Judgement in Ferguson

In August 2014 a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri. Since then we have been inundated with media coverage of the initial event, the investigation, the decision of whether or not to indict the police officer, and the response by people around the country. 

Here is an account of the shooting and the subsequent events:

Michael Brown shooting

There are three issues that have arisen with this event, the use of profiling, police tactics, and our understanding of our justice system. All of these played a role in the reactions of people over the past months.

The first question is, was racial profiling used by Officer Wilson to stop Michael Brown? The evidence shown to the grand jury appears to refute that allegation. Officer Wilson seems to have been reasonable in requesting the two men walking down the middle of the road to move to the sidewalk, and on realizing that Michael Brown fit the description of a suspect in a convenience store robbery to try to detain him. But the question that the Brown case has brought to the surface is does racial profiling exist in police departments? No fair minded person should use a person's skin color as a red flag. And conversely, no fair minded person should use a person's skin color as an automatic sign of victimization. In this case I do not think Brown was profiled by race. But there very well may be other cases where the person is. The people who are protesting based on this issue need to pick their battles better. Cry wolf once too often and when the real thing happens people may just ignore your concerns.

The second question is did Officer Wilson act according to standard police rules of engagement? If so, was it necessary to shoot Brown multiple times? Was there a better way, so that he may have lived? Many police departments have tasers, although even those are problematic. I think, considering the apparently poor relations between the community of Ferguson and the police department, this is something that really needs to be examined more closely. This is an issue where the protesters may have a point.  Here is an interesting article on this.

The last factor at play is our justice system. To try someone in court there must be sufficient evidence for the prosecutor to feel it possible for a conviction. The purpose of the grand jury was to decide if there was enough evidence to indict. Their conclusion was that there was not. Obviously I did not sit on the grand jury so am not aware of all testimony or evidence that was presented to them. I only know what the press has published. Brown's blood was on the police car and on Officer Wilson's pants which supported Wilson's account of Michael Brown approaching and leaning into the car, leading to the first gunshot. The bruises on Wilson's face supported his account that Michael Brown hit him. This alone is rather odd behavior for a law abiding “gentle giant”, as Brown's friends and acquaintances have described him. Many witnesses were called to testify, with contradictory statements given, from whether or not Brown was charging the officer when he advanced toward him to whether or not he had his hands raised. He was not shot in the back as some less reliable accounts said. The physical evidence present supported Officer Wilson's account of events.

At the time that I write this there are still demonstrations and individual protests over the events surrounding Michael Brown's death. The anger over past injustices certainly plays a part in the inability of people to look at evidence with a clear eye. But at the heart of justice is the ability to do so. What I seem to be seeing in these demonstrations is not a search for justice, but a good old fashioned witch hunt. And damaging property, looting and obstruction of lawful pursuits is not going to help bring about the healing that Michael Brown's family and the people of Ferguson need.

The World in 2050

In the 1970's James Lovelock came up with a theory that “organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating, complex system that contributes to maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.” This was called the Gaia Hypothesis. 

But what exactly does that mean for us? If, as he theorized, our actions are part of a “self-regulating” system, how are other parts of that system reacting to us? Perhaps we are already starting to see the beginnings of that reaction in the droughts, floods and unseasonable temperatures we have been experiencing in various regions of the world.

How will our future be colored by this changing climate?

I think it's time for another book recommendation. This time the book is The World in 2050, by Laurence C. Smith. I know I have mentioned it before, but since we have been seeing some rather extreme weather recently here in the States I thought it might be interesting to revisit it.

Obviously, predictions are not set in stone. Lovelock and others have revamped their opinions on climate change as being alarmist.

However that doesn't necessarily mean they are entirely wrong. So, to continue with my book synopsis …

Smith has listed four forces that are affecting our world and will shape our future. They are demographics, human demand for natural resources, globalization, and climate change. As you may have noted all four have our sticky little fingers all over them. Unless, of course, you are of the “humans are not a factor in climate change” ilk. Then you would not attribute the last item on that list to us.

In 1950 there were two megacities of ten million or more, New York(12.3) and Tokyo(11.3). In 2025 there are projected to be twenty nine, with the first five being Tokyo(36.4), Mumbai(26.4), Delhi(22.5), Dhaka, Bangladesh(22), and Sao Paulo, Brazil(21.4). Smith estimated that the world population stood at one billion in 1800 A.D., and reached six billion in 1999. Currently we appear to be adding a billion people every twelve years. That's a lot of people to feed, clothe and provide care for. The demand on Earth's natural resources will only continue to grow. All at a time when climate change is starting to rock our world.

The most important resource for human life is water, without it we would perish. With climate change will come feast or famine in terms of water. Literally. Too much at the wrong time and crops will flood out, too little and they will die of thirst. There is likely to be rising tensions over water supplies, with the Nile, Jordan, Tigris-Euphrates and Indus rivers cited as likely points of contention. According to climate models precipitation will increase in Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, and Russia. It will be southern Europe, western North America, the Middle East, and southern Africa who are the losers in the water lottery.

Smith is optimistic that we will adapt to our changing world and it's climate. He has cited past agreements over water usage and the fact that global trade will provide goods where they are needed.

While I have touched on the highlights, there are other factors, such as the changing economic fortunes of various countries, that will play a role in our future.

