Radioactive Communist Zombies

Bad News on Climate Front

From CNN:

The glaciers in the Himalayas are receding quicker than those in other parts of the world and could disappear altogether by 2035 according to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

The result of this deglaciation could be conflict as Himalayan glacial runoff has an essential role in the economies, agriculture and even religions of the regions [sic] countries.

Oh my gosh! Why is this important?

The Himalayan glaciers form the world's largest ice body outside of the polar caps. Popularly known as the "Water Tower of Asia," they are the source of water for rivers that flow across the continent: the Indus River in Pakistan, the Brahmaputra that flows through Bangladesh, the Mekong that descends through Southeast Asia, the Irrawaddy in Myanmar, the Yellow and Yangtze rivers of China and a multitude of smaller rivers that flow through the Indo-Gangetic plains of Northern India.

Oh, wait, that was October of 2009, almost two and a half years ago.  Then in January 2010, the UN's IPCC had to admit they'd screwed up:

One paragraph, buried in 3,000 pages of reports and published almost three years ago, has humbled the head of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Facing global outcry, Rajendra Pachauri backed down and apologised today for a disputed IPCC claim that there was a very high chance the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035.

The assertion, now discredited, was included in the most recent IPCC report assessing climate change science, ­published in 2007. Those reports are widely credited with convincing the world that human activity was causing global warming.

And now, it appears (hat tip, Instapundit), there as been no melting of the Himalayan glaciers in the past decade:

The world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows.

The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall.

How can this be? Could it be that global warming stopped 10 years ago?  Could it be it stopped because it's not caused by humans but is natural?

But, of course, we all have to pitch in and spend quadrillions of dollars and make most everyone poorer (except the politically connected) to "save" the planet from what might be natural variation in the Sun and the Earth's oceans.

Oh, and the bad news?  It's if you still believe in man-made climate change.

It's the End of The World

Today Popular Science has a list of 12 ways the world could end in 2012 (Hat Tip: Instapundit). Forget the Mayans, here's 12 actual, scientific ways we could all be in a lot of trouble (according to PS).

1) Asteroid Impact.  That would take an asteroid about one mile across to destroy civilization and make humans extinct, according to PS.  There just doesn't seem to be any asteroids that size in the neighborhood after NASA searched for them.  But even a small asteroid, say the 300-yard-wide asteroid called 99942 Apophis that is going to have a very near pass by Earth in 2029, if it hit a city, could kill millions.

2) Pandemic.  Some new strain of the flu that is very deadly and very contagious emerges.  Or something nasty comes out of the jungles of the tropics (like HIV) that is very deadly and very contagious.  And it doesn't have to kill everyone. Just take out, oh 200 million and civilization would be in trouble.

3) The Rise of the Machines.  I still have trouble thinking we can make machines that are dangerous to us.  All we have to do is include a line of code that says "if someone says 'klaatu barada nikto' to you, shut down."  But the machine doesn't have to be a terminator that wants to kill humans:

"A malign neglect would be a bigger problem. You get something that's very intelligent but has motivations that are completely nonhuman. [The computer] might not really care about anything that we care about, but since it's smarter, it's going to get what it wants."

And if it wants water, air, oil, and takes it . . .

4) Gamma Ray Bursters. Much more worry some (in my opinion) than machines is astronomical events, such as gamma ray bursters (GRB) which happen when some massive stars die.  If one happens within 3,000 light years of Earth, we could all be fried by the radiation.  The good news, most galaxies only have them about once every 10 million years.

5) Brrrrrrrrr.  A nuclear war or supervolcano eruption (see #8) could cause enough debris to be in the atmosphere to cool the planet significantly.  And if it gets cold enough, all the ice and snow would reflect sunlight back into space, leaving the planet in equilibrium at a nice 50 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.  Apparently this has happened before and life only survived in volcanic-warmed areas.  And we are over-due for another ice age.

