life after carbon reduction

I have commented before on the difficulty of moving towards more sustainable energy use. The first barriers to overcome are understanding the facts, informing public opinion and overcoming misinformation. But we definitely need solutions to problems like car dependence and alternatives to coal-fired power stations.

So it is pleasing to read in the press two alternatives that seem to have promise.

• A recent report to "clean-power developer", Carnegie Corporation, estimates that wave energy created around Australia's long coastline is four times the current generation capacity of the nation. An estimated 10% of this, or one third of the current power usage, could be harvested. This energy source, coupled with solar, wind and geothermal, makes it look likely that Australia could meet all its power needs in the future with renewable and carbon-neutral energy.
• Not long ago, the National Roads and Motorists Association (NRMA), released a report from its "Jamison Group", which has been researching the development of alternative motor vehicle fuels, in order to reduce oil dependence. The plan aims at reducing oil-based fuel usage by 50% in 40 years, via compulsory reduction in fuel consumption, changes to incentives and subsidies and development of alternative fuels such as biofuels. But ultimately, the requirement will be further development of electric cars (which hasn't always been enthusiastically supported by existing motor interests) and of the renewable energy resources to power them.

One wonders whether we can depend on 40 years of petrol usage, but electric cars are already viable, and even very competitive.

The seriously interesting Tesla electric roadster (photo from the Tesla website)

It now requires people and governments to support these measures, even though they will cost us in the short term - if any generation can afford to, and should, take a cut in wealth to buy a better future, it is us.

another "ism" bites the dust?

I grew up in the time of the cold war. Communism was the big enemy, and ranged against it were the forces of freedom, principally the US. Then down came the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, and most of the Communist countries embraced democracy and Capitalism. The world was suddenly a better, freer and safer place.

Many western governments shifted a little to the right - George W Bush in the US, John Howard in Australia. Leftist governments and parties, such as Labor in the UK, seemed to shift to the safe middle ground - instead of reform there was fiscal responsibility.

Market forces were even considered the most effective means to solve many environmental issues. Capitalism was undisputed king, and the market was considered to be effectively self-regulating.

But the unfolding financial mess in the US, and gradually enveloping the world, has begun to change that perception. Suddenly people are saying that the market may self-regulate in the long term, but in the short term many people will get burned, and some corporate leaders will make a killing even as they retire in disgrace.

Suddenly even some world leaders are saying that the unbridled capitalism of the US has been the culprit, and more regulation and transparency is required in the future. They say the world will not be the same again, and the US will lose its pre-eminent position in the world economy.

Perhaps, merely two decades after the demise of Communism, we are witnessing the effective demise of unbridled free market Capitalism, in favour of some more moderate and more moderated "ism"?

those old time songs

I visited a retirement village recently, and joined many of the residents in an old fashioned sing-a-long. Not my choice of a past-time, but it was interesting to compare the songs, dating I guess from the 1930s and 1940s, with today's songs. Many of the songs reflected the uncertainties of the war years and the great depression, they were almost all fairly simple in the thoughts and emotions expressed, and they tended to be very positive, looking on the brighter side of life, promising to be faithful to a loved one far away, looking forward to better times. I wondered whether, when times were materially tough, people looked for comfort in their entertainment, but now times are materially good, we have more time for angst.

close to understanding jesus?

Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand She said she'd like to meet a boy who looks like Elvis She walks along the edge of where the ocean meets the land Just like she's walking on a wire in a circus She parks her car outside of my house Takes her clothes off Says she's close to understanding Jesus. - Counting Crows: "Round Here"

It's a great song, and a great aim - understanding Jesus. And if you understand the following two Bible verses, you're probably close to understanding Jesus, even if you don't believe in him:

"After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" Mark 1:14-15.

The time has come

The Jewish nation was small, at the crossroads of the world, sandwiched between Egypt to the southwest and Assyria and Babylon to the northeast. Only for a short period in its long history had it been really free - 900 years earlier under kings David & Solomon. But the prophets promised a time would come when God would restore the kingdom and forever rescue his people from oppression, via his anointed king, the Messiah. And so faithful Jews waited, and waited, and waited for the promised Messiah to free them, from Assyria, from Babylon, from Greece and from Rome. And they were still waiting.

Then comes Jesus's dramatic, momentous announcement that brought hope to tired hearts - "it's time!"

The kingdom of God is near

The promise was that God would rule as king, via his Messiah. The coming of the kingdom threatened to turn the world upside down. The Roman Empire proclaimed Caesar as Lord, so the coming of Jesus, the true Lord, was a challenge to the might of Rome. It was also a challenge to the Jewish religious leaders, who had developed a complex web of laws to define what it meant to be holy, and Jesus overturned all that. But it came as blessed relief for normal people who groaned under occupation, heavy taxation and the weight of the religious laws, for Jesus as Lord offered a lighter burden and hope for the future.

But Jesus had in mind a radical departure from popular expectations of a militant Messiah, and many were offended. Many people still don't get it. In the end, power and force are not God's way for us, and Jesus did not announce a kingdom that would by force drive out the Romans. Rather he brought a kingdom where the Messiah would suffer with, and for, his people, to give them new freedom, within and despite their circumstances. And this kingdom would last forever, on into the age to come.

