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Design

Designing Outside the Box

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

When I stumbled on the grainy video clip above in my laptop this morning, I found myself reflecting on the wonderful work of Douglas Martin, a designer of ocean-going rowing shells whose forays into violin design and construction exemplify the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that I would love to see flourish in other arenas in the next few decades.

Doug Martin working on one of the violins that he made from balsa wood in the kitchen of his apartment in Eliott, Maine.Herb Swanson for The New York TimesDoug Martin working on one of the violins that he made from balsa wood in the kitchen of his apartment in Eliott, Maine.

I wrote about him for Science Times in 2006 in “String Theory: New Approaches to Instrument Design.” I’ve posted two other clips of him playing his fiddles on YouTube — here and here. Many of Martin’s prototypes — built of balsa wood — are literally out of the box, in that he puts the structural ribs on the outside of the fiddle body to ease his ability to make adjustments.

This passage from my article conveys how his purposeful rejection of orthodoxy was at least partly learned (and thus illustrates the potential to foster an enthusiasm for “breaking things on the path to breakthroughs” in our classrooms):
Read more…

genetics

New Shade of Green: Stark Shift for Onetime Foe of Genetic Engineering in Crops

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

In case you missed the coverage and commentary yesterday (the Twitter flow is here), you can now watch Mark Lynas, the British writer and environmentalist who once helped drive Europe’s movement against genetically engineered crops, apologize for those actions and embrace this technology as a vital tool for ending hunger and conserving the environment. He spoke yesterday at the Oxford Farming Conference at Oxford University. (Many other fascinating presentations are now online.)

An excerpt from Lynas’s prepared remarks is below. Here’s his remarkable preamble:

For the record, here and upfront, I apologize for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonizing an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.

As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.

The arc of Lynas’s fascinating career is in some ways neatly encapsulated by two acts at Oxford — throwing a cream pie in the face of Bjorn Lomborg, the skeptic of eco-calamity, at a book signing there in 2001, yelling “pies for lies” (see photo below), and now echoing more than a few of Lomborg’s assertions in his lecture at the Oxford Farming Conference on Thursday.

In doing so, he has displayed an encouraging — and still rare — capacity to shed dogma in favor of data. His valuable 2011 book “The God Species” (a host of reviews here) was the first big sign of this transformation.

After “The God Species” was published, Lynas explained his shift this way in an interview with Keith Kloor: Read more…

fish

Bluefin Tuna Sold for Record $1.76 Million in Tokyo Auction

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

[9:07 p.m. | Update | The first Tokyo tuna auction of 2013, on Saturday, saw a single 489-pound bluefin sell for astonishing $1.76 million, according to the Associated Press *:

The winning bidder, Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Kiyomura Co., which operates the Sushi-Zanmai restaurant chain, said ‘‘the price was a bit high,’’ but that he wanted to ‘‘give Japan a boost,’’ according to Kyodo News agency. He was planning to serve the fish to customers later Saturday.

Here's the post as filed this morning, when $700,000 was considered a big number for the ceremonial first sale:]

A 593-pound bluefin tuna sold for nearly $700,000 in Tokyo last January.European Pressphoto AgencyA 593-pound bluefin tuna sold for nearly $700,000 in Tokyo last January.

Here’s a quick note from the global tuna conservation team at the Pew Environment Group:

Within the next few days, the first giant Pacific bluefin tuna of 2013 is expected to be auctioned in Tokyo for an astronomical price. Last January, one fish sold for a record $736,000 and made headlines around the world. Purchasing a single bluefin for such a remarkably high price has become an annual cultural event in Japan. But, the fanfare surrounding this event masks a real and pressing problem: the population of this majestic fish is a fraction of what it used to be, and management is practically non-existent.

Scientists are expected to come out with a new stock assessment for Pacific bluefin on Monday, January 7. According to our sources, the new results are alarming and indicate further decline of the species.

10:32 p.m. |Update

* I encourage you to read the comments below from “Meltydown” (a k a Danny Bloom, a longtime journalist currently in Taiwan but previously working in Japan). He notes that these are not actual auctions, but promotional “sales” of fish done as publicity stunts. I’m eager to hear more about this.

9:52 p.m. |Update

When I sent this post to various marine scientists and conservationists this morning, Sylvia Earle replied this way:

If people could see tuna living wild in the ocean and understand the miracle of their existence they might worship them for something other than the taste of their flesh.

| Related |
The status of bluefin tuna in the Pacific is tracked by the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-like Species in the North Pacific Ocean. Also explore the work of the Tag-a-Giant project.

Paul Greenberg‘s 2010 article for The Times Magazine, “Tuna’s End,” is still an essential read, as is Richard Ellis’s 2008 book, “Tuna: A Love Story.”

arts

Advice from Cervantes that Suits 2013 and Beyond: Plunge In

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
A detail from a Gustave Dore illustration depicting the Cervantes character Don Quixote. A detail from a Gustave Dore illustration depicting the Cervantes character Don Quixote.

Cervantes, through Don Quixote, provides this 407-year-old bit of inspiration for diving into a new year in turbulent, consequential and complicated times: Read more…

When the Fat Lady Sings

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Paris street scene, August, 1980.Andrew C. Revkin Paris street scene, August, 1980.

As I explained last year on this date, I took this photo in Paris in 1980, at the sleepy peak of the August vacances, when most shops, including this watch store, were shuttered. The elderly gentleman, to my eye, seemed particularly uncomfortable on his walk as he passed the hand of time.

As the clock ticks toward the close of another year, it’s worth reviewing how one “spends” the very finite reserve of hours each of us has on this pale blue dot.

