few things that seem rather glaring to me. Firstly, the scale is rather large - let's cut that down for now, as data prior to the instrument record is relevant if (and only if) the data for the overlapping years is a good match. Here we go:

The red/green/blue lines are the "reconstructions" - the CRU data - and the black lines are recorded temperatures. Now, it's a pretty close match in the middle - 1900-1950 or so:

But, um... it's not so good in the 50 years or so before that... in fact, it looks a bit like negative correlation:

Still, things were a bit rough in the Victorian era, so maybe we can forgive inaccuracies there? I mean, they didn't even have cars and aircraft, let alone the satellite temperature readings we have today! Clearly the more modern data is important.... Oops:

With accurate global temperature measurements, the divergence is huge. One of the series is going exactly the opposite way to the temperature, the other two aren't showing any warming. I'd say that's a pretty awful fit, really, wouldn't you?

I agree with Prof Jones on one point: "The ‘decline’ in this set of tree-ring data should not be taken to mean that there is any problem with the instrumental temperature data". Indeed it should not. When your proxy data disagrees with your real data, you reject the proxy - and that's just what we need to do. The tree-ring reconstructions here, while superficially promising for early-20th-century data, are clearly a very poor match and must be discarded as irrelevant.

Yes, they go back a thousand years - the bible goes back further, but that doesn't make it an accurate source of climate data!

Hang on, though. What about how this data was published - using "Mike's Nature trick":

The top circle on there is where the instrumented temperature finishes up, and the bottom one is (as you can see in the graphs above) where the data ends up: below the 1961-1990 average in all three cases. Yes, the data runs out before the end of the graph, but that's hardly a reason to add extra points to the series to make it finish well above the baseline. If I had to pick one word for that, it would probably be "fraud".

I'm not a climatologist, I'm not in posession of the full facts, and I'm not a professor, so I'm in no way competent to judge whether any dishonest practices have taken place. That's up to the relevant academic authorities, the journals, and the funding councils, and I look forward to hearing their decisions. But, for me, this whole thing stinks.

- KoW

The Day Global Warming Died

Friday afternoon saw a huge story break: the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has been hacked and a large quantity of email, raw data and (proprietary) climate model code has been leaked. The director of CRU, Professor Phil Jones, has confirmed the leaked information as being genuine.

The CRU is one of the leading lights in climatology and, in particular, paleoclimatology - reconstructing historical temperatures from secondary sources such as tree rings and ice core samples. Analysis of some of their data - released only after pressure from the Royal Society - has already shown significant anomolies.

The emails do not paint a flattering picture - in fact, they seem to show a pattern of deliberate fraud and abuse of the peer-review process with conflicts of interest, hiding models/data from review and manipulating editorial boards. These are not trivial charges and, if the emails are shown to be genuine, they should be sufficient to end careers and probably secure convictions for fraud.

As is traditional, this scandal has got a "-gate" suffix: Climategate. But, for once, it might actually be bigger than Watergate.

- KoW

Free Cheeseburgers!

According to this report on the BBC, the figures of 2000 calories a day for women and 2500 for men are inaccurate. The quotas are too low by about 400kcal - "a cheeseburger" - apparently, as we already take enough exercise to burn the extra calories off.

Naturally, I'm shocked - reality often rounds itself to politically-expedient numbers, after all. That's why we can be sure that CO₂ atmospheric concentration targets are Proper Science - they're exact multiples of 50ppm. Next thing you know someone will be claiming that alcohol consumption recommendations shouldn't be an exact number of units (defined as 10ml of pure ethanol, based on the content of a one-ounce shot of 40% spirits, just so it's nice and exact), and the world will go to rack and ruin!

The article mentions a fear that the the Department of Health will "sweep this report under the carpet" - and they should rightly be fearful. As we've learned from Alan Johnson sacking Professor Nutt, we can't have science causing "confusion" with official policy. Such tension has to be resolved, and quickly lest it worry the populace - but, as we all know, the state know's what's best for us, so policy can't be wrong or changed. It must be the science to blame, eh?

I don't know about you, but I'm about to go and eat my free cheeseburger!

- KoW

Mission: Impossible

The BBC reports that the IMechE has said that the 80% let's-go-back-to-the-middle-ages CO₂ cuts by 2050 that the government has signed into law are unachievable. No, really. Reducing CO₂ emissions to barely more than the population produces by respiration is a bit tricky. Shocking.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change - yeah, they're going to be neutral with a name like that - have said that the IMechE should be thinking positively. Specifically, they accused the Institution of having a "can't do, won't do attitude". Because that's all it takes to achieve massive geo-engineering projects: the right attitude. And this government wonders why it's consistently failed to achieve anything beyond passing new (and mostly unenforced) laws and pissing people off...

