Brian Clegg's Blog, page 18

The problem with environmental issues

It's hard to find anyone who says we should trash the environment. But there is a real problem underlying many environmental issues that both individuals and environmental pressure groups seem to miss: there is often a trade-off involved. 
It's not enough to say 'we will do this because it's good for the environment' in a blanket way, because many actions taken for environmental reasons will benefit one aspect of the environment but will be a negative for another. The only honest environmentalism is one where you acknowledge both the positives and negatives - and are prepared to say that one environmental goal is more important than another.

For me, there is a very clear priority: climate change. It trumps all other environmental concerns. This doesn't mean we can't be nice to whales or whatever - often actions can be totally positive. But where something is beneficial in terms of reducing climate change, it may need to be adopted even if it raises some negatives elsewhere.

The most glaring divisive factor is nuclear power. Until we get fusion power stations, there is no doubt that nuclear power is not environmentally ideal via fission reactors. But such power stations a source of energy that does not contribute to climate change, and, unlike wind and solar, they are not weather dependent. Nuclear is essential to fill in the gaps. We have to have more nuclear power, and it's time that green pressure groups (and Green political parties internationally) recognised this.

Another example is the war on plastics. Everyone agrees we shouldn't have plastic getting into the sea or otherwise causing a mess. Yet plastic packaging is better for climate change than biodegradable packaging, because it locks carbon away, rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. Arguably, we should stick with plastic packaging but manage the waste better.

And then there's biofuels - fine in principle because much (though not all) of the greenhouse gasses released when they are used came out of the atmosphere. But they are a very inefficient way of turning solar energy into transport energy. And it's arguable that any land used for biofuels would be better employed for either planting trees or growing edible crops. 

Finally, there's the blanket move from 30 mph speed limits to 20 by the Welsh government. This may well reduce the impact of a few road accidents. But cars aren't geared to efficiently at 20, and use more fuel for the same distance. What's more, they will be pumping out greenhouse gases for half as long again on these stretches. It isn't posited as an environmental measure, but it would remiss to ignore the environmental impact. And there are many other examples where more thought is required to be sure we are truly doing the best for the environment.

Don't think for a moment that this is a call to ignore environmental issues. It's entirely the reverse. But all too often climate protestors, supposed green organisations and others engage in knee-jerk reactions without actually thinking about what they are trying to do and how best to achieve it. The climate deserves more logic.

This has been a Green Heretic production. See all my Green Heretic articles here.

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Ten years on

Each Christmas, the TV show University Challenge has a 'celebrity' special. More often than not, the members of the team will never meet again after making the show, but I'm delighted to say that the Lancaster team, of which I was part, have managed to have regular reunion lunches. We've got our latest this week, and are somewhat shocked to discover that it's ten years this November since we took part. 

Going down the line, after me comes the youngster of the bunch, Ranvir Singh then  Roger Ashton-Griffiths and last but certainly not least Matthew Fort.

What's delightful about the group is that we are from very different aspects of what you might broadly call the communication business - yet we find we've plenty to chat about with others quite different from those we might encounter in our everyday lives. You can see us introduce ourselves below:

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Poetic science

Although it's rare, it can be interesting when the arts are stimulated by popular science or popular maths. A while ago, a sculptor exhibited a series of pieces based on the cover art of my book A Brief History of Infinity , and I am delighted to recently discover that writer Mary Soon Lee has included a poem in her collection How to Navigate Our Universe inspired by something I wrote in my book Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing the text was this: 'Without any idea what could be causing this, astrophysicists, taking the term from American cosmologist Michael Turner, termed the phenomenon dark energy. The name tells us nothing about what is involved. It might just as well have been called factor X or unizap.'

Here is the poem (reproduced with permission) - I so wish the astrophysicists had gone with Mister Floofy*:

How to Brand Dark Energy

--after a remark by Brian Clegg

One can hardly be expected
to refer to it
as that ineffable entity
underpinning the apparent accelerating expansion of the universe--

so pin a label to it--
call it dark energy--
as if we knew it to be dark,
as if we knew it to be energy--

perhaps it would be better
to name it as if it were a pet--
Mister Floofy, maybe, or Bitsy--
some friendly unintimidating descriptor
to cover up the fact
that the universe may be coming apart
at the seams.

* As a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I love the echoes of Mr Pointy.

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Science fact with a touch of fiction

As a science writer, I'm always trying to find ways to make science more approachable. When I recently interviewed teacher and science communicator Alom Shaha, he suggested that being brought up in a family and with teachers who had a positive attitude to science - and who considered it fun, not a chore - had a significant impact. Inevitably this means that the old C. P. Snow 'two cultures' thing rears its head.