Once, Jesus was teaching in a synagogue and he read a passage from the prophet Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Everyone knew this passge referred to the promised Messiah, so "all eyes were on him". You could have heard a pin drop. And Jesus said "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:18-21)

And it wasn't just talk. When his cousin John sent messengers questioning his credentials, Jesus replied: "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me." (Luke 7:22-23) He was doing what Isaiah had promised.

And, to emphasise his way was one of service, not dominance, and to show how we could enter into this new kingdom, Jesus also said: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45)

So Jesus, the servant king, confounded many expectations, offered great hope and threatened entrenched interests. (It is still the same.) And as we examine this short passage and unpack its meaning, we see that even Jesus's death (the servant king dies as a ransom for many) and resurrection (but the king and his kingdom will never end) are in view.

Repent and believe the good news!

Repent literally means to change one's mind - as the Apple Computer ads used to say: "Think Different!" If God is beginning to rule in a new way, each of us has to make some hard choices. Are we willing to change our minds and accept God's offer of a place among his people, or do we want to keep on going it alone? This announcement is good news to those who are willing to think again, because it brings a totally new life, but we have to believe the news and embrace it by living it out.

Jesus went on to welcome many unlikely (in his contemporaries' eyes) people into this new community of the kingdom - he forgave and restored women who had fallen foul of one-sided moral laws in a male dominated society, he included the despised tax collectors in his kingdom leading to major changes to their lives, he healed lepers and restored them to society, he even welcomed his religious foes and the occupying Romans.

And all the time he challenged his listeners to have discerning eyes, to understand what was happening, and to respond by joining him in making things new, starting with themselves. Theologian AM Hunter: "all through that ministry there rings a note of terrible urgency, as though a crisis uniquely fraught with blessing or with judgment for 'this generation' in Israel were upon them .... [we] get the impression of 'tremendous power', as of 'a great wind sweeping through Palestine' ... [challenging people] to decide on whose side of the battle they will be". And so the movement he began against all odds, grew until it had spread over all the world. True, many of his followers, and some self-serving people who came along for the ride, often misunderstood his commitment to freedom and service and perpetrated some ghastly, anti-kingdom atrocities, but the bulk of his followers have changed the world in many positive ways, and are still doing so.

He still challenges people, the irreligious and the religious, to give up on second rate goals and join him. Anyone close to understanding Jesus can join in.

Further reference:

• Books: John Dickson: A Spectators Guide to Jesus.
  AM Hunter: The Work and Words of Jesus
• On the web: are the stories about jesus true?.
  Or, in more detail: Jesus & History, Who was Jesus?

a girl's best friend?

The teen years are a time of uncertainty, a time when most people need every bit of encouragement they can get. So it is sad to read author Nikki Goldstein reporting in the Sydney Morning Herald on "the broad and insidious rise of "mean girl culture"".

Goldstein has a forum on her website where girls across Australia discuss and receive advice, and "the most pressing topic, every week, has been how to handle the bullying, bitchiness and isolation girls experience at school."

She refers to teen TV shows that seem to promote nastiness and put-downs among teen girls, and says: "Our culture has spawned a new version of womanhood that promotes a kind of sharp-tongued nastiness ...."

The SMH article offers few clues as to the reasons for this behaviour trend, but an earlier book about girls in the US, Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons, suggests that it is “a mean and merciless competition for relationships”, as girls seek popularity and membership in a popular clique, even if they have to destroy previous friendships to do it.

It seems to be one more evidence of a society that too often cares more for popularity and image than for friendship and lasting values.

free will?

Most of us don't even think about it. We just go about our lives, making choices and accepting responsibility for them (and sometimes trying to avoid responsibility for them!). But do we really have free will, or are we just programmed?

what is free will?

Free will means the ability to choose between two or more alternatives, without being predetermined by our genes, our brain processes and cause and effect to make a particular choice - the ability to initiate an action, or be a cause of an action, that wouldn't have occurred otherwise, and which we were not compelled to cause.

The Oxford Handbook of Free Will says: "we believe we have free will when (a) it is "up to us" what we choose from an array of alternative possibilities, and (b) the origin or source of our choices and actions is in us and not in anyone or anything else over which we have no control."

Some have defined free will in "lesser" terms, as the absence of external compulsion. However, if we have no inner free will, then our entire selves are the result of external actions leading to our birth and genetics, over which we had no control. So this definition doesn't seem to be what most of us consider to be free will.

do we actually have free will?

No-one doubts we are in many things not free to choose (e.g. to fly unaided), nor that our genes determine much about us. The question is, do we have any choice?

We seem to have free will. We make choices, blame people for their choices, present arguments we expect to influence other people, and have legal systems that make people responsible for their actions as if they had true choice. But is all this an illusion?

Naturalists, who believe that the space-time universe is all there is, find it hard to avoid the conclusion that everything is determined by the laws of the universe and cause and effect. Our brains function on simple and deterministic laws of physics, and there is no "us" outside our brains to control our thoughts. For naturalists, our brain processes seem to be predetermined.

Biologist Francis Crick: "You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."

Professor William Provine, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University: "Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent."

"Compatibilists" believe that although our brains are determined, we still have free will, though I cannot see how that can be. "Incompatibilists" believe that because our brains are determined, we have no free will, which seems like a logical conclusion to me.