The World in 2050 is an interesting and thought provoking read. Not just because of what it says, but also because of what it doesn't say. If you read it you will note he seems to focus on the Northern hemisphere, but says little about the Southern's future. And there is little thought about what it may take for people to adapt. Personally I am not so sure that adaptation will come easily or cheaply.

One more thing I want to touch on is abrupt climate change.  Smith writes that core samples taken from the Greenland Ice Sheet have shown evidence of extreme swings in temperature in "less than a decade and as quickly as three years".   "Precipitation doubled in as little as a single year."  The conclusion by Richard B. Alley, who took the samples, was that "the extreme rapidity of these changes implied some sort of threshold or trigger in the North Atlantic climate system."  The slowdown of the global thermohaline circulation would be that trigger. For that to happen there would need to be a large infusion of fresh water into the North Atlantic.  As Smith notes there is a rather large source of fresh water located in the middle of the North Atlantic, the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Chillin' Minnesota Style

I would not be a true Minnesotan if I did not do at least one post on weather. It is one of our favorite topics and has many times been used to break the conversational ice. It also just so happens that we have just recently had weather with a capital W. I am referring to the storm that just passed through this last week which dumped way too much snow for this time of year in a narrow band running through the central part of my state, and right over my house. So I went from mowing on Sunday to snow blowing on Monday. I was fortunate that my brother was kind enough to blow out the driveway a few times as well, which helped keep it clear. We ended up with about 10 ½ inches when all was said and done. Although we were not the hardest hit, others weighed in at 16 inches.

While this much snow this early in the year is unusual, it is not unprecedented. The snowstorm that I remember is the Halloween Blizzard of 1991. Unbelievably we did have some intrepid trick or treaters that plowed their way through the drifts to collect their well earned treats. That storm lasted three days.

But the storm that seems to be the yardstick by which all other storms are measured is the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940. It was a storm that took so many by surprise, as the day started out very balmy for that time of year with temps in the 50's and 60's. People were simply not prepared.

Three major storms, each with their own unique characteristics, yet eerily similar. But the earlier storms have helped us improve our weather predicting and our methods of dealing with large quantities of snow. We do a better job of preparing and treating our roads with sand and chemicals to clear them more quickly of ice. Although, even with all of that, if temps fall too quickly we will still end up with layers of ice on the side streets. But better quality tires, anti-lock brakes, and vehicles with traction control make winter roads less scary to drive.

As climate change continues to affect our weather it is likely that these storms will grow stronger and more frequent.

Five Significant Weather Events in Minnesota History

Who Cares About Space?

Next week is about as historic as it gets for space exploration. On Wednesday 12th, a robotic spacecraft will land on the surface of a comet. When you think about it, the number of extra-planetary bodies that anything has landed on is still pretty tiny. Our own moon is one, obviously, and Mars has had a plethora of "rovers" in the last few years.

Beyond that, though, the examples are few. The Soviets obtained a handful of pictures of the surface of Venus from a series of landers over nearly two decades, but survival time on Venus even for the most hardened of landers was measured in minutes. Asteroids Eros and Itokawa were more "bumped into" than "landed upon". Indeed, the Eros probe was never designed for landing and froze at -279 °F, whereas the Venus probes had baked at 869 °F. Life is harsh for a would-be extra-planetary lander. The Huygens probe transmitted from Saturn's moon Titan for two hours. Anything beyond these examples has been more missile than lander, designed to collect data before a destructive impact.

So you'd think the world would prick up its ears at the news of another landing attempt, particularly one as daring as Rosetta. And you'd think the European Space Agency would be anxious to get the news out. And so, it seems, they are. But not in the mode of JFK announcing the Apollo programme to a receptive USA.

No, it's more in the mode of Obi-Wan Kenobi announcing the coming of age of another Jedi Knight ... or something. To be honest, I don't know what to make of ESA's new promotional video:

As visually impressive as it is, it's a bit cringey. Not just because of Aidan Gillen's not-quite-Shakespearean north Dublin accent, or his mispronunciation of the "orangins of water" (how did that get past the editors, at 1:40?). The script itself is awful. To be honest, I thought the JFK speech was extremely hammy, but this ESA effort takes the biscuit. Is it even recognisably about a current real-life mission?

I wonder if ESA are making a mistake with this Star Wars-esque approach. Young people are quite capable of being enthused for the sake of the science, without the added sci-fi. I remember writing a hopeful letter to NASA as a young teenager, about the space shuttle programme then in development, and getting technical literature by return, not a Star Wars video cassette. More recently, NASA's "Seven Minutes of Terror" promotional video for the Mars Curiosity mission was dramatic, but still factual.

I'm sure the 1960s Space Race with all its propaganda gave a false impression about the proportion of people who were genuinely interested in space exploration. By the time Alan Shepard was hitting golf balls on the moon during Apollo's third moon landing in 1971, most people's eyes were glazed over. And maybe for some people it's even harder to get enthused about a robot drilling core samples than a human being's extra-planetary antics. But I still think that the target audience for space science promotion can do without the Obi-Wan treatment.

Let's face it, space agencies -- whether NASA or ESA -- promote their activities to justify their own existence. If they are indeed justified then maybe they should stick to what they do best, and  not try to muscle in on the movie business. Perhaps I'm being overly cynical -- there is, of course, an alternative view.

The Rise of ISIS

Hat tip to Lee C. for letting me know about this: