Sudden Sea

I've just finished an excellent book about the Great Hurricane of 1938, which pounded Long Island and New England 70 years ago (September 21, 1938), resulting in 682 deaths, 1,754 serious injuries, and the loss of many thousands of homes, businesses, fishing boats, farm animals, and vehicles of all kinds. It was the first major hurricane to hit New England since 1869, and it was a monster. Sudden Sea was published in 2003 by R.A. Scotti, a mystery writer and former journalist, and it is a gripping read.

As we know well from Katrina and from other hurricanes and tropical storms in recent times, even with satellite imagery, other modern forecasting techniques, and mass communication, major storms can still cause great damage and loss of life. But in 1938, forecasting methods and resources were very limited. The 1938 storm was tracked by the Weather Bureau, and based on its initial track, Atlantic coastal Florida was warned and some areas were even evacuated. But the storm changed course away from Florida and was predicted to move northeast to the North Atlantic. Instead it moved rapidly along the US East Coast, and hit Long Island and south coastal New England as a category 3 hurricane, completely without warning. People were walking on beaches or sitting in homes near the coast when a wall of water three stories high just showed up. Some towns were literally wiped clean of homes and other structures. Rhode Island was especially hard hit. The water was 17 feet (5 meters) deep in downtown Providence.

Reading this book right now is interesting timing as Hurricane Kyle is moving through our region today. It has apparently bypassed most of New England, although northern Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia are on a rare hurricane watch. It's expected to hit near St. John, NB late today at sub-hurricane strength, although they will get a lot of rain and high winds, so there could be some damage and power outages.

I hope for their sake (and mine) that any damage is not too bad, since as it happens, I'll be driving through Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia later this week , staying one night in St. John and then on the NS coast for a few days at a conference. Maybe when Kyle passes it will clear up and we'll even get to see something of the scenic beauty of that area (first time for me).

KSR on Planetary Radio

I just stumbled on a fascinating new interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, speaking on Earth Day about Sixty Days and Counting. The interview is on the Planetary Society's Planetary Radio show and is available here as an MP3 download. The Planetary Radio archives are a great resource, with a lot of fascinating space and astronomy-related interviews and radio features.

Phil Chase for President!

A president who installs solar power at the White House and drives in a motorcade of lightly armored Toyota Prius hybrids. A president who has a blog that he actually writes himself (with millions of comments, of course). A president who promises that the US will work closely with other countries through the UN to solve climate problems - and who really means it! A president who actually takes science seriously. It's just too bad that Phil Chase is a fictional character, otherwise he would definitely have my vote. Real candidates: please read this book!

I'm learning a lot of interesting things and really enjoying the final volume of Kim Stanley Robinson's "Science in the Capital" series, Sixty Days and Counting. Abrupt climate change has hit the world hard in this series (as it is about to do in real life), and science and politics have to join forces to save the world. There's a lot going on in our characters' lives - some of it rather weird and not that plausible, but I've gotten to like most of the characters in this long three-volume novel, and I'm willing to suspend my disbelief. I'll let you know if we make it.

Striving for Hope

In the wake of tragic events like Monday's murderous rampage at Virginia Tech, superimposed on the "background noise" of daily murderous rampages in Iraq (183 dead just today), it's sometimes hard to remain hopeful about the future. We've got nature on the run. We've got each other on the run. Where do you find reason for optimism?

I just finished Kim Stanley Robinson's Fifty Degrees Below, in which climate has changed rapidly and catastrophically. It's pretty bad, and it's only part two, so the effects of scientifically based efforts to restart the Gulf Stream and to capture carbon more efficiently are not resolved (I've got the third volume on hand). But it's a most hopeful disaster novel - when push comes to shove, human beings can cooperate, and reason can (mostly) prevail. There are no super-heros and no miracles. Complex problems require complex solutions. But life is worth preserving, and that's worth remembering and participating in, whenever possible.

Another good point is a TED speech by author Robert Wright that I watched tonight. This guy is no polyanna, but the title of the talk is "How cooperation (eventually) trumps conflict." There is progress, moral progress, not only technological. It's not a zero-sum game. So there is hope. I hope.

N.B. The TED web site has been redesigned and it is much easier to find the TEDtalks videos now. There are a lot of great things out there, all of them around 17 to 23 minutes in length. I also watched excellent talks tonight by E.O. Wilson and Sir Martin Rees. These are also "scary but hopeful" talks and well worth watching.

Climate Change Cometh

It's a beautiful spring day here in New England, but the signs of climate change are popping up all over the place. I'm in the middle of Robinson's Fifty Degrees Below and I am really enjoying the mix of interesting characters and real science (though admittedly not much in the action department). Climate is changing faster in this very-near-future novel than in real life, though not implausibly faster. A key idea is that of tipping points - when you reach one, things can change really fast (sort of like the chaotic orbits in Fly Me to the Moon).

Some recurring characters in the book are from the fictional island nation of Khembalung, where Tibetan refugees have established a home on a river delta island in the Bay of Bengal. Barely at sea level to begin with, rapid climate change results in the complete flooding of the island, making refugees once again of the 12,000 Tibetans who had lived there. Khembalung is fictional, but there are real islands there, and they are sinking, as discussed in this article in today's New York Times.

This week's Newsweek has a number of articles on the issues of climate change and leadership, which is clearly not coming from Washington, but fortunately is coming from California and other places. I forget which Terminator movie it's from, but one of Arnold's signature lines is "come with me if you want to live." Sounds like the start of a plan anyway!