6) Ocean Acidification.  The ocean is normally basic (pH higher than 7.0, think back to your high school chemistry).  When environmentalists use scary terms like "ocean acidification" they mean a slight drop in its alkalinity.  For ocean acidification to threaten humans, it would have to kill the oxygen-producing plankton.  And no one sees that happening.  So I don't know why they even brought it up.

7) Solar Storm.  Another astronomical event.  The sun shoots out charged particles at the Earth (well, into space, Earth just happens to be in the way).  A "storm" where a whole lot of these particles are shot at the planet could overwhelm the magnetosphere and cause widespread damage to our electrical infrastructure.

During the worst solar storm ever recorded, in 1859, the currents were so intense that telegraph lines burst into flames. "If we had a storm like that today, it would be possibly quite catastrophic," says Jeffrey Love, a geomagnetic researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey. "Months without electricity could cause losses of trillions of dollars and basically wreck the economy."

(An EMP with a nuke could also send a large portion of the planet back into the pre-electricity age.  Iran has been training to unleash an EMP over the US.)

8) Supervolcano:

Two million years ago, a massive volcanic eruption near what is today Yellowstone National Park shot 600 cubic miles of dust and ash into the atmosphere—2400 times more than Mount St. Helens did in 1980.

So we are talking global cooling at worst (see #5), longer cold winters, shortened growing season, and disrupted air travel for years at best.  Oh, and we're about 40,000 years over-due for such an eruption.

9) Geomagnetic Reversal. What the heck is that, you're asking?  No, it's not when Romney changed positions after he decided to run for president.

Right now, the magnetic North Pole is up near the rotational north pole, but this hasn't always been the case. Throughout the earth's history, the north and south magnetic poles have swapped places, a phenomenon known as geomagnetic reversal. It happens irregularly, every 100,000 to 1 million years, and the last time they flipped was 780,000 years ago. So maybe we're due. Geophysicist J. Marvin Herndon has suggested that the reversal could cause the geomagnetic field to temporarily collapse, disrupting everything from power grids to gas pipelines to communications satellites.

The good news is, the "flip" would probably take 1,000 to 10,000 years.  A blink of an eye geologically but a long time to mitigate the problem for humans.

10) Nuclear War.  Well, Iran will probably have a nuke soon and China is building up their stocks of nuclear weapons and Russian is acting all tough and hegemony seeking.  And it doesn't have to be a full out superpower nuclear exchange:

A study published in 2008 by the journal Physics Today suggests that a regional war involving as few as 100 bombs could cause a nuclear winter, resulting in the lowest temperatures in 1000 years, while an exchange involving thousands of weapons would, the study concluded, "likely eliminate the majority of the human population."

Do over on that "Reset" policy with Russia?

11) Artificial Black Hole.

In 1999, as the Brookhaven National Laboratory prepared to fire up its Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a Hawaiian man named Walter Wagner filed a lawsuit to have the facility shut down. He claimed that the collision of high-energy subatomic particles could spawn tiny black holes that could subsequently grow until they swallowed the earth.

In more than a decade of operation the RHIC has not produced a black hole, but Wagner is currently warning of the same danger for Europe's Large Hadron Collider, which is generating yet higher energies.

But physicists say there's nothing to worry about.  The energies in these colliders are too low to produce black holes. And if they could produce black holes, we'd all be dead, now.

And number 12) "The X Factor."  Yes, cheesy British-derived talent shows can wipe out civilization.  Actually, this refers to the unknown unknowns.  The thing we have no idea about that could kill us.  Like vacuum decay of the entire universe.  But hey, we don't know anything about it, so why worry.

Well, let's see, of the dozen ways to wipe out civilization, only 3 are man-made (assuming catastrophic ocean acidification isn't possible by humans).  The rest are pretty much out of our control.  Or we could just surrender to the Islamofacists and turn back the civilization clock 1,000 years.  That would almost be as bad.

But don't let it keep you up at night.  I'm sure our leaders take this as seriously as they take Iranian nukes, the rise of fundamental Islam in the Middle East, and the amount of money we owe to potential enemy, China.

