Will the Arctic be Ice-free in my lifetime?

First became interested in global warming over twenty years ago (see Global Warming - to Australia in a Box) and I read the various reports in the scientific press with increasing gloom as we are trapped on a planet where the climate is changing due to our actions - and there is not a hope in hell of politician getting their heads together round the world to take sufficient action to do anything to halt the process. For instance as things get hotter and dryer in the U.S.A. I can see the demands to extract even more oil will go out in order to keep the air conditioning running.

This morning there was nothing further from my mind as I am trying to down-sized my library by selling off some books on ebay - until I picked up a copy of Tales of the Northern Seas, published in 1870 and came across this picture:

I shivered. It could only be a few years away that the North West passage will be ice free every summer. And while I will be 75 next year there seem to be a real possibility that the first summer when there is no ice cover over, or even near, the North Pole, will come before I die. 

A Skeptical view of science.

Ilana Yurkiewicz has just written a piece The downside of politicians talking about science which includes the following passage:

That mentality just doesn’t work in science. Those who are new to a subject are intimidated from asking questions and afraid to disagree. Rather than reason through ideas themselves, they are pressured into accepting conclusions presented as settled and thereby indisputable. But the thing is, nearly everything in science is disputable. The nature of discovery means trying to find the absolute truth – and exposing inconsistencies, thinking through how to reconcile them, and critically analyzing data are all ways to get there. We can’t get very far when curiosity and open inquiry – the hallmarks of good science – are stifled. We are touting the bottom line while discouraging the very steps of the scientific method that get us there.
What we have to realize is that science and politics have fundamentally different goals, and it’s damaging to conflate them. In politics, the aim is to convince others that you are right. Scientists, ideally, should be seeking objective truths. To do so, they need to be receptive to dissent and open to the possibility of being wrong. Science thrives when diverse ways of thinking are welcome.

You can't plan to have an original idea

My Batty Past is in the Can

College Lake Reserve (more photographs)

At the end of July I went on an evening safari around College Lake (a nature reserve near Tring, Hertfordshire) the idea being to see bats (which have been hit by the unseasonable weather) and glowworms (which were reasonably plentiful). Then today I went again - but just for a day time exercise walk and a sandwich lunch.

Lesser Horseshoe Bat in Devon Cave
(Devon Wildlife Trust)

As I was about to leave one of the volunteers called over to ask how I had enjoyed the safari. I mentioned how interested I was in the electronic bat detectors - which had not been invented when I first worked with bats. This started some reminiscences  about some of my early involvement in research started nearly 60 years ago in Devon and my involvement in the foundation of the William Pengelly Cave Studies Trust. I also mentioned how I got involved in bat ringing with the pioneering work on Horseshoe bats in Devon caves with John and Winifred Hooper. John was also interesting in filming and I described the first attempts to film bats in Beer Quarry Cave, possibly in about 1956. These disused mines were chosen because they were easy to access - with a level floor - and the lesser horseshoe bats, which we planned to film, showed up well on the light coloured walls. My brother and I were filmed looking for the bats - as was the Hooper's young daughter - who was just starting to talk - and so one of her first words was "bat". A year or so later the film was shown by the BBC - perhaps on Blue Peter.

At this point the person I was talking to said that recently he had seen seen the film - as part of a number of early bat films shown to a meeting of the North Bucks Bat Group. The person showing it had made some comments about the youngest member of the party, pointing out that then no-one was concerned about Health and Safety legislation! 

So some of my early batty research is still "in the can."

The Black Hole in “The Believing Brain”

Some comments of Michael Shermer's book “The Believing Brain”

How you react to this book, which has just been issued as a paper back, will depend on your own individual belief systems. In setting out to read it I felt it appropriate to identify places where the book reinforced my own beliefs and – more importantly – where there is a conflict – and why. As a result what follows is a personal commentary rather than a formal review. In particular it ends with a discussion on theories of how the believing brain works. It also looks at some of the reason why your believing brain might not accept an unconventional evolutionary model which suggests that the human brain is little more than an enlarged animal brain which is only more powerful because it has more neurons, has more synapses, a modified developmental framework and similar straightforward homologous changes. 

This House Believes that God is a Delusion

Across Hemel event site, Gadebridge Park, Hemel Hempstead

ACross Hemel (an association of Churches in the Hemel Hempstead area) has organised a summer family event in Gadebridge Park. This included an evening debate, held yesterday, with the challenging title “This House Believes that God is a Delusion”, to be proposed by Richard Norman, a Vice President of the British Humanist Association, with the case against being put by Justin Thacker, chair of Across Hemel.

The National Trust fails to answer key questions

The National Trust decided to stop posts on the issue of the Giant's Causeway from appearing on its Press Room blog - and undoubtedly because of the complaints they got about this they restarted them again - but apparently introducing moderation - and then made no arrangements that moderation should be carried out reasonably quickly - which would clearly be essential if the re-opening of the posting facility was meant to be genuine. 

The National Trust, Creationism, and the Giant's Causeway

Earlier this month the National Trust opens a new Visitors Centre at the Giants Causeway and a storm has broken out over a few words spoken in a display, and the way they have been misquoted by the Young Earth Creationists. I have not seen the exhibit and I am happy to accept that the main display gives an accurate account of the current scientific views of its origins, However there is a listening point where historical voices can be heard discussing historical theories about the origins of the Causeway.