I think the IMechE are wrong about the environmental side of this, but I'm 100% behind their sound engineering approach. You can't make offshore wind turbines or nuclear reactors appear by fiat: you have to build them, which means moving materials and equipment on a massive scale. That takes time and money and people, and there are finite limits to all of them.

More worrying is the quoted prat from the Tyndall Centre saying we need carbon rationing. That really is one step too far: the ability to eat, travel, stay warm and travel restricted by the government and sacrificied to "the greater good". Never.

- KoW

Nutt Sacking

So Professor David Nutt has been sacked by Alan Johnson, for pointing out that the evidence on drugs doesn't say what the government would like it to say, and is predicting a backlash. Mark Easton says "there may be significant fall-out". Good.

It seems to me that the best evidence we could have that independent scientific advice is truly independent is that, when it's ignored by the government for political and ideological reasons, it results in a public bunfight. Not that dissent is quashed to avoid embarassment for the politicians. This should be a public scandal - "Government Scientific Advisor Fired For Disagreeing" - the sort of shoot-the-messenger idiocy that lead the Soviets into Lysenkoism.

I doubt anyone is naïve enough to believe that the Executive actually want independent advice - they want to claim to have taken independent advice, and they want to be supported, but that's cargo-cult decision-making. It's the child sitting (on a pile of cushions) on his dad's chair, peering over the top of the desk, looking intently at a "report", and "evaluating" it - he's seen his dad do the same thing, and he knows how he has to look, but not why or what's going on behind the scenes.

Scientific advice isn't there to provide a veneer of legitimacy; its role isn't to support extant policy decisions; its internal disagreements aren't justification to give "equal time to both sides" or to pick the one which best fits your prejudices. Scientific advice is there to provide a sound basis for rational decision-making.

Ignore it at your peril.

- KoW

The honourable member for Morley and Rothwell is a pillock

Colin Challen MP tabled this Early Day Motion about a week ago, full of the usual eco-nonsense. Amongst other things, he discusses:

• "the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration for a stable planet"
• "the need to reduce this level to 350 particles per million or below"
• "the majority of money spent on reviving the economy should be on green measures and that at least two hours of prime time television per week should be used to explain the gravity of the crisis to the public"
• "domestic flights should be phased out by the end of 2010"
• "that a speed limit of 55 miles per hour should be introduced"

Well, it's probably better than Eastenders, but I think the even the State Broadcaster would object to that level of indoctrination. Though, as one wag put it, "Two hours per week? So he's proposing a reduction. Excellent!".

I'll leave off the logical error or needing to reduce the "safe level", since it's obvious what was meant. Isn't it great, though, that we can be Saved if we get the level down to 350ppm? Not 351ppm, or 349ppm, of course... those are poisonous. As Harry Hill might say, "what are the chances, eh?".

That number is a political one, with little or no science behind it. Science doesn't produce neat figures, because the universe isn't neat, so where did it come from? The simple fact is that there is no critical tipping point or runaway positive feedback - if there were, at one of the many points in Earth's history when CO₂ concentration was higher, they'd have been triggered and we wouldn't be here to argue about it. That's how positive feedback works: it doesn't suddenly decide to stop and go back, it goes on accelerating forever. If the change slows or reverses, the system exhibits negative feedback, end of.

So where did that number come from? The IPCC's made-up political target is 450ppm. That's a pretty big difference for anything other than sticking a wet finger in the air and guessing.

Why ban flights? Why 55mph? Some cars at 55mph produce more CO₂ than others do at 70mph, so this isn't purely about the environment. If it were, you could simply ban (or punitively tax) higher emissions rates no matter how they were produced. That might actually result in innovation and job creation as people find ways to do the same stuff but better/faster/cheaper. So why create a fatuous link between speed and carbon dioxide? To buy the political support of the anti-car lobby? To push a personal agenda?

Look at the measures proposed: arbitrary and irrelevant limitations on behaviour, two hours of propaganda per week. Doesn't that sound rather like Soviet Russia? We're spied on through ubiquitous CCTV cameras and RIPA powers, can be searched without probable cause ("section 44"), can be imprisoned without charge for a month (and let's not forget that it was nearly 42 days!)... does that sound like Great Britain to you?

Or is this one of those Early Day Motions which nobody cares about and which serve only to waste taxpayers' money?

(Hat tip to Dizzy)

- KoW

Climate Maths

Right, I'm getting fed up with this. This morning's metro has a quarter-page ad for the government's ACT ON CO2 campaign, explaining that I should use less water in the shower. Yes, water, that well-known carbon emitter.

According to this campaign's FAQ, "Over 40 per cent of CO₂ emissions in the UK come directly from what individuals do – for example, using electricity in the home and driving cars. That means we can all make a difference. If every home can install 270mm loft insulation, it would save 3.8 million tonnes of CO₂ – the same as the annual emissions of around 650,000 homes."

OK. Maths time!

A typical person breathes about 7-8 litres of air per minute, 11000 litres per day.^[source]. Sanity checking, this means that a person would breathe all of the air in a lift once in a few hours, which seems plausible.