Some theists believe that God's sovereignty, especially in setting up the universe, means that we cannot have free will either, but most believe God gives us the dignity of free will, and thereby holds us responsible for our actions.

Most theists would also be dualists, that is, they believe God has made us as spiritual-physical beings, and our minds or selves have a dual nature, which allows us to escape from the determinism of naturalism.

what can we live with?

It is one thing to have a theoretical view. Most people seem to be natural dualists, believing we have genuine free will and moral responsibility. But this seems inconsistent for those who are naturalists and atheists. But although it may be inconsistent, it may be difficult to get away from.

One option for naturalists could be that we have evolved to think we have free will even though we don't, because it is advantageous to think so. For example, one study has shown that those who believe we lack free will are more likely to be dishonest (perhaps showing the link between free will and moral responsibility).

So if an atheist believes there can be no true free will, can they actually live as if this is true, or will their minds revolt at the thought?

And does our common perception indicate that there is more in the universe than some people say, perhaps even pointing to God?

start of the universe, end of the world?

In trying to understand matter and energy, scientists have discovered four basic forces or interactions (gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear interactions). The "Standard Model" of particle physics describes how dozens of fundamental particles (e.g. different types of quarks, leptons and bosons) that make up the more well-known atomic particles like protons and neutrons, and the three interactions other than gravity, "work" together.

Gravity is the odd force out, and only one of the fundamental particles, the Higgs boson, has not yet been observed. It is believed that the Higgs boson holds the key to gravity, and why it is a much weaker force than the others.

Creating the conditions where a Higgs boson (and a few other hypothetical particles and miniature black holes) can be created requires accelerating protons (which are one type of hadron) to speeds approaching that of light, and then smashing them against each other to create, in a small space and for a short time, enormous temperatures and forces such as existed at the very beginning of the universe when the particles were first forming out of energy.

And so the European Nuclear Research Centre (CERN), supported by thousands of scientists and 20 countries, has spent billions of dollars building the "Large Hadron Collider" (LHC) underground in Switzerland - an enormous, 17 mile long particle accelerator that will produce the required high velocities. It is due to open soon.

And now, at the last minute, some scientists are challenging the operation of the LHC in the European Court of Human Rights. They claim the safety of the LHC is in doubt, because it may be able to produce miniature black holes which could then begin eating the earth from the inside due to their intense gravitational pull.

CERN has produced a safety report which concludes that there is "little theoretical chance of the collider producing mini black holes that would be capable of posing a danger to the earth". Doubtless they are correct and their critics wrong, but with the earth itself at stake, one would have thought "little chance" was still a little too much.

But we all trust scientists, don't we?

from poverty to power

Anyone with an ounce of humanity cannot fail to be disturbed by the extent and depth of world poverty. The question is, what can ordinary people do about it? A number of approaches are possible ....

We can all donate to a disaster relief fund, sponsor a child or help buy a well for a needy village or literacy classes for an uneducated adult. And it all helps. We may not change the world, but we change someone's world. But most agree this is not addressing the root causes.

We can go one step further, and as well as giving aid, pay a fair wage for the products we get from third world countries. This is the logic behind organisations like Fair Trade, which enable us to buy products where those who produce it are paid a decent price for their labours.

We can agitate for change, by asking our governments to increase their foreign aid to meet the Millenium Development Goals, reduce third world debt and Make Poverty History. We can campaign for fairer trade rules. All this will make a big difference if it happens.

All of these approaches rely on those of us in the rich west being willing to make changes ourselves, or support changes by our governments. But now comes a book which challenges us to look even deeper into the issue.

From Poverty to Power by Oxfam's Duncan Green argues that the biggest barrier to eliminating poverty are non-democratic, and often corrupt governments, which don't allow the poor an opportunity to change their lives. The poor need effective governments working in the interests of all their citizens. I guess it's obvious really, but it needed to be researched and said.

A couple of interesting examples.

• On this video, we learn that 50 years ago, South Korea was poorer than Sudan; now the average citizen is 12 times better off. It asks why, and the inference is that in South Korea people were given a fair opportunity, while in Sudan their opportunity has been ruined by war, genocide and inequality.
• Botswana is a poor landlocked country that imports 80% of its food. It has one major money earner, diamonds. Over the 40 years since independence, its per capita GDP has increased a hundredfold. More importantly, a government "for the people" has ensured that the wealth is spent equitably. Many other examples of citizens actively involved in a democracy leading to reducing poverty are quoted by Duncan.

This leaves us with the obvious question: how (if at all) can we help?

I'm not sure, but it seems that we can try to support aid programs in countries which fulfill Duncan's criteria. And perhaps we need to urge our governments to strongly support nations which are moving in the right direction. For too long, the US and the west generally have supported regimes that support the west's perceived strategic goals, even if they are oppressive regimes, and opposed some benign governments if they do not align with the US.

undoing 200 years of environmental harm

The Murray-Darling Basin is a very important river catchment in Australia. It covers a seventh of the land area of our continent, produces 40% of the nation's agricultural profit, and 70% of our irrigated agriculture. Yet much of the basin is arid, and much of the agriculture relies in rains falling in the eastern ranges and flowing hundreds of kilometres before it is pumped from the river.

Basin map by MDBC.

But almost 200 years of settlement, agriculture and land clearing, and a century of irrigation, have left their mark. Notable changes to the natural ecosystems include:

• Many of the basin's rivers have had their flows reduced to a trickle at times, changing the riverine ecosystems. Wetlands at the downstream ends of most rivers (including the important Macquarie Marshes) do not receive nearly the required amount of water to sustain large bird populations. And flows to the Coorong, an enormous estuarine area where the Murray reaches the sea, have been so reduced that the ecology is becoming more saline and the whole character of this water body is in danger.
• Extensive areas of land have been cleared, including critical land along the river banks, changing runoff patterns and decimating habitat.
• Chemical use in agriculture has led to high nutrient levels with consequent algal growth and occasional fish kills from pesticides or low oxygen levels.
• As a result, many native fish species, including the iconic Murray cod, have disappeared from many locations, and alien invasive species (including the destructive European Carp) now predominate.

Recently a "Sustainable River Audit" was completed and the results published. There is a lot of work to do:

• River flows in about half the basin's 23 catchments have been sufficiently changed to have a serious impact on ecology. (This is perhaps not as bad as I might have thought.)
• The loss of native fish species and replacement with exotic species has occurred at damaging levels in every one of the catchments, with only 3 categorised as being in moderate condition, and the remaining 20 in poor condition or worse.
• The numbers of macroinvertebrates (basically bugs and grubs) is considered an important ecological measure, because they are a major food source for fish. Their condition more or less reflects that of the fish.
• In all, only one catchment (the Paroo, in the arid far west, and therefore not so heavily "developed") remains in good condition, two other catchments (also in more arid areas) are in moderate condition. The remainder are assessed as in poor or worse condition.

Other factors affect river health: vegetation, channel erosion, location within catchment, climate, etc, and the first two of these will also be measured in future surveys.

There has been much talk about returning water to the river by buying irrigation water from farmers and more efficient water use, but this information suggests that the causes are much more than just over-use of water. Australian governments, national and state, have a record of doing studies and making plans, but generally sitting on their hands. The farming lobby has a lot of influence. We'll see how much is done about this.

Check out the Audit at the Murray-Darling Basin Commission.

does belief in god harm us?

Recently I visited a web forum conducted by atheists. Its home page had a slogan: "Believe in God? We can fix that!", so I posted a question - "I believe in God. Why does that need fixing, and how do you propose to do it?"

Of course some interesting discussion ensured, some of which was based around the answers some of the atheist members gave to the first part of my question. They argued that my belief needed fixing because it was harmful to me and to the world. But they gave very little evidence for this claim, so I set myself to test the proposition: Belief in God leads to worse outcomes in the world than non-belief.

To demonstrate that the proposition is true would require four things to be established:

(1) Have theists done worse things in the world than non-theists?

For this we need an overall estimate of the evil things done by both sides, based on competent, objective research.

Killings is one measure of general evil (not the only one, but useful because there are good estimates available). The following 5 references seem to me to be competent and objective estimates of killings committed by various groups over the centuries:

Which has killed more people? Genocides (Wikipedia) 20th century death tolls World War II death count Historian Rodney Stark

It turns out that the number of killings by non-theists in the 20th century alone was estimated to be 75-100 million, much more than the estimated 30 million committed by christians in 20 centuries. These numbers are enough for anyone to be deeply ashamed of, but they definitely suggest the atheist proposition falls at the first hurdle.

(2) Are theism and non-theism significant causes of these atrocities?

This is a pretty difficult one to test, because how can we judge whether the religious belief of someone committing an atrocity is genuine, or whether it was atheism or communism that led to atrocities? But if we want to make an assessment, we have to be circumspect, and rely on good historians.

• Sociologist and historian Rodney Stark concludes that governments and not the church were clearly responsible for the millions who died in the European conquest of the Americas (where a large number of killings occurred), and that atheism was probably not the main factor in the millions of deaths under Chinese and Russian communism.
• Nevertheless, atheism was an integral part of Marx-Leninism as this book outlines. It talks of "Lenin's policy of militant atheism". Lenin sent a letter in 1922 where he said that the "protracted use of brutality" was necessary to achieve the promotion of atheism.
• The following references report on research indicating that religion was not a major factor in most recent suicide bombings (contrary to popular belief): The role of social context in terror attacks Is Suicide Terrorism Religiously Motivated? On the Edge

So the evidence is not totally consistent, but tends to oppose the proposition that it is the religious beliefs that cause the atrocities; rather it seems to be political beliefs.

(3) Is the record of theism and non-theism in the past a reliable indication of the likely behaviour today?

Even if we could establish that either theism or non-theism did evil things in the past, it is the present we are living in, and in which the proposition is being applied. Are things likely to be the same, or different?

This is even harder to gather evidence on. But perhaps where social and international conditions now are similar to when the atrocities were committed, then we may be able to demonstrate some connection between the past and the present. On this basis, Muslim suicide bombing is obviously current, as are thousands of executions a year in China by an explicitly anti-religious Government, far more than for any other country (see Amnesty International figures for this). Next closest in time and social conditions would be the communist killings of the 20th century, with the christian killings of the invasion of South America, etc, obviously from a world very different to today.

