Interview with Roger Penrose

Consciousness: we don't have all the pieces for a working model yet, says Roger Penrose, physicist, who thinks maybe when we do, it will incorporate quantum mechanics and perhaps a larger cosmology. from Discover

In your book The Emperor’s New Mind, you posited that consciousness emerges from quantum physical actions within the cells of the brain. Two decades later, do you stand by that?

In my view the conscious brain does not act according to classical physics. It doesn’t even act according to conventional quantum mechanics. It acts according to a theory we don’t yet have. This is being a bit big-headed, but I think it’s a little bit like William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of blood. He worked out that it had to circulate, but the veins and arteries just peter out, so how could the blood get through from one to the other? And he said, “Well, it must be tiny little tubes there, and we can’t see them, but they must be there.” Nobody believed it for some time. So I’m still hoping to find something like that—some structure that preserves coherence, because I believe it ought to be there.

McKibben: Planetary Health-carelessness

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We know better. We know the costs. We are in denial. Or nihilism. Or delusion...

"Just as the man with the high cholesterol needs to think at every turn about his diet, his exercise, his medicine, so we too have lost the right to casual obliviousness that goes with not knowing. If we choose to ignore the warnings, we're not some 14-year-old smoking because his friends think it looks cool, or even the pack-a-day lifer with other things on his mind. Now we're the lung cancer patient trying to sneak cigarettes in the ICU."

Link Roundup ~ 09-30-2009

Image by khteWisconsin via Flickr

Is 350 the New 450 When It Comes to Capping Carbon Emissions? - NYTimes.com

A “perplexing” Canadian study linking H1N1 to seasonal flu shots is throwing national influenza plans into disarray and testing public faith in the government agencies responsible for protecting the nation's health--Globe & Mail

ACID TEST, a film produced by NRDC, was made to raise awareness about the largely unknown problem of ocean acidification, which poses a fundamental challenge to life in the seas and the health of the entire planet. Like global warming, ocean acidification stems from the increase of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Philadelphia has announced a $1.6 billion plan to transform the city over the next 20 years by embracing its storm water - instead of hustling it down sewers and into rivers as fast as possible.
The proposal, which several experts called the nation's most ambitious, reimagines the city as an oasis of rain gardens, green roofs, thousands of additional trees, porous pavement, and more.

Climate change is “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.”

What's ugly, smells, kills dogs? Blue-green algae
WAUSAU, Wis. — Waterways across the upper Midwest are increasingly plagued with ugly, smelly and potentially deadly blue-green algae, bloomed by drought and fertilizer runoffs from farm fields, that's killed dozens of dogs and sickened many people.Peggy McAloon, 62, lives on Wisconsin's Tainter Lake and calls the algae blooms the "cockroach on the water."

Related articles by Zemanta

• Global Warming endangers the Oceans (timesunion.com)
• Scientists seek global limits on damaging human activities (arstechnica.com)

Green Living: Avoiding Asbestos

Guest post on an important environmental matter: mesothelioma...

Going green used to be considered expensive and a luxury for those who could afford the trend. Now it appears that we are learning that not only is adopting more environmentally conscious attitudes good for our economic situation, but also our….health? Yes, if we dig a bit deeper we can see that dirty industries and backwards policy is actually harming the health of the earth for our children and the health of her inhabitants today.

There are two levels of health consequences associated with dirty industry, both direct and indirect. The direct consequences are examples like increased asthma rates in areas with high smog indices. Chlorofluorocarbon release into the atmosphere has shown to decrease the filter of direct sunlight on the planet, resulting in more concentrated ultraviolet light reaching the surface of the earth. Perhaps it is no surprise then that in countries with depleted atmospheric gas, skin cancer rates are among the highest in the world.

The indirect health consequences are harder to see immediately, but closer examination reveals that these are, in fact, perhaps the most hazardous. Bi-products of dirty and backwards industries, such as coal and oil processing, include cancer causing substances like asbestos and benzene. A U.K. study conducted in 2002 indicated that coal and oil industry workers are at a much higher risk of developing mesothelioma and leukemia.

Can we really afford to continue on the path we were on before? Investment in clean industry means not a healthier planet for our children and grandchildren, but also a healthier place for us to live today.

--September 23, 2009 Written by James O’ Shea with the maacenter

Teach Your Children Well: Make a Reusable Sandwich Wrap

Moms of school kids: something to think about from Care2--school lunch environmental footprint...

Here is a back to school math problem: How many sandwich bags does a typical American public school class of 20 students throw out during their school years (Kindergarten–12th grade)? Let’s say the homemade lunch/snack consists of a sandwich, a few cookies, some pretzels or chips and a cut-up piece of fruit.

That’s 4 bags a day times 5 days per week (20 bags) for a school year of 40 weeks (800 bags per child a year). Now multiply that by the amount of years the child is in school (13 years), and you’ll get 10,400 bags used per school child. Go on and multiply that by a class of 20 students and each class would throw out 208,000 bags during their schooling. Let’s stop here before we storm the lunchrooms.

Even if you’ve glazed over the math problem, here are the facts: It has been estimated that the average American school kid also generates 67 pounds of discarded school lunch packaging waste per year. That is more than 18,000 pounds yearly for the average-sized elementary school.

National Parks victims of Nature Deficit Disorder

The Smoky Mountains suffer in “an ongoing and fundamental shift away from nature-based recreation.” That change is most striking among children.

This piece from the Child and Nature Network looks at some hopeful signs and things we as parents and grandparents can do now to help assure that THEIR children will have national parks and wilderness areas in which they can know the natural world like we have.

Kids don't play outdoors – splashing in creeks and chasing fireflies – as they once did, numerous studies and most parents will attest. Increasingly sedentary and overweight, they're more likely to be mesmerized by a Wii than a salamander.

“Nature-deficit disorder,” author Richard Louv called it in an influential 2005 book. Research has linked lack of unstructured time outdoors to childhood depression, anxiety and behavioral problems.

“If they don't have those experiences, then we're worried that it won't be a priority for future generations to keep natural areas and a clean, healthy environment,” said Lisa Tolley, who heads the N.C. Office of Environmental Education.

Our children will become taxpayers, voters and lawmakers. But will they be lovers of parks?

http://www.childrenandnature.org/news/detail/kids_key_to_future_of_great_smoky_mountains

America is Burning

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If global warming follows anticipated patterns--and especially if CO2 limits are not held at not greater than 350 ppm--we can expect 1000-yr wildfires to become regular events.

The wildfires consuming Southern California are extraordinary: Extraordinary because they have claimed so many homes. extraordinary because they started so quickly and have burned so intensely. Extraordinary because they are exhausting the formidable firefighting resources in a region used to wildfire.

But in the years to come, they may become ordinary.

Scientists have already tied increased frequency and intensity of wildfires to the changing climate, and scientists are confident that the conditions that will be brought on by global warming will only make conditions more ripe for wildfire.

There were four times as many major wildfires between 1986 and 2004 as there were from 1970 to 1986, and a six-fold increase in the area of forest burned in the Western United States.

Read more at the Daily Green.