No I didn't bother

 

Did you? I heard it was crowded.

Huskywonk posted videos of the GOP caucus at Islander Middle School.  (Although somewhat edited, at 7minutes it's way too long and boring)

Challenging Global Warming Skeptics

"Facts are stubborn things", Ronald Reagan reminded knee-jerk ideologues with advice that applies to many of the people gathered at the Mercer Island Library for last night's Conservative Enthusiasts meeting on Global Warming. No matter how much you may wish it were different, if you're wrong about the evidence, your position is ultimately doomed.

Mark Sussman (MIT PhD and organizer of the group) understands the importance of real debate, so he invited as a special guest Dr. Richard Gammon, climatologist from the University of Washington, and Nobel Prize-winning member of the IPCC. After a showing of the movie (I saw last year) The Great Global Warming Swindle, they invited Prof. Gammon to give a rebuttal -- and take questions from the skeptics.

Prof. Gammon deserves another Nobel Prize for agreeing to present in front of such a hostile audience. If you think man-made global warming is a crisis and you want to affect opinions, you need to persuade the skeptics, not dismiss them as idiots the way Al Gore and others do by insisting "the debate is over". (If you think there's nothing to debate, by the way, I dare you to listen to the NPR-sponsored Global Warming debate ).  To Gammon's great credit, at least he was willing to come visit the other side.

The problem for most of the conservatives last night, I think, is that they approach the scientists' political motivations so skeptically that they refuse to listen, whether to facts or anything else. Unfortunately, Professor Gammon's talk ultimately failed because, like many from the Global Warming movement, he mixes science (where he is an expert) with policy (where he is not) -- and of course the audience saw right through it, and missed his overall point.

Here's the kind of presentation I'd like to see Prof. Gammon and others give next time:

1. Eliminate all talk about politics.  Assume nobody's a liberal, nobody's a conservative. Just talk provable science.
2. Be very humble when discussing projections about the future.  What may or may not happen in 50 or 100 years is so speculative and prone to error that it distracts from the real message--experimentally verifiable facts about what has happened in the past and what is happening right now.
3. Stop the tape.  While watching the video, push the pause button and refute the assertions one-by-one.  One reason the Swindle video is so powerful is that it does have some truth to it; acknowledge those facts and the uncertainties so you have credibility when refuting the errors.
4. Ask for advice. Conservatives don't want the world to end either.  If humans are causing the world to warm out of control, ask the audience how they would fix it.  Unfortunately, conservatives think the IPCC's proposal is "vote for Al Gore" -- which clearly has nothing to do with science. 

The Global Warming deniers are making a huge bet that facts are on their side.  But facts don't care about ideology. I think a committed focus on facts--not policy opinions--would change more minds.

Healthy ways to school

There's a wonderful debate going on about school transportation at ourmi.wikispaces.com, a community web site organized by new city council member Bruce Bassett.  Bruce and school board member John DeVleming discuss how and whether to promote getting kids to school via means other than cars, a debate that has additional new data to help understand the current situation.   A classroom survey at Lakeridge Elementary School last month indicated that on most mornings, here's how Mercer Island kids get to school:

Walked	16%
Biked	2%
Rode the bus	39%
Rode in a car	43%

Note that these numbers are subject to some interpretation, since we don't know how many of the car riders were actually car pools of several kids riding together.  And the kids who walk or biked are almost all from homes located adjacent to the school. 

I think John DeVleming wins this one, hands down.  How do "we" as a society (whatever that means), know that it's "better" for more kids to walk or bike to school?  Bruce says it's better because:

1. Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions due in part to increasingly inactive lifestyles.
2. An estimated 25% of morning traffic is parents driving their children to school.
3. More cars on the street make neighborhoods seem less safe, discouraging walking and biking.
4. Overcrowded school drop-off and pick-up areas bring pollution and traffic danger to the doorsteps of our schools.

The first argument doesn't apply to my family: my kids are not obese and they're not inactive.  I'm not an expert on other families or other communities (maybe Bruce is?) so other than some speculation and/or personal opinions, I don't know how to tell whether encouraging walking will help or hurt "society".

The second and third arguments don't apply to my family either, since I drive the kids to school on my way to work, so no gas or traffic would be saved by them taking the bus.

The fourth argument is one where smart school policies can really have a positive impact--and already do.  My elementary school has strict rules, enforced by volunteers each morning, to ensure exactly how cars may approach the school.  And of course general speed limits (strictly enforced by a visible police presence) keep the area around schools much safer.

Finally, let's imagine Bruce could get his dream situation enacted and a tree-lined footpath were created in my back yard, with happy, singing children dancing together on their way to school and back each day.  My kids probably still would end up with me.  Why?  Because we're in a hurry to get them to school and back again so they can go to their karate lessons, soccer games, and a host of other active lifestyle choices.  I walked to school when I was a kid (and my grandparents walked to work) because we were all much poorer, with no other options.  Thankfully, the world has progressed a long way since then.

Realtime 911 dispatches

The City of Seattle has a web site where you can see constantly-updated reports emergency 911 dispatches. 

The site Public911 also mashes that same data onto a map like this one:

I'm still working on my map project, but this is another example of how nice it would be to have the ability to map local information in real time.

Organic vs. Conventional food on Mercer Island

Another reason to support a farmer's market: a new study of 19 kids from Mercer Island Elementary schools shows significant levels of pesticide residues in kids who eat conventionally-grown versus organic food.  The study, conducted over a one-year period in 2003-2004 showed that the pesticide residue disappears from these kids within a day or two of switching to organic food.

Here's the abstract (study by Chensheng Lu, Dana B. Barr, Melanie A. Pearson, and Lance A. Waller)

RESULTS: By substituting organic fresh fruits and vegetables for corresponding
conventional food items, the median urinary metabolite concentrations were reduced to
non-detected or close to non-detected levels for malathion and chlorpyrifos at the end of
5-day organic diet intervention period in both summer and fall seasons. We also
observed a seasonal effect on the OP urinary metabolite concentrations, and this
seasonality is correspondent to the consumption of fresh produce throughout the year.
CONCLUSIONS: The findings from this study demonstrate that dietary intake of OP
pesticides represents the major source of exposure in young children.

One interesting finding: pesticide levels are higher in the winter, even though the kids were eating the same amount of fruits and vegetables.  One possible explanation is that they're eating non-local food.  It's hard to get organic fruits/vegetables out of season, so kids switch to non-local (conventional) stuff.  I think one lesson is that parents should try to get their kids to eat seasonally-grown food, rather than the same ole grapes/carrots/apples all year round.

I wish our public schools would serve organic too.

[read more in the Seattle PI]

Mercer Island Carjacker

Recognize the woman in this photo?

 

The guy who delivers my newspaper each morning was minding his own business outside Covenant Shores last Sunday when her friend pulled out a gun and stole his car.  An hour later, they were at Seatac stealing money at an ATM.  [Oh, am I supposed to say "allegedly"?]

If you know anything about her, please call Mercer Island Police Detective Pete Erickson at 275-7904.

How safe is that bridge?

Neal pointed me Bridge Tracker, a site that uses Virtual Earth to let you know the level of safety (or danger) for public bridges near you. Here's what it says I face when traveling to Espresso Vivace (where I must go this weekend to pick up some fresh beans):

The blue markers on the map indicate bridges which have passed inspection recently. Looks like I'll be okay. Whew!