I brought the two cultures into an article for the Royal Literary Fund on why I thought science fiction is considered not to be in the first rank of writing by many of those in the literary world. And it was writing this that inspired me to attempt to use a touch of science fiction as a bridge to make popular science more approachable in my latest book, Interstellar Tours.

This is a book on the science of what's in our galaxy, from black holes and supernovae to planets and nebulae. There have been plenty of such books, but often they feel rather detached from reality, unlike a title, say, on quantum physics, where there are clearly connections to everyday technology. So rather than simply describe the amazing phenomena in the galaxy, I use a fictional starship to take the reader on a galactic tour.

The other difficulty I wanted to overcome was the visual. There are broadly two types of popular science book. The 'straight' ones, which have hardly any images, and the illustrated ones where the images tend to dominate, only allowing for relatively simplistic text. On my imagined starship there is a viewing wall that enables the passengers to see outside as if there were no metal in between. I wanted to write a 'straight' book - so the 50+ images and videos are in an associated website and can be accessed by a web link or QR codes on the page.

I realised when doing this that not everyone would like it. But it makes it possible to provide far better illustrations than you would otherwise find in a full-text book - and you can view them wherever you are, whether it's on a phone from the QR codes, or by going to the website with a large screen and clicking the 'Next' button to move on when the next view turns up in the book. It's not a perfect solution, but I hope it will make the book more interesting.

To accompany the book, in a couple of weeks' time I've got the first in a series of talks based on it at the delightful Sidmouth Science Festival on 15 October 2023, followed by Taunton Literary Festival on 7 November. More talks on the way, ranging from the Festival of Tomorrow to the Royal Institution - details to follow.

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Being interviewed by John Humphrys

In recent edition of the Red Box podcast, the guests were asked which political interviewer they would like to grill them. Some ummed and ahhed for a while: I'm not involved with politics, but wouldn't have to hesitate a moment as it's already happened. I was interviewed a while ago by one of the UK's top political interviewers (now retired), John Humphrys on the Today programme.

You can hear the interview here.

I was in a different BBC studio from the interviewer when the interview took place, so I couldn't see who was about to interview me, and they didn't tell me in advance which of the Today programme presenters was going to speak to me. I must admit, if I'd known in advance it was going to be Humphrys I would probably have been more nervous than I actually was. But I'm so glad I did have that opportunity. 

Nearly ten years ago I was on Christmas University Challenge, so have also been questioned by another of the UK's now retired political interview attack dogs, Jeremy Paxman - but that was a very different, more light-hearted situation. In his usual mode on the Today programme, Humphrys could casually tear a politician apart - but despite any concerns I might have had when I heard him introducing the conversation, I had a far easier time of it.

If you'd like to find out more about The Quantum Age, there are some details here.

Image from Wikipedia by ChristheDude shared under Creative Commons 3.0 licence.

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The Real McLegg

The writing community is quite rightly worried about generative AI in two ways. Can a writer be replaced by something like ChatGPT, and could we be accused of using generative AI to do our work for us? One possible solution is to use AI itself to fight back. But before getting into the detail, I ought to explain why this piece isn't titled 'The real McCoy'.

That was my first inclination for a title (and I'm sure ChatGPT would have gone with it). It would have given me an opportunity to lever Star Trek into the discussion, and it's a familiar phrase that highlights the issue we're dealing with. According to my trusty Brewer's, the phrase was originally 'the real MacKay' in Britain. A lot of people apparently thought the US version was based on a US boxer called McCoy, but apparently it arose (not entirely surprisingly) in Scotland and was exported to the US as a way of highlighting true Scotch, as opposed to US whiskey.

I switched the title to 'the real McLegg' because it's somehow the sort of thing I couldn't imagine a generative AI coming up with - and there is a sort of reason. I have been addressed in the past as Mr McLegg. This is because one of my early email addresses (with Yahoo, I think - I can't remember why I had it) was brianmclegg@... - brianclegg@ had already gone, so I deployed my rarely used middle initial.

All of this is a long winded way of getting to a new feature from Authory, the content system I use to make my online writing more widely available. Authory makes a copy of everything written by me online on sources I tell it about. Others can then take a look at what I've written or subscribe to a free weekly digest of my work. I've found it very useful for this. But the people behind Authory have been experimenting with AI and have come up with a cunning scheme to help writers establish their non-AI credentials.