How Well do Wind and Solar Work? Nobody Knows!

(Hat tip: Instapundit)  As President Obama and the Democrats with their green allies push us into more and more "green" energy with massive taxpayer subsidies, no one seems to be asking how efficient are these technologies.  Which would be, in a rational world, the first thing asked.  The problem is, according (pdf file) to the Science and Environmental Policy Project, no one still knows even after Europe has invested billions in new renewable energy:

Someone experienced in analyzing potential investments in innovative industries may be surprised by the lack of hard data on the performance of solar and wind in generating electricity. Certainly, it is understandable that solar and wind companies may wish to keep certain trade secrets from the public, such as manufacturing design and techniques. But if the results are as solid as the promoters claim, than one would expect the promoters would give the hard data on performance. Yet these are being withheld on the claims that such data is proprietary – confidential.

So were can we look to see how well wind and solar work in supplying electricity.  How about the countries in Europe that have heavily invested in it.

Slowly, information is leaking from nations that have spent heavily on wind and solar, such as Germany. This information should give pause to those touting solar and wind, including politicians. England is pulling back from wind, Germany has announced drastic cut-backs on its subsidies to solar, and Spain has announced the elimination of subsidies for renewable power. These actions are not the result of success. The erratic nature of these sources is well established.

And further more:

According to reports, no coal plants have been de-commissioned in northern Europe rendering the claim of lower carbon dioxide emissions questionable.

Why?  Because electricity cannot be stored and so wind and solar when they don't work (i.e., the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine as it doesn't about 50% of the time)  you need to generate electricity by some method.  And that means you need backup generation.  And those plants must be kept fired up and idling when the electricity comes from renewables so when the renewables stop, they can immediately jump in and take up the load. Other wise there'd be brownouts and blackouts (which while some greens may be okay with that, must of us wouldn't be).

Oh, and pollution controls don't work as well when a fossil fuel plant is changing it's heat output, like from idling to full running.  So renewable energy could be causing more pollution.

I don't know why Obama can't look at the experience of Europe and learn from it.  But he can't even look at the experience of his stimulus plan that failed and learn from it.

Are We Headed For a Mini Ice Age?

Earlier I wrote about scientists saying don't panic over CO₂ and global warming.  Now some scientists are say, yes, panic, but about the coming mini ice age.  From the UK Mail, it appears the (probably natural) warming trend ended about 15 years ago:

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

And in fact, we may be entering a period of low sun activity that could cool things down a bit.

Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.

The global warming climate change true believers will say CO₂ will override any cooling by the sun.  Not so say other scientists.

Although the sun’s output is likely to decrease until 2100, ‘This would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08C.’ Peter Stott, one of the authors, said: ‘Our findings suggest  a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases.’

These findings are fiercely disputed by other solar experts.

‘World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,’ said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark’s National Space Institute. ‘It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help.’

How cool could it get?

[I]t is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’ (after astronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.

And the global warming crowd:

CO₂ levels have continued to rise without interruption and, in 2007, the Met Office claimed that global warming was about to ‘come roaring back’. It said that between 2004 and 2014 there would be an overall increase of 0.3C. In 2009, it predicted that at least three of the years 2009 to 2014 would break the previous temperature record set in 1998.

So far there is no sign of any of this happening. But yesterday a Met Office spokesman insisted its models were still valid.

‘The ten-year projection remains groundbreaking science. The period for the original projection is not over yet,’ he said.

Well, when it doesn't happen in the next three years, they'll come up with some new story.  Like China burned too much coal.

You know, when you have to bend your science to fit reality, maybe your science is flawed. But there's a lot of money riding on climate change and a lot of power.  Too many people are politically invested in it.  It will not go quiet into the night.  Would help if we didn't have a president who is a true believer (or using it as an excuse to exorcise more power over the economy).

Scientists: No Need to Panic over Global Warming

We've been told over and over again that the scientific consensus is in and we must take drastic action to stop global warming climate change. (Of course it was once the scientific consensus that the sun went around the Earth and that light waves traveled through a mysterious substance called "ether").

