Stop for a moment worrying about the state of UK science funding, global warming, the vet’s bill, or whatever; and see how many of these ‘science celebs’ (plus sympathisers) you know. Click once to enlarge the pic, then click the button to flip the pic and see if you identified the person/place correctly.
The pics were taken by me and fellow conspirator in science tourism Sven Klinge at various lectures, events, places around the country – and indeed the world. Lots more to come. If you have an interesting and original sci-celeb picture of your own, I’d be happy to add it to the collection with due credit.
When Nature Materials asked if I would write a Commentary on how I saw virtual worlds impacting our lives and science in particular, I was more than happy to share my thoughts. You can access the Commentary(1) and accompanying Editorial(2) by Joerg Heber in the December edition of Nature Materials. The following earlier draft on which the commentary is based, will I hope give Zoonomian readers unfamiliar with virtual worlds a broad introduction to some of their strengths, weaknesses and future potential.
Imagine an online phenomenon that you can engage with today, but which in ten years time will be bigger than the web, run on an infrastructure that makes Google’s hardware look like a pocket calculator, and can already deliver productivity and efficiency gains running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. You would be there for that – right?
Be it ever so humble. The author’s Zoonomian Science Centre
Well – maybe. Because despite some futuristic projections and perhaps a little wishful thinking, we are still not seeing full-on mainstream engagement with virtual worlds: the three-dimensional immersive environments where, video game style, you use a mouse and keyboard to walk and talk your personal avatar around a simulated world.
Yet recent numbers coming out of Linden Lab, owners of the dominant simulation Second Life, give pause for thought. For starters, Linden Lab say the virtual economy based on the in-world exchange of goods and services is now running at the equivalent of $500,000,000 per year. (Linden’s own income derives from virtual land sales and rentals, and virtual-real currency exchange.) Then there is the continuing enthusiasm shown for virtual worlds by big name business users like IBM, Sun and Intel – some of whom have developed their own simulations; and the host of educational and cultural institutions busily setting up their virtual shop, of which the University of Texas is the most recent and sizable example.
So what do the 70,000 or so users typically online in Second Life represent – a small entrenched community, or a portent of paradigm change in the nature of online human interaction? And what are they all doing there anyhow?
Based on my virtual wanderings, I can safely assure you that most Second Life residents are not visualizing scientific data, developing business strategies, or attending conferences and virtual universities. No – they’re mostly just having fun dressing up and forming a variety of friendships and relationships with real people projected into a fantasy setting. They’re also creating some magnificent artwork. I’m all for experiment – so good luck to them.
My own excitement about virtual worlds relates more to serious applications than fancy dress, reflecting perhaps my past life in physical and mathematical fluids modelling, or the sympathy I have as a former private pilot for flight simulation. I’m a recent convert, having discovered virtual worlds only last year while scanning for new and unusual science communication tools. Basic Second Life membership is free but, keen to establish a presence and experiment with building techniques, it wasn’t long before I’d purchased the modest plot of virtual land needed to do that. My initiation was complete when I met up with a team from Imperial College using virtual worlds for medical training – more of which later.
A visitor at a Science Comics exhibition held in June at the Zoonomian Science Centre
Yet mine is a minority interest. Even within my real-world community of science communicators, barely a handful of colleagues have avatars, and virtual worlds are only now starting to figure in the curriculum of science communication courses. Contacts in the UK museums sector likewise give the impression they are in no rush to engage – the argument being that the public are just not equipped or interested.
So what is the perception of users? Geeky at best. That the purpose of virtual relationships can be sexual (use your imagination) is a mixed blessing for Linden Lab: attracting some users and scaring others away. Recent measures taken to separate adult content should improve the balance.
What might it take then for virtual worlds to really take off? Can we expect another Facebook or Twitter-style growth event any time soon? Well, ask yourself why anyone might take the virtual leap? People engage where they perceive value, and that perception changes with perspective. The socialite or keen party animal, scientist, manager, and communicator will each focus on, understand, and value different aspects of virtual worlds.
First, there is a fundamental quality to virtual worlds that makes their use so attractive and could be the key driver for mainstream uptake. This special quality is a sense of space and, strange to say, something akin to a feeling of physical presence. That experience is enhanced by directional audio, such that you can hear footsteps behind you and voices get louder as avatars approach. Regrettably, this defining quality is also the most difficult to convey – you really have to experience it, which is worth remembering if you ever have to sell the concept. Significantly, those implementing the University of Texas Systems’s virtual university – covering 16 campuses no less – cite how important it was for part of their pitch to the sponsor Chancellors to be made in Second Life itself.
