Category Archives: Food

The wealth of nations in beer

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We generally compare the wealth of nations in dollars per capita, but this is a false comparison. You can not eat dollars, and even if dollars can be exchanged for products or other countries’ currencies with minimum cost, the same is not true for their products. A sack of rice in America costs more than in India; you can not easily buy it at the Indian price. Nonetheless we generally measure the wealth of a county as if all products cost the same everywhere. Based on this, we declare that the citizens of Lichtenstein are the richest on the planet, followed by Norway and Denmark. US citizens not far behind, vastly richer than the people of Africa who we picture living on pennies per day. But pennies in Africa buy more than pennies in America; wealth is spent locally, and things are expensive where people have money.

GDP for various countries in pints of beer per person per year in main city bar or restaurant

GDP for various countries in pints of beer per person per year in main city bar or restaurant

To correct for this local value of money effect, some economists modify consider the ratio of per-capita GDP by relation to the cost of a basket of goods. This is called purchasing power parity, or ppp. By this measure, American’s are not as much richer than Africans, but the problem remains that people don’t all buy the same basket of goods. The Economist magazine has thus suggested correcting ppp by choosing a single consumable, the MacDonald’s Big Mac, a standard product available world-wide. The Economist’s “Big Mac Index” is quite good in my opinion, but it could be better, and I decided to make it better by using beer instead of Big Macs.

It strikes me that typical Africans don’t eat Big Macs — the price is out of range. Meanwhile, in rich countries mostly it’s the poor who eat MacDonald’s (and Donald Trump). The advantage of using beer to measure the wealth of nations is it’s something most-everyone consumes across all social strata. A country is wealthy in terms of many pints of beer a person can buy based on his or her, per-capita GDP.

Shown at left is the top countries from a table I made by dividing the GDP per capita by the price of a pint (or half-liter) of local beer as served in a tavern or restaurant of the major city. Measured this way I find Lichtenstein is still the richest country on earth, now followed by Saudi Arabia and the Czech Republic. Norway is no longer among the richest countries — beer is expensive there, as is labor. The Czech Republic, normally considered a middle-to-poor country, is number 3 because of the low cost of its excellent beer. The US is several stages down, just below Denmark, and barely above Hungary and Kazakhstan. The socialist countries: Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela are as poor in beer as they are in dollars. Socialism distributes wealth without creating it.

Number of beers one can buy on a month's minimum wage in Europe

Number of beers one can buy on a month’s minimum wage in Europe, by Reddit:adilu.

By now you’re wondering about my use of per-capita GDP. Perhaps a better comparison — one where socialism looks better would involve the minimum wage. At right I show a map of Europe in terms of the number of beers one can buy per month based on 40 hour weeks at the minimum wage. Several countries are greyed out: Italy, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Lichtenstein, etc. These are mostly rich countries bu have no minimum wage. Based on the data, Belgium’s working classes are the best off, with Ireland and England not far behind. Germany’s workers look like they are doing well, but they don’t really have a minimum wage (the chart, by Reddit editor adieu assumes one based on a proposal). The United States’s minimum worker is poorer in beer (327/month) based on a minimum wage of $7.85 and an average cost of beer about $4/pint (bar + supermarket). He is richer than the French, Poles, Italians, Norwegians, Danes, Austrians and Swedes in beer, and better off than the Turks and Russians too. It’s clear that high minimum wages harm community wealth and job prospects. Though some at the bottom of the work scale are left dry at the bar.

Robert Buxbaum, July 18, 2018. I write these blogs to help me think. If you’d like to see more of the wealth of nations in beer, I’ll be happy to provide.

Map of Italian pasta

 

From the taste atlas of the world, Italy

Fresh from the taste atlas of the world.

