Fresh Bilge

After several weeks of Plinian eruption, Chile’s Chaitén volcano showed major seismic changes today. Emergency authorities released a lengthy bulletin. The Volcanism Blog has done a superb job with timely translations from the Spanish. I have viewed the Chilean sources, but my Spanish is too rudimentary for reading them, and translation programs would probably have difficulty with the geological terms. Here is a key passage:

Over the past two days marked changes have been witnessed in the seismic activity [of the volcano]. A swarm of earthquakes, mainly of the HB [hybrid] type, has occurred, which is interpreted as related to a fracturing of the main conduit with subsequent ascent of magmatic fluids by the conduit and also through the dome. The later predominance of LP type earthquakes confirms the seismic instability of the system, the origin of which is related to the evident movement of magmatic fluids. In consequence there remains a certain possibility of future major explosions causing the destruction, in whole or in part, of the dome and the generation of pyroclastic flows through the collapse of the column. Nor can the possibility of new lateral explosions be disregarded.

Let’s recall the onset of the eruption. One significant earthquake on April 30 preceded the first explosions; four more accompanied them on May 2. Epicenters were arrayed radially around the caldera. Their locations implied that a very large magma chamber might be released by the eruptive process. After the initial blasts, the eruption settled into a near steady-state, sustained so long that a vast amount of material must have been released by now — perhaps doubling the two cubic kilometers of ejecta estimated in the first phase. (Caveat: that’s just a guess.) But the plume has not been punching high enough to matter, in the global scale.

That may change very soon. If the magma conduit is breaking up, and the capping lava dome explodes away, a Tambora-sized event could happen in the next few days. It is plausible that the blowout could be even greater. The tragedies of China, Burma, or Sumatra are trivial in comparison with what may be about to occur. Global climate is already cooling; food supplies are already tight. The Four Horsemen have been stabled for many years. Tonight I can hear their mounts champing.

Update: 9:30 PM EDT: I can see it on the satellite image now. Plume height is building rapidly. The next image should be released around 11 PM EDT. US images are updated every 20 minutes, but South America gets short shrift. I’ll stay up and add another update.

Update 2: 11:30 PM EDT: New image out. It is ambiguous. There is a massive upper level moisture plume over the region. Enhanced returns are present around the volcano, but I can’t be sure what is cloud, what is ash. Tomorrow the weather should begin a slow clearing trend, and we’ll get a better look. Meanwhile, welcome to the end of Al Gore’s fantasy world.

Rare readers know that I doubt the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). I have provided many links to sources for information on this subject (select “climate” category). Satellite and buoy data indicate that global warming, whatever its cause, occurred over several decades prior to 1998. Then it stopped. Currently the world is cooling, though surface data from urban heat islands has been selectively presented by some climate ideologues to support a false case for continued warming. At this point any objective observer must conclude from recent evidence that AGW — if it exists at all — is too weak to overcome the natural variances of climate.

But the planet does not cool or warm uniformly. Regional varations override the larger trend. Right now, cool anomalies dominate the world’s oceans, but the North Atlantic is warm, and the greatest warmth is found in two areas — near northwest Europe, where climate alarmists think the world is ending — and off western Africa. As a South Florida resident, I hope the Europeans enjoy their warmth. They ought to be grateful for it, at their latitude. I’m worried about that warm pool off Africa. Most of the really serious hurricanes begin there. With extra energy from the start, they could be extra numerous and nasty this year. Already tropical impulses are starting to roll off the continent and organize clusters of thunderstorms over the ocean.

A few days ago I received a message from my friend Steffen. As summer nears, he is growing uneasy at Ste. Maarten. He had planned to haul his boat ashore and have it tied down, but the shipyard’s lot is no more than a couple of feet above normal high tide. It doesn’t look very secure to him. Apparently he has saved enough money to fix his keel, so he plans now to finish the work in June and sail for Trinidad. Don’t delay a day longer than you need to, I warned him. Cape Verde season may begin a month early this year.

I’m nearing the end of my 1970 summer journey. It’s August 1, and I’m resting in Wheaton, IL. I have recounted the highlights of the trip to RH’s mother. She is a fervent Christian, and I know that she has worried about the spiritual straying of her only son. Now he has alighted in an ostensibly Christian commune. I never use the word “cult.” She is not pleased at his decision to quit college. I reason that such an indifferent student might be better off in a religious rather than an academic community. She seems at least half mollified, and I have fulfilled my friend’s final request with half truths.

