Garwulf's Corner

Climategate - putting the emails in context

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:42:29 GMT

One of the frequent declarations regarding the Climategate emails is that they have been "taken out of context." This is not necessarily an inaccurate term - putting over a thousand emails into context involves constructing a narrative, and a very complicated one. There are certain issues that are quite clear in the emails - such as the corruption of the peer-review process, and the attempts to defeat FOI requests - but there are also red herrings, such as the famous "hide the decline," which actually does refer to a scientific and mathematical problem.

It was only a matter of time before somebody did go through the emails and put them into context, constructing the narrative they frame. And it is quite an amazing story. Terence Corcoran has published a remarkable two-part series in the National Post titled Climategate - A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism. For anybody wanting to understand this, I think it will be required reading.

So, Part I is here, and Part II is here.

Putting climate science in perspective

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:35:58 GMT

Today, while reading a Slashdot article, I came across a link to a fascinating talk by Professor Richard Lindzen about the state of climate science today. It's far better to let the talk speak for itself, but I will point out that Lindzen is one of the people who is actually dealing with empirical research on CO2 impact, as opposed to computer modelling.

Anyway, the presentation is here. Enjoy!

Climategate - and somebody finally gets it right

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:20:44 GMT

I think the UK Met Office deserves a medal.

I've been following the Climategate scandal for two weeks now. It hasn't been pretty. After about the first week, most of the coverage - which was blog postings and editorials - began to recycle material. The nuggets of news were few and far between.

And, on the warmist side, even Nature did an ostrich impression, barely mentioning the activities of the Climategate scientists in regards to attempting to co-opt peer review and conspiring to get around FOI requests on both sides of the Atlantic, while complaining about the political pressures on climate scientists - and recycling talking points on the warmist side while they did it.

There were investigations, of course. The first one was announced by Congress, followed by Penn State University, and then by the University of East Anglia and the IPCC itself. And, this is an important step in dealing with the scandal. But, Congress was investigating because of political agendas, and the others started their investigations after the media frenzy had made it necessary to in order to save their backsides. And when something like this happens, and something important is missing, to have that thing suddenly appear is like a lightning bolt out of the blue.

That came from the UK Met Office.

On December 5, the BBC reported that the Met Office would be doing an independent re-analysis of world climate for the last 160 years. To put that in perspective, amidst the investigations, whitewashes, and accusations, the Met Office was the first organization to stand up and just check the results. That's basic scientific verification: can the results be reproduced? And, to make matters better, the Met Office will be doing it openly, which pretty much addresses the key concerns of the Climategate scandal.

So, while the rest of the climate science world was whitewashing, accusing, covering their hindquarters and arguing about whether the results had been manipulated, only the Met Office has decided to go ahead and conduct actual science.

Could somebody please give these people a medal?

Battleship...the movie

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:45:02 GMT

Every now and then something absurdly pointless happens in Hollywood. Somebody decides to remake The Fog, or some executive decides that a reboot of Battlestar Galactica is a good idea less than two years after its incarnation as a successful and groundbreaking series ends. But this one takes the cake.

Peter Berg is directing an adaptation of Battleship. That's right, the board game Battleship.

For those who don't know, Battleship is a two-player game where each player tries to sink the other's fleet. Each player calls out a grid square reference, and his/her opponents tells them if it's a hit or not. The person to sink all of the other player's ships first wins. That's it. There is no plot. There are no characters. There is nothing to adapt.

For that matter, the name itself is a common word used to refer to a type of warship. So, there aren't any legitimate legal blocks against using the name Battleship. All you have to be able to do is set in on a...well...BATTLESHIP. And two fleets pounding the daylights out of each other is not an original idea from a board game company - it's been a feature of naval history for centuries. And, for that matter, if the source article is right and there are going to be aliens involved, that draws it even farther from its source material.

So, to summarize, the producers are paying money for licensing they don't need for a movie that won't have anything to do with the game they're adapting anyway. At least I'm not the only person who thinks this is stupid.

A good, balanced Climategate article

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:19:22 GMT

Looking at a lot of the Climategate coverage, there isn't a lot of truly balanced analysis to be had. All too many articles either try to whitewash the scandal or play it up to prove a conspiracy for global governance or that the entire AGW thesis was a scam from the beginning. Well, frankly, neither of these sides really hold all that much water.

This article, however, is easily the most balanced I've seen so far. It's a pity the comments under it aren't, but the article itself I would consider to be required reading for this one.

Climategate - the firestorm begins

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:32:24 GMT

I think it can be defined as such - the shock wave is the moment where everybody realizes what has happened. The firestorm is when they start doing something about it.

And now, the Climategate firestorm has well and truly begun. And it will be a long time before it ends.