Using the ideal gas law, pV = nRT, we can calculate how much air this is in molecular terms. Pressure (p) is around 1 atm (by definition) or 100000 Nm^-2. Volume (V) is 11m³. R is the gas constant, 8.31 Jmol^-1K^-1. T is the temperature, let's say 293K (20 degrees Celsius / 68 degrees Fahrenheit). Solving for n, we get 452 mol of gas.

The air we breathe out contains approximately 4% more CO₂ than the air we breathe in.^[source] This means that 18 mol of the gas is CO₂. The reason for using the mole (~6.03x10²³ molecules) as a unit is to simplify calculations: CO₂ has a molecular weight of ~44 g/mol (12 for the carbon atom, 16 each for the oxygens) and so 18 mol of CO₂ weighs 795g (1.75 lbs). Let's round that to 800g / 0.8kg as these calculations aren't accurate enough. That's on the same order of magnitude as the food and water intakes, so it seems plausible.

A typical person produces 800g (0.8kg, 1.75lbs) of CO₂ per day.

Now, the fun begins. There were approximately 6,790,062,216 people in the world in July 2009. ^[source] A bit too much precision, there - let's call it 6.8 billion now. Multiplying 6.8bn people by 0.8kg/person/day and 365 days/year gives us 1986 million tonnes of CO₂ per year. Can't really support four significant figures, so let's round it to 2000 million tonnes.

The human population of Earth produces 2000 million tonnes of CO₂ per year simply by breathing.

Hang on, though. That rounding was 14 million tonnes! Let's go back to our ACT ON CO2 quote. A mere 3.8 million tonnes is the annual emissions of 650,000 homes, so that rounding error would be the emissions of 2.4 million homes - about a tenth of the UK. Wow!

Talking of those 650,000 homes, though... their 2.2 inhabitants will each produce 0.292 tonnes of CO₂ per year, so 0.42 million tonnes of CO₂ - 10% of their total emissions - is produced by respiration. Is that supposed to be scary? That we breathe as much CO₂ as we waste through not having 9" thick loft insulation?

The government wants us only to emit 159 million tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2050. Bit of a shame that the UK population exhales over 18 million tonnes of CO₂ per year - more than 11% of the total.

Even more telling: the UK's entire current "carbon budget" - for power, transport, and everything else - is the same as the amount produced by the Chinese population simply breathing.

More than a tenth of the "damage" we do to the environment is through respiration; I'm inclined to think that such small multiples are irrelevant. Exercise and sex greatly increase respiration volumes - by more than a factor of 10.

Your breathing during heavy exertion, 150 litres/minute, accounts for more than twice as much CO₂ production as everything else in your life put together - driving, flying, importing non-seasonal vegetables, technology, heat and light, etc.

How about we stop worrying about trivial amounts of CO₂ and just get on with living?

- KoW

Climate quackery

I just stumbled across this from the BBC: "[In 2007] the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report concludes it is more than 90% likely that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are responsible for modern-day climate change."

Pretty damning, huh? Except it isn't. ">90% likely" is another way of saying "<10% that this could happen by random chance" or, as it's often shown in scientific papers, "p < 0.1". Or, rather, that's how it might be shown in scientific papers if they were published with such loose bounds - but they're not. The publication standard for most reputable journals is 5% significance. My supervisor once described it thusly: "if you haven't proven it to 5% significance, you haven't proven it". And with good reason - no journal's reputation could survive long if it published, on average, one incorrect study each issue.

One- and two-sigma errors crop up all the time. In a moderately-sized physics class, you would expect one student to get a result two standard deviations from the mean, not through incompetence but through random errors. With a "science" as complex, fuzzy and politicised as climatology, p<0.1 is a null result.

The BBC also has this graph of atmospheric CO₂ readings from Mauna Loa from 1958 to date:

Here's my rather less scary one from the same data:

Note that the population of the world reached 3 billion in 1960 and 6 billion in 1999, so the atmospheric CO₂ per person is down over 40% in that time! Hardly convincing, prima facie, that people are the problem.

Then, of course, we have this BBC piece telling us that the hottest year on record was 1998 and that temperatures have been stable for the last decade - and will quite possibly decline over the next 20-30 years. I'll not mock the secret models which have utterly failed to predict any of this, but suffice to say that if you put garbage in, you get garbage out, and it's not a good idea to set policy based on garbage.

So, yeah, "global warming" (or "climate change" as people prefer to call it now that it's not actually getting warmer) is very much unproven. And yet... we're forced into using mercury-filled lightbulbs, taxed through the nose for petrol and flights, "encouraged" to use renewable energy sources as our politicians argue over whose hair-shirt is hairier and who can cut emissions the most.

History will judge harshly the current mass-hysteria over climate: "they actually thought they were saving the world"

- KoW