Now sixteen scientists have chosen to come off the reservation and say there's no need to panic, as they wrote today (sub possibly required) in the Wall Street Journal.

In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: "I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.' In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"

That's because global warming is political, not scientific. But according to the sixteen signers of the article:

In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the "pollutant" carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.

Yes, you could call them "inconvenient truths"!

Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO₂.

Which is why the "climate scientists" wanted to "hide the decline."

The fact is that CO₂ is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO₂ that greenhouse operators often increase the CO₂ concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO₂ concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO₂ in the atmosphere.

What, you mean there was 10 times the CO₂ in the atmosphere than there is today, before SUVs and coal-fired power plants?  Maybe it occured  . . . naturally?

The scientists go on to talk about how those who oppose the global we'-re all-going-to-die warming orthodoxy are ostracized and even can lose their jobs.

Global warming Climate change is not about saving the planet, it's about controlling the citizens and getting rich as Al Gore has done. Global warming enthusiasts are watermelons: green on the outside and red in the center.  They are socialists who lost the battle to control the world in 1989 so now need another excuse to run the economy.

This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.

No, it's not.  But when you mix political power with science, it's what you get.

London Residents Kill Boy for Witchcraft

There are so many angles to this outrageous story: ignorance, education, science, and multiculturalism. Where to start?  I guess with the facts.  A man and his "partner" allegedly killed the partner's teen-aged brother, torturing him to death, and forcing other members of the family to participate because they thought he was a witch.  And this happened, apparently in London, England.  According to ABC News:

Relatives who suspected a British teenager of practicing witchcraft beat and drowned him Christmas Day 2010 as he "begged to die" because of the pain they were inflicting, prosecutors alleged in a London court.

Kristy Bamu, a 15-year-old boy from Newham, east London, allegedly died at the hands of Eric Bikubi and his partner, Magalie Bamu, Kristy's sister. Both of them have denied the charges.

Bikubi and Bamu allegedly forced Kristy's four siblings to join in the attack.

The alleged attackers hit the teen with sticks, metal bars, a hammer and chisel, prosecutors said, and he "begged to die" because of the pain from the beating.

You occasionally read about this kind of thing happening in some poor, isolated outback country in Africa.  But not in a modern, Western city such as London.

Kristy and his siblings had arrived in London from Paris to see the East London couple for Christmas. But Kelly, Kristy's elder sister, said the trip turned sour when Eric Bikubi accused her and Kristy of practicing witchcraft and sorcery. Eric Bikubi also accused them of influencing his 3-year-old son.

So why is Bikuni so ignorant as to believe in witchcraft?  Maybe because he comes from a poor, isolated country in Africa (I'm speculating).  Or he may have been born and raised in London but his parents didn't assimilate and clung to their ignorant tribal ways.  This is the problem (one of many) of multiculturalism.  People move from hell-hole countries to the West and yet want to keep the same culture and beliefs that made that country a hell-hole.

Now us in the West stopped killing witches about 300 years ago and I really don't know what percentage of people in the West still believe in witchcraft, either from the "it's evil" side or the "I'm a Wiccan, not a witch" side.  In either case, an education in science would probably dispel that belief.

Why was Bikuni even in London if he's so ignorant?  I can't imagine he spent 16 or so years in British schools and came out so ignorant unless British schools are worse than American schools.  And if it's an immigrant, why was he allowed in the country with such stupid beliefs?  Oh, yeah, diversity, multiculturalism, etc.

If he's guilty I hope he gets the harshest punishment Britain allows (which seems to be 20 years or so in prison even if it's called a "life" term).

But we also have to look at those who tell us diversity and multiculturalism are such wonderful things.  And then lay at the doorstep every honor killing or death of someone who is accused of being a witch in freaking London or America. 

The Future is Coming!

The future is coming and it's closer than you think! According to IBM there are five emergent technologies that will very soon change your life (but not, to me it seems, always for the better).  So what are these wonders of science that IBM says we'll have in five years (2016)?