Talking points
I have been most impressed by the present and potential role for virtual worlds in education, and more generally as a platform for presentations and even full-blown conferencing. The many hundreds of educational establishments represented in Second Life, including major universities, attest to a pervasive interest in applying virtual worlds to learning. The arrival of large scale, well funded, projects like the Texas University System pilot, which has a research program for systematized knowledge capture built in, illustrates just how serious the ‘game’ of Second Life has become. From pilot studies like this will flow the best practices, methodologies and protocols on which the virtual universities of the not too distant future will operate.
For conferencing, substitution of the many experiences that make up a real-world event is unrealistic, but that still leaves scope for one-off lectures, classroom-less teaching scenarios, and those occasions where the trade-off of a virtual presence outweighs having no representation at all.
Scott Gaudi discusses life on other worlds – beamed in from Chicago’s Adler Planetarium to an event held by ‘Astronomy 2009’ Island – the official SL presence of the International Year of Astronomy 2009
A good example is the Solo09 Science Online conference, organised in August this year, that ran simultaneously in real life at the UK’s Royal Institution in London – where I was sitting – and in Second Life for anybody who couldn’t make the venue. Virtual attendees participated fully in the discussions, and one of the speakers joined from Second Life. And importantly, the cameras were set so that we could all see each other.
The events I have joined have mostly been technically flawless, although the occasional outright disaster illustrates the danger of relaxing real world conference planning standards. Bad planning of virtual world events damages not only the organiser’s reputation but, in these early days, the credibility of the concept. Third party providers like Second Nature and Rivers Run Red with their Immersive Workspaces Solution are offering services to help clients get it right first time.
In the context of public lectures, there is a unique type of speaker-audience dynamic at work in virtual worlds that I really like, whereby protocol has somehow evolved such that audience members can comment and question, via a communal text box, during the presentation itself.
It’s o.k. to talk in class….. A popular astronomy lecture at MICA
This would be pretty rude behaviour in the real world, but virtual speakers in the know seem to engage with it well, taking comments as cues to amplify audience points or elaborate on areas of the talk where there is special interest.
On the other hand, I have a real problem with the absence of any meaningful facial expression on avatars. We take expressions for granted in real life, but they deliver a lot of conscious and subconscious information that is simply lost in virtual reality. Next time you are at a real world event, make a mental note of where you are looking – it will not be the guy’s shoes. And I’m not impressed by the counter argument that expressionless anonymity makes strangers less intimidating to approach.
Private individuals and companies can hold their own virtual meetings and mini-conferences, which is a boon for geographically dispersed teams that need to work collaboratively. The benefits come through as reduced travel time, budget, and carbon footprint – with Intel claiming savings of $265,000 against one real-world meeting. Yet I suspect many traditional corporate managements are struggling to see the benefit of virtual worlds over good video-conferencing; and I do not envy anyone charged with selling virtual worlds to an unenthusiastic management.
The virtual versions of traditional collaboration aids that exist in Second Life, such as whiteboards and laser pointers, are good for highlighting features on slides and building basic flowcharts,but will disappoint those expecting the spontaneity of a flipchart. Yet workarounds that integrate ‘conventional’ two dimensional collaboration tools are possible, and we should remember that for the display of complex three dimensional objects – that can be walked around and entered – virtual worlds represent an improvement over real life. This kind of functionality is attractive to product designers, scientists, and engineers alike. A civil engineer might share a new bridge concept with a focus group, while an automotive designer might explore a vehicle prototype concept or visualise crash simulations.
In a purely commercial role, I can only envisage the most mechanical and uncontentious negotiations taking place across a virtual table; but that still leaves plenty of scope for collaborative activities including product and supply chain development. (IBM holds its most sensitive meetings behind a firewall in their own virtual world, and Linden Lab have just released a special ‘Enterprise’ version of Second Life for businesses.)
Scientific visualisations
Data visualisation and simulation are core functionalities in the virtual world where, in the scientific sphere, chemists manipulate complex molecules, climatologists visualise weather systems, and astrophysicists simulate stellar motion.