So, what has happened that's important? First off, Michael Mann is now under investigation by his university. Now, the results of this investigation are up in the air - while there are plenty, such as the people placing comments in this news story about it, who are fairly sure that the university will just whitewash the thing, I'm not all that certain. Mann has just been implicated in a major scandal that looks like it will destroy his credibility...and that makes him a liability to the university. It would not surprise me if he ends up on the unemployment line after this. An additional inquiry is being set up at the University of East Anglia, but there aren't a lot of details about that yet.

Even more important are two pieces of news. First, the climate scientists at the University of East Anglia have admitted to dumping most of their raw data on which their predictions of global warming were based. It seems that the data that was dumped was pre-Phil Jones' tenure as the head of the CRU, though, and tossed away in the 1980s before the AGW scare took off - but this also means that this data may not be recoverable, and around 130 years of temperature data may need to be reconstructed from the ground up. And then there's what should be good news...I think. The University of East Anglia has agreed to disclose all of their climate data...but only "once its Climatic Research Unit (CRU) had negotiated its release from a range of non-publication agreements." I hate to say it, but that actually sounds fishy to me. If nothing else, I'd like to know just why climate data is covered in "non-publication agreements." In fact, in light of the Climategate emails, this strikes me as another tactic, this time to prevent the University from releasing the climate data. I really hope I'm wrong on that one.

Unfortunately, some people just don't get it, and at least part of the debate is still in the hands of the extremists. Professor Kevin Anderson has now trumped just about every climate doomsday scenario the AGW movement ever put out by predicting the death of all but 10% of the planet's population because of AGW. Lord Monckton, for so long a voice of reason among the skeptic movement, has started calling for the dissolution of the entire United Nations. And then you have the columnists who are missing the point in either direction - Andrew Gorrie in the Toronto Star is trying to wave off the scandal with the Climategate scientists as "reluctant communicators who'd prefer to be left alone to collect and crunch data," while Steve Janke in the National Post, in what starts off as an insightful article and quickly leaves reality behind, has decided that they're all "idealists," and the entire thing was about ideology.

For better or worse, the firestorm has begun. My hope is that at the end of it both the conspiracy theories and apocalypse scenarios are left in the trash bin once and for all, and the debate can concentrate on the science. But only time will tell.

Climategate - the first signs of the firestorm

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:39:59 GMT

In New Zealand, the Climategate scandal has raised a considerable debate regarding temperature stations. This isn't something I'd consider part of the shock wave - instead, it's part of the upcoming firestorm that I mentioned earlier this week.

Now, this is one case where I have to side against the skeptics. As this post on Hot Topic points out, the adjustments on these temperature stations were made for what appears to be a legitimate reason - the station was physically moved to a location where the baseline temperature reading would be different. But, furthermore, the raw data is available to the public, and there is transparency. Compare that to the East Anglia CRU, where there is neither condition.

And this is one of the main reasons I'm so furious about the Climategate scandal - collateral damage. A lot of innocent scientists are very likely going to be hurt by this.

The sheer damage from this is immense. The Climategate scientists committed flat-out fraud. They fudged data, subverted and corrupted the peer-review process in major journals, and they engaged in a conspiracy to break Freedom of Information law, all while receiving public funds. The fact that there doesn't seem to be evidence of a political conspiracy makes it worse, not better - it means all of this was done so that they wouldn't have to say they were wrong, or some other petty reason. At the very least, these people should be stripped of their credentials and never allowed to work in the field of climatology again. I'd be more satisfied, though, if they faced jail.

Why am I being so harsh? Let me pose a few questions:

Now that we know that the East Anglia CRU's data was compromised, how much research is going to have to be redone because it used that data? How much money and time will be necessary to rebuild temperature records?

How long will it take to fix the peer review process that was so badly compromised by these people? How many legitimate articles with important research were tossed away because they didn't fit with the Climategate scientist's agenda? And, for that matter, how long will it be before the peer review process in the major journals they targeted is trusted again, either inside the scientific community or outside it?

And what about the New Zealand situation? How many times will legitimate data now fall under a serious cloud of doubt because it could be connected to Climategate?

This may very well have set the field of climate science back by as much as a decade or more. And for that, there should be serious consequences.

Climategate, and what it means

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:35:03 GMT

Ultimately, it comes down to the credibility of science.

Science depends on reproduceable results. Creativity is important, as is skepticism. But, when it's all done, reality must also weigh in. The results of an experiment must be able to be reproduced, or the experiment's hypothesis doesn't hold water.

And this is why Climategate has become so important so very quickly. Public policy is being produced based on a claim regarding the state of climate and what it is going to do. So, checking the results is important - and the need for transparency is obvious. If you don't know what the data was, or how it was analyzed, you can't check it.

Steve McIntyre has posted an account by Willis Eschenbach regarding an attempt to do a simple check of a climate reconstruction. Now that the Climategate emails have been leaked, it is possible to have a full picture of what was going on across both sides. I would go as far as to say that if you have any doubts of why this is one of the most important revelations in the public climate change debate, you should read it.

Climategate, continued

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:35:07 GMT

As the scandal continues, life on the AGW front has become interesting.

