Roston, Eric.  The carbon age: how life's core element has become civilization's greatest threat.  Walker & Company, 2008.  309p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8027-1557-5, $26.00; ISBN 9780802715579, $26.00.
46-3803  QH344  2008-2754 CIP
 
Fresh from six years covering technology, science, and energy for Time
magazine, Roston has written his first book—a winner and a keeper. He
begins by outlining the nuclear reactions that form carbon inside large
stars. Although schoolchildren commonly understand that carbon is the
skeletal element that holds biomass together and climate change
researchers know that the Earth's carbon cycle plays a major role as a
greenhouse gas, Roston sees carbon's abundance and widespread
distribution as an important starting point that creates an opportunity
for the synthesis of organic molecules and the creation of life itself.
Roston's assertion that carbon is generated by the nuclear fusion of
three helium nuclei is strongly supported by eminent scientists such as
Fred Hoyle, who was at Caltech in the 1950s. Hoyle disproved elements
of George Gamow's big bang hypothesis in 1953 by demonstrating that the
birthplace of the element carbon is the interior of stars that reach
temperatures of 100 million K (kelvin). The nuclear fusion origin of
carbon is convincing and understandable, though later chapters
addressing evolution, cyanobacteria, photosynthesis, and organic
molecules require patience and some chemical knowledge. However, the
final chapter becomes a convincing, easy read and offers a pathway to
sustainable living. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All
levels/libraries. — R. M. Ferguson, emeritus, Eastern Connecticut State University

Dear Sir,

Yesterday's column by John Tierney, "Politics in the Guise of Pure Science," merits your attention. I am not moved to "blog" with great frequency, but if you are interested in reading my full take, you can view it at http://CarbonNation.org.

Many educated, successful Americans have, approximately, a sixth-grade understanding of what science is. There are polls and studies that try to measure this level in various ways. I am relying at the moment on unscientific and anecdotal evidence — specifically how a recent note I received from a seventh grader in Littleton, CO, compares with some professionals in the press corps, the environmental sector, heavy industry, and elsewhere. At a time when science and engineering are a great hope for American renewal it saddens me to see such an interesting and important enterprise slashed from mass media, as many outlets other than the New York Times have been doing.

Mr. Tierney's column yesterday submits arguments lacking in rigor — and lacking in reporting — to this audience, which is unprepared to catch him in his journalistic laziness. Skepticism is a most welcome enterprise. And if Mr. Tierney were engaged in skepticism, I wouldn't be writing in. Instead, he dismissed influential people and important topics without much consideration and embraced others equally uncritically. This column is posturing and nay-saying masquerading as skeptical analysis. Knocking down serious concerns without rigor, and holding up others, equally without rigor, is not a productive exercise. Anti-dogma is still dogma. Many science journalists are now out of work or forced to pursue different careers. This sad trend heightens the responsibility on prominent writers to communicate both the fruits of science, and a sense of what science is; yesterday Mr. Tierney was goofing off rather than using his privileged stage to embrace serious issues with rigor. Thank you for your attention.

Eric Pooley discussion paper

In How Much Would You Pay to Save the Planet? The American Press and the Economics of Climate Change, a discussion paper researched and written during the Shorenstein Center's fall 2008 semester, Fellow Eric Pooley looked at coverage of the climate-change issue by the American press, focusing on the run-up to the vote on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.

Pooley concluded that the press misrepresented the economic debate over carbon cap and trade, failed to perform the basic service of making climate policy and its economic impact understandable to the reader, and allowed opponents of climate action to set the terms of the cost debate. He also concluded that editors had failed to devote sufficient resources to the climate story, shoving it into the "environment" pigeonhole.

The paper, published in January 2009, prompted a response from Washington Post energy reporter Steven Mufson, one of the journalists whose work Pooley analyzed. To see Mufson's letter and Pooley's response, click here.

Joel, thank you for submitting the following question to the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Ask a Scientist website:

I watched Sean [B.] Carroll's lecture which discussed the selection of different shades of mouse fur which corresponded to environmental factors. My question is in two parts: 1. If we were to cover the area of the black or tan mice's habitat with, say, the color hot pink, while not-altering the specific topography of the region (and we were able to assure that the mice would not migrate away from the area), would the mice turn hot pink? Specifically, is there possibly or probably a gene in mice that can turn them hot pink or is the spectrum limited for certain species. Given that they would be extremely more vulnerable to their natural predators, it seems unlikely that they would find the time, yes? That brings us to: 2. If we were to perform the same experiment, but instead of immediately re-coloring the environment, we altered it very, very slowly over a long period of time — say over a thousand generations of mice — would it then be more likely that mice would turn hot pink?