Because Authory has access to thousands of articles by me, it can build a picture of what my writing style is like. As is the case with most writers, I don't always produce the same kind of stuff, so rather than have a single 'digital fingerprint' it produces quite a few - in my case, over 1,000 of them. These are all based on items written pre-December 2022, so won't have any generative AI content. The system then compares new writing against those fingerprints, and can make a reasonable assessment of whether or not the vast majority of my writing is human generated. If this is the case, it generates a certificate. The pretty aspect of this is the image above, but a would-be checker can also click on this link and see more detail about the basis of my certificate.

The concept did bring up a few doubts that I've contacted Authory about.  My content includes interviews and guest posts, where almost all the text wasn't written by me. Perhaps more worrying, I have intentionally (and obviously) included text written by ChatGPT, such as this article on a 1960s SF story about computer-generated writing that seemed to prefigure ChatGPT. In the article, I asked the generative AI to produce a story like one mentioned in the original. I'm reassured by Authory founder Eric Hauch that a few articles written by others won't damage my fingerprint, and that 'A part of an article that's been framed by you as coming from ChatGPT will not put your certificate at risk. The algorithm behind this is pretty extensive and won't be thrown off by things like this'.

Of course there are limitations on what the certificate indicates. It's only being assessed twice a year (the next time in October). And the chances are that the occasional ChatGPT written article (something I have no intention of using) might slip through the net. But it's arguably reassuring for readers to know that my blogs are not hotbeds of AI generated nonsense. I'm perfectly capable of generating my own.

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Would anyone notice Hozier striking?

I see that the Irish musician Hozier has announced that 'he would consider striking over the threat artificial intelligence poses to his industry.' This was taken seriously enough by the BBC News to put it under their high profile Newsnight brand.

I'm also not sure how much music artists are truly under threat from AI. Hozier himself suggests he isn't sure if AI-generated music 'meets the definition of art'. More to the point, the music business is about a package, not just a song and AI would have to come on considerably to be able to deliver the whole thing. No doubt a few AI-generated songs could be successful in terms of streaming - but it seems unlikely the music business as a whole would suffer too much.

But even if the threat is serious, I can't help but thing Hozier (dangerous autocorrect tendency to make him hosiery) has a weak grasp of economics. While I'm sure that Hozier fans would be disappointed by his disappearance from the scene, the reality is that the music business is not short of competition. If railway workers strike, travellers suffer because there are limited alternatives. However, if a single artist strikes, only a tiny percentage of music lovers will notice - and I suspect there are very few Hozier fans who don't listen to anyone else.

Of course, the hope appears to be, as with the Hollywood strike, that this wouldn't be a single individual walking out, but rather a large number of performers. Even with this comparison, though, I'd suggest the music business is very different from the movies. Hollywood is a dominant force - and there are relatively few big movies made. Thousands of songs emerge on the market every week - there's always something and someone new. And though I don't suggest it's easy to become a music star, it takes far less (especially in the internet age) for a song to get out there and get noticed - especially, perhaps, if some of the bigger names are on strike.

When it comes down to it, Hozier striking would be a bit like your local independent coffee shop going on strike. It would be a shame for the regulars, but it's not going to make much of a ripple in the market as a whole.

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The ChatGPT of 1964

In the months since ChatGPT and other examples of Generative AI arrived on the scene, plenty of writers and artists have had a genuine concern for their future careers. We now know that these systems have some distinct flaws in writing non-fiction - they struggle to identify the difference between reality and the made up stuff, and have been quite happy to, say, fabricate references because they've spotted references are a good thing, but not that they have to be real. However, this is less of a problem in the field of short fiction, where things are supposed to be made up.

When it comes to poetry, although Generative AI can come up with unsubtle stuff (one of the few things it seems quite good at is rap), it struggles for sophistication - but it's very easy to imagine, had there still been a demand for it, that the systems would be good at the kind of pulp fiction that used to be regularly consumed by the masses prior to the 1970s, and that still has a small toehold in, for example, romance.

It's fascinating, then, that fellow popular science writer Andrew May has uncovered an SF short story from 1964 that imagines a piece of technology able to churn out pulp stories, ready formatted. The story, Author! Author! (no relation to the Isaac Asimov story of that name) appeared in the 10th August edition of the cheap and nasty looking comic Unusual Tales - you can read the story here. There is no author cited (though Andrew wonders if it is Joe Gill, who seems to have produced a lot of material for Charlton Comics at this time) - but the author was assuredly human, unless a time machine was involved.

In the story, a scientist has a computer that 'will write all kinds of stories. Thus we save the money we pay to writers. In addition, it sets the type, does the printing, editing and binding. So we don't have to pay any person a salary.' The device has a series of controls similar to the specifications you might give to ChatGPT, to indicate, for instance that you want a Western, around 2500 words in length, with a hero who is a sheriff and a villain who is a gambler. We can add in other items, such as a heroine who might the daughter of the villain, and a fight. And off it goes. 