As a brief explanation to the above map, Italy has had a troubled history over the last 2000 years. As the Roman Empire fell, the north-east got taken over by Germans. It still speaks German, and drinks beer. Spätzle is an Austrian pasta. The Italian northwest has been under French domination, off and on and it shows in the thick cream sauces. The south was controlled by the Moores for 1000 years, leaving dishes with fennel and olives. And then there is the amazing innovation: the tomato, a gift from Spanish America that seems to have found its home on the eastern seaboard, though Spain controlled the west. I don’t know why. Enjoy.

Robert Buxbaum, May 1, 2018

Yogurt making for kids

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Yogurt making is easy, and is a fun science project for kids and adults alike. It’s cheap, quick, easy, reasonably safe, and fairly useful. Like any real science, it requires mathematical thinking if you want to go anywhere really, but unlike most science, you can get somewhere even without math, and you can eat the experiments. Yogurt making has been done for centuries, and involves nothing more than adding some yogurt culture to a glass of milk and waiting. To do this the traditional way, you wait with the glass sitting outside of any refrigeration (they didn’t have refrigeration in the olden days). After a few days, you’ll have tasty yogurt. You can get taster yogurt if you add flavors. In one of my most successful attempts at flavoring, I added 1/2 ounce of “skinny syrup” (toffee flavor) to a glass of milk. The results were most satisfactory, IMHO.

My latest batch of home-made flavored yogurt, made in a warm spot behind this urn.

My latest batch of home-made flavored yogurt, made in a warm spot behind this coffee urn.

Now to turn yogurt-making into a science project. We’ll begin with a hypothesis. I generally tell people to not start with a hypothesis, (it biases your thinking), but here I will make an exception as I have a peculiarly non-biased hypothesis to suggest. Besides, most school kids are told they need one. My hypothesis is that there must be better ways to make yogurt and worse ways. A hypothesis should be avoided if it contains any unfounded assumptions, or if it points to a particular answer — especially an answer that no one would care about.

As with all science you’ll want to take numerical data of cause and effect. I’d suggest that temperature data is worth taking. The yogurt-making bacteria is called lactose thermophillis, and this suggests that warm temperatures will be good (lact = milk in Latin, thermophilic = loving heat). Also making things interesting is the suspicion that if you make things too warm, you’ll cook your organisms and you won’t get any yogurt. I’ve had this happen, both with over-heat and under-heat. My first attempt was to grow yogurt in the refrigerator, but I got no results. I then tried the kitchen counter and got yogurt, and then I heated things a bit more by growing next to a coffee urn, and got better yogurt; yet more heat and nothing.

For a science project, you might want to make a few batches of yogurt, at least 5, and these should be made at 2-3 different temperatures. If temperature is a cause for the yogurt to come out better or worse, you’ll need to be able to measure how much “better”? You may choose to study taste, and that’s important, but it’s hard to quantify, so that should not be the whole experiment. I would begin by testing thickness, or the time to a get some fixed degree of thickness; I’d measure thickness by seeing if a small weight sinks. A penny is a cheap, small weight, and I know it sinks in milk, but not in yogurt. You’ll want to wash your penny first, or no one will eat the yogurt. I used hot water from the urn to clean and sterilize my pennies.

Another thing that is worth testing is the effect of using different milks: whole milk, 2%, 1% or skim; goat milk, or almond milk. You can also try adding stuff to it, or starting with different starter cultures, or different amounts. Keep numerical records of these choices, then keep track of how they effect how long it takes for the gel to form, and how the stuff looks or tastes to you. Before you know it, you’ll have some very good product at half the price of the stuff in the store. If you really want to move forward fast, you might apply semi-random statistics to your experimental choices. Good luck.

Robert Buxbaum, March 2, 2018. My latest observation: what happens if you leave the yogurt to mold too long? It doesn’t get moldy, perhaps the lactic acid formed kills germs (?), but the yogurt separated into curds and whey. I poured off the whey, the unappealing, bitter yellow liquid. The thick white remainder is called “Greek” yogurt. I’m not convinced this tastes better, or is healthier, BTW.