Here is a response provided by one of our volunteer scientists:

Some animal groups contain species that have evolved a dizzying array of bright colors that include hot pink, notably beetles, butterflies, and birds. Indeed, some of our neighbors have tacky lawn ornaments that celebrate this fact! Mammals tend to favor more drab colors. One possibility is that the growth of fur might impose some "developmental constraints" (also known as "genetic constraints"), whereas scales and feathers may lack these constraints. Whatever the underlying cause, no mammal, to my knowledge, has ever had mutation in a single gene that turned it hot pink, although Dumbo's pink elephants may disagree. We can be reasonably certain that scientists would have discovered such a conspicuous change because of the enormous numbers of mice raised in laboratories over the years. So do these developmental constraints mean "game over" for our lovable mice? It depends. If we imagine a predator so effective and voracious that it will always catch and eat mice that are not a true hot pink, then the mice may very well become extinct in this area. This scenario is probably unlikely because it requires that the predator have other stable food sources because predator/prey populations tend to oscillate around a dynamic equilibrium level if the predator prefers a particular species of prey. Otherwise, as the mouse population declines, it will be more difficult for the predator to find food, leading to the starvation of predators and a rebound in the mouse population. If the mice are not driven extinct, any genetic variation in their abilities to outrun predators or to hide under rocks or in crevices may give them some chance to adapt and out-compete their slower or less clever brethren. How might the outcome differ if the color of the ground was altered gradually? It could matter a great deal. It is well established that organisms can become resistant to high levels of toxins or antibiotics after gradually increasing the dose, sometimes well beyond the levels of resistance attained by lucky single-gene mutants. Evolution by "cumulative selection" is a critical concept in evolutionary biology and helps explain how dramatic changes can occur over geological time. (Incidentally, cumulative selection is routinely ignored by creationists when they make calculations showing particular feats of selection are "impossible.") Moreover, predator/prey relationships can naturally impose a gradual curve to the selection process. As we discussed above, a decline in prey population can lead to a decline in predators. There is a common saying that you don't need to outrun the tiger, you just need to outrun your neighbor. In the case of our mice, being somew hat pink may be better than nothing. It even seems likely that tan is already slightly less conspicuous than black on a hot pink background. One mutation that would certainly be possible is the loss of fur, which would reveal the pale pinkish skin underneath. Not exactly hot pink, but it might be just enough for a hungry predator to notice a mouse's neighbor first and buy time for an escape. Most mammals have fur for good reasons (warmth, for example), but losing these benefits may be better than being eaten. Subsequent mutations affecting the placement of capillaries and oxygenation of blood, for example, might refine the color of our hairless mice to something even pinker. Although probably not enough to inspire lawn ornaments or children's movies, several such cumulative changes would probably cause the mice to evolve into a color we would recognize as pink and enough to provide some reasonable protection. All the genetic changes I have suggested so far are definitely reasonable possibilities, although the specific outcome would depend on many genetic and ecological variables that are poorly understood. I doubt the above changes could evolve a truly hot pink mouse, but we might speculate that there could be a gene in the mouse that encodes an enzyme that detoxifies a chemical that happens to be hot pink. Given enough time, could such a gene eventually be co-opted for an evolved role in pigmentation? Perhaps the enzyme could evolve to make the chemical instead of breaking it down, and the chemical could be sequestered in pigment cells near the skin's surface. Maybe, but I suspect that this part of the experiment would take longer than one or several scientists' careers.

We welcome feedback from you about this answer to your question and
appreciate your interest in Ask a Scientist.


Ask a Scientist Coordinator



Disclaimer:

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Ask a Scientist website provides a forum for teachers, students, and others to discuss biomedical topics with scientists. Participating scientists answer questions to the best of their knowledge. The information they provide is intended for educational purposes only. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute assumes no responsibility for the scientific accuracy of Ask a Scientist responses or for the content of references and Web links that may be provided in responses. Views expressed in Ask a Scientist responses are not necessarily those of HHMI.

If we do not reach such a level of carbon productivity, the consequences will be stark. Meeting the 20 gigatons per year target implies a per-person carbon budget of 6 kg of CO2e per day. If one had to live on such a crabon budget with today's low levels of carbon productivity, one would be forced to choose between a 40 kilometer car ride, a day of air conditioning, buying two new T-shirts (without driving to the shop), or eating two meals. In short, without a major boost in carbon productivity, stabilizing GHG emissions would require a major drop in lifestyle for developed countries and the loss of hope in developing economics for greater prosperity through economic growth.

Binary divisions everywhere shape our perception of the world. For several years they have crippled our civic life. We are used to partisans uniformly labeling events and ideas "good" or "bad," without thoroughgoing analysis. Knee-jerk opinion-making has prevented our two political parties, both the "good" one and the "bad" one (however defined) from wrestling big problems to the mat before they grow large enough to potentially harm us: the economic crisis; the "quiet crisis" fueled by low investment in human capital; and the climate crisis, to name just three. From Pennsylvania Avenue to Madison Avenue, K Street to Main Street, civic and private leaders still offer us "The Pepsi Challenge." But that may be changing.

