Category: Science & Nature

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Heat rocks NYC

We’re day three of a major heat wave in New York this week. It started Friday but wasn’t over 90 F even though with humidity it felt over 90. Sunday’s high in Central Park was 93, just shy of the 95 degree record for the date, set in 1933.

On Saturday, the high was 97 with high humidity so it felt like 105. I spent a few hours running errands and ended up at the Big Apple Blockparty BBQ again this year. Unfortunately we couldn’t do anything but hang in the shade and drink cold brew. We took out the evening with a roof top bbq through the morning.

New Yorkers in general were temperamental in this heat. This weekend’s day game at Yankee’s stadium on Sunday, in the fifth inning of the Kansas City Royals-Yankees game, fans cheered loudly when a cloud moved in front of the sun, then booed moments later when the sun returned.

Also on Sunday was the annual mess that is the Puerto Rican Day Parade. They had problems last year and years before as well as mass woman/sexual harassment during and after the parade but who knows if it got there this year. I doubt people had the energy to flaunt as much excitement as they did last year.

With the heat to continue through Tuesday, still weeks before summer officially starts, I know we’re in for a long hot summer.

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Bueller? Bueller?

My first introduction to Ben Stein was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off… monotone snoozer of a teacher for the prankester hero Ferris Bueller. My next revival of this character was a call to action for stoners to get the red out with Clear Eyes (Wow) and then as a smarter than thou game show host where you can win his money (I still couldn’t understand how he made the money in the first place *it was loaned*).

What I didn’t know about this Stein, I wouldn’t have known if I wasn’t pissed off about his latest movie, Expelled and furthered by his own personal conviction of its theory of Intelligent Design. Quoted during an interview on the Trinity Broadcasting System, regarding his latest movie:

Stein: “When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.”

Stein: “…Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.”

Science leads to killing people? Science? The methods and tools that have brought us inventions such as the light bulb, the telephone, film, the internet, automobiles, and the printing press – all items Ben has utilized in his existence. This guy has lost it and I’ve now completely wrote him off as an intelligent character. I should have know, an academic economist whom was once Nixon’s speech writer and now adamantly defends him, has no appreciation for the methods that have created modern progress.

Science is a repeatable method for discovery which is measurable practice which seeks to understand the nature life and justification for that reality. This practice is rooted in the development of human society from farming to nutrition, civil services such as plumbing, medicine, and technology such as the internet.

Learn why Expelled is anti-science propaganda aimed at creating the appearance of controversy where there is none.

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China’s air pollution threatens 08 Olympians

Haile Gebrselassie the world record holder for the marathon run just announced that because of Bejing’s extensive air pollution problem, and his asthma, he won’t be running in the high endurance race.

China’s pollution problems for the Olympics have been well publicized on the net but are not fully well known to everyone in the states (stats are listed below). China had committed to the Olympic committee to ease these concerns and are doing so by moving factories outside the city, reducing taxi use and replacing them with more fuel efficient cars, replacing coal burning furnaces with natural gas, and even committing to closing plants all together during the events of the games. Still:

Runners coughed and gagged as they limbered up. Thick smog shrouded the Tsing Ma Bridge. Pollution index readings on this morning in February 2006 were at 149, the highest in months. Any reading over 100 is considered unhealthy.

A disturbing trend in popular thought is Gary Lough’s quote (husband of Britain’s Paula Radcliffe, a planned runner for the games) said:

“There’s no point in us being especially concerned, because pollution’s not really something you can control.”

Ahh but it is if we want to Gary, it is if we want to. And obviously if this is a situation that’s effect athletes that are in top shape, imaging what it’s doing to those typical day walkers that don’t have the physical conditioning?

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What’s wrong with China’s air:

  • China’s air was rated Worst in the World in late 2005 based on satellite data for all countries contributing pollution and particulates into the earth’s atmosphere.
  • According to the World Bank, 16 cities in the world with the worst air pollution are located in China.
  • The country’s Ministry of Science and Technology has estimated that 50,000 newborn babies a year die from the effects of air pollution.
  • China’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the most important global warming gas, are expected to surpass those of the United States in 2009, according to the International Energy Agency.
  • At a recent Marathon (in 2006), the pollution Index read 149 (Anything over 100 is considered unhealthy).
  • “Eric W. Orts, professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton, says that pollution, if left unchecked, will drag down China’s economic growth and result in huge healthcare costs. In addition, China’s pollution will, over time, erode its competitive position in the global economy.”

“It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.”
~ Dan Quayle (former Vice President of US, with George H Bush 1989–1993)