I'm going to hold off on making any solid predictions here. Frankly, the situation is too fluid for that. But, I will say that so far I think we have just seen the shockwave of the scandal - and the firestorm is still coming.

What does seem clear is that the face of the public AGW debate is going to change in some way. Much of the question now is not how public climatology is going to weather it (no pun intended), but instead just how many of the key figures and organizations will be left standing in the end. If I had to speculate, I'd say "not many." While some of the emails and files are what you'd usually expect from scientists, some are damning, and clear evidence of in some cases illegal activity and violations of Freedom of Information laws. A lot of people are going to be doing a lot of digging, and it seems fairly clear that a lot of skeletons are going to be found in certain closets.

The big problem is what will happen to the rest of climate science, which is a massive field doing a lot of good work. The big problem here is that the possible collateral damage when the firestorm arrives is massive. A lot of innocent scientists just trying to learn the truth could be hurt by this, and that just isn't right.

"Climategate"

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:31:56 GMT

The problem with any attempt to hide the truth is that eventually the truth will get out, particularly when it is a big one.

Take global cooling, for example. For the last ten years or so, the earth has been on a cooling trend. This is important because it contradicts the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory - if the CO2 levels are constantly increasing, then the temperature should be too.

But, in this particular case, rather than simply face the facts and deal with the new data, certain climate scientists decided to cover it up. And now, they've been caught. The incident, which represents a serious blow to the credibility of the AGW argument, has been named "Climategate."

You can read more about it here, and here, and a decent news round-up is here.

Edit: Additional commentary from the Wall Street Journal here, along with some quoted emails here.

Deja vu...with an emphasis on the "V"

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:55:26 GMT

A couple of nights ago I watched the second episode of V, yet another remake of the '80s that the American entertainment industry seems to be specializing in. And, I'm afraid that while the first episode was nice gripping television, this new episode I found to be one of the most boring hours I've ever watched.

The problem is that I've seen it all before. Now, I don't remember much about the miniseries from the 80s, and even less of the TV show that followed it, but I do remember enough - and this is one of the problems with doing a direct remake. All the suspense of figuring out what the visitors want is for nothing, because anybody familiar with the first version already knows. We know they're evil, and we know they're going to create a fascist state, and we know why. To make matters worse, one of the principle actors, Joel Gretsch, is left essentially playing the same character he played in The 4400, but this time with a priest's collar.

That's the problem with a television remake - to a degree, it can't be a faithful one and succeed. For a perfect example of how to do a remake right, look at Battlestar Galactica - the basic premise remained the same, but from the very beginning there were elements that did not exist in the original series. So, we didn't know what would happen next. We didn't know how the civilian-military relationship would play out, or how the Cylons would develop. And it all paid off in the end.

V is left with a situation where the viewer is several steps ahead of all of the characters, as opposed to right along with them. That's ultimately self defeating. But, there are ways around this - the most important of which is to go off-script from the original series as soon as possible. For example, have the visitors be legitimately the good guys at the beginning, but with extremist elements who want to take over the mission and implement a fascist regime. That way, even if you do have the visitor fascists win the internal struggle and go on to impose their will on Earth, it's still a situation where the viewers are along for the ride, and not able to predict what will happen next.

As it is, I don't see much hope for this series. We've been there, done that, and gotten the t-shirt. If it can't find a way to take us somewhere new, it's going to find that we spend our time with a series that can.

H1N1 incompetence

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:10:24 GMT

As of yet, I haven't gotten my H1N1 flu shot. This bothers me.

More specifically, what bothers me is why I haven't gotten my shot yet. Now, I know the news has reported that there has been a massive shortfall of vaccinations, which during a pandemic is shocking in and of itself, but that's not what I'm going to take issue with. And, with a shortfall where instead of a million flu shots being delivered to Ontario there were instead around 150,000, the critical cases taking priority makes perfect sense. Again, that's not what I'm taking issue with.

I live in Kingston Ontario, a city with a population of around 120,000. It's a relatively large city for its population - it can easily take 45 minutes to drive across it on city streets (the city alone is 450 square kilometres, not counting the outlying regions). So, how many H1N1 clinics are set up for early delivery to priority patients?

One.

That's right. One.

But, you might say, surely they put the clinic downtown, which is a legitimate nexus in the city, and is a place that public transport is designed to be able to deliver everybody to. Or, failing that, they set themselves up in the Kingston Centre, which is another large nexus through which all public transit passes. That would only make sense, right?

Sorry, it's actually a bit out of the way near the Frontenac Mall, which has only two of the city's numerous bus routes pass by it.

That makes it incompetence. If you're going to be delivering the shot to priority patients, it has to be a place that these patients can actually get to. It has to be central. For that matter, even if there are only a few hundred shots delivered, a city of 120,000 needs more than one clinic operating. The planning for this delivery has been absolutely dreadful, and can encourage people who very badly need the shot to take their chances instead.