On August 2, I spend the day studying the New Testament, which I have never actually read before. I’m trying to understand what RH sees in this collection of tall tales from antiquity, and why it called him into the clutch of cultists. I’m also agonizing over whether I should drive into Chicago and visit a place called “The Seed.” I have seen references to it in the underground press. It’s a center of the local gay liberation movement. But I can’t quite summon up the nerve.

I leave Wheaton early on August 3. From here to the East Coast, it’s just a matter of retracing the way I took in June. I’ll see the same scenes in reverse: farmland gently rolling, then the coal-seamed ridges of western Pennsylvania, then the Laurel Uplands, and finally the hard-boned roadcuts the eastern Appalachians — metamophic rock eroded from the roots of ancestral ranges in a region marked by ancient tectonic collisions. My own internal collision continues. I feel like a chunk of gneiss, warped through unbearable pressures.

I bypass New York and Long Island, although I have phoned my parents and told them of my return. I have no wish to see them, or to spend more time at Shinnecock Bay, where my journey began. Something is unfinished. It tugs me day and night, yet I cannot perceive what it is. I arrive in Hartford, Connecticut on midday of the 4th. Campus is deserted in summer, but not all Trinity students come from afar. Many are local boys. I alight at MM’s house that afternoon. He lives in West Hartford, but his parents are estranged, and at the moment he has the place to himself.

I stay for two days. MM knows RH well, and I tell him a somewhat fuller version of the summer’s events. It’s a relief to speak honestly of my misgivings about the Love Family, but I say nothing of my grief. MM is a straight boy. He would not understand. Meanwhile I am feeling the summons of the sea. My journey will not be complete until I have gone all the way from Atlantic to Pacific and back. I arrange to visit other college friends in Boston, then proceed to Cape Cod. The wild strawberries are ripe. It is time for harvest.

So much news, so little time. 2008 is wearing me out.

Nickel and Dime: Democrats keep rolling the same plugged nickels and tarnished dimes into nice fresh “change” wrappers.

Contamination: Oh, oh: there was a Chinese nuclear “research” facility in the earthquake zone.

Five Million: China’s quake may have displaced more people than any natural disaster in history. Runner up: Burma cyclone, two and a half million.

Biting the Hand: Let them eat sand. Or drink oil.

Hell Hath No Fury: Hillary Rodham’s staffers are starting to talk.

Yesterday Chip and I disported in the ocean under midday sun. I had lotioned thoroughly — especially the top of my head, now entirely hairless. Chemo patients are not supposed get any sun (burn risk), go swimming (waterborne microbe risk), eat salad (raw veggie microbe risk), ride bicycles (injury risk). Of course I am doing all these things. I just rode a very nice Marin hybrid in the lot outside a bike shop. But I am hurting today with a nasty sunsore on my lip. I have never been prone to these before. Now it would seem I’m as susceptible as a redhead. Well, I could hardly have worn my hat yesterday. It would have washed away. The surf was up, but I had to prove I wasn’t dead yet, so I followed Chip all the way into the break, on a bar about a hundred yards out. It was great fun, and it cooled me down nicely after I had gotten so hot at the Sprint store. Oh, yes, anger is another indulgence proscribed during chemo.

How stupid is this? Words fail me. Republicans deserve to lose — these national security ninnies are as ridiculous as Democrat anti-smoking brigades.

I like this article so much that I’m going to quote it in full, with gratitude to Nancy Morgan for clarity, brevity, and passion. (Read on …)

The Fed keeps shovelling money out the discount window. Whee! say the bankers. We don’t know exactly which bankers, because the Fed won’t reveal their identities. Doesn’t that make you feel all warm and cozy? No? How about this:

The central bank also reported that the M2 measure of money supply rose by $1.1 billion in the week ended May 5. That left M2 growing at an annual rate of 6.7 percent for the past 52 weeks, above the target of 5 percent the Fed once set for maximum growth. The Fed no longer has a formal target.

The Fed reports two measures of the money supply each week. M1 includes all currency held by consumers and companies for spending, money held in checking accounts and travelers checks. M2, the more widely followed, adds savings and private holdings in money market mutual funds.

Next year either McBama or O’Cain will be expected to “fix” the 1970’s-style stagflation that current Fed policies virtually guarantee. Neither of those two will know what to do. This is another reason why I am convinced the next president will serve one term only.

Update: As usual, Steve Forbes and I agree 100%.