It seems that, overall, belief in God is likely to do less harm today than in the past.

(4) How do the beneficial effects of theism compare to the beneficial effects of non-theism?

So far we have only considered evil, but good must also be in the equation.

In history, christians have been at the forefront of much beneficial social reform such as hospitals, education, anti-slavery, etc. Rodney Stark concluded from his study of the rise of christianity in the first few centuries CE that one of the major factors was the christians' superior record in social welfare (there are independent letters of an unsympathetic Roman emperor to demonstrate this), especially in their care of women, children and orphans.

In the present day, many independent studies  show that believers have better mental and physical health and general wellbeing, lower rates of addiction and suicide, lower levels of stress and depression, and recover from surgery more quickly. They also are much more active in community service roles and much more likely to give time and money to charities (for Australia, see new generations and religious belief, for the US see this study). And in Australia, christian groups are by far the largest non-government providers of social services (especially aged care, but also crisis help, dealing with addictions, etc).

This research is summed up in this telling article, "Faith does breed charity" by atheist journalist Roy Hattersley, who concludes: "The correlation is so clear that it is impossible to doubt that faith and charity go hand in hand..... The only possible conclusion is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make them morally superior to atheists like me. The truth may make us [atheists] free. But it has not made us as admirable as the average captain in the Salvation Army."

So on this matter, the evidence again does not seem to favour the atheist proposition.

so what may we conclude?

Sadly, people have done many evil things to each other, but it appears that belief or disbelief in God are not the major cause of this. We probably can't say for sure that either belief or disbelief in God are likely to lead to bad outcomes, but the evidence tends to suggest that believers contribute more good to society and have done less harm than have non-believers in the past.

is disbelief in god irrational?

I don't believe that philosophy can prove God, certainly not to someone who wants to disbelieve, any more than it can disprove God's existence. But philosophers still address the question.

Alvin Plantinga is an eminent American philosopher who has long been a champion of an argument that (in summary) goes like this .....

Let us start by assuming there is no God and this natural world is all there is. Then our brains have evolved through natural selection alone. Natural selection works by certain behaviour increasing the probability of survival, which means more of the genes which lead to that behaviour are passed on to the next generation.

Thus, on the assumption we started with, the brain has evolved to choose behaviour that increases our chances of survival, but there is no reason to believe that it has also evolved ways of thinking about more abstract matters that are reliable. Thus our reasoning may be true in some circumstances and false in others, and we cannot trust it.

But it is our reasoning that has suggested the conclusion that no God exists, so the initial assumption is undermined. Plantinga concludes that it is thus irrational to assume a naturalistic belief in the first place.

Of course the argument is criticised by some other philosophers and dismissed by some scientists, but it seems to me to have force. Read a recent discussion of the argument by Plantinga, a discussion of some of the objections, and a discussion of some of the implications.

dark energy

The words sound ominous - dark energy. Scientists are slowly coming to understand this mysterious feature of the universe.

The matter we can see, composed of protons and neutrons ('baryonic matter'), makes up only about 10-20% of all matter in the universe. The remainder is so-called "dark matter", because it neither emits nor reflects light and so cannot be seen. No-one yet knows for sure what it is (they think it may be small unreactive particles), but scientists know it exists because its gravitational impact can be measured. So there is much more to the universe than we can see, and in fact there is much more than matter - "dark energy" makes up perhaps 70%.

But dark energy is even harder to detect. Quantum physics concerns the interactions of very small particles, which behave quite differently to the objects we can see, and quite strangely to our way of thinking. One aspect of quantum physics is that where there is a quantum field, particles can appear and disappear.

 Quantum fluctuations in apparently empty space cause particles to appear and disappear rapidly. (I use the words "apparently empty" to describe space because particle physicists, who study quantum effects, say that where there is a quantum field, it is far from empty.) This causes empty space to have energy (known as vacuum energy or "dark energy") and to exert a gravitational force. The effect of dark energy can also be measured by its gravitational impact.

Dark energy acts in the opposite way to gravity - it tends to push things apart rather than pull them together, and is responsible for the expansion of the universe. In fact the amount of dark energy is within a very small range that allowed the universe to avoid either blowing apart by expanding too fast, or collapsing in on itself. Dark energy consists of large amounts of both positive and negative energy, and the two cancel out to 119 decimal places, leaving a very small number in the 120th place, allowing the universe to expand relatively slowly. Cosmologist Leonard Susskind comments: "To make the first 119 decimal places of the vacuum energy zero is most certainly no accident." This is one basis of the so-called "fine-tuning" argument that only a designer God could have been responsible for this, although Susskind, in common with many scientists, prefers the multiverse hypothesis.

Stephan's Quintet group of galaxies (Photo: NASA)

Now, Astronomy magazine reports,  scientists have been able to measure the effects of dark energy in areas of space where there is either a high density of galaxies (superclusters) or a dearth of galaxies (supervoids). The dark energy stretches these areas, and this changes slightly the properties of microwave radiation passing through them. Those changes have been measured, and they demonstrate that dark energy exists, although it is still unclear exactly what it is.

Cosmology continues to be an interesting and exciting pursuit to follow.

global warming - the dirty war

Despite the fact that most experts have long considered global warming to be a fact, there are still global warming sceptics. Now some of the reasons for this are is starting to become clear.

An interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald has outlined how:

1. Exxon Mobil has admitted that it has funded climate change denial groups in an effort to reduce pressure on the company about the impacts of its products (see also this report).

2. A number of claims that throw doubt on global warming have been shown to be untrue, for example:

• Famous botanist, David Bellamy, said in 2005 that according to the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland, most glaciers in the world were growing. However checking revealed that the Service's data shows they are actually retreating.
• A website claimed the American Physical Society (the premier body of US physicists) no longer accepted the truth of human-induced global warming. However the Society's website says the evidence in favour of global warming is "incontrovertible".

If all that was reported was true, there seem to be parallels with the dishonest and partly successful attempt by tobacco companies to stifle the truth about the links between smoking and lung cancer.

Like the Who sang: "Won't be fooled again!"

stopping people starving because of our greed

The world fuel and food crises are bad news, but they're not insoluble. Here's a bunch of ideas on how we might do it, and what you and I can do.

The experts think the following are likely to be among the solutions:

1. Science and technology may find a way. Ideas include developing genetically modified or other higher yield crops, even growing "animal-free meat" from animal stem cells. Improved on-farm technology which optmises water application and improves other farming techniques may be possible.
2. Practical help for poor farmers, to assist them purchase better fertilisers, build water storages and improve techniques would not cost a lot and could improve yields significantly.
3. We should look carefully at funding for biofuels, and ensure that their growth is in addition to food production and not in place of it.
4. Improve how the world trade and economic systems work, by breaking trade barriers and curbing speculative investments which create uncertainty.
5. Increase food aid to poor countries, which can possibly come from excess food in some rich agricultural countries.
6. Reduce the amount of meat eaten and fuel used.

But is there anything you and I can do now? Well, yes, there is:

• We can eat less meat and conserve fuel by driving less, more carefully and in more efficient cars. There is, and will be, strong pressure from meat producers to increase the amount of meat we eat, but this should be resisted - we'll probably be healthier and others will be less hungry.
• We can donate to overseas aid organisations like Compassion, Freedom from Hunger, Global Giving, Oxfam, Project Concern, TEAR, World Vision, or one of the many organisations on OneWorld.net.
• Support Make Poverty History and Jubilee Debt Campaign, and FairTrade products which guarantee growers receive a fair wage for the products.
• We can be willing to allow our material standard of living to drop a little to support these initiatives.
• We can support, and lobby, our governments to work together worldwide to bring about the solutions.

Read more about worldwide solutions - LiveScience, USNews, Wikipedia on "Food vs Fuel" and Time.

the trend to the trivial

The theory (proposed by Maslow and believed by most psychologists) is that humans have a "hierarchy of needs". When we satisfy our basic material needs, we will then pursue "higher level" intellectual and spiritual ends.

But, says  clinical psychologist John Schumaker in a recent article, it doesn't appear to be working out that way in western society. Instead "Pulp culture is a feast of tinsel and veneer. Operating on the principle that triviality is more profitable than substance, and dedicating itself to unceasing material overkill, consumer culture has become a fine-tuned instrument for keeping people incomplete, shallow and dehumanised. ..... Today, the demand for triviality has never been higher and our tolerance for seriousness has never been lower."

He goes on to ask: "Can a highly trivialised culture, marooned between fact and fiction, dizzy with distraction and denial, elevate its values and priorities to respond effectively to the multiple planetary emergencies looming? Empty talk and token gestures aside, it doesn't appear to be happening."

He doesn't offer a lot of solutions or hope, but does suggest that the growing global problems may perhaps be our last and best chance to become more serious.

Many years ago, CS Lewis wrote: "If we are content to go back and become humble plain men obeying a tradition, well. If we are ready to climb and struggle on till we become sages ourselves, better still. But the man who will neither obey wisdom in others nor adventure for her/himself is fatal. A society where the simple many obey the few seers can live: a society where all were seers could live even more fully. But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. On or back we must go; to stay here is death."

people starve because of our greed

Photo: Morguefile

I don't really know any way to soften this. People are starving because of the greed of western countries. Consider these facts:

• Over the last few decades, the developed world, through agencies like the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, loaned money to poorer countries for development, but with strict conditions. This "aid" tended to lead to farmers changing from subsistence crops to cash crops. It was said to more efficient, but some say it led to the farmers being dependent, and at the mercy of, big multinational corporations, and less protected by their Governments.
• Sometimes the cash crops led to increased prosperity, but sometimes the vagaries of world markets led to profits being much less than envisaged. For instance, two decades ago, many farmers moved into high value coffee production only to see an oversupply and consequent drop in value.
• Cash farming is based on the capitalist aim of maximising profit, so now that the world's supply of petrol is struggling to meet demand, production of biofuel is reducing the production of food. This is pushing up the price of food, sometimes beyond the ability of the poor to pay. 73 million people depend on food handouts from the UN to survive.
• Ironically, capitalist farming and food distribution depend heavily on fuel for farm machinery and transport (cash farming tends to result in food being brought in from other areas). It has been estimated that it takes about 8 litres of petrol to produce a kilo of grain-fed meat - thus feeding a family of four in the US on meat requires about half the amount of petrol as that used by the family car.
• Further, it takes a large amount of grain to produce a small amount of grain-fed meat (I have seen figures from 8 to 16 times). And it requires about 200 litres of water to produce a megajoule of most fruit and vegetables, but 2,500 litres of water to produce a megajoule of beef (CSIRO). Modern western meat production is highly inefficient at a time of impending food and water shortage.
• A billion people in the world live in poverty while another billion are overweight. The richest 10% consume about 10 times the food that the poorest 10% consume. (SMH).
• In summary, the western world's greed for petrol, rich foods and a high standard of living is not just an unfair distribution of wealth, but is a direct cause of food shortages and high food prices which leave poor people hungry.
  