I wrote a song awhile back reflecting on this — titled “When She Sings.” Here are the lyrics and a recording (a live performance in which I skipped the bridge): Read more…

Climate Change

Views of Global Warming in 1992 and Now

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
“Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast,” Andrew Revkin’s 1992 book on climate change.

5:26 p.m. | A clarification below |
It’s useful to review shifts in knowledge and perceptions — including one’s own perceptions — of tough issues over time. So I thought it worth reflecting on my most thorough treatment of human-driven climate change, “Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast.” I wrote this book to accompany the 1992 exhibition of the same name by the American Museum of Natural History.*

When you have time, give the text a sift (it’s short; the book was heavily illustrated) to see what still holds true (the basics of greenhouse heating, projections of China’s rise, etc.), what was not a focus of concern 20 years ago (the Arctic, for instance) and what conclusions at that time have not held up (the response of hurricanes has proved far more complicated than what was deduced then).

Post your reactions below or on Twitter using the tag #92agw and they’ll be aggregated here. Click here to read the book on Slideshare. Read more…

energy

Coal Giant Drops Claim That it is ‘the Global Leader in Clean Energy Solutions’

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Peabody Energy, the biggest private-sector coal company in the world, has removed the claim that it is “the global leader in clean energy solutions” from its home page. The two images below show the shift (sometime between Dec. 19 and Dec. 29), with the claim now reading that it the company is “the global leader in clean coal solutions”:

Peabody Energy, the world's biggest private coal company, has dropped a claim that it is Peabody Energy, the world’s biggest private coal company, has dropped a claim that it is “the global leader in clean energy solutions” from its Web site. These images were captured on Dec. 19 and Dec. 29, 2012.

I’d questioned that clean-energy assertion in a post a few days ago.

As for the new “clean coal” claims, I encourage you to revisit the statement from my initial post by Vic Svec, a senior vice president at Peabody, and then read what David Hawkins of the Natural Resources Defense Council posted in a comment. Both are reproduced here: Read more…

energy

A Coal Sales Ticker Next to a ‘Clean Energy’ Claim?

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Dec. 29, 12:38 a.m. | Updated below |Electricity, including that generated by coal combustion, has been a boon for humanity. In fact, there’s much truth in the headline on Indur M. Goklany‘s new analysis for the anti-regulatory Cato Institute: “Humanity Unbound: How Fossil Fuels Saved Humanity from Nature and Nature from Humanity.” (I’ll post more on that paper soon, including an interview with Goklany.)

But that does not come close to justifying what you see on the home page of Peabody Energy, the largest coal company in the free world:

Coal Sales and a Clean Energy Claim

Just to the right of a ticker-style, real-time tally of tons of coal sold (about eight tons per second or so) is the message that the company is the* “global leader in clean energy solutions…” [Jan 2., 3:29 p.m. | Updated | A followup post is here.]

Pollution from coal burning, in the United States and particularly in developing countries, has big impacts on public health, and the climate impact from coal-generated carbon dioxide could be enormous if the world’s still-vast reserves are heavily exploited. We’ve been stuck on the coal rung of what Loren Eiseley called “the heat ladder” of energy history for too long.

I sent a site link and the video clip above to Nicholas Muller of Middlebury College and William D. Nordhaus and Robert O. Mendelsohn of Yale, authors of this influential 2011 paper in American Economics Review: “Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States Economy.” One of its many conclusions was that “coal-fired power plants have air pollution damages larger than their value added.”

As I put it in my note to them, “I find it hard to reconcile your calculation of coal’s big externalized costs with such a juxtaposition (coal sales and “clean energy” leadership):

You can read the reply from Mendelsohn below, followed by more from Bob Keefe of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Vic Svec, a spokesman for Peabody Energy:
Read more…

entertainment

The Unfulfilled Promise of ‘Promised Land’

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
From left, Mr. Krasinski, the director Gus Van Sant and Mr. Damon on the set of “Promised Land,” written by Mr. Krasinski and Mr. Damon.Scott Green/Focus FeaturesFrom left, Mr. Krasinski, the director Gus Van Sant and Mr. Damon on the set of “Promised Land,” written by Mr. Krasinski and Mr. Damon.

I recently attended a Manhattan screening of “Promised Land,” a new feature film written by and starring Matt Damon and John Krasinski that aims to examine America’s natural gas drilling boom as a case study in “what happens when real people and real money collide,” as Krasinski explained in publicity materials.

The film opens Friday in New York City and Los Angeles and then expands to more theaters in early January. My sense is that it will not satisfy many people — either as a drama or a potential weapon (for either side) in the fight over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the drilling method that has opened vast regions of the country underlain with gas-rich shale to exploitation. [Here's A.O. Scott's review ; the screenplay has been posted online by Focus Features if you want to read before you watch.] Read more…

Sustainability

The Invisible Ax – People, Profit and Progress on Humanity’s Planet

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

I recently traveled for the first time to Taiwan, where I saw inspiring efforts to give a decent life to orangutans and other wildlife cast off by the exotic-pet trade and to collect and conserve rare tropical flora from around the world. I’ll be posting more on those projects in January.

I also addressed students and the public at several universities.* At National Cheng Kung University in the southern city of Tainan, I gave a lecture titled “The Invisible Ax: People, Profit and Progress on a Planet Under Pressure,” which has now been posted on YouTube.

I think you may particularly appreciate the onstage discussion near the end led by Professor Chia-wei Li of National Tsing Hua University, who is editor in chief of Scientific American’s Chinese-language edition, former director of the National Museum of Natural Science and founded the preservation center for tropical plants that I visited and will post on soon.

Here’s the university’s description of the lecture and here’s my written outline (the talk itself strays far and wide): Read more…