Republicans are all aquiver after the latest special election loss. I have already said my piece. Today Peggy Noonan dolefully declares the demise of the party that nominated Bob Dole in 1996. To any objective observer at the time, it was obvious then Reaganism was already dead, and the Republican party adrift. In fact Reagan effectively killed his own movement in 1980 when he bought Bush Senior as a VP nominee. Every movement contains its own potential obverse, but rarely has the principle been better demonstrated.

Can the Republicans salvage the 2008 election? No. Even if “maverick” McCain wins the White House, Democrats will increase their majorities in Congress. But the ideological incoherance of the Democratic Party will increase in victory. To win Republican districts, the party has recruited “moderates” who will chafe at the partisanship of the Pelosi-Reid establishment. I expect a revolt among Democrats in the next Congress. They may even replace leaders. So overall I do not anticipate much ideological shift. The bipartisan big-government coalition will continue to burden the economy and taxpayers with new mandates, regulations, entitlements; but a huge climate bill or national health reform will be very difficult to push through Congress.

If Obama becomes president, he will try to force the pace. I suspect he will fail as Hillary Clinton did before him. Then he will seek to balance his domestic setback with foreign policy initiatives, as presidents invariably do. Since he is an appeaser by instinct — no matter what he may say during the 2008 campaign — he will fail abroad also, probably with unpleasant consequences — the fall of friendly governments, a major attack on the US, another war. An impatient electorate will rage against another president. It will be one term and out for Obama, like Carter before him. By 2012 Republicans might be ready to run Jindal, or some other young, plausible reformer. The cycle of illusion and disillusion will run faster than ever. For politicians, the ultimate lesson of 2008 will be not to promise too much; for the electorate, not to believe too much.

Chile’s office of national emergencies reported a significant increase in Chaitén’s seismic activity today. Bad weather continued to hamper direct observation of the eruption. Ongoing lahars are destroying the deserted town closest to the volcano. Tonight Buenos Aires VAAC sustains code red for “continuous emission,” while complaining again that the volcanic plume cannot be distinguished from heavy cloud in the area. A new storm is approaching the coast, and more rain will pelt southern Chile tomorrow. Some improvement in weather may come by Sunday. Of course any world-class eruption will pierce the clouds and show itself promptly. The seismic activity naturally worries geologists. Chaitén’s behavior has no modern precedent, but the potential for a world-altering event increases with each day of enhanced eruption.

Archaeologists at Arles, France, have found the oldest known bust of Julius Caesar in the Rhone River. The man had a formidable visage in this Republican realist depiction. In fact he reminds me of a current Republican President. Let’s hope GWB’s term of office closes more peacefully.

Distressing time. Yesterday I was garnished $460 because of an old account with someone else’s name on it — a loose end from the disasters of years past. Today my bike was stolen. I have also been in a prolonged wrangle over cellphone service. I made visits four, five, and six to the Sprint store in last two days — an hour round-trip in traffic each time. And I have been three times over to see Chip at the Westin. I’ll be going back there again shortly. All this on my bottom days of the chemotherapy cycle. I’m frazzled. No more posts till tonight, if then. Well, a little one. That’s all.

Yesterday I was grimly amused by press reports that the Chilean town of Chaitén would be placed “off-limits” for three months. There seemed to be a presumption that resettlement might be possible afterward. Not likely! The eruption continues, and heavy rains have now hit the area as well. Volcanic mud is pouring off ash-laden slopes. New reports indicate that floods and mud have already reached 90% of the town. Volcanic mud sets like concrete. Even if no pyroclastic flow ever scorches and smothers Chaitén, the volcano has already emitted so much ash that continuing lahars (an Indonesian word, I believe) will certainly bury the place.

Thick cloud and rain are still pouring over the south Chilean coast. The volcano’s plume cannot be distinguished in such weather, but the Buenos Aires VAAC continues to issue “code red” aviation advisories every few hours. Continuous emission is presumed, even if it cannot be seen. I suppose this assessment is based on seismic data. We shall have to await the next press release from the geologists. Meanwhile another storm is forming offshore, and there may be no real break in the weather for visual observations before its arrival. Like the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, at similar latitude, Chile’s coastal mountains are often hidden for weeks on end during winter months. Downwind over Patagonia, in the rain-shadow, skies may clear enough to reveal pluming tomorrow.

This long-sustained eruption is most unusual. Every day that it continues, the burden on regional ecosystems increases. I got a good laugh yesterday from an ignorant “green,” who imagines that humans can clean up after a major eruption as though it were a kitchen accident. Of course he also thinks humankind wields forces more powerful than the orbits of the planets or the radiance of the sun. “Climate change” is all our fault — as though climate had never changed on its own, prior to the advent of all-potent post-modern man.

