Is the news media liberal? Yes, but not the way you think.

We've heard accusations for years about the alleged bias of the "liberal news media." Professional journalists are trained to keep their own opinions out of their work, but in the broader (non-political) context of "liberal," having a liberal news media is good for everybody. 

Read to find out why.

The Limited Lifespan of Technological Civilizations

A recent paper in the Cambridge Journal of Astrobiology concludes that the typical
technological species becomes extinct within 500 years after attaining modern technology and that this extinction leaves the civilization's planet uninhabitable.

There is some cool information here for both my science fiction writers out there, but also for people concerned about climate change.

The paper, by retired astrophysicist and mathematics professor Daniel Whitmire, of the University of Arkansas, makes the following arguments:

1. Based on the "Principle of Mediocrity," a cornerstone of modern cosmology, when there is only one data point, we need to assume that the data is typical of other examples, even though we cannot detect them. So, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we should believe that humans are typical of other intelligent, technological species out there in the universe. Statistically, this means we are toward the middle of the bell-shaped curve, where the vertical line is in the middle of the graphic.

2.  So...assuming we really are typical, we only know two fundamental things, a) that we are the first technological species to evolve on the Earth and b) we are early in our technological evolution.

No archaeological evidence of a previous technological civilization has been found, (Erich von Däniken doesn't count) and a true technological civilization would leave evidence that could be found for millions of years.

3.  The evolution of technological species IS statistically probable, Whitmire says, because our typical technological civilization evolved in the first 22% of the projected total lifetime of the part of Earth's biosphere suitable for land animals.  If a technological species were to be improbable, then we would expect to have evolved toward the end of Earth's biosphere lifetime, i.e beating the odds.

4.  If technological species go extinct while leaving the biosphere viable, then later technological species are likely to evolve, Whitmire says. On the other hand, if extinction leaves the land biosphere uninhabitable, the reset time could easily take too long for evolution of another technological species, he contends.

5.  Given the principle of mediocrity, which says that humans are typical of other existing technological species, and because we are early in our technological evolution, the statical likelihood is that other existing technological species we encounter will also be in the relatively early stages of technology development, and be the first to evolve on their planet.

6.  When you calculate the bell-shaped curves of probability, the best we can say, based on current evidence, is that a technological civilization is "likely" to last 500 years or less, says the author.

• If our technological civilization survives another 1,000 years, then statistically the "likely" survival range would jump to 5,000 years or less.
• Note that we are already 100 years into our own technological civilization.

7.  Therefore, the best evidence we have, based on the statistical principle of mediocrity, is that the typical technological species has a short lifetime and that their extinction typically coincides with the extinction of their planetary biosphere.

Note: A technological species in defined by the author as those biological species that have developed the ability to affect the global environment and utilize electronic devices. That means that one of the signature characteristics defining a technological species is invention of radio!

I said that this blog post is for my science fiction writers out there, because I think that there is some cool basis for speculative writing here.  I would also caution that it is always POSSIBLY for a civilization to be an outlier, but the ODDS say that both we, and any aliens we encounter, will be toward the center of the curve, and thus similar to ourselves.

When it comes to climate change, this logic can also serve as a basis for what we know, based on statistics, about civilizations faced with climate change and other extinction-level events. Based on the very limited statistical information we have (one data point), the likelihood is that in 400 years or less, we will make OUR planet uninhabitable.

All of this speculation is based on statistics. It is not a prediction of real world events. But it matches pretty well with the existential threats of nuclear war and climate change that our society faces. It would be nice to prove that we are NOT typical, as current defined, because we beat the odds.

This blog post was inspired by this article, but I went to the original published journal article to write my summary.

Temperatures rising! What we REALLY know about climate change.

Update: Since I wrote this, there have been more and more extreme climate events. The warming and melting of the arctic is having an increasingly powerful effect on weather farther south, from a hurricane that retained its strength and crossed overland from Louisiana to New York to freezing weather in Texas.

Here is another of my posts that explains in detail where these extreme events are coming from.

     ---

Original article:

The first half of 2017 was the second-hottest first six calendar months on record, behind only 2016.

This article notes that this is significant because this year there is no El Niño, which can temporarily raise global average temperatures.

That's after correcting for all the "figures don't lie but liars can figure" distractions out there, global warming is a fact and is a clear threat.

For those of you unclear about the details, here is a primer:

• Science is about explanations that are consistent with observed facts, updated as observed facts become more and more accurate.  The most simple, straightforward explanations are the best, and when proposed explanations are tested, there needs to be broad agreement that the observed facts ARE well explained.
  
• We know that the Earth is warming. Multiple independent sources of data tell us this. It may vary a bit from year to year, but the trend is upward. Within reasonable limits of error, these different independent sources agree.
  
• We know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. We know that about twice as much carbon dioxide (CO2) is appearing in the atmosphere as what the Earth can take back out via natural processes. We know that industry in general, and the fossil fuel industry in particular, emits huge quantities of carbon dioxide. We know that the parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere has been going up since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
  
• We know that water vapor has significantly more effect as a greenhouse gas than CO2, but stays in the air for only a few days whereas CO2 stays for decades. We know that warmer air has more carrying capacity for water vapor and that the water vapor mostly resides in the upper atmosphere (meaning that what happens on the ground, like drought, is not particularly relevant because it is a local/regional thing). We know that water vapor concentrations at high altitudes have been climbing at a statistically significant rate. So, the warming caused by the elevated CO2 is amplified.
  
• We also know that in the prehistoric past, when the temperature was sometimes higher, the CO2 PPM was also higher. We know that there are natural sources that can cause increases in CO2, notably volcanoes, but the number of volcanic eruptions and other natural sources in the last century is not consistent with the observed increase in CO2 and other less significant greenhouse gases.
  
• So the question is "where is the CO2 coming from?"
  
• The hypothesis that man-made CO2 is not the cause of global warming is not consistent with the facts. If man-made CO2 is somehow not a contributing factor, then where is the excess CO2 coming from? Those who would try to shrug global warming off as a "natural cycle" are not explaining anything. A "natural cycle" still has causes and effects that can be studied and understood, particularly when they are happening NOW and not in the ancient past.

To be fair, there have been attempts to suggest other causes for the climbing temperatures, but they are all over the map. There is no alternative explanation that has stood up to repeated independent testing, the way the human-produced CO2 explanation has.

So there it is. The ONLY consistent answer to the question of where the CO2 is coming from is human sources, primarily the energy industry burning fossil fuels.

It's inconvenient because solving the problem could reduce business profits for a while, but if we DON'T solve the problem, the global turmoil will also be bad for business.  Relatively modest changes now can reduce or prevent huge catastrophes in the future.

Academic Literature Visualizations

Here's an interesting resource for people who are actually interested in what the science shows about a given topic.

Open Knowledge Maps is an academic literature search engine, but it includes a visualization that categorizes the journal articles.  Click on one of the circles and it zooms in to show the specific articles.

Another nice thing is that it shows which articles are open access and therefore can be downloaded directly.

The example above (which I know is a little small to read), is a search on "Climate Change."

Because there are a lot of scholars out there who do NOT have access to research databases through university libraries, Open Knowledge Maps joins Google Scholar as a key way of exploring the academic literature to see what the peer reviewed scientific literature says.

Climate Change Skeptics aren't Skeptics

When it comes to science, skeptics are people who question beliefs as the result of scientific scrutiny.

On the other hand, people making political arguments professing skepticism about climate change are more likely to be non-scientific in how they reach their conclusions.

So what does a true skeptic conclude about human-caused climate change?