I just hope this idiocy doesn't end up costing lives.

Cory Doctorow's experiment - Part III

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:44:30 GMT

I've already written twice on this subject, but it's time to add some additional commentary. Part of this comes from wondering just what Doctorow is trying to prove - after all, I said in my very first post, if he's trying to provide a proof-of-concept that free online marketing works, he's a few years too late. Publishers picked up on that ages ago. If there is an original development in his experiment, it's providing free audio books, which should help as well - after all, the audio book segment of the market is quite small, and can act as a gateway to the printed book market for new customers just as well as an e-book can.

But, for all of the ways that Doctorow is getting his online marketing right, he seems to be doing everything he can to shoot himself in the foot on other levels. And now I've learned a new one.

Let me explain - having written two pieces already, I couldn't, in good conscience, let him go forward without at least trying to warn him about the pitfalls he might be facing. So, I left a comment or two on his blog. This started a small discussion, which ended with a recommendation from me that he cut out the middleman, deal directly with the printer, and limit his revisions to one every two or three months...and a comment from him stating "Good thing I'm not doing wholesale deals, then. As the article states, fulfilment is via Lulu."

Uh oh.

Okay...I'm going to lay it out here. I'm no MBA, but it's not too hard to figure out how to do business and stand a chance at success. There are three very important steps:

1. Create and put a good product on the market.
2. Give your customers good reasons to buy your product as soon as possible.
3. Make it as easy as possible for your customers to find and buy your product.

So, from my last post, we already know that Doctorow is breaking rule #2. But, now he's breaking rule #3 as well. A massive bookstore and library market is available to him for a one-time fee of $75 USD. That consists of North America, Europe, Britain, and now Australia. By going strictly through Lulu, Doctorow is limiting himself to Amazon.com and the Lulu website. So, this massive market that is being handed to him for a pittance when it comes to business costs, he's turning away.

I'm sorry, but while there's a good chance he'll still manage to make money - he is a big name author, after all - he's also willfully hamstringing himself. I fear at this point, his experiment may turn into "Can I make money in publishing despite myself?"

Cory Doctorow's experiment - Part II

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:31:50 GMT

In my last post, I covered some of the logistical issues of Cory Doctorow's proof of concept experiment with PoD publishing and e-books. In this (shorter) post, I'm going to cover the marketing mistake he's making, one that may effectively shoot his sales in the foot on the reader side.

To review, in his article, Doctorow said:

"Now, lots of people have used POD as a way of avoiding a lot of sunk costs in publishing ventures. But I want to see how far I can push it. With my previous books, my readers have sent in typos as they discovered them and I've fixed the electronic texts immediately, storing up lists of changes for my publisher to incorporate in future printings. But POD means that I can fix typos as soon as they're reported, and what's more, I can add an acknowledgment to the reader who caught it on the page where the correction appears, as a footnote. I have a feeling that readers will happily buy a second copy of the book in order to have a printing in which their name appears."

So, let me pose a question. Imagine that you're a Doctorow fan, and you want to buy his next book. You're not a fanatic fan - you don't really care about whether you can get your name into one of the revisions. But, you do know from the publicity that the book will be corrected as time goes on, so the copy that you could buy right upon release will have more errors than the copy you can buy two months later. So, what do you do?

Well, of course, you wait. You wait until enough errors are corrected, and then you buy the book. So, you, and everybody like you, will be waiting for a better draft, rather than putting your money down.

Now, this doesn't represent everybody. There will be keen fans who want to get their names in the book. There will also be readers who honestly don't care about the corrections one way or the other. But, there will now be a third group - a group that has a reason to wait and see, rather than putting their money on the table.

As you can see, Doctorow has broken a basic law of marketing - never give your customers a reason not to buy your product. And that's the kind of mistake that costs you in the end.

Cory Doctorow's publishing "experiment"...and why he's setting himself up for failure

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:08:48 GMT

Getting The War that Changed the World ready finally brought me into contact with one of John-Allen Price's friends in the field, Michael A. Stackpole. And, having a bit of time on my hands at last, I read a bit of Michael's blog, and came across an interesting experiment in my field of publishing.

Cory Doctorow is doing a proof of concept experiment with Print-on-Demand publishing to show that online free samples work. Well, one of my immediate knee-jerk reactions is "no sh*t, Sherlock." Free samples are one of the cores of my company's advertising strategy, and publishers big and small have been giving away samples of everything up to chapters of books to the full books themselves since the industry got started. It works particularly well with e-books, since most people don't actually consume books electronically - this means that if they like what they read, they'll buy the printed copy of the book. In my case, I use the first 50 pages or so of original books, and the full edition of e-books, with a nice message letting the reader know where they can buy a printed copy. It doesn't bring in a huge amount of new sales, but it does help spread the word.