Doug Tompkins came to Chile 17 years ago. At the time, he was the well-known founder of the Esprit clothing label. He says he gave up “consumerism” for “conservation”, and later donated the land to the Chilean-based Pumalin Foundation, on which he and his wife sit as two of the board-of-directors.

But even with thousands of tons of ash and gas jetting from Chaiten’s crater each day, Tompkins says the state of the world’s environment is even more worrisome.

Doug Tompkins, says: “What are we going to do about the climate change affected by out of control development and industrialism. That’s the big question. And those impacts, they make this little volcano here look like nothing.”

So far, of course, Chaitén’s caldera eruption is merely a regional event. Pray it remains so. Meanwhile, for the founder of Esprit, I recommend a search of the name “Toba.”

Last night I read an analysis of the Mississippi special election, in which a long-time House seat flipped parties. Democrats recruited a moderate for the race. Republicans assailed him as an Obamanation. Voters were not fooled. Republicans have only two campaign strategies, sometimes pursued separately, sometimes simultaneously. In a hard campaign, Republicans implicitly impugn opponents as communists, atheists, homosexuals, and half-breeds. In a soft campaign, Republicans promise endless largesse, administered by “conservatives” instead of “liberals.”

Recently M. K. Freeberg saw the proposed “soft” Republican campaign slogan, “The Change You Deserve,” and offered four-word alternatives. Some were quite clever, though too flippant or sardonic for actual use. He got me thinking about the dark art of sloganeering. How would you “rebrand” this inept, dispirited party? It’s quite a challenge. What are Republicans good for? Not much, nowadays. Some have yearned for a return to Reaganite optimism, but this would not accord with the uneasy mood of the electorate. An effective slogan should imply both peril and possibility.

Democrats accuse Republicans of pandering to fear, but their own protectionism, isolationism (disguised as “diplomacy”), and environmental hysteria make them appear scolds and nay-sayers. I propose a simple slogan as a counter: Don’t Fear the Future. Yes, it’s hortatory and negative — like some of M.K. Freeberg’s suggestions — but it would also remind swing voters that Democrats used to tell them “don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.” The Clintons were appealing to hope, not dread, when they promoted that slogan.

Today’s Democrats talk of nothing but “change,” yet they are obviously terrified by their own rhetoric. They repose their only hope in Barak Obama’s complexion. Otherwise, they have become the party of cling — steadfast against change of any sort — technological, economic, even climatic. This is a weakness, but most Republicans seem oblivious to it. Many share the same angst.

Don’t fear the future.

At the close of July, 1970, I was driving past the remnants of shortgrass and tallgrass prairie — ecological zones largely confined to highway medians amid intensive agriculture. Mile by mile, the plains of Nebraska grew more lush, crops ripening toward harvest. I dropped my rider in Lincoln, the state capitol. His destination was St. Louis, so he was turning south. Mine was Wheaton, Illinois, but I spent a night near the University of Nebraska campus. Here too, in the stolid heartland, I found an outpost of counterculture. The town seemed pleasant enough, but I had no inclination to alight anywhere for long. I was like the Platte River: I could only roll on.

It was a gray, hazy, showery morning as I crossed Iowa. During my month on the road, the corn had attained its full height. Even from the interstate, the whispery aisles of grain induced a kind of awe. As a boy in New York City, I often watched a Sunday morning TV show called “The Modern Farmer.” Its paeans to tractors, fertilizers, and hybrid seed seemed like messages from another world. Without all those diligent, adaptive farmers, there could be no Sunday Times, no store windows arrayed with fashionable mannikins. Without the heartland, there could be no Manhattan, scorning everything that made its own life and prosperity possible.

Just back from the Westin Diplomat Resort, where the Microsoft convention was partying full tilt, with a particularly lavish fete on the terrace overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. We avoided the throng. Steve, Chip, and I dined at the hotel’s steakhouse, Hollywood Prime. I’m at chemo nadir, one week after treatment, but I managed to enjoy the tuna. Life is too brief; such evenings, too few.

Let’s consider the polar bear. It is now to be listed as a “threatened” species.

Is the polar bear endangered? Biologists say that bear population has risen. These dangerous predators have already been protected for many years. They are not endangered by the only reasonable measure — their actual number.