So what of the future?

The world's population growth is slowing, but so is the world's food production. The pressure on the world's food supply will not come so much from the increasing population, because the highest population growth is generally in the poorer, low consuming countries (SMH). Rather, the pressure will come from the western countries maintaining their high consumption lifestyles as resources get tighter, and from developing countries raising the standard of living and becoming as greedy as the west.

But there are things we can do. I'll look at them in another blog.

this made me laugh

This last week Sydney has been host to Catholic Youth Day. The Pope is in town and thousands of pilgrims have come from around the world to participate. The culmination will be a massive mass at Randwick Racecourse on Sunday, and many pilgrims plan to camp out over Saturday night to hold a vigil. But it is the middle of winter, and the nights are quite cold, and camping shops have reported pilgrims buying up camping gear for their sleepover.

And so the Sydney Morning Herald headline was (wait for it!):

'Tis the winter of their discount tent

reason and belief (2) - unbelievers

We've looked at how believers balance faith and reason. Are unbelievers more logical?

You'd expect they would be, because modern unbelief is generally based on science and evidence, developed via peer-reviewed papers published in reputable scientific journals. But the rise of more militant atheism in recent years seems to have changed this a little. Here are a few examples .....

the jesus myth

Unbelievers have, of course, long disbelieved that Jesus was the Son of God as Christians claim, or that he performed miracles or was resurrected. But in recent years, theories that Jesus never even existed, long rejected by historians, have been revived by some atheists. Many ingenious arguments are used, but the proponents are generally not recognised historians and the arguments are generally not made in reputable peer-reviewed journals.

So it remains true, as far as I can ascertain, that almost all peer-reviewd historians reject the idea that the stories of Jesus are a myth (see are all the stories about jesus true?), although they disagree somewhat on exactly how much of what we know about him can be historically verified. But most modern atheists, so adamant that the best science should be followed, for example, in understanding evolution, ignore the best historical analysis available. (For a long and depressing example of this, see this discussion about the Roman historian Tacitus.) Some even argue that the whole academic history establishment has somehow been "influenced" by the church to come to erroneous conclusions.

the history of christendom

The history of Christendom is littered with both good and bad. The crusades and the inquisition, religious intolerance and witch hunts, fighting over the papacy and support for warfare and genocide have all blighted the history of the church. Alongside this have been the establishment of education and hospitals, caring for women and children in the days of the Roman empire and support for the establishment of modern science, the anti-slavery movement and social welfare.

Any balanced account of Christendom must include assessment of these contrary impacts on people, and compare these to the similar impacts of other belief systems. However modern atheism often takes a one-sided view, ignoring the judgment of the best historians on the extent of both the good and the bad, and seeking at every turn to present everything in the worst possible light. Hitler's terrible record is blamed on Christianity contrary to historians and despite Hitler's own statements to the contrary. The obvious evils of the Inquisition are exaggerated and over-stated compared to what historians have determined. Unhistorical claims are made about the alleged conflict between science and religion in the past. (For another long and depressing discussion where a militant atheist argues an anti-church line from ignorance, against another atheist who knows his history, see here.)

do miracles happen?

Believers make many claims that miracles have occurred, and non-believers claim none of them are true. No-one would defend all miracle claims, but some appear to be supported by plausible evidence (e.g. when a Catholic Church medical commission investigated a large number of cases of apparent miraculous cures at Lourdes, there was sufficient evidence in only 63 cases for the commission to claim the miracles were verified).

When discussing evidence, some atheists argue that miracles are scientifically impossible, and therefore don't require investigation, a somewhat circular argument. When I presented evidence for this apparent miracle on a forum not long ago, most of the responses from atheists proposed hypotheses clearly contradicted by the evidence. When I invited them to join me in investigating further, no-one was willing. Thus many non-believers base their response more on their pre-conceived view than on evidence - which is not very different to many believers, just opposite in their conclusion.

conclusion

It would not be fair to suggest that all unbelievers think the same, any more than all believers do. There are many fair-minded non-believers who are willing to accept the evidence of history. But it seems that many of the "new atheists" are more dogmatic, somewhat in denial of their professed creed of evidence-based reason.

I would say, in my experience, that logic and illogic can be found on both sides of the belief fence, but that the illogic among non-believers seems to be increasing, and can be found in quite educated people, whereas among believers, there seems to be a trend in the other direction, among educated believers at least. But doubtless there are places where this assessment would be entirely wrong!

reason and belief (1) - believers

The relationship between faith on the one hand, and science and reason on the other, is not always easy. Here I'll look at how believers deal with the issues; in part 2 I'll examine how unbelievers go.