The big problem is that while his experiment essentially sets up a publishing company, up to and complete with a marketing strategy powered by a quite decent amount of money, he has proceeded to make one very serious methodological error that runs the risk of making him fall flat on his face. I'll let him say it in his own words:

"Now, lots of people have used POD as a way of avoiding a lot of sunk costs in publishing ventures. But I want to see how far I can push it. With my previous books, my readers have sent in typos as they discovered them and I've fixed the electronic texts immediately, storing up lists of changes for my publisher to incorporate in future printings. But POD means that I can fix typos as soon as they're reported, and what's more, I can add an acknowledgment to the reader who caught it on the page where the correction appears, as a footnote. I have a feeling that readers will happily buy a second copy of the book in order to have a printing in which their name appears."

Well, there's one very serious problem with that - an e-book can certainly be updated and released with ease. But, an e-book is not a printed book. If he carries out his plans, not only is he going to drive his costs up through the roof, but he's also going to risk having his book unavailable for most of its publication lifespan.

First of all, he's not using an actual printer. He's using a middleman known as Lulu. This is important, and I'm going to get to that later.

Now, for a printed book, quality control is very important, and any printer, like Lightning Source (my printer), takes it very seriously. So, if you send in a revision to either the interior or cover of a book, they don't just swap out one file with another. First, they assume that the version that should be in print is the most recent one, so they take the book out of availability. Then, they check the new file, and they generate a new proof copy. Then, this is checked internally, and if the publisher has asked for it, sent out for them to check too. Dealing directly with a printer, this means that a revision can take from 4-7 business days from sending the file in to the proof being approved to the book going back into print. There is also a fee attached.

But, as I said, Doctorow is not using a printer. He's using Lulu, who contract out their printing to a printer. So, how does this work? On Lulu's end, according to Wikipedia (I don't do business with them myself), when a revision goes in, the author then has to approve the new page proofs - which consist of a copy that he must buy from Lulu, and which they ship to him/her (a process that takes 1-2 weeks plus printing and shipping time), and the actual sale copies start shipping around 6-8 weeks later, upon order.

Additional note: If he's lucky, then once the book is in the distribution channels, Lulu's printer won't restart the cycle upon receiving the revisions. But, this just means that instead of up to 11 weeks, the book is out of production for up to 3 weeks. And with lots of revisions, that still leaves the book out of production longer than it's in production.

So, what does this amount to? This means that every time Doctorow sends in a revision, he's taking his book out of print potentially for as long as 11 weeks. That's right - every reader correction can knock the book out of production for close to three months.

Ultimately, in order for this to work as a proof of concept, he needs to be moving books. By treating the printed book as an e-book, he's shooting himself in the foot on that.

And the book is OUT...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:18:09 GMT

It's official - John-Allen Price's The War that Changed the World is now out and available for sale. So far it's appeared on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, and Barnes & Noble.

The book came out beautifully, I am pleased to say. And, it's one of John's best. And, as usual, there's a free online sample to be had.

So, download it and enjoy!

Loving a franchise too much, or too little?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:40:46 GMT

Over two years late, I finally saw Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. And, I can't decide if it was a case of the creators loving their franchises too much or too little.

Let me put it this way - the biggest surprise I had with the movie was finding out that I'd already seen it. AVPR (I saw the unrated version) is around 90 minutes of alien kill scenes reproduced (complete with music) from the other, better Alien movies, with about five minutes of collective plot development on the front and back ends. If you've seen Alien 1-4, you've seen AVPR.

And this is where it becomes difficult to tell if it's too much love or too little - there's just nothing original. For all its faults, the first Alien vs. Predator movie gave us characters that had at least some time to develop, a plot that while on the thin side, was present throughout, and some interesting and new sequences. Perhaps the biggest valid complaint was that it was on the defanged side because of the PG-13 rating, and that was later fixed with an unrated DVD.

With this one, however, it's hard to tell if the lack of originality is over-enthusiasm or laziness. Taking one example, the first face hugger scene takes place with a boy and his father hunting - and you see the chest bursters come out of each one of them. Now, if you find the idea of a small boy being killed by an alien ripping through his chest disturbing, then you understand what should have been the point - it's HORROR. But, in this case, the scene setup essentially spends its entire time mirroring the first face hugger scene from the director's cut of Aliens. So, instead of having the face hugger get the kid because it's horrifying, it feels like it happens because Aliens did something like it first.

So, at least philosophy-wise, the first AVP movie got it right - it used the two franchises as a foundation on which to build something new. This one spends its entire time rummaging around the basement of the foundation, and never comes up for air.

One of my favorite moments in the life of a book...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:52:23 GMT

Well, after a lot of hard work, I'm down to one of my favorite moments in the life cycle of a book. The War that Changed the World is out of editing, the cover is finished, and even has a blurb from Michael A. Stackpole. All that I'm waiting for now is a phone call from the author, wherein he'll go over any typoes in the page proofs.