Penicillin, cheese allergy, and stomach cancer

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penecillin molecule

The penicillin molecule is a product of the penicillin mold

Many people believe they are allergic to penicillin — it’s the most common perceived drug allergy — but several studies have shown that most folks who think they are allergic are not. Perhaps they once were, but when people who thought they were allergic were tested, virtually none showed allergic reaction. In a test of 146, presumably allergic patients at McMaster University, only two had their penicillin allergy confirmed; 98.6% of the patients tested negative. A similar study at the Mayo Clinic tested 384 pre-surgical patients with a history of penicillin allergy; 94% tested negative. They were given clearance to receive penicillin antibiotics before, during, and after surgery. Read a summary here.

08

Orange showing three different strains of the penicillin mold; some of these are toxic.

This is very good news. Penicillin is a low-cost, low side-effect antibiotic, effective against many diseases including salmonella, botulism, gonorrhea, and scarlet fever. The penicillin molecule is a common product of nature, produced by a variety of molds, e.g. on the orange at right, and in cheese. It is thus something people have been exposed to, whether they realize it or not.

Penicillin allergy is a deadly danger for the few who really are allergic, and it’s worthwhile to find out if that means you. The good news: that penicillin is found in common cheeses suggests, to me, a simple test for penicillin allergy. Anyone who suspects penicillin allergy and does not have a general dairy allergy can try eating appropriate cheese: brie, blue, camembert, or Stilton. That is any of the cheeses made with penicillin molds. If you don’t break out in a rash or suffer stomach cramps, you’re very likely not allergic to penicillin.

There is some difference between cheeses, so if you have problems with Roquefort, but not brie or camembert, there’s still a good chance you’re not allergic to penicillin. Brie and camembert have a white fuzzy mold coat of Penicillium camemberti. This mold exudes penicillin — not in enough quantity to cure gonorrhea, but enough to give taste and avoid spoilage, and enough to test for allergy. Danish blue and Roquefort, shown below, have a different look and a sharper flavor . They’re made with blue-green, Penicillium roqueforti. This mold produces penicillin, but also a small amount of neurotoxin, roquefortine C. It’s not enough to harm most people, but it could cause an allergic reaction to folks who are not allergic to penicillin. Don’t eat a moldy orange, by the way; some forms of the mold produce a lot of neurotoxin.

For people who are not allergic, a thought I had is that one could, perhaps treat heartburn or ulcers with cheese; perhaps even cancer? H-Pylori, the bacteria associated with heartburn, is effectively treated by amoxicillin, a penicillin variant. If a penicillin variant kills the bacteria, it seems plausible that penicillin cheese might too. And since amoxicillin, is found to reduce the risk of gastric cancer, it’s reasonable to expect that penicillin or penicillin cheese might be cancer-protective. To my knowledge, this has never been studied, but it seems worth considering. The other, standard treatment for heartburn, pantoprazole / Protonix, is known to cause osteoporosis, and increase the risk of cancer, and it doesn’t taste as good as cheese.

A culture of Penicillium roqueforti. Most people are not allergic to it.

The blue in blue cheese is Penicillium roqueforti. Most people are not allergic.

Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming, who noticed that a single spore of the mold killed the bacteria near it on a Petrie dish. He tried to produce significant quantities of the drug from the mold with limited success, but was able to halt disease in patients, and was able to interest others who had more skill in large-scale fungus growing. Kids looking for a good science fair project, might consider penicillin growing, penicillin allergy, treatment of stomach ailments using cheese, or anything else related to the drug. Three Swedish journals declared that penicillin was the most important discovery of the last 1000 years. It would be cool if the dilute form, the one available in your supermarket, could be shown to treat heartburn and/or cancer. Another drug you could study is Lysozyme, a chemical found in tears, in saliva, and in human milk (but not in cow milk). Alexander Fleming found that tears killed bacteria, as did penicillin. Lysozyme, the active ingredient, is currently used to treat animals, but not humans.

Robert Buxbaum, November 9, 2017. Since starting work on this essay I’ve been eating blue cheese. It tastes good and seems to cure heartburn. As a personal note: my first science fair project (4th grade) involved growing molds on moistened bread. For an incubator, I used the underside of our home radiator. The location kept my mom from finding the experiment and throwing it out.

Fat people live longer, show less dementia

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Life expectancy is hardly affected by weight in the normal - overweight- obese range. BMI 30-34.9 = obese.

Life expectancy is hardly affected by weight in the normal – overweight – obese range. BMI 30-34.9 = obese.

Lets imagine you are a 5’10” man and you weigh 140 lbs. In that case, you have a BMI of 20, and you probably think you’re pretty healthy, or perhaps you think you’re a bit overweight. Our institutes of health will say that you are an “average-wight” or “normal-weight” American, and then claim that the average-weight American is overweight. What they don’t tell you, is that low weight, and so-called average weight people in the US live shorter lives. Other things being equal, the morbidity (chance of death) for a thin American, BMI 18.5 is nearly triple that of someone who’s obese, BMI 32. The morbidity of the normal-weight American is better, but is still nearly double that of the obese fellow whose BMI is 32.

Our NIH has created a crisis of overweight Americans, that is not based on health. They work hard to solve this obesity crisis by telling people to jog to work, and by creating ever-more complicated food pyramids. Those who listen live shorter lives. A prime example is Jim Fixx, author of several running books including “The complete Book of Running.” He was 52 when he died of a heart attack while running. Similar to this is the diet-expert, Adelle Davis, author of “Let’s eat right to keep fit”. She died at 70 of cancer — somewhat younger than the average American woman. She attributed her cancer to having eaten junk food as a youth. I would attribute it to being thin. Not only do thin people live shorter lives, but their chances of recovering from cancer, or living with it, seem to improve if you start with some fat.

The same patter exists where age-related dementia is concerned. If you divide the population into quartiles of weight, the heaviest has the least likelihood of dementia, the second heaviest has the second-least, the third has the third-least, and the lightest Americans have the highest likelihood of dementia. Here are two studies to that effect, “Association between late-life body mass index and dementia”, The Kame Project, Neurology. 2009 May 19; 72(20): 1741–1746. And “BMI and risk of dementia in two million people over two decades: a retrospective cohort study” The Lancet, Volume 3, No. 6, p431–436, June 2015.

Morbidity and weight, uncorrected data, and corrected by removing the demented.

Morbidity and weight, uncorrected data, and corrected by removing the demented. The likelihood of dementia decreases with weight.

Now you may think that there is a confounding, cause and effect here: that crazy old people don’t live as long. You’d be right there, crazy people don’t live as long. Still, if you correct the BMI-mortality data to remove those with dementia, you still find that in terms of life-span, for men and women, it pays to be overweight or obese but not morbidly so. The study concludes as follows: “Weight loss was related to a higher mortality risk (HR = 1.5; 95% CI: 1.2,1.9) but this association was attenuated when persons with short follow-up or persons with dementia were excluded.” As advice to those who are planning a weight loss program, you might go crazy and reduce your life-span a lot, but if you don’t go crazy, you’re only reducing your life-span a little.

In terms of health food, I’ve noticed that many non-health foods, like alcohol and chocolate are associated with longevity and mental health. And while low-impact exercise helps increase life-span, that exercise is only minimally associated with weight loss. Mostly weight loss involves changing the amount you eat and changing your clothes choices to maximize radiant heat loss.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum, October 26, 2017. A joke: Last week I was mugged by a vegan. You may ask how I know it was a vegan. He told be before running off with my wallet.