Religion is often seen as the enemy of science, with cases being quoted like Galileo's conclusions on astronomy being muzzled by the Catholic Church. But it also seems to be true that the Jewish, Christian and Muslim belief in a creator God and an orderly universe contributed greatly to the rise of the modern scientific method (see, for example, God's Philosophers and this discussion). Certainly it is true that, while scientific discoveries were made in many cultures, the scientific method flourished initially in Christian Europe, generally under Christian patronage.

evolutionary science

But Darwin changed all that, and Christians have historically questioned, and even opposed, the theory of evolution. The opposition has sometimes been illogical and nasty, at other times thoughtful and apparently reasonable - e.g. the more thoughtful side of Creationism, and the Intelligent Design movement. But it nevertheless seems to be based on wrong assumptions and poor science.

Much of the opposition to evolution comes from the view that if the Bible's book of Genesis is interpreted literally, it is hard to reconcile it with the findings of modern evolutionary science. But this view of Genesis is not certain. As early as the fourth century, St Augustine, recognised as one of the great thinkers in church history, warned against a literal interpretation of Genesis; CS Lewis, one of the most influential and respected Christians of the 20th century, and a very learned man on historical literature, also felt no problems in interpeting Genesis in a non-literal way.

Scientifically, it seems that the majority of Christian scientists working in related disciplines accept the broad truth of evolution - that the earth is old and that life developed from simple to complex - even if they may quibble over some details (e.g. the creation of life), and certainly believe it has been a process set up and overseen by God. For example, the majority of members of the American Scientific Affiliation (an organisation of Christian scientists) believe science points to an evolutionary process.

So it seems many Christians still see faith and science to be opposed, but there is a growing number who see faith and reason/science has being complementary to their belief. (For my conclusions, see evolution and design.)

global warming

There has been a strong scientific consensus on the reality of human-induced global warming for some time (see maybe, just maybe, we're starting to get this right and climate change continues to bite in australia). Nevertheless, many conservative people and business interests, especially in the USA, have argued the the evidence is still uncertain. Some undoubtedly fear a reduction in business profits, but for others, Christian suspicion of science, generated by evolution, seems to have spilled over into discussion of global warming.

Here it seems to be less a matter of faith vs science, and more a mistrust of science (this commentary from 2005 is typical), and a preference to believe respected Christian spokespeople, as this report shows. This indicates a poor view of science and reason by some Christians, although it seems that this unfortunate situation is changing.

reasons to believe

Some Christians mistrust human logic and believe "on faith", but most would argue there are good reasons to believe (see, for example, ibelieve). Certainly "proofs" of the existence of God, from science, human experience and history, have a long history and books about them remain popular (e.g. Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator and The Case for Christ). Whether one agrees with the case being made or not, the popularity of these and other books illustrates that reason, science and history remain important factors in the faith of many Christians.

conclusion

Christians (and other theistic believers) have an ambivalent attitude to science and reason. Some are very critical, some are very committed to logic and evidence, and an increasing number seem to be seeing with one eye of reason and one eye of faith. If one believes that science and reason are good methods to arrive at truth (albeit not necessarily the only methods, or even the best methods in some cases), then believers still have some way to go, but appear to be moving in the "right" direction.

Next: unbelievers, reason and belief.

climate change continues to bite in australia

The latest information continues to confirm the predictions of climate change models.

2005 was the hottest year on record across Australia, and the five year period 2003-2007 was also the hottest on record (Annual Australian Climate Statement 2007). The worst affected areas are in the southeast where both population and agriculture are greatest.

Graph by Aust Bureau of Meteorology

Much of eastern Australia remains in drought. Recent rainfalls have been slightly above average, but over the last 5 years rainfall has been low. But the biggest problem, as predicted by climate change models, is that the patterns of rain are changing.

• Some relatively unpopulated parts of northwestern Australia are receiving above average rain.
• However the southeast, including the Murray Darling River basin which produces 40% of Australia's agricultural production and 70% of its irrigated agriculture, has experienced its lowest rainfall on record overall (ABARE Outlook 2008).
  
• Streamflows in the Murray Darling remain very low, with the current drought the worst on record. 2006 had the lowest inflows on record, and while 2007/08 was "only" the sixth lowest, June 2008 was the lowest monthly flow on record (ABC News, Adelaide Now, MDBC).
• The river supplied the lowest volume of water ever to irrigated agriculture in the 2007/08 year (ABARE Outlook 2008).

It seems that climate change scepticism is increasing along with the temperatures, mostly based, as far as I can see, on isolated statistics, for example, that the hottest year on record was a decade ago in 1998, and it has been cooler since. The above facts seem to present difficulties to this scepticism, at least for us here in Australia. The worldwide data has been examined by Australia's premier scientific body, the CSIRO, which has concluded:

"1998 was the warmest year on record in the last 150 years. Although the eight years since then have not been warmer than 1998, they do include the globe’s second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh warmest years on record. The planet is not cooling."

Graph by CSIRO.

But in the end, we should base our conclusions on the full worldwide data set and the best expert opinion, which is summed up in the climate models and their predictions. I outlined this evidence in maybe, just maybe, we're starting to get this right.