The first is (cue dramatic music) energy from humans.  Wait, wasnt that the whole premise of The Matrix?  According to the geeks at Big Blue (do they still call IBM that?):

Anything that moves or produces heat has the potential to create energy that can be captured . . . Walking, jogging, bicycling. The heat from your computer or the water flowing through plumbing.

Was it the red pill or the blue pill you're supposed to take?

On a personal level, while you're riding your bicycle to work, devices on the spokes of your wheels could be recharging batteries you could later use to power some of the lights in your home.

Wait, first of all, I don't ride my bike to work, like 99% of Americans, I drive (I know, wait until the Transportation Access Act of Obama's second term).  Secondly, If my bicycle is generating electricity, doesn't his make it harder to pedal (nothing's free) and thus I'll burn more calories and thus I'll need to eat more food and the growing and transportation of that food will require . . . energy?  I'm just saying.

Okay, so what else does IBM have in store for us in our wonderful future (where apparently we all ride bikes to work):

Each person has a unique biological identity. Your biometric data—facial definitions, retina scans and voice files—will be composited through software to build an individual's unique online password, IBM researchers said.

Referred to as multi-factor biometrics, smarter systems will be able to use this information in real-time to safeguard your identity. You will no longer need to create, track or remember multiple passwords.

In the future, IBM scientists said, you will be able to walk up to an ATM and securely withdraw money by simply speaking your name or looking into a tiny sensor that can recognize the unique patterns in the retina of your eye.

So instead of stealing your credit card they steal  your eye? It wasn't a very good movie but in Minority Report there was a system a lot like this and it was used by advertisers and the government to track what you did.  Now advertisers will just be annoying.  But the government tracking you through biometrics can be a threat to freedom.  Cop pulls you over, scans your eye, and says, "Oh, Mr. Townsend, this is your day to ride a bike to work."

Well, what's next?  Can you read my mind?

Mind reading may make the leap from science fiction to real life sooner than expected, the researchers in Armonk, N.Y., said. IBM scientists are among those researching how to link your brain to devices such as a computer or smartphone and be able to control inanimate objects by just thinking about it. If you think about calling someone, for example, the smartphone would then dial that number.

"I can't believe that damn Mr. Quimby is making me work late on a Friday.  No no no!  Don't call . . . Oh, Hi Mr. Quimby, was just going over those figures you sent me."  I'll be impressed with this system when it brings me a beer when I'm thirsty.

So what else?

In five years, IBM said, the gap between information haves and have-nots will narrow considerably due to advances in mobile technology; by then 80 percent of the current global population will have a mobile device.

You'll be issued them at birth.  We're going to quickly run out of IP addresses at this rate.  And how slow will the internet be if 5.6 billion people have iPhones (buy that Apple stock now!).

[S]pam filters will be so precise that you'll never be bothered by unwanted sales pitches again.

Great!  Until the spammers use your biometic data and your mindreading device to send it right to your brain.

So there's the future.  No teleportation, however.  I'm still waiting for that!

Did the U.S. Government Collude to Cover Up Climate Data?

One reason I'm a anthropogenic global warming (AGW) skeptic is because the scientists supposedly studying it are so secretive with their data and methods.  Now Fox News is reporting that the Department of Energy has been helping keep data secret.

In case you're not aware, there was a second release of hacked emails from climate scientists being dubbed "Climategate 2.0."  In that release is seems on scientist (I keep using that word but it doesn't seem to fit these people) was working the DOE to keep his data secret:

“Work on the land station data has been funded by the U.S. Dept of Energy, and I have their agreement that the data needn’t be passed on. I got this [agreement] in 2007,” Jones wrote in a May 13, 2009, email to British officials, before listing reasons he did not want them to release data.
 
Two months later, Jones reiterated that sentiment to colleagues, saying that the data "has to be well hidden. I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.”
 
A third email from Jones written in 2007 echoes the idea: "They are happy with me not passing on the station data," he wrote.