This is going to be a special one, I think. John-Allen Price hasn't just told the story of the Franco-Prussian War - he's essentially told the story of the entire 19th century after the Age of Napoleon, using the war as a nexus point. And, to make matters even better, he's brought history to life.

That isn't as easy a task as one might think. Lots of people write history, but in the end what you get are names and dates - the humanity ends up being removed. What John-Allen Price has done is made it about the people, and drawn out their humanity. Instead of names and dates, he presents people with all their perfections and flaws, and how their lives ended up intermingling to change the world.

If all goes well, by the end of the week the book will be at the printer. By the end of the month, the book will be available on Amazon.com and at your local bookstore. And then, well, you won't have to take my word for all of this.

And, for those who are interested, here is Michael A. Stackpole's full cover blurb (due to space constraints, only part of it was used on the cover):

"John-Allen Price's The War that Changed the World is a brilliantly written and exhaustively researched masterwork. With all the attention to detail one would expect of Keegan or Ambrose, Price has created a stunningly entertaining and thorough examination of an historical era which shaped the conflicts of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Price's examination of the Franco-Prussian war is engrossing, entertaining and delightfully readable—presented with a historian's eye for detail and a novelist's ear for story. Students of military history pass this book by at their peril."

Raising the level of discussion

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:03:20 GMT

Once, quite some time ago, I said something I regret in a conversation with my father. I don't remember what we were talking about, but the discussion turned towards the bizarre weather, and I only half-jokingly made a reference to global warming and said, "thanks, your generation." Now that I know what I know today, that comment makes me feel like an ass.

I was reminded of that by an email that came in, a comment to one of my earlier climate posts, where I talked about how we'd be able to actually answer the question of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) once the sun went into a lengthy inactive period. This person, who will remain nameless, replied with one word, "Idiot," and a link to wikipedia. I deleted the comment - I don't mind somebody disagreeing with me, but verbal abuse crosses a line. If you want to disagree with me and have your comment stick, then you have to be civil about it.

The problem is that I see this type of behaviour in the AGW crowd a lot. In some ways, it can be disturbing. A Science and Public Policy Institute review of Global Warming for Dummies noted with some concern that the authors actually advocated censoring anybody who wrote out against the AGW thesis. One of the reasons that I changed sides - as noted by my little story above, I was originally on the AGW side - was that the AGW side acted more like a doomsday cult than actual scientists. Data that opposed the thesis was treated as tainted, and the people who explored it were attacked as being puppets of the oil industry, or some other industry with an interest in not going "green." This data was also met with the phrase "scientific consensus."

But that's not how science works, and for that matter, that's not how a debate, or even an exploration works. To give a historical example, let's assume for a minute that somebody denied the existence of the Roman Empire in 200 AD. How would a historian meet such a claim? Well, there are a number of ways to effectively refute it - one can draw attention to the large body of literature the empire left, one can draw attention to contemporary historical documents (treaties, etc.), and one can point out the massive number of archeological finds across Europe and Northern Africa. In every single one of these cases, the evidence is ultimately speaking for itself - the historian just presents it. There is no need for mudslinging, neither is there a "historical consensus." There is just where the evidence points.

Climate science doesn't seem to operate that way, at least on the AGW side. But, even though climate science has reached the point of being treated as a theology, it must still be based in the real world. In any doomsday cult, the longer the world goes without ending, the less credibility the cult has. The longer the oceans go without rising, the Greenland Ice sheet goes without melting, and the world cools rather than warms, the less credibility claims of a catastrophic climate crisis will have - lowering the level of discussion with dogma as opposed to raising it with accurate data and serious discussion notwithstanding.

Falling into a double-standard

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:25:47 GMT

Those who watch this journal regularly know that I tend to spend a lot of time watching or talking about politics. Particularly under this Parliament, it could be described as the game of all games - a power-hungry Prime Minister is facing off against often less-effective opponents who can only keep him in check by threatening to bring down his government.

Today, I find myself falling into a double standard. Today, I am finding myself condemning Jack Layton for doing what Michael Ignatieff has done in the past - appearing to get ready to prop up the Harper government for concessions. One could argue that I'm an Ignatieff fan and not a Layton fan...and that would be true. Layton has always struck me as just a bit on the wacky side, with a less-than-close relationship with reality. Ignatieff and his savvy intelligence appeals to the hard pragmatist in me.

And now, the news is full of speculations that of all parties, the NDP will prop up the Harper government, after it offered them a tiny bone on Employment Insurance. Now, they haven't actually gone through the confidence vote yet, and the government could still fall. But, the media is slowly exhaling, expecting Layton to cave into an obvious ploy to keep power. And this time, it's leaving a sour taste in my mouth.

Part of it is that I've had enough of Harper and his incessant campaigning. But part of it is also that while the proverbial shoe is now on Layton rather than Ignatieff's foot, this time it is different.