In the story, the machine gets stuck and produces stories that are a messy mix of genres. The investors are horrified - but it turns out the public love the resultant garbage, thinking it's a satire.

The mixed-genre ending of the story apart, the echoes of ChatGPT and its cousins are quite remarkable. Just to underline this, I asked ChatGPT to give me a 2500 word Western story where the hero is a sheriff, the villain is a gambler, there's a fight scene and the heroine is the villain's daughter. It produced the story below. Is it great fiction? Certainly not. But it certainly fulfils the promise of Author! Author! and is, frankly, as good as much of the pulp fiction of the first half of the twentieth century.

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Shadows of Redemption

In the rugged town of Dusty Ridge, the sun-baked streets were as unforgiving as the people who walked them. Law was maintained by a single, unwavering figure – Sheriff Caleb Morgan. A man with a past as weathered as his worn-out Stetson, he was known to be unyielding in his pursuit of justice, despite the scars that marked his soul.

Dusty Ridge had seen its share of villains, but none were as infamous as Jasper "Snake-Eye" McCallister. A cunning gambler with a heart as cold as the desert night, Snake-Eye had a reputation for cheating at cards and stealing hearts, all while leaving a trail of chaos in his wake. He owned the Silver Dollar Saloon, a place where smoke wafted through the air like lost dreams and poker chips clinked like promises on the edge of being broken.

The tension between the sheriff and the gambler had been building for years, a fuse waiting for the spark. That spark came when a beautiful, mysterious woman arrived in town, capturing the attention of every man, woman, and even a few stray dogs. Elena McCallister, the daughter of Snake-Eye himself, possessed an air of danger that could rival the wild west itself. With raven-black hair and eyes that held secrets, she was both a riddle and a revelation.

It was a crisp morning when Sheriff Morgan saw Elena for the first time. She was perched on the steps of the Silver Dollar Saloon, watching the town come alive with an intensity that matched the sun’s rising glow. He felt her gaze upon him as he strode down the street, his spurs ringing out a steady rhythm that matched his determined heartbeat.

"Morning, Sheriff," she purred, a playful smile tugging at her lips. Morgan's jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing at the familiarity that she dared to display.

"Elena McCallister," he acknowledged with a curt nod, his grip on his Colt subtly tightening. "What brings the daughter of a notorious gambler to Dusty Ridge?"

She leaned forward, her eyes locking onto his with an unsettling intensity. "The same thing that brings everyone to these parts, Sheriff – the thrill of the unknown."

A flicker of something unreadable passed over Morgan's eyes before he turned away, his long coat billowing behind him like a cloak of authority. He could feel her gaze burning into his back as he strode away, knowing that this encounter was merely the beginning of something darker on the horizon.

As days turned into weeks, the tension in Dusty Ridge grew thicker, like the brewing storm that had yet to break. Morgan's hunch proved true as Snake-Eye McCallister's schemes began to unravel, his clever tricks exposed and his wealth of ill-gotten gains diminishing. The townsfolk started to whisper that perhaps the gambler's luck was finally running out.

One fateful evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting an amber glow over the town, Sheriff Morgan stepped into the Silver Dollar Saloon. The air was thick with the scent of whiskey and sweat, and the tension was palpable as he approached the poker table where Snake-Eye sat, his eyes sharp and calculating.

"Evenin', Sheriff," Snake-Eye drawled, a sardonic smile curving his lips. "Care to join us in a hand of cards?"

Morgan's gaze bore into Snake-Eye's, the two men locked in a silent battle of wills. "I ain't here to play games, McCallister. I'm here to put an end to your reign of deceit."

With that, chaos erupted in the saloon. Tables overturned, chairs flew, and the sound of breaking glass harmonized with the cries of men caught in the crossfire. Morgan's fists clenched and his fists flew as he fought his way to Snake-Eye, his years of law enforcement experience giving him the edge in the brawl.

Amidst the chaos, Elena watched from the shadows, her eyes torn between the two men who held her fate in their hands. Her father fought with a desperation born of a cornered animal, while the sheriff fought with a steely resolve that spoke of a deeper purpose.

As the fight reached its climax, Morgan delivered a final blow that sent Snake-Eye crashing into a table, his defiant spirit finally broken. The saloon fell silent, save for the ragged breaths of men who had just walked the line between life and death.

Sheriff Morgan stood amidst the wreckage, his knuckles bloodied and his breath heavy. He turned to face Elena, who had stepped out of the shadows, her eyes filled with a mixture of anger and relief.

"Your father's reign ends tonight, Elena," he said, his voice weary but resolute. "But you have a choice – to continue down the path he walked, or to forge a new one."