What about habitat? Certainly the Arctic has changed. Sea-ice cover reached a modern minimum last summer, after several decades of decline. Some conservationists fear — in the absence of any evidence — that bear populations will shrink with the ice. However during past warm interglacial periods, sea ice disappeared entirely from the Arctic, and the bears survived. Why should they fail now?

Moreover, we have no reason to believe that Arctic meltback will continue. We already know that average global temperature has been steady or cooling for a decade. Last winter was harsh in the Arctic, and it’s a safe bet the melt will be less this year. The cooling trend proves that other climate drivers can and do over-ride any hypothetical human impact.

For unknown reasons the Arctic and Antarctic have diverged. Sea ice in the southern hemisphere has been increasing for years, and has reached modern record extent several seasons in a row. I suspect that soot from industry and aircraft — not CO2 greenhouse effect — has been causing the Arctic melt. Anthropogenic global warming, if it existed, would be more likely to affect both poles, not one preferentially.

Of course you would never learn these facts from the media. John McCain hasn’t a clue. Holman Jenkins knows better. Maybe he should run for President. Meanwhile, anyone who exhales in Florida may be sued for killing polar bears. I mourn for my deluded country.

It’s a target-rich environment today. I can’t comment properly on all these, so I’ll just provide some teasers.

Friend and Foe: Karen Elliott House and the House of Bush have forgotten an important distinction. The enemy of an enemy is no friend.

Biofuel Blather: Herbert Meyer explains why his company will not starve any children. Bonus: laws of economics repealed.

Hot Plates: Global warming will “lock the continents.” Some people call this “science.”

Wimps and Wusses: If their mothers are sluts and their fathers are MIA, what can we expect?

Style and Substance: Camille Pagilia can no longer tell them apart, when she beholds Barak the Beauteous.

Drudge is linking a report of a new cyclone forming near Burma. Here is a recent satellite image. I hope you know by now where the Irrawaddy delta is located on the map. I don’t have time at the moment to commence a photoshop tutorial and figure out how to mark the spot. The leftmost mass of clouds, forming a swirl pattern, is the problem area. It is actually right over the delta. The swirl marks an upper level anticyclonic cell. It could promote the formation of a surface cyclone only if it were over open water. This system is too close to land for any serious development.

The phrase “significant tropical cyclone” (official term mentioned in news coverage) is ill-chosen. It simply denotes what we call a “tropical depression” in the Atlantic. The problem is not wind or surge, but additional rain. In this weather pattern, surface winds are curling shoreward along the Irrawaddy delta coastline, Offshore thunderstorms could reach land and bring some heavy downpours where no more rain is wanted. Will serious flooding resume? Probably not. And people will be able to catch drinking water from the sky — a vital need right now, with all standing water probably contaminated.

Have you noticed the calls for “intervention” in Burma? Typical. The left is always ready to use the military for any purpose other than protecting the nation.

How well are immigrants assimilating? asks Howard Husock. Assimilating? Doesn’t Husock know that assimilation is oppressive? We secular Western postmoderns are supposed to privilege all other cultures over our own. Here’s an example from Minnesota.

FWIW, I would kick that particular batch of Somali students right out of the US. If they are only visiting on visas, they are guests. Let them act accordingly, or go home. Guests have obligations. Hosts have rights. When did we forget the difference?

Four in five Americans supposedly think the country is “on the wrong track.” What does that mean? One thing it does not mean is 80% support for Barak Obama.

If 40% of Americans think the lefthand track is crazy, and 40% think the righthand track is evil, while 20% are too clueless to know the difference, what will really happen this fall?

Hint: we’ve already had one Civil War in this country.

I just checked the IRIS monitor of world earthquakes — not for Chaitén activity, which remains below the threshold values — but for the China aftershocks. There have been hundreds of them, some fairly large. Just a couple of hours ago another 5.6 magnitude quake hit. Such temblors will bring down buildings already broken, slopes already unstable. And the weather is bad, with rain and mist in the mountainous region. I have no doubt that thousands of survivors are now dying in the rubble, beyond reach of rescue. BBC has not raised the death estimate much — following the Chinese government line, I suspect — but I said days ago that an honest accounting might ultimately run to six figures. Aftershock, bad weather, and accumulating damage reports have not altered my opinion. Were it not for the worse horrors of cyclone-struck Burma, this tragedy alone would preoccupy the world. I expected a strange and eventful year in 2008; but I was thinking of politics and war, not volcanoes, cyclones, or sunspots.

How many times can a nation be destroyed? Since classical antiquity, Lebanon has probably suffered more bouts of ruin than any land in the world. Another has begun.

