Is this a Global Crisis?

Then maybe we should consult with a child activist on what to do.

Or maybe not ...

German Greens fighting new "green" power projects

Last week I posted about how wind farms are decimating wildlife, from insects to bats to birds to eagles, because environmentalists are ignoring the problem.  It seems that this is not true in Germany, of all places:

The expansion of wind power in the first half of this year collapsed to its lowest level since the introduction of the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) in 2000. All in all, just 35 wind turbines were build with an output of 231 megawatts. “This corresponds to a decline of 82 percent compared to the already weak period of the previous year”, according to the German Wind Energy Association (BWE) in Berlin.

“This makes one nearly speechless,” said Matthias Zelinger at the presentation of the data. The managing director of the Power Systems division of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) spoke of a “blow to the guts of the energy turnaround”. This actual development doesn’t match “at all to the current climate protection debate”.

...

The most important cause lies in the legal resistance of wildlife and forest conservationists fighting new wind farms. The BWE President referred to an industry survey of the onshore wind agency. According to its findings, more than 70 percent of the legal objections are based on species conservation, especially the threat to endangered bird species and bats.

Well done to the German environmentalists for holding to their principles.  I've been very hard on the environmental movement in the past, mostly because the rampant hypocrisy so often on display.  But not here.  Anyone who loves the outdoors can applaud this victory, whether you believe in man made global warming or not.

And today is a twofer in non-hypocritical environmentalist news:

Greta Thunberg to sail Atlantic for climate conferences

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has accepted a ride across the Atlantic by boat to attend two key climate conferences.

The teenager will make the journey aboard the Malizia II, a high-speed 18-metre (60ft) yacht built to race around the globe.

“We’ll be sailing across the Atlantic Ocean from the UK to New York in mid August,” she tweeted.

Thunberg refuses to fly because of the environmental impact of air travel.

Miss Thunberg is a bit of a social media sensation in Scandinavia.  She and I clearly disagree on whether mankind is causing the heat death of the planet, but good for her sticking to her principles.  She has chosen a very inconvenient (and quite frankly pretty uncomfortable) alternative transportation mode to keep from being a hypocrite on the subject.  In this she is seemingly unique among all the world's climate activists - none of them have given up jet travel to climate conferences.  Thunberg is showing everyone that it really isn't easy being Green, but being Green is exactly what she is being.

And a little child shall lead them.

- Isaiah 11:6

Bravo to Miss Thunberg.  The kids are all right.  Maybe wrong, but all right.

Robot surgeons - outcomes are worse with them than without

It seems that some "Insanely Great" ideas aren't so hot when you measure actual outcomes:

Robot-assisted surgery costs more time and money than traditional methods, but isn't more effective, for certain types of operations. 

... 

The researchers, led by Stanford visiting scholar Gab Jeong, weighed outcomes for both robot-assisted and traditional laparoscopic kidney removal and rectal resection. With kidney surgery, they found that where surgeons used a robot, the procedure time dragged on more than four hours in 46.3 per cent of cases, compared to just 28.5 per cent of cases where the surgeon worked without a mechanical assistant.

There are likely many issues in play here: immature technology, a long and bureaucratic FDA approval process, and high levels of training needed for surgeons and nurses.  The technology at least will evolve, but this points out the difficulty in introducing "game changing" technologies in mission-critical fields.

More importantly, it shows the difficulty in targeting the types of problems where robots can improve outcomes.  This is probably a lot harder than it seems, and with the expense of the FDA approval a lot riskier, too.

My attitude about the airliner over Ukraine and the border mess

It's the path on the left, for the reason stated.

But hey, that's just me.  I'm a lousy news consumer, and this is also pretty much why I avoid Twitter like the plague.

(via)

I love and hate Costco

The prices are great (if you're careful), but man it's crowded on a Sunday afternoon.