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Olympic swimmer breaks own world record

Am I the only one who thinks world record titles should be reserved for people that actually have a skill? I'm not impressed by the fastest tomato ketchup drinker (Dustin Phillips) or the largest group hug (6,623 participants). And I really don't care who the most overrated celebrity is (Paris Hilton -- big surprise).

What does interest me are athletes that excel at their sport to such a degree that if they weren't videotaped, we wouldn't believe it. Athletes like Aaron Peirsol.

Wedging our carbon bets

The current issue of Scientific American -- "Energy's Future: Beyond Carbon" (sorry, full text is subscription only) -- features a series of articles on that topic by experts in the fields of energy research, transportation, ecology, and urban planning.

The first piece, "A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check," is a reader-friendly rehash of an outstanding paper by Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala that originally appeared in Science in 2004. That paper, deftly summarized by Jamais Cascio of Worldchanging, presents a long-term carbon reduction strategy in the form of "stabilization wedges" -- each representing one billion tons a year of averted emissions.

A cool pie chart in the SciAm version shows 15 possible technologies, ranging from increased fuel economy to stopping deforestation, that the authors say could flatten out CO2 emissions by 2056. And Pacala and Socolow are decidedly optimistic about our ability to do this: "Holding CO2 emissions in 2056 to their present rate, without choking off economic growth, is a desirable outcome within our grasp."

California’s Million Solar Roofs bill signed into law

SB 1, California's Million Solar Roofs bill, was signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger yesterday. For those new to the story, this bill -- which some have called humankind's last, best hope for surviving global warming -- failed to pass out of the legislature three years running, until the California Public Utilities Commission enacted the meat of the measure -- $3.2 billion in rebates for one million solar roofs -- through a regulatory process last January. This bill codifies that funding into legislation, and fills in several very important missing pieces. Namely:

Tell me something

What is the thought process that leads someone to think that, at this particular moment in history, the most important thing to devote one's energy to is policing the environmental community to make sure they don't exaggerate or shade facts or use unnecessarily shrill language?

I mean, I can see calling that stuff out when you come across it. But making it your shtick?

It's as though Hitler were invading France and someone spent their time publishing pamphlets scolding Allied soldiers for their bad posture.

Hurricane director thinks coastal-dwellers are morons

The coast is no longer where it's at, if for no other reason than the potential for mega-disaster. Says Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, "as long as we continue to develop the coastline like we are, we're setting up for disaster."

He might as well be whispering into a gale-force wind for all the good it'll do. We seem determined to screw ourselves over, on this and many other counts. But good for him for speaking up.

A self-endorsed celeb fights for the planet

Tired of celebrities. Declares self one. Distributes Lester Brown's book to all. Saves world.

A little bit country, a little bit pathetic and lazy

To animal lovers, the idea of proudly displaying the remains of something you hunted down and killed is a sad aspect of male bravado. Well, consider if the animal was a domestic creature raised in a cage for tourists to photograph. Troy Lee Gentry, of the country music duo Montgomery Gentry, has been charged with paying $4,650 to the Minnesota Wildlife Connection to kill a tame bear named "Cubby."

Animal terrorism

First there was the pack of squirrels that attacked and killed a dog in Russia. Now there's a group of "urban" raccoons taking out house cats in Olympia, WA. Apparently they even managed to carry off a small dog, although it survived the encounter.

What's next? Serpents that infest a jet airliner and viciously attack the passengers with poison fangs? (Woops, didn't mean to spoil any movie plots ...)

In other news, a Celebrity Cruises ship arrived in Seward, Alaska, last weekend with a dead humpback whale pinned to the bow.

The latest transmission from Mongo

Yesterday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Mongo) reiterated his skepticism about climate change. He claimed that the purported concern over global warming is a front for international economic movements (I'm assuming of the socialist variety). Relatedly, Inhofe said that the U.N. is trying to impose a "global tax" and that the U.S. should cut off its funding.

And then there's this:

U.S. involvement in Iraq has been incredibly successful and developments there have been "nothing short of a miracle," Sen. James Inhofe said Monday.

Fear and environmentalism: more

(Second in a series; first part here.)

The brain's alarm circuits are clustered in an almond-shaped neural structure called the amygdala, known colloquially as the "lizard brain." When it receives warning that a threat may be present, it sends a chemical fight-or-flight signal.

The prefrontal cortex, source of higher cognitive functions, assesses whether the threat signals (which are frequent, as the amygdala operates on a bit of a hair-trigger) are worthy of attention. It acts as a check; it has to, or complex thought would be impossible. We'd always be fighting or flighting.

This simplifies things quite a bit, obviously. But it's no mere metaphor to say that fear (flight) and anger (fight) are pre-rational -- or if you prefer, arational. They are the deepest and most fundamental dispositions, what we share with every creature, amoeba and up. We humans flatter ourselves about our intellectual powers, but in the end we are animals, and hormonal danger signals can quite easily overwhelm all rational thought. Fear and anger are prior; reasons, justifications, and evidence are posterior.