Chaitén’s eruptions resumed their former force overnight, and VAAC advisories have returned to code red status. A very heavy plume of jet stream cloud remains in the area this morning. Pacific storminess has shifted further north, with the main axis of the jet stream getting closer to the eruption site. This makes it difficult to distinguish cloud from plume, without access to the most sophisticated satellite data, which is not available on public sites. We shall have to await announcements from scientific agencies to learn much more about the eruption today. Rain and low cloud will also restrict surface observation. Seismic tracing will probably be the most effective monitor for the volcano until the weather clears. The stormy flow extends far offshore, and will probably persist for a few days. That is typical for the latitude at this time of year.

I was offline last evening, and did not see yesterday’s Chilean press release until now (thanks to The Volcanism Blog). Vigorous activity — particularly seismic activity — was reported on May 12. The eruptive crater was seen to be about 1 km. in diameter. Plume was being borne away by strong upper winds — no surprise there. But I must emphasize again that nothing of global import was indicated. Even during heavy weather, stratospheric blasts would be conspicuous on satellite images. We will not see climate impact from this eruption, no matter how voluminous the ejecta, unless large debris clouds pierce the tropopause. So far, only a few brief explosions have pushed to great height.

Michelle Malkin has a fit at the new Republican Party marketing slogan: “The change you deserve.”

The crack research staff at GOP HQ somehow missed that “Change You Deserve” is the marketing slogan for Effexor, an anti-depressant.

Brilliant.

At this rate I may vote for that little homophobic dweeb, Bob Barr.

Buenos Aires VAAC has dropped the aviation alert at Chaitén from code red to orange. Volcanic emissions are apparently decreasing, for the first time in many days. Heavy cloud has entirely obscured the area today; no eruption plume has pierced the cloud since early this morning. Does this mean the worst is over? Perhaps, but I would place no bets, until the trend becomes well established. Serious eruptions often proceed spasmodically.

An old friend is in town. By chance, a business convention has brought him to the Westin Diplomat, on the beach a couple of miles from my apartment. I just visited with him for the first time since last September; later we’ll have supper on the beach. So I’ll probably manage only one more post today — I already have my Panoramio photos ready for another day of 1970 travel.

Mark Halperin worries about Chinese aggression. He wants the US to raise military expenditures. I worry about the economy. I want the US to cut social expenditures. Neither of these things is going to happen. Let us hope Halperin overestimates a potential enemy. Let us hope I overestimate the limits of taxpayer masochism. Our government resembles a seven-hundred pound invalid. Why do we keep feeding it corn dogs?

Geology.com has an article telling everything you could possibly want to know about North Dakota’s great oilfield. Production is now ramping up rapidly. Since Teddy Roosevelt’s day, no one has paid much attention to North Dakota. It is perhaps the only place in the US where a large new oil development could proceed unmolested by decades of lawsuits. But even greater troves of fossil fuel exist in the Gulf, the Rockies, and the Arctic. There is no need for the US to bankrupt itself with purchases abroad. Nor should we tremble over global warming that ended a decade ago, and was never persuasively linked to anthropogenic carbon. A second US oil boom would buy time for transition to other, more technologically advanced fuel sources — and I do not mean the poupourri of so-called “alternative” fuels.

Will common sense prevail over fear and ignorance? NASA’s resident monomaniac, James Hansen, recently issued another alarm call, claiming that CO2 must be reduced to 350 ppm (from current 383 ppm), or the world will end. Literally. To achieve this mandate — with nearly seven billion people alive today — would require megadeath and cultural reversion to the Dark Ages. Of course Hansen will admit no such thing; but he also ignores the facts about CO2. Paleoclimatology shows that throughout most of earth’s history, CO2 levels have averaged from 1000 to 1600 ppm. Life thrived. Why? Because CO2 is a fertilizer essential to plant growth. During recent Ice Ages, CO2 levels fell so low that the biosphere barely pulled through.

Though much-respected, James Hansen is a deluded fanatic, whose hideous visage bespeaks corruption of mind and spirit. All right, that’s totally ad hominem — and I admit that mere insult is a favorite tactic of those who call skeptics “deniers.” But really, find a photo of the man and look. Apply the same test to Gore. Would you buy a used hypothesis from these people?

Though photos of lightning in the Chaitén eruption plume were taken at the beginning of the eruption, they are only now receiving wide circulation on the net, thanks to Drudge and others. I posted an early copy exactly a week ago. Several images were available at that time. One Chilean archive has 35 shots. Lightning was most intense at the outset, when the most violent explosions occurred (so far). This morning Chaitén continues to emit non-stop plume, less forcefully, but absolutely relentlessly. A wind shift is expected to carry ash over Futaleufu again, together with rain, which should entomb the place and its lost livestock for good.