Interactive molecule at the American Chemical Association
Modeling of fundamental physical phenomena in Second Life is constrained by the limitations of the simulation’s HAVOK physics model which, designed to support the games and movie industries, is only partly faithful to the laws of physics. Some tweaking is possible, but complex simulations require that visualisations be tied in to external processing. For example, mass in Second Life is independent of material composition but increases uniformly with object size. Different materials exhibit levels of ’slipperiness’ approximating to friction – yet viscosity and buoyancy are not represented. The delays in processing large amounts of information make accurate real time simulation problematic.
3 body star simulator at MICA
Yet within limits, some impressive visualisation tools – often open source and customizable – have been produced. As ever, third party solutions specialists such as Green Phosphor are on hand to help you move data between worlds.
To explore the possibilities of data visualization for yourself, you might set up a multi-body star system simulation with the help of MICA, or get up close and personal with some carbon nanotubes at the UK National Physical Laboratories nanoscience and nanotechnology hub in the NanoLands.
Nanotube animation at NPL’s NanoLands
Public engagement
Virtual worlds are opening up new vistas in public engagement, ranging from the use of interactive but primarily educational displays and visualizations, through to immersive virtual consultations that impact real world policy-making.
A good example of the former is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s presence in Second Life, where visitors can select weather systems from the Earth and other planets, and see them displayed on a giant walk-around globe – complete with audio commentary. While at NASA, the visitor can inspect and be photographed sitting atop a full size reproduction of a Saturn V launch vehicle.
Visualisation of Martian weather at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
My most memorable virtual experience happened on this campus, when I found myself guiding and chatting with some of the 1000 or so visitors who had appeared from all over the world for an open day. Such an assembly of individuals – with the multitude of interests, professions, and languages they represented – could only happen in virtual reality. I’ve blogged about this aspect of virtual worlds before, and you can listen to the short radio documentary I made at the time here:
That event showcased techniques for the training of medical professionals, but virtual worlds are also used for direct patient treatment. It is thought stress levels in patients facing surgery can be reduced by walking them through procedures ahead of time. And for the psychologically disturbed, virtual worlds can provide a controllable, non-threatening environment in which their condition can be monitored and improved – a technique the US military has used to gain a better understanding of combat stress.
The future
While the limited processing power of users’ computers prevents an immediate Twitter-style boom in avatar births, I firmly believe we will see huge growth in both the application and awareness of virtual worlds over the next two to five years.
As hardware costs fall and broadband becomes ubiquitous, the themes of integration and interface will dominate the technical and cultural horizons of virtual worlds.
Technically, a closer integration with communications and social media applications like Facebook, Twitter, Skype, and Google has already started; for example, I can now tweet from inside Second Life. At Second Earth, a ‘mash-up’ of Google Earth data with Second Life visualization is signposting the way ahead.
Second Earth – A mash-up of GoogleEarth with Second Life
An inevitable move to more open standards will free avatars and virtual goods to move between different virtual worlds and other media platforms. The underlying physics models will improve, as will graphics and display technology. We will control our avatars via sensors that attach to, or remotely scan, our body and face; or we might use our brainwaves directly.
Culturally, we may find our daily routine moving seamlessly between the real and virtual worlds, in a future where avatars look and move exactly like their real world counterparts. Throwing off geek status, virtual worlds will become mainstream as more scientists, teachers, engineers, business people – and even some politicians – recognize the possibilities they offer.
All of which makes now a great time to put prejudice aside, get ahead of the game, and start checking out some of the amazing creative content and ideas that await you in the virtual universe.
Update 7/7/20011 – The Zoonomian Science Centre is no longer active, but you can still contact me in Second Life as Erasmus Magic. Or or course drop me a real-life email from the blog.
Tim Jones’s name in Second Life is Erasmus Magic
References
(1) ‘Getting real about our virtual future‘ in Nature Materials 8, 919 – 921 (2009)
The Dutch Royal Academy of Arts and Science ‘Jonge Akademie’ invited me to talk about the themes covered in this paper and virtual worlds in general. Here are the slides from the event.
August 2010 – Linden’s attempt at a business only product just didn’t work for them. Interesting analysis here at Hypergridbusiness.com, including comments from IBM.
Aspects of the lives of famous people inevitably get magnified, diminished, distorted or simply lost with the passing years.