June 14 1789, First Bourbon whiskey

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June 4. On this day, in 1789, the US national version whiskey, Bourbon, was first distilled by Rev Elijah Craig of Kentucky. He named his product “Bourbon whiskey” as a reference to Bourbon County, where he lived. Rev. Craig’s innovation was to use maize (corn) instead of rye or malted barley. Up until this innovation, most US whiskey was made from rye, with some malted barley added as an enzymatic modifier. George Washington, the first US president, made whiskey from rye using very little malt, becoming the largest distiller in the US in the late 1700s.

Corn is cheaper than rye, and Bourbon whiskey has a milder flavor too. Perhaps because of this, US consumption of Bourbon whiskey has come to far surpass that of rye whiskey. Here, in a famous speech, Senator Mitch McConnell tells congress that Bourbon is the spirit of Kentucky, and the spirit of the US. Here, his speech is set to music with other news of the day, and a comment by President Obama saying he’d enjoy having a drink with Senator McConnell. What would that drink be? Straight Bourbon? or Bourbon and water, or perhaps a mint julep, the classic Kentucky concoction, made with Bourbon, sugar, and spearmint.

Related to this topic, I should mention that President Truman liked Bourbon straight, that the favorite drink of Lyndon B. Johnson, was “Bourbon and branch” (branch is water). And that Theodore Roosevelt served mint juleps at The White house (if you played tennis with him) using his own, White-house grown mint, but made with rye, not Bourbon.

GWKuhn outflow point. During a storm this outflow is filled to the roof.

GWKuhn outflow point. During a storm this outflow is filled to the roof.

June 14th is also flag day, though only celebrated as a holiday in Pennsylvania. It’s also the day of the mutiny on the HMS Bounty, and the day of the Marijuana act, 1937. Hawaii joined the union this day, and Paris fell in WWII. This is also the day I first got a tour of the George W. Kuhn sewage retention facility, the main sewage plant in our county. A few days before, I walked into the outflow pipe of the plant, see picture. It was some 60 feet wide by 22 feet tall. I was looking for convenient connection points i could use to separate the storm from the sanitary sewage flow through the facility, assuming I became water commissioner.

Robert Buxbaum, June 14, 2016. Some months ago, I suggested that Michigan might change its state bird to the wild turkey. It’s a common MI bird, and also a type of Bourbon.

State bird suggestion: the turkey

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state bird stamps; robin cardinal

three US states use the (american) robin as their state bird, and 7 more use the (northern) cardinal. None use the turkey

As things now stand, three states of the union, including Michigan have the robin as their state bird. Another seven have the cardinal. Not that they have different species of robin or cardinal, they use the same species: the American robin, and the Northern cardinal respectively.

A thought I’ve had is that Michigan should change to have a unique bird symbol, and I propose the turkey, in particular the eastern wild turkey shown below. The robin is found in every state of the union except for Hawaii, and is found in several countries, it’s associated with Robin Hood, and with Batman’s side-kick. By contrast, the eastern wild turkey could be a unique state symbol. It’s basically found in no other country besides the US, and found in only a few US states including Michigan.

Eastern Wild Turkey. A majestic bird, and brave Maximum height: 4 foot.

Eastern Wild Turkey. A majestic bird, and brave. Maximum height: 4 foot.

The eastern wild turkey is a far more impressive bird than the cardinal or robin. Full grown, it stands 4 foot tall. Benjamin Franklin claimed to have preferred the turkey (likely the eastern wild turkey) to the eagle as the national bird of the US. In this wonderful letter to his daughter, Sarah, he says that it is a noble bird, useful and the source of sustenance. He also claims it is unafraid to attack a British regimen, claims that also appears in this song, “the egg” in the play/movie 1776. The turkey most definitely provided food for the Indians, for the early European settlers, and still provides for Michigan hunters to this day. Further, turkey feathers are the preferred choice for quill pens. They are used for scribes writing holy works, like copies of the Torah, and it is likely they were used for the declaration of Independence. The same history and associations can not be claimed for the robins or the cardinal. Those birds are basically attractive, and nothing else.