At the time of my lightning photo post, a lively discussion was under way at Snopes, a debunker of phony images and stories. Many viewers did not believe the circulating photos could be authentic. I knew them to be real at a glance. Lightning is very common in eruption plumes. There is no great mystery about it. The intensity of lightning is directly proportionate to the vigor of the eruption. The more churning in the cloud of ejecta, the more effectively its abrasive particles generate electrical charge. The more charge, the more discharge.

As usual, science-ignorant reporters get the story wrong. Here’s a quote from Yahoo: “Cases of electrical storms breaking out directly above erupting volcanos are well documented, although scientists differ on what causes them.” This language is misleading. There is no “electrical storm,” formed by convective heat like some ordinary thundershower. Volcanic lightning is a direct manifestation of eruption. Its charge does not arise from a thunderstorm’s dynamo of churning hail — which would be impossible in an incandescent setting. Its charge comes from hot, roiling ash. Different mechanism, same result — lightning. “Scientists differ” with respect to all atmospheric dynamo effects, which are still not fully understood.

Death toll in the China quake is now tallied at 12,000, but reports of landslides and missing villages near the epicenter suggest the final number will be much, much higher. I would not be surprised if an honest accounting reaches six figures. This was a very serious temblor, close to surface in a mountainous area where weak substrates increase the likelihood of slope failures. In fact the quake was so forceful that it disrupted the tiltmeters on Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano, hours after the original shock. The whole planet trembled, as it did after the great Sumatra quake.

With its seismic instability and exposure to tropical storms, Asia has always been disaster prone, but these last few years have been extraordinary: a fusillade of typhoons, the tsunami, the Pakistan quake, cyclones in Bangladesh and Burma, now this China quake. What next? My friend Steve is partial to apocalyptic thinking, thanks to his Adventist background. He won’t even talk about the recent events. He places them in the context of world political tensions — especially those in the Middle East — and he’s so disquieted that he no longer finds Armageddon a subject for idle chat.

I visited California’s Long Valley caldera once, and saw the tuff bluffs that rim it on the east. Now geologists have done cystallographic work with the pale quartz found in abundance there. Via Geology News, I find a team from Rensselaer has discovered something interesting about the immense eruption, 760,000 years ago, that covered much of western North America with ash.

The research, which is featured in the March, 2007 edition of the journal Geology, sheds light on what causes these large-scale, explosive eruptions, and it could help geologists develop methods to predict such eruptions in the future, according to David Wark, research professor of earth and environmental sciences at Rensselaer and lead author of the paper.

The 20-mile-long Long Valley Caldera was created when the supervolcano erupted. The geologists focused their efforts on Bishop Tuff, an expanse of rock that was built up as the hot ash cooled following the eruption. The researchers studied the distribution of titanium in quartz crystals in samples taken from Bishop Tuff.

A team from Rensselaer previously discovered that trace levels of titanium can be analyzed to determine the temperature at which the quartz crystallized. By monitoring titanium, Wark and his colleagues confirmed that the outer rims of the quartz had formed at a much hotter temperature than the crystal interiors. The researchers concluded that after the interiors of the quartz crystals had grown, the magma system was “recharged” with an injection of fresh, hot melt. This caused the quartz to partly dissolve, before starting to crystallize again at a much higher temperature.

Analyses of titanium also revealed that the high-temperature rim-growth must have taken place within only 100 years of the massive volcano’s eruption. This suggests that the magma recharge so affected the physical properties of the magma chamber that it caused the supervolcano to erupt and blanket thousands of square miles with searing ash.

“The Long Valley Caldera has been widely studied, but by utilizing titanium in quartz crystals as a geothermometer we were able to provide new insight into the reasons for its last huge eruption,” Wark said. “This research will help geologists understand how supervolcanoes work and what may cause them to erupt, and this in turn may someday help predict future eruptions.”

This makes me wonder what is happening — and what has been happening — underneath Chaitén volcano, which may connect with a magma chamber of similar size. I have been watching the IRIS monitor, but no more quakes of any significance have been reported under Chaitén since May 2. The initial pattern of radial tremors was disturbing, but it has not been repeated. Instead the eruption has settled into a steady blowoff. Let’s hope it stays that way, until it eventually finishes.