Elena's gaze wavered before she turned to her defeated father, his pride shattered and his world collapsing around him. She looked back at the sheriff, her resolve hardening like steel.

"I choose a new path, Sheriff. For Dusty Ridge, for my father, and for myself."

And so, the story of Dusty Ridge reached its turning point, as the hero and the heroine chose redemption over revenge, and the town began to heal from the wounds inflicted by a villain's greed. Sheriff Caleb Morgan had faced down the darkness within himself and the shadows that had haunted his past. Elena McCallister, once entangled in her father's web of deceit, emerged as a symbol of resilience and the power to choose one's destiny.

The sun continued to rise and set over Dusty Ridge, casting its golden light upon a town that had seen its fair share of struggles. But now, with the sheriff and the heroine by its side, it stood as a testament to the enduring spirit of the West – a spirit that could overcome even the darkest of shadows.

The battle for small electrical recycling

For years now I have occasionally troubled my local council (Swindon) with emails about a failure in their recycling collections. At the moment the council collects, for example, plastic to recycle and/or burn. Which is fine - we don't particularly want it in landfill - but it is neither an important natural resource nor does it have any value to speak of. However, the council doesn't collect small electrical items. 

Up to now I've had zero useful response to my emails. Our previous Conservative-led council ignored my emails to the council lead on waste, while my local councillor simply said 'We don't do that, people can take small electricals to the recycling centre, and some supermarkets have bins for batteries.' If you have a single battery, a phone cable, a charger or whatever, none of which should go into the landfill bin, you are expected to book an appointment and drive (in my case) a ten mile round trip to the recycling centre. That's great for climate change, guys. And then there's the battery recycling bin at my supermarket. It is a) always overflowing and b) doesn't take bigger (much more valuable) batteries like old laptop batteries.

Out of interest, I emailed our new local councillor, who is Labour. He replied saying it was an interesting idea, and could I identify another council doing this. As it happens, an adjacent council (Vale of the White Horse) does collect small electricals. Huge pat on the back to Vale of the White Horse. I was told the councillor will pass on the suggestion and let me know the outcome. We shall have to see if I get any further response or if the suggestion was filed in the (recycling) bin.

Surely, this is a no-brainer? Lithium ion batteries contain crucial materials for everything from smartphones to electric cars, yet at the moment they are mostly sent to landfill. Bizarrely, those horrible single-use vapes, which can't be recharged, almost all contain rechargeable lithium batteries. Not only is this wasting an important raw material, they tend to catch fire under stress and have already caused several fires in bin collections and landfill sites.

A council has to be realistic about recycling and make it easy to do if they want to make it work. No one is going to take a phone cable, an AA battery or even a toaster (which these days contain electronics) to a recycling centre. They will sigh and dump them in the landfill bin. And you can't blame them. It's time every council collected small electrical waste. You know it makes sense.

This has been a Green Heretic production. See all my Green Heretic articles here.

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Galata (Fantasy) - Ben Gribbin ****

This is an unusual and atmospheric book. It's described as speculative fiction, but I'd call it fantasy for reasons I'll go into in a moment. The setting is a city that reminds me in some ways of Gormenghast - like Mervyn Peake's imaginary location, this fictional setting is ancient and decaying - what's more it's dominated (in the week in which the story is set) by pointless ritual. The city of Galata is being overtaken by the tides - so another point of reference is the dark feel of the movie version of Du Maurier's Don't Look Now. A final piece of fiction it brought to mind was Henry Gee's dark and horrifying murder mystery By the Sea .

Galata, too has an element of murder mystery. As the week-long festival that is supposed to hold back the sea is underway, someone is killing young women. The central character, Joseph, is a former policeman and becomes involved in the distinctly half-hearted investigation of these deaths, which seem increasingly linked to a past event. The sequence of killings adds intrigue and suspense to what is initially a rather tell-heavy story, opening with a lengthy description of location and settings without significant human interaction. It's worth getting through this, though - once things started happening, I wanted to find out more.

Exactly what 'speculative fiction' describes is a matter for dispute. It's often taken as an alternative label for science fiction, used by literary fiction writers and their fans who look down their respective noses at the genre. But there is no science fiction aspect to this novel. For me, the combination of the fictional location of Galata and the grotesque nature of the festival rituals makes this more properly described as a fantasy - not of the swords and sorcery variety, but rather the kind of thing Gene Wolfe was so good at coming up with.

Inevitably, given the topic, this isn't an uplifting book that sends the reader away with a smile on their face and a spring in their step, but I found it highly engaging once I got into it and I'm glad I read it.

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