Not that attractive is bad, nor is it bd to have a state bird associated with Batman’s side-kick, or with a Saint Louis baseball team, but I don’t think either is particularly appropriate for Michigan. Not that there are no disadvantages to the name turkey: (1) it might suggest a slow individual or project, and (2) Wild Turkey is the name of a Tennessee bourbon whiskey. Neither of these are quite a bad as being a sidekick to the bat, or to the batman, and I think both are addressed by specifying that the state bird is the eastern wild turkey, and not just some random variety. What say ye, citizens of Michigan? Let’s do it before someone else takes the turkey.

Robert Buxbaum, December 16, 2015.

Chinese jokes

At college, my chinese room-mate wanted to make a surprise birthday dinner for his girlfriend.

….. But someone let the cat out of the bag.

 

Then there was the fellow who broke into the Fortune Cookie Factory with a hammer and broke virtually all the fortune cookies — as many as he could find — in an act of wonton destruction.

 

And finally,

 

I don’t believe racial jokes are evil, but suppose it all comes down on your idea of good humor. Comedy always involves odd people, or people doing things differently. The difference doesn’t have to be insulting, just different, and all good jokes provide some new insight.

Robert E. Buxbaum, October 29, 2015. Every now and again I post jokes– and then I analyze them to death (it’s funny because ….). Recent ones include an Italian Funeral joke, a fetish lawyer joke, and things on, engineers, dentists, pirates, surrealism. Just click the “jokes” tab at right for the whole, unsightly assortment.

you are what you eat?

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The simplest understanding of this phrase is that you should eat good, healthy foods to be healthy, and that this will make you healthy in body and mind.

The author of the study published this book against GM foods simultaneously with release of his paper.

The author of this book against unhealthy foods faked his analysis to support the book.

Clearly there is some truth to this. Crazy people look crazy and often eat crazy. Even ‘normal’ people, if they eat too much are likely to become fat, lazy, and sick. There is a socio- economic effect (fat people earn less), and a physiological evidence that gut bacteria affects anxiety and depression (at least in rats). My sense here is at the diet extremes though. There is little, or no evidence to suggest you can make yourself more intelligent (or kind or good) by eating more of the right stuff, or just the right foods in just the right amounts. A better diet can make you look better, but there is a core lie at work when you extend this to imply that the real you is your body, or so tied to your body that a healthy mind can not be found in a sickly body. But most evidence is that the mind is the real you, and (following Socrates) that beautiful minds are found in sickly bodies. I’ve seen few (basically, no) healthy poets, writers, or great artists. Neither are there scientists of note (that I can recall) who lived without smoking, drinking, and any bad habits. Many creative people did drugs. George Orwell smoked cigarette, and died of TB, but wrote well to the end. There is no evidence that bad writing or thinking can be improved by health foods. Stupid is as stupid does, and many healthy people are clearly dolts.

Not that it’s always clear what constitutes good health, or what constitutes good food for health, or what constitutes a good mind. Skinny people may be admired and may earn more, but it is not clear they are healthy. Yule Gibbons, the natural food guru died young of stomach cancer. Adele Davis, another the author of “eat right to be healthy,” died of brain cancer. And Jim Fix, “the running doctor” died young of a heat attack while running. Their health foods may have killed them, and that unhealthy foods, like chocolate and coffee can be good for you. It’s likely a question of balance. While a person will feel better who dresses well, the extreme is probably no good. Very often, a person is drawn after his self-image to be the person he pretends. Show me a man who eats only vegetarian, and I’ll show you someone who sees himself as spiritual, or wants to be seen as spiritual. And that man is likely to be drawn to acting spiritual. Among the vegetarians you find Einstein, George B. Shaw, and Gandhi, people who may have been spiritual from the start, but may have been kept to spirituality from their diets. You also find Hitler: spirituality can take all sorts of forms.