That’s why we need respected scholars with the learning and gravitas of Professor William Shea who, speaking recently at the Royal Geological Society, took us – somewhat teasingly but with due respect – beyond the accepted caricature of Galileo’s genius.
Professor William R Shea, University of Padua; speaking at Burlington House on 26th October 2009 (photo thanks Sven Klinge)
And Shea, who holds the Galileo Chair of the History of Science at the University of Padua (where Galileo himself taught for 18 years), did indeed illustrate Galileo’s discomfort with the optical theory behind his own telescope.
In the body of the talk, working through the popularly accepted seven great achievements of Galileo, Prof. Shea used a sequence of lunar drawings to illustrate the critical role of sci-art collaboration in marrying draughting skills with observational expertise – in the days before photography and Charge Coupled Devices.
The New World of Galileo, at the Geological Society, Burlington House, London (photo thanks Sven Klinge)
In a Q&A that was as revealing as the main lecture, Shea explained how the early astronomer’s belief in the divine appointment of his scientific mission was a key driver for his intellectual ambition, as well as representing an important influence over his relationships with academic colleagues and the establishment.
Overall, this was an expertly and engagingly presented lecture which everyone with an interest in science, and for that matter art and history, should see. And they can; because the whole smash is available courtesy of the Royal Geological Society via this link to a videocast of the event , complete with slides and the candid Q&A. Check it out !
South Western California is one of the world’s most bio-diverse habitats. The San Gabriel Mountains, north of Los Angeles and south of the Mojave desert, are home to large mammals: including deer, bear, mountain lion and bobcat. Raccoon and skunk are stealthy night-time visitors to the back gardens of residents, who by day enjoy the company of humming birds, golden oriels and scrub jays. Lizards scamper on sun-baked rocks, while praying mantis sway, poised – for lunch.
If this all sounds a little wistful, it’s because I’ve enjoyed this region at its best in a form that now – literally – no longer exists. For in August and September of this year, 250 square miles of it was destroyed in one of the largest forest fires California has experienced in modern times. Here is a time-lapse video of the fire spreading behind NASA JPL, and below that a picture of the local aftermath taken by my wife, Erin.
Scorched Earth left by the Station Fire in the San Gabriel Mountains (photo: Erin Conel Jones)
I have to confess that while many thousands of wild animals – including some endangered species – perished in the fire, my immediate thoughts were for my in-laws. Living in the foothills north of Pasadena, they sat out their fire under a mandatory evacuation order, pondering the fate of house and home in front of a hotel TV in downtown LA.
Thankfully, save for a messy rainfall of ash in the yard, this personal story ended happily (although we remain girded for de-vegetated mudslides induced by the winter rains). The same cannot be said for the local fauna and flora – or for that matter the carbon footprint of California.
Animals caught in forest fires may run away, bury themselves, or burn and die. The so-called Station Fire (it started near a ranger station) was unusually intense and fast-moving, making it confusing and difficult to out-run; the charred carcasses of normally brisk bears, deer, and mountain lions were found amongst the smouldering tree stumps.
Those animals sufficiently fleet of foot to escape the immediate effects of a fire still face loss of habitat and possible starvation. On this occasion, the local populace was put on alert for more frequent visitations from displaced animals and asked to cut some slack for the potentially more dangerous coyote (i.e. don’t just shoot it).
Smaller land animals, such as the endangered Mountain Red-legged Frog; and fish like the Speckled Dace and Arroyo Chub may yet face their greatest challenge with the arrival of winter flood-waters, when ground unsupported by vegetation, but loaded with harmful rock fragments, will wash into fast flowing stream beds.
We might stand back at this point and declare the Station Fire to be just another part of a natural cycle that has developed over the eons. Whether a fire is started through an act of arson (as suspected in this case) or by lightning, forest fires invigorate fire-adapted ecosystems – don’t they?
The answer is yes and no – and this debate won’t end any time soon. The issues centre on the degree and speed with which man has altered the region’s natural ecosystem.
Fire-suppression policies, whereby unnaturally high fuel stocks are allowed to build up (e.g. pine needles), and forest management practices – for example how densely the forests are allowed to grow – have been blamed as contributors to the intensity and extent of the Station Fire.
But there is no denying that with man on the scene there are fewer places a large cat or bear can move to when fire strikes (a mountain lion was spotted in my in-laws’ drive – and that was before the fire).