My question is, why does the data have to be "well hidden"?  What does it reveal about the climate shaman's data and methods that they and the DOE don't want revealed? This isn't "science" this is, as far as I can tell, a politically motivated scam.

"In every endeavor of science, making your work replicable by others is a basic tenet of proof,” Anthony Watts, a meteorologist and climate change blogger, told FoxNews.com. “If other scientists cannot replicate your work, it brings your work into question.”

But so-called "climate scientists" never want they data reviewed and their methods examined?  Why?  Well, remember the famous "hockey stick" that supposedly showed that it was hotter now than it had been for millenia. A statistician looked at that data and discovered that any data that had been feed into that methodology would result in a hockey stick.

If the science is "settled" and AGW undisputed, why do these people need to hide their data?  And why is the U.S. government colluding in that?

Is it because "climate change" is a politically driven scam to control your life?

Global Warming Not As Dire As Advertised?

A funny thing happened on the way to the "tipping point."  Turns out carbon dioxide may not be all that bad.  Say what?

From Reason.com (links original):

Last week, Science published a new study by Oregon State University researcher Andreas Schmittner and colleagues who found that an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may result in less warming than predicted. The researchers declared that their results “imply less probability of extreme climatic change than previously thought.”

(Gee, that sounds familiar.)

Apparently, there are questions as to how sensitive the climate is to increases in CO₂. Global warming alarmists say "very" but that may not be the right answer:

The Science study combines paleoclimate data from the Last Glacial Maximum 21,000 years ago with computer modeling to arrive at a lower climate sensitivity figure. They estimate that climate sensitivity likely (66 percent probability) ranges from 1.7 to 2.6°C (3 to 4.7°F) with a median estimate of 2.3°C (4.1°F). The even better news is that the study finds that climate sensitivities larger than 6°C are “implausible.” If carbon dioxide levels double, the world will likely get warmer, but not catastrophically hot.

Which means what? That all the trillions of dollars green meanies want us to spend to convert from a "carbon economy" to something "more sustainable" (and poorer) is wasted?

But if anything, it tells us the science is not "settled" (true science never is dogmatic) and there are still unknowns and probably unknown unknowns.  Is it worth destroying the prosperity and wealth of millions of people and condemning probably billions to poverty on the basis of a computer-model-driven theory?

I don't think so.

Electronic Devices on Airplanes Not Dangerous

If you haven't flown lately (dang, I haven't for almost a year!) you may not be aware that you have to turn off all your electronic devices until the plane has reached an altitude of 10,000 feet, then you may turn them on except cell phones (unless they are in airplane mode) or anything that sends/receives a signal (except WiFi if the plane is so equipped).  Confused yet?

Now it looks as if that policy is rather . . . dumb (for lack of a better word).  Why?  According to Nick Bolton writing in the "Bits" blog at the New Yuck Times:

The government might be causing more unnecessary interference on planes by asking people to shut their devices down for take-off and landing and then giving them permission to restart all at the same time. According to electrical engineers, when the electronic device starts, electric current passes through every part of the gadget, including GPS, Wi-Fi, cellular radio and microprocessor.

It’s the equivalent of waking someone up with a dozen people yelling into bullhorns.

So it might be better just to leave the devices on.

As Bolton points out, if just 1% of folks forget or can't be bothered to turn off their devices, that's about 2 people in a 737 and more on a bigger plane.  Yet there is not one recorded incidence of a plane crashing due to an on-board electronic device. What's more:

Michael Altschul, senior vice president and legal counsel for CTIA, the wireless industry association, said a study that it conducted more than a decade ago found no interference from mobile devices.

“The fact is, the radio frequencies that are assigned for aviation use are separate from commercial use,” Mr. Altschul said. “Plus, the wiring and instruments for aircraft are shielded to protect them from interference from commercial wireless devices.”

I frankly think the whole scam is to get you to pay attention to the safety briefing.

But with government over-caution, don't expect this rule to change soon if at all.  Maybe as electronics become more ubiquitous, the FAA will have to bend to reality.  But don't count on it.