40 Signs: Science Fiction with Real Science

I just finished Forty Signs of Rain (2004), the first volume of Kim Stanley Robinson's latest trilogy, on the subjects of rapid climate change and how the processes of science and scientists work (or don't work, in some cases). I love the realistic feeling of this novel - from the fascinating bits of science to the characters to the workings of the NSF, a biotech startup, and a senator's office. Set in the very near future, this book rang true for me on every level. Of course it's also the setup for a gigantic disaster - very much like our current real life. I look forward to the next two volumes (the third was just recently published) and to perhaps meeting Mr. Robinson at ISDC in Dallas. I'm enough of a fan to bring along a book or two of his (Green Mars?) and to try to get an autograph.

What's in a name?

Three unrelated examples of the importance of what you call things just hit me. One was mentioned by Tim Flannery in The Weather Makers. We humans evolved in tropical conditions, but we routinely experience and adapt to variations in air temperature of tens of degrees due to weather and seasonal changes. Given all this, "warming" doesn't sound like such a scary thing - warmth is good, right? And if the average change due to "global warming" is just a few degrees - we see bigger changes than that overnight! It just doesn't sound that threatening at a psychological level, and at the scientific level, it's awfully complicated. That's why James Lovelock (British chemist and originator of the "Gaia" hypothesis) prefers the term "global heating." I think "climate change" is also better than "global warming." In this case, what you call it is important, because it seems to affect how seriously people consider this important issue.

Another one is "space tourist" vs. "private space explorer" or other terms preferred by Anousheh Ansari and others who have paid their way to orbit (see today's Space Review for more on this one). I can see Ansari's point that her training was more akin to preparing for a Mount Everest climb (adventure travel?) than for a week on the beach, and I'm willing to use whatever name they like, though "space tourist" really works OK too. No biggy.

Finally there's poor, sad little Pluto, "demoted" to dwarf planet. Sorry Pluto, you're just gonna have to get used to the new designation. I just can't see the big deal over the Pluto thing - nothing has changed except a label that we use to discuss some objects in the Solar System. But we're still sending a spacecraft to visit in a few years, little buddy, so don't feel too bad.

The Weather Makers: Act Now!

I've just finished reading a wonderful yet terrifying book on climate change, The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery. With vivid writing, numerous examples of changes that are already occurring, and extensive references to scientific and general sources, this book organizes the complex facts of climate change into clear explanations, and makes a compelling call for action. We are now the weather makers, and although some may argue that the amount of carbon that humans are introducing is still relatively small compared to all the natural processes of the atmosphere, oceans, forests, etc., all of these complex systems are in a sort of balance. And just as you wouldn't need to be especially strong to tip over a huge rock balancing on the edge of a cliff, climate is at or near such a tipping point, and human actions (and inaction) are on track to push us off that edge in the next few years if we don't make changes soon.

Others argue that claims of climate change are "political" and "controversial" and that we should wait for better proof. Sure Hurricane Katrina was terrible, but can anyone really prove that the strength and frequency of hurricanes are related to global warming and not due to other cyclic phenomena? This book makes the case the global warming is deeply involved (in an afterward added just after Katrina in late September 2005), but even if there's only a certain probability that this and other changes are due to human-induced climate change, we still ought to act. A prudent person buys a fire extinguisher before the stove catches on fire.

But it's hard to change, I know. I swear every day that I will eat less and exercise more, and I know I need to, but I usually don't. I'm prudent in many things but I let a lot of things slide. But climate change is not something we can let slide for much longer or problems like Katrina will become more common and devastating. Flannery also talks about all the changes that are less obvious but which may lead to snowballing side effects. Things like damage to coral reefs and forests, and the loss of thousands of species of animals and plants, most of them small, remote, and inconspicuous (in addition to the better known declines of large animals). Whether these lost animals and plants would have led to cures for cancer will never be known, but we do know that they are all components of complex ecosystems which help to keep things in balance in ways we hardly yet understand. Things like changes from old forest to scrubland or grassland that change the amount of water vapor in a region and result in less or more rain in other places. We just don't know how many of the huge rocks we are pushing on are balanced on the edge of a cliff, poised to fall on someone's house or head when we accidentally reach a tipping point we didn't know was there.

Flannery ends the book with things you can do right now. I know already that my next car will be a hybrid, which can reduce my personal transportation emissions substantially, even compared to the 1998 Camry I currently drive. I will look into solar water heating and remind my daughter (a member of the environment club at school) that leaving lights and appliances on around the house is contributing CO2 to the atmosphere, as well as annoying me! Maybe I should shut down the PC in the basement when I'm not using it (um, most of the week - oops).

The point is, I can do something now, and so can you. I'd suggest reading this book as a start, or you might read Plan B 2.0 by Lester R. Brown, another excellent recent work on climate change and what we can do about it, available in book form and also as free PDF chapters. Be the change!

A Loss for the Earth: Triana Canceled

In a New York Times Op-Ed piece, Robert L. Park reports on the quiet cancelation by NASA of an Earth observing satellite called the Deep Space Climate Observatory, also called Triana. Positioned at the L1 Lagrange point, it would have had a continuous view of the full Earth and carried instruments to monitor the planet's energy balance, contributing to our understanding of global warming. Although "competing priorities" were cited, Dr. Park also points out that a better understanding of global warming is not exactly one of the Bush administration's highest priorities.

There are other Earth monitoring satellites, and I know there are other priorities for NASA and the US government. But it really seems unfortunate that this relatively low cost spacecraft (which has been ready for launch since 2001) will not be used for this important mission.