Ironically perhaps, this region of California is home to several man-made animal sanctuaries, the inmates of which were themselves threatened by the recent fire.
The Roar Foundation at Shambala Preserve, run by actress Tippi Hedren (of Hitchcock’s ‘Birds’ fame) went on standby to evacuate its collection of large cats – including Michael Jackson’s tigers; and most of the 400 animals at the Wildlife Waystation Sanctuary – including a sizeable collection of chimpanzees – were evacuated to Los Angeles Zoo. I’m pleased to say my gibbon friends at nearby Santa Clarita were oblivious to this incident.
Now the fire is over, scientists and economists alike are poring over the barely cooled embers to assess the full impact and inform future policy. There is still much to do, but the concensus so far seems to be that the ecosystem as far as plant-life goes will recover. The fate of the various displaced animal species is much less certain or understood.
Besides the impact of forest fires on the immediate ecosystem and its inhabitants, incidents like this put us in mind of how deforestation of all types influences the balance of greenhouse gases and global warming.
This is a huge subject in its own right, and another complicating factor to be absorbed by those nations negotiating ahead of Copenhagen. This 2007 article from ScienceDaily gives some indication of the scale of the impact, pointing to research showing how a single fire season in some North American States can generate CO2 equivalent to that State’s annual emissions from entire man-made sectors such as transport or energy. And this before a consideration of the feedback effect of rising temperatures on the frequency of fires and complications associated with the impact of smoky particulates.
All in all, a fuller analysis of this aspect – on this blog at least – is going to have wait for a future post.
The film Creation went on general release in the UK today, and as I’m just back from a lunchtime viewing, here are a few thoughts on the movie while it’s still fresh in my mind.
Finch with fig, California (Tim Jones)
To cut to the chase: enjoyable film, with great performances from Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin and Jennifer Connelly as his wife Emma. I’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.
Very odd start though. I arrived at 12.10 for a 12.15 showing and had the theatre entirely to myself. By 12.30 ish, when the ads were over, the final audience had grown to six people. I know most folk can’t just knock off for the afternoon, but I found it surprising all the same; clearly not one for the pensioners.
I’ve made a point of not reading most of the Creation reviews already out there; just one or two quickly once over. So I’m relatively untainted but sufficiently informed to pick up on some of the obvious criticisms.
One of those criticisms has concerned the film’s factual accuracy. But as few viewers will have read the various biographies and letters, it strikes me that the emphasis should be more on identifying only serious material misrepresentations – and overall I don’t believe there are any (an exception is Huxley’s character – read on).
I was pleased to see certain events included: the failure to ‘civilise’ the Fuegan kids, the water cures, the influence of Hooker & Huxley, Darwin’s animosity with his local church, and Wallace’s letter.
At times though, I felt some incidents and issues had been slotted in because they had to be there – as if the director had a check list of ‘leave that out and the Darwin aficionados will play hell’. That’s how I felt about Huxley’s appearance anyhow. Arguably, Huxley came in to his own in the affairs of the Origin only after its publication – exactly the point at which this film ends. But the filmmakers have done T.H. an injustice all the same; the take-away impression of the man is just wrong. Richard Dawkins wasn’t overjoyed with the portrayal, and I can see why; the character is out of kilter with the historic record, and may as well have worn a ‘new atheist’ sash. (I find New Atheist a silly term; what is an old atheist? – Quiet?). Intellectually, the portrayal is overly one-dimensional and aggressive. Physically, Toby Jones is too short to portray a man whose height and presence in reality matched his intellect. They got Hooker’s whiskers down to a tee, so why not Huxley?
The core narrative revolves around Charles’s relationship with, and thoughts about, his daughter Annie. I don’t know the actor who played Annie, but she has an obvious future in Hollywood. We don’t get to know the other children anything like so closely as we do Annie; and the intellectual, as well as emotional, bond between Annie and Darwin is particularly well developed. There is something of the co-conspirator about Annie – a sense of allegiance lacking in Emma until a reluctant appearance in the final scenes.
The various ghost sequences have been criticised, but again, I just saw these as a device to illustrate Darwin’s pre-occupation. I don’t think he actually ran about the streets chasing his dead daughter (but please correct me if you know different).
All the themes in the movie ultimately link back to the Origin and what it stands for. One of the more human incarnations of that influence is the Emma – Charles relationship. Here I’d liked to have seen Emma’s philosophy explored a little more – even if the detailed story-line were credibly fabricated (biographers do this all the time). I guess we can never know someone’s innermost thoughts on life, the universe, and everything – no matter how many letters we read; but I felt the middle ground that our two protagonists must have found could have stood a little more exploration.
And never mind the movie, I find this theme of different fundamental philosophies within a relationship fascinating. I wonder how many couples today mirror Charles and Emma? This is a personal blog, so I can say that I would, for example, find it challenging at best to live with a partner who I knew was going to hell. That said, I have friends in atheist/Christian marriages who appear to get on just fine.
Which brings us to the big issue: is there a conflict between science and religion? Back to Huxley, I suspect the director intentionally set him up as the fall guy on this score; he can safely be hated for his total lack of religious accommodation early on in the film. Hooker does pop up now and again to reinforce the atheist line (the word is not used – nor is Huxley’s later derived ‘agnostic’), but never with Huxley’s brand of enthusiastic venom.
So what will a religious person make of this movie? After all, wasn’t it the possible religious reaction, and associated reduction in box-office $, that was behind the recent stink over US distribution (the film now has a US distributor).
There is nothing in Creation more offensive than a portrayal of the facts of evolution as they were understood in Darwin’s day. And Darwin’s encounter with Jenny the orangutan, which is beautifully represented in the film (well it’s not really acting is it) leaves little more to be said on the question of our own evolution. I’m not about to dive into a lengthy science-religion debate, suffice to say my position is that there are elements of religion as defined by some that are – on the evidence – incompatible with some definitions of science; and that the science-religion debate is an important one with practical consequences for us all.
God’s official in Creation, the local vicar, is played by Jeremy Northam. In one memorable scene, Northam tries to comfort Darwin in his torn anguish, which only sparks a sarcastic tirade from Darwin on the delights of the God-designed parasitic wasp larvae and the burrowing habits of intestinal worms. Northam’s sincerity and Bettany’s losing his temper are both convincing.
I live within an hour’s drive of the real Down House, and know it pretty well. While the house in the movie was not Down, the exterior feel – with large bay windows and patio doors opening to the garden captures the right flavour.
Down House - rear from the garden (photo Tim Jones)
The study has a similar feel to English Heritage’s reproduction of the real thing at Down – even down to Darwin’s screened-off privy. Likewise, the lounge and dining room, while never visible in wide-shot, have an attractive homely ambiance. The village road and church scenes are consistent with the feel of the real Down.
It’s not the end of the world, but a sandwalk scene was noticeable by its absence. The sandwalk for those who don’t know it is a gravelly path leading into the woods near Down House. I tend to imagine Darwin pacing down the sandwalk, under the trees or sheltering from the rain; to be sure – it’s a nice spot for thinking.
Interesting angle on the sandwalk (photo tks Sven klinge)
To wind up, this movie contains all the main factual, scientific, cultural, and emotional elements I associate with Darwin in this important period in his life. Issues around the compatibility of science and religion are met head on through illustration (if a little caricatured) rather than tedious debate, and we get to see the human, sensitive and fragile side of a scientist.
There is plenty here to enjoy in the theatre, but also much to take home and mull over – with your partner perhaps :-).
Inevitably, spring cleaning and winnowing of the paper archives throws up blasts from the past – often in the form of faded, pre-digital-age photographs. They waft the embers of dormant memories.
Triumph Dolomite Sprint – first production car with a 16v engine
This memory concerns a charity drive I made with my brother 19 years ago in support of the British Heart Foundation. The Round Britain Reliability Run involved a group of car enthusiasts loyal to the Triumph brand, driving non-stop (save for pit-stop style re-fueling and the occasional sandwich break) around the UK. That’s a distance of about 2000 miles in something like 40 hours, taking a route from London to John O’Groats to Lands End, and back to London.
The Route
A number of thoughts struck me, looking at the photo of our ride – a 1981 Triumph Dolomite Sprint; but two in particular.
Firstly, nobody in 1990 had heard of global warming, so all were oblivious to the carbon footprint of the event or any incongruity with the charitable tone of the challenge (not that heart health and global warming are directly related).