Ward Sullivan in the New Yorker

Ward Sullivan in the New Yorker. People eat, drink, and dress like who they are. And people become like those they eat drink and dress like.

Choice of diet also helps select the people you run into. If you eat vegetarian, you’re likely to associate with other vegetarians, and you will likely behave like them. If you eat Chinese, Greek, or Mexican food, you’re likely to associate with these communities and behave like them. Similarly, an orthodox Jew or Moslem is tied to his community with every dinner and every purchase from the kosher or halal store.

And now we come to the bizarre science of bio-systems. Each person is a complex bio-system, with more non-human DNA than human, and more non-human cells than human. A person has a vast army of bugs on him, and a similarly vast pool of bugs within him. Recent research suggests that what we eat affects this bio-system, and through it our mental state. For whatever the mechanism, show me someone who drinks only 30 year Scotch or 40-year-old French wine, and I’ll show you a food snob. By contrast, show me someone who eats good, cheap food, and drinks good, cheap wine or Scotch (Lauder’s or Dewar’s), and I’ll show you a decent person very much like myself, a clever man who either is a man of the people or who wants to be known as one.”Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es.” [Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are].

Robert E. Buxbaum, February, 2015. My 16-year-old daughter asked me to write on this topic. Perhaps she didn’t know what it meant, or how true I thought it was, or perhaps she liked my challenges of being 16.

Can you spot the man-made climate change?

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As best I can tell, the only constant in climate is change, As an example, the record of northern temperatures for the last 10,000 years, below, shows nothing but major ups and downs following the end of the last ice age 9500 years ago. The only pattern, if you call it a pattern, is fractal chaos. Anti-change politicos like to concentrate on the near-recent 110 years from 1890 to 2000. This is the small up line at the right, but they ignore the previous 10000 or more, ignore the fact that the last 17 years show no change, and ignore the variation within the 100 years (they call it weather). I find I can not spot the part of the change that’s man-made.

10,000 years of climate change based on greenland ice cores. Ole Humlum – Professor, University of Oslo Department of Geosciences.

10,000 years of northern climate temperatures based on Greenland ice cores. Dr. Ole Humlum, Dept. of Geosciences, University of Oslo. Can you spot the part of the climate change that’s man-made?

Jon Stewart makes the case for man-made climate change.

Steven Colbert makes his case for belief: If you don’t believe it you’re stupid.

Steven Colbert makes the claim that man-made climate change is so absolutely apparent that all the experts agree, and that anyone who doubts is crazy, stupid, or politically motivated (he, of course is not). Freeman Dyson, one of the doubters, is normally not considered crazy or stupid. The approach reminds me of “the emperor’s new clothes.” Only the good, smart people see it. The same people used to call it “Global Warming” based on a model prediction of man-made warming. The name was changed to “climate change” since the planet isn’t warming. The model predicted strong warming in the upper atmosphere, but that isn’t happening either; ski areas are about as cold as ever (we’ve got good data from ski areas).

I note that the climate on Jupiter has changed too in the last 100 years. A visible sign of this is that the great red spot has nearly disappeared. But it’s hard to claim that’s man-made. There’s a joke here, somewhere.

Jupiter's red spot has shrunk significantly. Here it is now. NASA

Jupiter’s red spot has shrunk significantly. Here it is now. NASA

As a side issue, it seems to me that some global warming could be a good thing. The periods that were warm had peace and relative plenty, while periods of cold, like the little ice age, 500 years ago were times of mass starvation and plague. Similarly, things were a lot better during the medieval warm period (1000 AD) than during the dark ages 500-900 AD. The Roman warm period (100 BC-50 AD) was again warm and (relatively) civilized. Perhaps we owe some of the good food production of today to the warming shown on the chart above. Civilization is good. Robert E. Buxbaum January 14, 2015. (Corrected January 19; I’d originally labeled Steven Colbert as Jon Stewart)