Voters first heralded and then lampooned George W. Bush for his us-v.-them approach to foreign and domestic affairs. Barack Obama appears more comfortable seeking ambiguity, which is apt, since it is the only guidance that crisis offers. In a way, it might be the best thing for us; "good" and "bad" are of limited use in a complex world with few apparent right answers. Zero-sum games are now a luxury that we can not afford.

We are entering an age of messiness and redefinition. The new upside of the expression, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs" is that the eggs are already broken. The stakes are high enough on so many issues, that perhaps (perhaps) evidence and reasoned argument, with attendant ponderousness and severity, will supplant talking-point politics and our habits of complacency.

We saw it this fall, before the election, in the frenzied international rescue of the banking system, where a Republican Treasury has become a Wall Street investor. We saw it in energy policy, where a Democratic Congress lifted its 27-year-old moratorium on offshore oil drilling, first pressed for and maintained ever since by environmental interests. A transformation of our energy system — as daunting a civic task as any undertaken — has encountered impenetrable obstacles for many years now. The speed with which the U.S. partially nationalized its banks should give us hope, not only that a government hobbled by division can act boldly, but that it can repackage its own ideological anathema into confident international policy in a week's time. The energy and climate conundrums could benefit from this leadership (and, alas, the dollar-sums committed to financial rescue).

Change is confusing binary categories far from Washington, too. A decade after eBay made us all both shoppers and shopkeepers, global businesses tie back-end operations to each other so closely that suppliers now look like partners. Perhaps the success of Apple's adversarial Mac v. PC advertisements should surprise us more than it does; after all, most people plug their iPods and iPhones into PCs.

The Obama presidency begins in rough waters - not just because the new president won't be allowed to read or send e-mail on either a PC or Mac. At least for a time, overlapping crises may restore our civic life to adulthood, with all its responsibilities, experienced judgment and hard-decisions made under pressure. In the novel Norwegian Wood, author Haruki Murakami puts these words into a young man's mouth:

"Life doesn't require ideals. It requires standards of action."

Here's to an age governed not by orthodoxies, but by standards of action, in both public and private sectors. If nothing else, these standards might be defined as the professional codes of conduct that inform wise judgment. Sober-mindedness prevails within healthy institutions of civil society — from home assessors to market analysts to journalists, teachers and beyond.

Climbing out of the messiness will take hard work — "good" hard work.

Eric Roston is a Senior Associate at The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University. While at TIME Magazine Roston's beat evolved from business to politics to technology. He is author of THE CARBON AGE: How Life's Core Element Has Become Civilization's Greatest Threat.

Learn more about Eric at Monitor Talent.

This game just in from the memery. First rules, then game-time:

1. Link to the person who tagged you. [h/t: Tom]

2. Post the rules on your blog… [Task completed.]

3. Write six random things about yourself… [See below.]

4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them…[See below "below."]

5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog…

6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up…

Six things about me:

1. I was temporarily paralyzed by confusion before typing "1." because I couldn't decide if I should list my six things numerically or alphabetically or with bullets, so as not to repeat the same classification as above. This conundrum displaced indecision over whether the six things had to be true, and my further paralysis at the notion of randomizing six factoids (How does someone shuffle his or her own mental deck five times?)

2. I regret not practicing, from childhood, how to do a pratfall holding a waiter's tray crowded with filled glasses of water, without spilling a drop.*

3. Books currently on my nightstand, bottom to top: Six Degrees, by Duncan Watts; Six Degrees, by Mark Lynas; Upheaval From the Abyss, by David Lawrence; Tales of the Unexpected, by Roald Dahl; Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman; The Stuff of Thought, by Steven Pinker; The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman; Free Your Breath, Free Your Life, by Dennis Lewis; Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace.

4. Bob Beamon's 1969 world record long jump of 29'-2.5" is a favorite inspiring demonstration of human potential.

5. This sentence always stuck with me: Глокая куздра штеко будланула бокра и курдячит бокренка.

6. I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

*Headline notwithstanding, I have mentioned this before.

And now, to pass the torch.

First torch goes to... Neil Gussman! A friend and inspiration for his enthusiasm and selflessness.

Second torch goes to... Kay Bailey! Wishing her a smooth few months. 

Third to... Colin Beavan (aka No Impact Man)! Wishing him luck finishing his book.

Fourth to... David Sirota! Because he posted the last update I just saw on Facebook.

Fifth to... John McCain, by proxy! 

And number six... Eh, it's too late (2 am). Everybody's asleep but me (finally).

More soon!