Secondly, this was a reliability run; part of the perverse thrill lay in not knowing with any certainty your vehicle would hack the 2000 miles round trip. Alright, some of these cars were from the 1950’s, but mechanical reliability – even into the ’70s and ’80s – did not compare to today’s standards. The Sprint in particular was prone to engine overheating – a defect which, when it occurred, could be ameliorated by driving with the heaters full on and the windows open.
Reward!
And guess what? They are still running these events – every two years. What’s more, the Club Triumph Round Britain Reliability Run has from last year been carbon neutral. The carbon impact in terms of off-setting equivalent has been calculated at £10 per car – which is duly charged to the drivers. The beneficiary charity seems to change with each event, but an impressive total of £270,000 has been generated for various causes since 1990.
I never repeated this sort of stunt. For starters, all the Triumphs in our family wore out or were sold off (we had six over the years). And I moved on to more mature transport related pastimes, like throwing bags of flour out of aeroplanes (the science and technology of flour bombing is a post for another day).
Anyhow, a few more of these blast from the past photos were loosed along with this one from the box file of history so, if you’re really unlucky, there could be further posts in Zoonomian’s nostalgia category :-).
As I haven’t posted anything for a while, this is just to say I’m still here (yes, sorry), and normal service – whatever that is – will be resumed as soon as possible. Anyhow, photos are easy ! So here are three I took at Santa Barbara Zoo last summer, including the inspiration for Mac’s latest operating system.
Slurp (Photo: Tim Jones at Santa Barbara Zoo)Snow Leopard (Photo:Tim Jones at Santa Barbara Zoo)Parrot (Photo: Tim Jones at Santa Barbara Zoo
The Zoo is brilliant by the way. I saw no distressed animals (they’re living in SB for crisakes!) – and I recommend it. $5 to feed the giraffe.
Somebody has put a survey up on Twitter asking people to declare what religion they belong to. The classifications are listed below. It’s not a brilliant graph, but you can see some sort of distribution. I’m including this in a science flavoured blog because there seems to be an ongoing debate about science and its compatibility with religion. I really don’t want to fire that discussion up, but I still thought this sort of direct survey on something quite personal for many people was an interesting online development.
Of course, this type of study doesn’t represent all Twitter users; it’s self selecting of those who want to be counted.
I found it interesting with this survey that, if you vote, your religious affiliation gets broadcast to everybody as a tweet. I don’t personally care; I’m an atheist by most people’s reckoning, including mine – so there you go. But they don’t make it obvious your affiliation will be broadcast. I didn’t spot an opt-out, maybe I just missed it? Anyhow, it will still be interesting to see the result after the survey has run for a while. It will also be interesting for individuals to see how – or whether – there friends and acquaintances voted.
Want to reduce your emissions? Forget about the gas guzzler, holidaying at home, or buying local produce; cut your “carbon legacy” and have fewer children, says new research.
In recent weeks I’ve attended two public discussions dealing with the big-picture issues of sustainability and balancing development with conservation, and neither of them did much to allay my fears or educate me about the threats associated with population growth.
I may be joining the wrong events, but it seems all too easy to miss population off the formal agenda, or leave it to a brave audience member to raise the issue at question time – when it can be scooted over or dismissed with a glib reply. A popular counter to worries over population growth in developed countries – at home as it were – is to state that growth is mainly happening in the developing world, where per capita consumption is relatively low. For me, that seems to ignore the medium term consumption aspirations of developing countries (look at how fast China has moved) and underplays the ratio of the impact of an individual’s consumption between the developed and developing worlds. But I suspect most of us don’t really know what to think, and lack meaningful data to work it out for ourselves.
Now that position has improved somewhat, with the publishing this month of a formal analysis of these very issues by researchers from Oregon State University. Murtaugh’s and Schlax’s paper: ‘Reproduction and the carbon legacy of individuals‘ is published in the journal Global Environmental Change, and also downloadable as a pdf here. In the authors own words:
“Here we estimate the extra emissions of fossil carbon dioxide that an average individual causes when he or she chooses to have children. The summed emissions of a person’s descendants, weighted by their relatedness to him, may far exceed the lifetime emissions produced by the original parent.”
It’s more usual to work out an individual lifetime’s worth of carbon footprint. But in the Oregon study, a parent is instantly given the burden of half their child’s carbon impact, and a quarter of the carbon impact from their child’s prospective child; and so forth. When the numbers are worked through, and comparisons are made between the developed and developing world, it’s apparent that not having that extra kid is a great way to save the planet. According to the authors’ data, the impact of that decision far outweighs that of other good citizen actions – like downsizing the family car. The figures I find most provocative are the comparisons of the impact of children born in different countries. Take the USA and Bangladesh for example: I’d assumed just on a gut feeling that a US child’s carbon footprint would be 20 or 30 times that of a child born in Bangladesh. The figures in the new paper, with the children’s decendents accounted for, put the ratio at 168:1 – equivalent to average carbon emissions of 56t and 9441t for the Bangladesh and US cases respectively.
The carbon reduction figures presented for the various lifestyle changes we can make, and calculated over an 80 year period, range from 17 metric tonnes CO2 saved by recycling materials, to 148 metric tonnes by increasing automobile gas mileage from 20 to 30 mpg. Those numbers can be compared with the 9441t of emissions that could be avoided by not having an extra child.
This paper is written in the spirit of presenting data as an input for informed discussion. The authors don’t take a moral position on human rights and population control – that’s for the politicians with the people to sort out. And it’s not too far a stretch to make the analogy between this situation and that which existed when the global warming debate was put on a more data-rich, objective, footing by the issuing of the Stern Report in 2006. However the detail and assumptions in this work may be criticised, as surely they will be, it’s good to see some quantification around this complex piece of the sustainability jigsaw.
Reference:
Paul A. Murtaugh a,*, Michael G. Schlax b ‘Reproduction and the carbon legacies of individuals’, Global Environmental Change 19 (2009) 14–20
(Merci à Evren Kiefer pour l’assistance dans la traduction de l’anglais au français)
Merci à tous ceux qui ont envoyé des images (et du son), continuez à me les faire parvenir. Rappelez-vous, nous influençons tous la marche du monde – c’est ma façon légèrement oblique de dire “ne laissez pas ce projet à d’autres – envoyez moi votre propre image! :-)”
Il y a eu un tel intérêt pour la façon dont mes collègues et moi à l’Imperial College avons appliqués à la communication scientifique la technique du “cadavre exquis” inventées par les surréalistes, que je vous invite tous à faire partie de ce qui pourrait devenir le plus gros PROJET DE SCIENCE-ART DANS L’HISTOIRE. Les billets qui expliquent le projet en détail sont _ici_ et _ici_, et Andrew Maynard parle du projet_ici_, dans 2020science.org; lisez-les si vous voulez vous mettre à la page. J’ai également joint le film “Cadavre Exquis sur la Science” à la fin de ce billet.
Il vous suffit d’envoyer votre propre image – sur ce que vous pensez être important à propos de la science – en tant que pièce jointe à l’adresse que j’ai créée spécialement pour cela.
Voici l’exemple pro-forma que vous devriez suivre et qui me permettra de “joindre” les images.
Pro-forma for vos images
Vous pouvez dessiner à la main et numériser votre image ou faire le tout dans Photoshop. L’image doit être de 1000 * 1000 pixels et ne pas peser plus de 500ko compressée au format jpeg. Cela devrait vous donner assez de marge de manœuvre pour les détails. Faites ce que vous voulez sur l’image, mais liez au moins certaines parties le long des bords (aux tiers) : plus vous vous montrerez créatifs (comme la planète dans l’exemple) mieux se sera.
Nous allons laisser ce projet se développer pendant un mois et je vais joindre les images pour former le plus grand cadavre exquis jamais réalisé (je pense), il sera consultable en ligne. Selon les réactions, je propose également d’afficher ces images virtuelles sur un mur ou sur la façade d’un bâtiment dans le monde virtuel Second Life. Imaginez – vous pourriez faire partie d’un monument dédié à la science.
Vous devriez signer votre image comme tout bon (ou mauvais) artiste. Si vous souhaitez joindre un commentaire audio (mp3), veuillez le compresser jusqu’à 2Mo et le faire durer une minute maximum.
Et comme formalité minimum, veuillez, s’il vous plaît, copier et coller la déclaration suivante dans votre email:
“Je consens à ce que Tim Jones, reproduise et affiche cette image (et l’audio joint le cas échéant) individuellement, aux côtés de, ou joints aux travaux d’autres dans le projet Cadavre Exquis sur la Science”
Voici le film que nous avons fait, peut-être vous donnera-t-il un peu d’inspiration …
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