Turn back the clock for a moment - it's February, and Ignatieff has just supported the Federal budget, salvaging the Conservative government for another few months. It's a brilliant move by the new Liberal leader, and it places the Conservatives in a position where they have to do their jobs, or lose power. And one of the reasons it's brilliant is because there's a condition built-in to the approval - every three months, the Conseravative government has to account for itself and be judged.

The pattern was very much what we have right now - the Conservatives would play their political games, but then, as judgement day approached, they'd get something done. It became disgusting to watch, as the only way to get any actual work out of the Harper government was to threaten their jobs. But, at least there was progress.

This case is different though. The Conservatives have used up the last of their proverbial credit - and I'm certain I'm one among many Canadians who think so. And this time, after a summer where the promise the government made to get something done ended up being empty, the Liberals decided to pull the plug. Then, as soon as Ignatieff made the announcement, Harper began twisting like a fish, and offered the NDP a minor concession.

There are two things that bother me in this case. The first is that when the Liberals were doing this, it was a measure to keep the government functional - it was set up that way from the beginning. Faced with a government that would only do its job when that job was threatened, Ignatieff arranged to have it threatened on a regular basis. This time it's Harper playing games, rather than being played; if this succeeds, then the one man who has a proven track record of being able to control Harper will have been cut out of the picture, and Harper propped up by somebody who is not up to such a difficult job.

The second is just how insulting obvious the ploy is. Now, it's not any more obvious than any of the other times, but the context is different now. If I were in Layton's shoes, it would be an insult to my intelligence. It's very clear that the only reason these concessions have been offered is to stay in power - it's also obvious that what little is being offered is ALL that will be offered. The minute the Conservatives survive another confidence vote, they'll be back to their old games, and the EI concession will prove to be worthless. That is not a functional government, and it certainly isn't effective change. And any doubts about Harper's lack of sincerity are settled by his little speech, which was leaked in the previous week.

If Layton buys this bull - and the press does seem to expect him to - then this country could be in serious trouble. A government that badly needs to be forced into accountability will no longer have the mechanism that kept it accountable. And this country will be in serious trouble.

And the Liberal ads are out...

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:18:18 GMT

Perhaps it's a case of making an unofficial election campaign official. Who knows?

Either way, the Liberals have released their own pre-election ads, just days after announcing that they intend to bring down the government at the next opportunity for a confidence vote. One could say that this just leaves the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois as the only two parties not campaigning out of season...but one could also argue that the Conservatives started up the season early some time ago, and the Liberals are just fighting back. At least the Liberals waited until they had declared they would try to force an election before putting the ads out.

But, these ads do remind me of another campaign - way back when, the Ontario Progressive Conservative government under Ernie Eves was after its third term as a majority government. They were neo-cons, and bad ones at that. Eves' predecessor, Mike Harris, became one of the most hated Premiers in Ontario's history, attempting among other things to institute a 60 hour work week, and using the teachers and nurses as scapegoats, before handing the province over to Eves. The Conservative message was "Stay the course," and the ads they offered were pretty much all attack ads. Dalton McGuinty's Liberals took the high road, offering Ontario change and reasons to vote for them.

The Conservatives got trounced, and the Ontario Liberals have held a majority ever since. I have always believed that one of the reasons for that was that the Conservatives, who had a terrible record that included an e-coli outbreak at Walkerton, only offered reasons not to vote for the other guy, while the Liberals offered a positive message. "Here's why you should vote for me" beat out "Here's why you shouldn't vote for him."

Will history repeat itself on the federal level? Well, there are some signs of it. The Federal Conservatives have a terrible record, and the majority of their out-of-campaign-season ads are about why Michael Ignatieff is the wrong man for the job. Ignatieff, at least in English, is offering a positive message instead. So, once again, "Here's why you should vote for me" is up against "Here's why you shouldn't vote for him."

If nothing else, it will be an interesting election campaign..

The science, the whole science, and nothing but the science...

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:25:27 GMT

I've written before on the problems of global warming science. And, indeed, the things I've been writing about - the politicization and the fear mongering - have only been getting worse. Even the U.N. General Secretary is now warning of impending doom along the lines of The Day After Tomorrow.

But, having seen a bit more of the science behind it, I now have to say that I was wrong on a few levels. Indeed, there is a lot of good, solid research being done on global climate change. The field is not nearly as politicized as I had thought when it comes down to basic science. And to all those scientists who I painted with an unfair brush, I apologize.

Oh, by the way, all this research I just mentioned completely blows away the so-called "scientific consensus" on man-made global warming.

The problem is that I, like so many others, fell into a media trap. There are interests out there who want to see people scared of CO2 levels. They use words like "consensus." Many of them have differing and even contradictory agendas. There are those who want to help, but don't think anybody will listen unless they're afraid of a catastrophe. There are organizations, such as the IPCC, that may very well feel the need to continue existing, and it's hard to justify that if there isn't a global crisis.