Now my road ran ever East. Beyond the buttes of Wyoming and the lurid sunrise, still two thousand miles away, lay the coast from which I had come. I was beginning to perceive that my true journey was not the crossing of the land, but the bridging of an inner divide. My troubadour persona was just another façade. I needed to become somebody I could not yet even imagine. By the Pacific I had written a despairing lyric, but I did not realize that the “love” I had left there was only a fantasy.

I’ve kicked my heels across the dust
and cast my stones into the sea.
I’ve looked for someone I could trust
and thought that love could set me free.

In the afternoon of July 30, 1970, as the last mountains shrank behind and the immensity of the prairie opened ahead, I was granted an omen. My rider and I followed it across the Nebraska line, as it hung ahead for nearly an hour, receding almost as swiftly as we could drive toward it: a complete double rainbow, the first one I had ever seen. I took it for a token of hope, “an archway into my life.” And so it was.

What do a hockey stick and $200 oil have in common? Dr.Tim Ball explains the first. Kevin Hassett explains the second.

Amateur astronomers spotted several prominences along the limb of the sun today. If a spot is forming, it will soon rotate into view. Even one would be welcome. This image was provided to Space Weather by Pete Lawrence. I have taken the liberty of cropping it for my format, which removed his credit line. My apologies.

I remember it. I got the hell out, though it took me a long time to understand where it (and I) had gone wrong. Another travel post is pending, and I’ll explain a bit more of the enigma.

Today the world ended in Postville, Iowa. Two hundred black-suited “Homeland Security” agents, a fleet of vans, and several helicopters descended on the small town to bust the largest employer in the region — also the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the US. Some seven hundred illegal immigrants were arrested, but they were mostly Eastern Europeans.

Founded in 1987, Agriprocessors, Inc. has lifted the economy in a chronically depressed region. Now our “caring” government has destroyed it. Why? Does the US have a border with Israel, open to millions of invader aliens? No, the Jews are being made scapegoats again. It’s enough to make me wonder whether the dark eminence of the elder Bush circle, James Baker, personally devised the scheme. Long known for anti-Semitic views, Baker would think this bust a perfect way to enforce immigration law without the political awkwardness of targeting Hispanics.

Of course both parties, and all levels of government increasingly play such games. From Janet Reno at Waco and Miami (the children! the childen!), to the “child protection agency” that recently seized 416 offspring of polygamy in Texas, to this outrage in Iowa, our overweening state becomes more and more of a menace. Today they come for the Mormons and Jews; tomorrow, me and you.

BBC is sounding more like FARK all the time. The venerable “news” purveyor actually covered the alarming tale of a Florida woman sliced by a diving pelican. Years ago I snorkelled near a densely packed school of shiners in the Virgin Islands. The pelican action was incredible. The birds were diving from perches on some tall rocks nearby. It was astonishing to see what agile swimmers they were under water, but I worried about getting hit. The things were coming down like banzai aircraft.

Downwind of Chaitén volcano, the Andean town of Futaleufu is almost deserted now, as it gradually becomes more and more uninhabitable. Have you ever seen a sadder looking dog? It’s roaming the strange streets, looking for shelter from relentless ashfall. Surely it will be dead soon — lungs full of silica. Then it may make a perfect mold, like the ones found at Pompeii.

Update: Chilean authorities have reportedly left food for the estimated 800 strays of Futaleufu, but this exercise in sentimenalism is probably just prolonging the deaths of the poor creatures stranded in these conditions.

No much information has emerged yet today. The Buenos Aires VAAC reports continuous ash emission. Height is now reported at surface to 20,000 feet. A recent update forecasts increasing plume height. Perhaps some new seismic data has suggested buildup of activity. The previous forecast had sustained the steady-state of recent days, with plumes around 20,000.

No doubt a very large amount of ash is accumulating directly downwind of the volcano. Some is pluming across Argentina to the Atlantic. This is difficult to discern on the visible satellite image, because the countryside is already covered with ash in that region, and fresh streamers show poorly against the backdrop. But nothing of global import is happening at present. Projected plume height of 35,000 tonight would be much more significant.

Because of the unique physical features of this volcano, and the odd character of its eruption, it will resist all prediction. We can only watch and see. Clouds appear to be broken in the area today, and perhaps some aerial photos will emerge later, showing whether any major changes have occurred in the dome and crater complex. I’ll check the net and post anything I find late in the day.

Update: VAAC has backed off the 35,000 foot estimate, and now forecasts continuous plume at 20,000 feet into tomorrow. I sure would like to see some seismic data.