Climate change, hacked emails and why it really doesn't matter

In a recent WSJ blog, Mike Hulme said
"The problem [...] with getting our relationship with science wrong is simple: We expect too much certainty, and hence clarity, about what should be done. Consequently, we fail to engage in honest and robust argument about our competing political visions and ethical values."
Let me put my credentials on the table first of all.
I'm not a climate scientist, a hacker or a philosopher. I believe that climate change is anthropogenic, without being able to have a very informed debate on the subject. I believe that some scientists have been indiscreet in committing some of their views and intentions to email, but I also believe it was wrong to steal the emails and publish them out of context.
The thing is, it just doesn't matter.
We are watching a group of scientists behave like scientists. Dissent, resentment, emotion, political behaviour, bias and withholding of information are absolutely part of the scientific process. Just remember Huxley, Darwin and Wallace.
Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, sums up the issue perfectly in the following quotation:
"The proliferation of competing articulations, the willingness to try anything, the expression of explicit discontent, the recourse to philosophy and to debate over fundamentals, all these are symptoms of a transition from normal to extraordinary research."
Anthropogenic climate change is not just normal science - it is a new paradigm - a final acknowledgement that humans step heavily enough on the earth for the earth to react. We are still in the early days of a collective intuitive leap to a different view of our effect on the world. Change is frightening, and it is not in the least surprising that people go to excessive lengths to either promote or deny the change. It doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong - that's not logic.
As Kuhn also says,
"If any and every failure to fit were ground for theory rejection, all theories ought to be rejected at all times."
Don't use dissent and denial as a convenient reason to reject the science - understand the process. I give Mike Hulme the last word:
"If climategate leads to greater openness and transparency in climate science, it will have done a good thing."

Red meat and Dennis the orangutan

I am not one for topical posts, but this one is a factoid to be commented on. Australasians may well have seen the ads featuring Dennis the orangutan and Sam Neill.

Now I am not a PETA fan or an advocate for red meat - I have done without eating things on four legs quite happily for more than 15 years. However, I do not grudge the carnivores their fun. I do though, have a problem with bad science (and bad fact-checking). I think it important to point out that at least half the team promoting red meat (Dennis) is predominantly fruitarian. In fact the websites I have checked, comment that the only animal protein orangutans generally consume is insects. I would also wonder how much lamb or beef you would normally find wandering the Sumatran forest...

BTW, I suspect that Dennis, as well as being a child in orangutan terms, is actually a girl.

I assume I am being punished for something

If only I knew what...
It's so exciting being a mining company employee. My dizzy, glamorous life takes me all over the world. It seems only weeks ago I was slumming in London: catching the Tube, drinking lattes, eating sushi, shopping at Harvey Nichols...
And here I am, in Capella, pop.730, Queensland, Australia. You can see my room from space (the outside, anyway).
There are lots of things to see and do in Capella.
There is the grain storage shed.

From 20090516_KME

There is the plaster cow and pig.
There is the Peak Downs Community Hall (built 1963).
There is the historic Railway Station with the unique ventilated roof trusses.
There are the painted poles - see what fun you can have discovering the story of every one.
At night, for a laugh, you can go down to the petrol station and sit with the mannequins - who needs Fashion Week when you have this?
The shopping in Capella is fabulous - it is so rich and diverse they give you Saturday afternoon and Sunday off from the shops to recover. There is not only one shop, but three shops, a bank and even a Post Office. It's a good thing they all close at 5:30 or I would have spent my entire site allowance by now.
 On Friday I walked down to the petrol station and splurged on a packet of chewing gum and two bottles of ginger beer. Saturday night I was more adventurous - I walked all the way down to the Post Office, and stopped at both the closed newsagent and the market to check their winter opening times.
I have to wash my work shirts tonight, and will be too busy to go out. However I am looking forward to our hosts' Oat Cuisine - corned beef, chops, chicken drumsticks, spaghetti alla boscaiola.
My, that bain marie looks inviting...I think I will have jelly with my tinned fruit salad tonight - just for a treat.
Monday I might test out the local restaurant scene. Golden Fried Chicken looks like it might give Rockpool some competition (they even have Chiko Rolls).

which green - how can I choose?

Back in Perth. I have been here more than 3 weeks - the longest stay in nearly 2 years. I am trapped - no overseas travel on the horizon - I must entertain myself until my sea freight arrives from England.
I shall renovate.
Not counting the bathroom, my little 1930s flat in Mount Lawley has not seen a fresh tin of paint in at least 20 years.
But what colour?

A recent trip to Dublin has inspired me with Georgian colour schemes - white woodwork and cool, pale walls. But what shade of pale?
I am leaning toward green.
There are too many greens - Natura, Issey-San, Fresh Lime, White Box, Pale Vellum, Silver Grass, they all appeal...

it never snows in London

"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." James Joyce - The Dubliners.
I woke up a week ago to find a gift from Russia in the form of 6 inches of snow on the ground. This is the most it has snowed in London for 18 years, and it's wooonderfullll.
It lasted one beautiful day, though the snowmen lasted a little longer.

2009-02-02 london_snow

Here is how it first appeared - magic Narnia. I found myself scratching at the back of my wardrobe in the hope Mr Tumnus would make me a hot chocolate. Of course, nothing ever remains as sweet and innocent as on first appearance. By the time I was dressed and able (though not willing) to go to work, it turned nasty. I set out desperately smug because I had dragged my hiking boots out of the wardrobe (I had worked out by now Mr Tumnus wasn't coming). "Ha ha", I thought, "I climbed Tongariro in these, what's a bit of snow after that". Smartass. And soreass not long after. Hiking boots no damn good on ice without crampons.

2009-02-02 london_snow_II

Still, it was pretty, I only fell down twice, and the bruises are mostly faded a week later. The chap in the photo was from Singapore - he probably thought chilled rice noodle was falling from the sky - but he seemed to enjoy it.
The third iteration of the Great London Snow did not involve embarrassing sore bottom incidents. Even better, I got to see Hyde Park the Winter Wonderland - an experience sorely missing from both the actual 2008 and 2007 Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. Well worth the bruises, the lack of public transport, and having to go to work when I desperately wanted to release my inner smartass ten-year-old and build Henry Moore's 1967 tribute to WB Yeats out of snow.

2009-02-03 london_snow_III