Tag Archives: mean

Are Earth’s species really doomed? This study has a hot new take.

When it comes to human-driven species slaughters, there’s (new) good news and there’s (old) bad news.

The bad news, as those of you who read that 2019 United Nations biodiversity report remember, is that experts predicted we are on track to wipe out 1 million species as a result of polluting, clearing forests for agricultural purposes, expanding cities and roads, overhunting, overfishing, mucking up water resources, spreading invasive species, and generally microwaving the planet. But take heart! A new paper shows some critters may be more resilient than scientists thought, and we still have a sliver of time to ensure that we don’t wipe out all the Earth’s animals (the bar is set so high these days).

Why the (slightly less awful) adjustment? Past studies on climate-driven extinction and biodiversity loss tended to lump a bunch of different factors under the climate change umbrella. But this paper, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, parsed some of the factors driving extinction in order to determine which aspects of climate change have the biggest impacts on species loss.

By looking at 581 sites around the world and 538 species across those sites, researchers found that the best predictor of a local extinction event was an increase in that location’s maximum annual temperature: when the hottest days of the year got hotter. “If it gets too hot, [some species] basically can’t live there anymore,” study co-author John Wiens told Grist. Surprisingly, the average increase in temperature in a given place over the course of a year — what we typically think of when we talk about climate change — didn’t appear to have much to do with extinction events at all. In fact, the researchers found local extinctions were happening more often in places where the mean annual temperature hadn’t increased a lot.

In short, it’s really those record-breaking hot days — the kind that has all of Paris splashing in fountains, or force normally temperate Washington state to open cooling centers — that spell doom for at-risk species.

How that actually plays out depends a lot on what, if anything, humans do to stem the climate crisis. The study found that if the hottest days of the year (the maximum annual temperature) increase 0.5 degrees C, half of the world’s species will go extinct by 2070. If those maximum temperatures increase by 3 degrees C, that is, if we continue to produce emissions business-as-usual, then 95 percent of species will go extinct. “That’s really bad,” Wiens said.

But if humanity can keep a handle on those uncharacteristic heat waves, plants and animals may still have some wiggle room for survival. That’s because a given plant or animal may be able to do something called a “niche shift,” which means the species can change the range of temperatures in which it is able to survive.

That versatility may buy some critters a little time, but experts caution it’s not an excuse for complacency about the climate crisis. “At some point,” Wiens said, “it’s going to get too hot.”

Here’s the good news: if we stick to the only global climate agreement we have — an agreement that aims to keep temperatures from increasing more than 1.5 degrees C. — those species loss numbers could be much, much lower. “We have to talk about the Paris Agreement,” Wiens said. “If we’re able to stick to that, then it might be a loss of only 15 percent or so.”

Original article – 

Are Earth’s species really doomed? This study has a hot new take.

Posted in Accent, alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Are Earth’s species really doomed? This study has a hot new take.

Who stands to lose the most from climate change? Red states.

Subscribe to The Beacon

A new analysis from the Brookings Institution shows that many of the states and counties with the most to lose from climate change have been voting for candidates least likely to do something about it.

Of the 16 states facing the highest long-term losses of income from climate change — starting with Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana — all but one voted for Donald Trump in 2016. That exception: Hawaii.

The data, sourced from Climate Impact Lab, tell a similar story when you look at counties and congressional districts. On average, the districts that voted Republican in November stand to lose 4.4 percent of their income this century, compared with a loss of 2.7 percent for those that backed Democrats. Those red districts tend to be less affluent, more rural, and more exposed to rising seas, stronger storms and punishing droughts, particularly in Florida and Texas.

Typically blue regions like the Pacific Northwest and New England could actually stand to gain from climate change, the report says. For chillier states, warmer temperatures could mean lower energy bills and a boost in crop yields. But a lot of other bad stuff too, don’t forget.

So, does this mean that red states are doomed, and liberal northerners will be left saying I told ya so? Well, it might not get to that if this new data — combined with the actual observable effects of climate change — changes people’s minds. Recent polls suggest that voters are coming around on the issue, as hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires get harder to ignore.

The Brookings Institution, for its part, offers this advice to climate activists: “A harder charging, grittier, and more palpable campaign focused on climate impacts in ‘red’ America could prove a lot more effective. And the data now exist to make that happen.”

Jump to original: 

Who stands to lose the most from climate change? Red states.

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Who stands to lose the most from climate change? Red states.

Yet More Argle Bargle From the Oval Office

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Donald Trump on the Republican health care bill today:

“I want it to be good for sick people. It’s not in its final form right now,” he said during an Oval Office interview Monday with Bloomberg News. “It will be every bit as good on pre-existing conditions as Obamacare.”

The latest version of the House GOP bill, which Republican leaders are trying to figure out whether they have the votes to pass this week, wouldn’t live up to that promise and would weaken those protections.

What does this mean? Just the usual argle bargle? Has Sean Spicer already repudiated it? Hold on, let me check….

I guess not. Spicer says “we’re not there yet,” but he was talking about votes, not the legislative language. I can’t tell for sure, but it doesn’t look like anyone even asked Spicer directly about whether Trump planned to ask for further amendments to the bill.

Just argle bargle, I guess. Does anyone on Capitol Hill even pay attention to Trump’s aimless word spasms anymore?

From: 

Yet More Argle Bargle From the Oval Office

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Yet More Argle Bargle From the Oval Office

There’s Something Wrong With the TIMSS Advanced Math Test

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Excellent news! The 2015 TIMSS test results are out. This is one of two international math tests for 4th and 8th graders (the other is PISA), and it provides us with yet another chance to bemoan the shoddy education of American students.

I’ll get to that later tonight. First, though, I want to point out an odd thing about the TIMSS test. This year, for only the second time, they decided to add a third “advanced” math test for high school seniors who were in advanced math courses. Eight countries participated, and the United States did pretty well. We lagged behind only Lebanon.

Lebanon? You bet: their average score was 532, a whopping 50 points ahead of the two second-place countries (Russia and the US). But then I noticed something: only 3.2 percent of Lebanese students were in advanced math courses compared to 34 percent of Slovenian students. It makes sense that if you compare the top 3.2 percent of one country to the top 34 percent of another, the former is going to do a lot better.

So are differences in these scores just due to differences in how selective different countries are in accepting students into advanced math courses? Here’s the scatterplot you’ve been waiting for:

Selectivity doesn’t account for everything, but it does have a significant impact. If you restrict your classes to only the very brightest students (like Lebanon, Russia, and the US), they’ll do well. If you open them up to more than a quarter of your students (like Italy, Portugal and Slovenia), the average kids will drag down the mean score. But which country is actually doing a better job of education? It’s hard to say.

Regardless, there’s always something to complain about. Here is Jeffrey Mervis in Science:

Students taking the most challenging math and science courses in their senior year were found to have performed progressively worse as they moved from elementary to middle to high school. The U.S. cohort, for example… deteriorated over time, from 29 and 9 points ahead of the midpoint in fourth and eighth grade, respectively, to 15 points below as seniors. Italy recorded the steepest drops, a startling 126 points below the midpoint in physics and 78 points in advanced math by the end of high school.

It’s not clear to me that the “midpoint” of the TIMSS test means anything at all. In the advanced math test, every single country except Lebanon scored below it. What kind of midpoint is that? A pretty arbitrary one, I’d guess.

See original article: 

There’s Something Wrong With the TIMSS Advanced Math Test

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, ONA, oven, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on There’s Something Wrong With the TIMSS Advanced Math Test

Donald Trump Is Biff From "Back to the Future" in New Clinton Ad

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Biff from Back to the Future. Farkus from A Christmas Story. The mean girls from Mean Girls. Donald Trump.

That’s the comparison Hillary Clinton is drawing in her latest campaign ad. Called “America’s Bully,” the one-minute spot shows the best-known bullies from classic American movies interspersed with footage of Trump mocking people and kicking them out of his rallies. The ad ends with a scene from a Clinton campaign event in Iowa when a 10-year-old girl asked Clinton what she would do about bullying.

The ad will air in battleground states of Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Original post:

Donald Trump Is Biff From "Back to the Future" in New Clinton Ad

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Donald Trump Is Biff From "Back to the Future" in New Clinton Ad

Weekly Poll Update: Donald Trump Is Imploding

Mother Jones

Once again, let’s show both of my favorite pollsters today. Sam Wang’s meta-margin continued its reversion to the mean and then blew past it. Hillary Clinton is now leading Trump by 4.7 percentage points:

Wang’s current prediction is that Clinton has a 97 percent chance of winning and will rack up 332 electoral votes. The Senate will be tied, 50-50. And here’s Pollster:

Clinton has gained two points and is now 8.4 percentage points ahead of Trump. In the generic House polling, Pollster has Democrats ahead by 7.4 points. If that holds up, it’s a big enough lead to start wondering if Democrats really do have a chance of taking back control of Congress completely.

Continue at source – 

Weekly Poll Update: Donald Trump Is Imploding

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Weekly Poll Update: Donald Trump Is Imploding

Hillary Clinton’s Pneumonia Seems to Have Helped Her

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Here’s an odd thing:

Around Monday or Tuesday of this week, Hillary Clinton’s favorables went up about four points and Donald Trump’s went down four points. In Clinton’s case, maybe her pneumonia generated some sympathy? In Trump’s case, it’s hard to figure out what might have happened. David Fahrenthold’s big story about Trump’s charity scams came out around then. The whole “deplorables” thing was getting some attention. And…that’s about it. Nothing really comes to mind that might account for a sudden downward spike.

So what’s going on? It could be that this is nothing but reversion to the mean after a couple of weeks of Emailgate and Foundationgate taking a toll. That would actually make some sense, since attitudes toward Clinton and Trump have been remarkably stable for the entire past year. In any case, maybe this will help panicky Dems to panic a little less.

Continue reading here: 

Hillary Clinton’s Pneumonia Seems to Have Helped Her

Posted in FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hillary Clinton’s Pneumonia Seems to Have Helped Her

Affirmative Action Upheld, Executive Action on Immigration Struck Down

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The Supreme Court upheld affirmative action at the University of Texas today, but deadlocked on DAPA, President Obama’s executive action on immigration:

The Supreme Court handed President Obama a significant legal defeat on Thursday, refusing to revive his stalled plan to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and give them the right to work legally in this country. The court’s liberals and conservatives deadlocked, which leaves in place a lower court’s decision that the president exceeded his powers in issuing the directive.

What does this mean? A district court in Texas issued a nationwide injunction against DAPA, which was upheld by the appeals court and now by the Supreme Court. Or, to be more accurate, it wasn’t overturned by the Supreme Court. So it stays in place. But can an appeals court rule for the whole country? What happens if a similar case goes forward in, say, California, and the 9th Circuit rules differently?

We shall have to wait and see. Ruling against a president on immigration is unusual to say the least, so this case suggests either (a) Obama really was out on a limb with DAPA or (b) nobody really cares about precedent or the law anymore. Liberals rule for Obama and conservatives rule against him, and that’s that. I’m not entirely sure which I believe.

Originally posted here – 

Affirmative Action Upheld, Executive Action on Immigration Struck Down

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Affirmative Action Upheld, Executive Action on Immigration Struck Down

Friday Cat Blogging – 15 January 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

A few days ago Marian went out to buy some new cat toys because, you know, a couple dozen clearly wasn’t enough. You can see her haul below, all with nice, fresh tails. Once the tails come off—which doesn’t take long—they’re no fun anymore. But you can’t please everyone. Hilbert looks like he’s saying “What? That’s all? I jumped all the way onto the counter just for this?”

In other cat news, my sister points us to this YouTube video of a cat invading a Liverpool-Spurs soccer match. It’s three years old, but who’s counting?

Continued here: 

Friday Cat Blogging – 15 January 2016

Posted in Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Friday Cat Blogging – 15 January 2016

Kansas Is Still the Land of Make Believe

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Kansas governor Sam Brownback has been leading an epic battle to turn his state into a supply-side nirvana. So how’s it going? A new poll—possibly the greatest poll in American history—suggests that Kansans are a wee bit confused:

When it comes to Brownback’s tax policy, which has featured heavy cuts in income taxes and taxes on businesses, three-fifths (61 percent) of respondents felt the policy had been “a failure” or “a tremendous failure” in terms of economic growth. About one-third of respondents said it was “neither a success nor failure” and 7 percent said they felt it was at least “a success.” Only 0.2 percent agreed it was “a tremendous success.”

But at the same time, 61 percent of respondents favor “somewhat lower” or “much lower” taxes and spending in Kansas. And yet…about 63 percent of respondents felt taxes on top income earners should be increased while 6 percent felt they should be decreased.

What does this mean? That tax cuts have been a failure, but maybe they’ll work if we just cut them more? That tax cuts have been a failure, but Kansans just want low taxes anyway? That Kansans don’t really care if their economy is any good?

I do not know.

More here: 

Kansas Is Still the Land of Make Believe

Posted in Citizen, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Kansas Is Still the Land of Make Believe