But, I now know the truth - if there is a "scientific consensus" (and science, being about skepticism and experimentation, doesn't really work that way) it is that there is no global climate crisis. The climate is certainly changing, and we are certainly putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere - but the amount of CO2 that we put into the air, and the tiny amount of additional warming it causes, is so small as to be swamped by the other climate forcing elements. Yes, we warm the earth a tiny bit...and no, it doesn't actually matter. The climate will change, warming or cooling, however it wants with or without us - happily, if it gets warmer, it will make things better for us, not worse.

Don't take my word for it - look at the science itself. The Science and Public Policy Institute tracks the science itself, and the latest peer-reviewed findings are quite eye-opening. But most of all, watch this - a talk by Lord Monckton about the science the media won't tell you about, and the actual state of climate change studies and science. It's about an hour and a half long, and it's the most relevant thing you could ever see on climate change science.

"The voters don't want an election"

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:26:42 GMT

It's coming up to the point where the government is about to have to answer for its deeds over the summer. In September, Michael Ignatieff will be deciding whether to bring down the government or let it stand for another quarter year or so. I wouldn't want to be in his shoes - he's been doing a delicate balancing act ever since he gained the Liberal leadership, and doing it well.

But what is really interesting is the rhetoric coming out of the government. The Conservatives are desperate to keep their jobs, and their PR bears more resemblance to a worm squirming on a hook than a government standing tall. Stephen Harper has gone on record saying that Canadians don't want an election. He said the same thing before the summer break of Parliament ended, and indeed, he was backed up by polls that said that most Canadians didn't want an election.

But the main message from the Conservatives has been a negative one for some time. Ignatieff is not somebody Canada wants as a leader, Canadians don't want an election - this is not rhetoric from a position of strength. So, what would be rhetoric from a position of strength?

First off, an election wouldn't be prominent in the Conservative PR. A position of strength would mean that as far as the Conservatives are concerned, an election just means a majority government. Instead, they would focus on what they have accomplished, and why that makes them the ones who are right for Canada. At the same time, they would minimize the arguments of the opposition, both discrediting them and pushing them into irrelevancy.

The tone would be a variation on what is known as "assuming the close." This is a sales technique where a salesperson ends by talking as though the customer buying the goods is a foregone conclusion. It's not arrogance - it's a sales strategy where you present the matter as already decided to make the customer see the issue in the same way.

But that's not what we're seeing right now. Instead, we're seeing the Conservatives scrambling to keep their jobs, and displaying their weakness at the same time. If anything, the position of strength lies with the Opposition - when you've got the government leaping and dancing to the very threat of an election, you know where the power actually lies.

There was a time...

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:10:22 GMT

There was a time when studios would at least wait a few years between remakes and re-imaginings. The film industry has been doing these things since the very beginning - the famous The Ten Commandments was itself a remake of an earlier silent version, and I don't think anybody has been able to keep track of how many retellings of Dracula there have been.

But now...apparently 20 years is too long to wait. Same with 10 years. Universal has just confirmed that there's going to be a Battlestar Galactica feature film - and it will be a brand new re-imagining of the original series.

Think about this for a moment. We just HAD a re-imagining. It gained enough critical acclaim to give Babylon 5 a run for its money. It ended less than two years ago. There is a TV movie and a spin-off series coming. There is literally no excuse to do a re-imagining or remake at this point.

If this isn't a sign of creative bankruptcy, I don't know what is.

Answering the great climate change question

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:20:50 GMT

I know I've covered this in the past, but I want to re-iterate something here - when it comes to the question about whether or not human beings are responsible for climate change, I am a skeptic.

This does not mean that I am a denier, although there are those who would immediately peg me as such. Being a skeptic means that I require proof before I will believe. Unfortunately, far too much of the evidence is based on faulty assumptions such as the discredited "hockey stick" graph by climatologist Michael Mann, which cherry picked its data to remove the Medieval Warm Period so that it could present the last few years as the warmest in the last thousand. The corrected data demonstrates that indeed, we are warmer now than we have been in the last 400 years, but we're still only approaching the warmth of the Medieval Warm Period.

So, when climatologists continue to talk about a scientific consensus, and treat anybody asking pertinent (or, to them, impertinent) questions as apostates and heretics, that only serves to make me more skeptical, not less. Science is about reproduceable results. And something interesting is in the process of happening.

On both sides of the issue, one can say that scientists agree that there are two possible causes to the Earth becoming warmer. The global warming people declare that it is increased CO2 emissions. The critics point to solar activity. Proving either is difficult, if for no other reason than getting the sun to sit down and do what you tell it so that you can measure things tends to be on the same level as Canute ordering the sea around. But, in fact, in the next few years, the sun IS going to take itself out of the picture.

In the next few years, the sun will enter one of its weakest cycles in history. This means that there will finally be confirmation one way or the other. If the global temperature goes down between 2010 and 2030, then we'll know that it was solar activity. If it remains the same or continues to rise, it is CO2.

So keep an eye on the climate for the next twenty years. The question of man-made global warming is about to be settled once and for all.