Sometimes people think that, because I write this column for peanuts, I am somehow available for free science consulting services. Obviously this is not the case but I don’t mind the occasional question, especially if it concerns real puzzles like how a car in China doesn’t cause global warming but a car in America does.

Lately I have been pestered with questions about this whole Christmas thing. It’s a troublesome issue, I agree, but I am not in the free science business so most of the questions I just ignore – however, one of the many,many,many (not that many – Lady Scientist ) groupies that flitter about me on the internet caught my attention recently with their query about Yule physics because they had the creativity to put it in seasonal rhyming form;

(more…)

I’m usually a pretty patient guy about marketing. Unlike some, I am not educated by it and, unlike others, I don’t look down on it. I know why it it exists and I appreciate its value but at some point in advocacy issues ( in this case the environment ) it invariably crosses a line from being funny to offensive and then it goes completely over the line into being the kind of junk science that needs to be ridiculed.

My latest gripe is the claim that low energy bulbs are a magic panacea for the environment and that they are wonderful in all respects. I don’t use them and there are a few compelling reasons why you should focus on other ways to save the environment also.

The main reason I don’t use them is because I am not smug enough.

You know what I am talking about. Who actually laughed at those Apple television ads where the smug, hipster guy is the Apple user and the buffoon uses a PC? It takes some true marketing incompetence to make Microsoft seem lovable but they did it. The only people who liked those ads were Apple users, who are already smug.

Now we have commercials where a hip CFL bulb guilt trips a traditional light bulb in the same condescending manner – and without about the same level of actual data behind it. It will sell some lightbulbs – and maybe make your cat insane, but we’ll get to that in a minute. First, let’s discuss light.

The whole point of light bulbs was to give us daylight at night – at first, anything was better than dark but we later discovered that the closer you can get to natural light, the better off you will be. Here is a chart showing the light spectrum, including daylight, incandescent and fluorescent bulbs.

(more…)

Guns, Guitars And Greenpeace

As a younger man, I was a big fan of Greenpeace.

As time went on, I thought they lost their focus by branching out from protesting nuclear weapons to whaling and trees and basically hanging out a shingle that said, “If you send us money, we will protest for you.”

I watched them change from instilling their people with scientific literacy to educating their people on political activism. Then I watched them turn on me because I was a scientist who didn’t much like exaggerated evidence in the name of fundraising and because I was a sportsman and because I was a businessman.

I’ve always believed that sportsmen – hunters, hikers, mountain climbers – are natural allies of the environmental movement.

I watched them turn on hunters because of the gun issue. I watched them turn on businesspeople because of the logging issue. I watched them devolve into silliness … hijacking ships, funnelling money to political groups, ramming a French sailboat competing in the 2003 America’s Cup and finally, in the absolute depths of their Klondike Kop level incompetence, running aground on Tubbataha Reef Marine Park off the coast of Manila last year, which they were supposedly visiting because they were worried about global warming. They paid a $7,000 fine and said it was an accident and the millions of dollars in damage done are still not fixed. I imagine the environmental movement wouldn’t have been so lenient if, after the Exxon Valdez accident, Exxon paid a token fine and left the damage.

(more…)

This study says obesity harms more women than men while this study says hungry men like fat women.

Do I need to spell that out for you? No, it isn’t that hungry men like to eat fat women, it’s that hungry men know fat women have food in the house.

Claire Forlani, on the other hand, isn’t worried about being too thin or not having a man, she lays awake at night worrying about water. She says there isn’t enough of it and she can’t sleep because she thinks about it too much. Says Claire, “I have this daily moment of imagining life without water and it terrifies me.”

I am with you, Claire. I lay awake terrified about a world without actresses saying dumb things. Then I wouldn’t have anything funny to write about.

Al Gore, on the other hand, thinks more water would be bad so he is against global warming that would melt any ice. Scientists that are employed outside government or schools and thus have to work for a living don’t really like what Al Gore is doing with science. If Al Gore had been tribal leader 3,000 years ago and the tribe got big and we started running out of animals to hunt, Al Gore would have said we need to hunt fewer animals.

Scientists would have said we should grow our own livestock and forget hunting. Then every hungry man could find the fat woman of his dreams and we wouldn’t need politicians. Thus, scientists don’t believe that smarmy know-it-alls flying fuel-guzzling jets all over the world to tell us we should be riding bicycles is a good thing.

Not all women lie awake at night thinking about Al Gore in a fur loincloth circa 1000 BC or Claire Forlani’s water issues – some think about other things. Carnie Wilson lies awake at night thinking about donuts. But they don’t make her afraid, they make her horny.

We already answered why hungry men like obese women and I think Carnie Wilson answers how obesity harms women more than men. If Carnie Wilson keeps thinking about those donuts, she will never date a scientist. We refuse to rank second to pastries on the horniness scale.

Want To Cure Global Warming? Make Really Big Sunglasses

Sometimes aging scientists get nostalgic for no good reason. Sometimes aging scientists get nostalgic for a very good reason. Environmentalism of the 1970s is a very good reason for scientists to get nostalgic.

You see, when I was a young scientist the big fear was a new Ice Age. Yes, the trend had been that in the 20th century to-date, even with all those big factories pumping out noxious gas and fumes, the earth was cooling. Pollution was the problem, they said. Too much sulfur was preventing the sun’s yummy rays from entering terra firma.

Now it turns out global warming is the problem. That means – you guessed it – we don’t have enough pollution preventing the sun’s yummy rays from entering our atmosphere.

Fear of a new Ice Age at least made sense. Throughout earth’s history, 90,000 of every 100,000 years has been Ice Age. And it’s been 12,000 years since the last one, which means we are overdue.

Global Warming doesn’t make as much sense. Most global warming doesn’t come from people or factories, it comes from plants. I don’t know about you, but I get tickled trying to think of ways environmentalists can blame Big Business for too many plants. Then again, TIME Magazine can write most anything with a straight face – they did a big cover story on global warming that had in its first paragraph, “Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.”

Maybe the guys at TIME are confused about what the words “suddenly” and “unexpectedly” actually mean. I can’t pick up a newspaper without reading about global warming. TIME goes on to say that we’re all going to Hell in a handbasket because of glacial ice sheets melting and a 20-foot rise in the oceans. It’s like WaterWorld, only with better actors.

Wait … Archimedes lived a long time ago and even he knew better. Those glacial ice sheets can melt all they want and it doesn’t make a bit of difference in the level of the oceans. Now, if all of Greenland melted, that would be a problem – but the temperature of Greenland itself isn’t rising at all.

Some scientists are no different from any other government pork-barrel recipients. They only think about funding. Like the saying goes, “No bucks – no Buck Rogers.” Since global warming is the cause celebre du jour, that is where some will go to get money.

So what are those scientists claiming is the answer to global warming? Make really big sunglasses. Or mess with the clouds to act more like our old friend pollution – the easiest answer of all is to inject more sulfur into the atmosphere, which is one of the proposals geo-engineers have out there.

Yes, you read it correctly. We spent trillions of dollars creating government regulations and re-tooling factories to halt the emission of sulfur into the atmosphere so now we will need to spend trillions to create a government agency to inject sulfur into the atmosphere. Sometimes I hate scientists. And I am one. And I hate irony!

Let’s not panic just yet. After all, global warming only became a problem when George Bush took office in 2001. Al Gore says we still have 10 years before catastrophe occurs. And 10 years just happens to be 2 years until the next election plus the 8 years to the end of his second term as President if he wins. So at least we know he has a plan.