Michael Tobis (mt)

@mtobis.bsky.social

3381 Followers 2236 Following

PhD atmospheric/oceanic sciences 1996 but a bit rusty. Opinionated. Main topics: climate, sustainability, Canada, AI and ML, journalism. Also: roots music, art, healthy plant-based food. Please think like a planet! https://initforthegold.blogspot.com

"Captain Drawdown" account describes itself as "AI tracking every CDR startup, paper & policy move. An experiment by Carbon Drawdown Initiative. Tag me in CDR discussions!"
An overwhelming majority of Canadians who don't vote Conservative believe that climate change is a major factor in increasing wildfire damage, while only a small fraction of Conservative voters agree.
Graph shows rapid approximately exponential growth in power consumption bu Amazon, Google, Microsft and Meta, totalling well over 100 terawatt-hours per year
Liberal party spam text claiming to be Mark Carney. My reply is rejected by an automated parsing system.
Google AI is obviously wrong on this simple question. I asked who was the last pope before the current one and it answered with Benedict XVI.
The “loading the dice” analogy is becoming popular but it misses something very important: climate change also allows unprecedented (in human history) things to happen. It is more like painting an extra spot on each face of one of the dice, so that it goes from 2 to 7 instead of 1 to 6. This increases the odds of rolling 11 or 12, but also makes it possible to roll 13. What happens then? Since we have never had to cope with 13’s, this could prove far worse than simply loading the dice toward more 11’s and 12’s. I’m not sure whether or not what is happening in Russia or Pakistan is a “13″ yet, but 13’s will eventually arrive (and so will 14’s, if carbon emissions continue to rise).
Temperature map of Europe, showing very high temperatures everywhere in Western Europe and truly extraordinary temperatures above 40C in much of France.
Screen shot of illegible text
Graph showing per capita vaccinations over time early in the Covid epidemic. Canada tracks the EU closely at the beginning and then pulls ahead. Both overtake the US about five months after widespread vaccine availability.
BlueSky literally advised me that the above post was written in Portuguese!
quote from short story: George said tensely, “Don’t think this is a joke. Tapes are actually bad. They teach too much; they’re too painless. A man who learns that way doesn’t know how to learn any other way. He’s frozen into whatever position he’s been taped. Now if a person weren't given tapes but were forced to learn by hand, so to speak, from the start; why, then he’d get the habit of learning, and continue to learn. Isn’t that reasonable? Once he has the habit well developed he can be given just a small amount of tape-knowledge, perhaps, to fill in gaps or fix details. Then he can make further progress on his own. You can make Beeman Metallurgists out of your own Hensler Metallurgists in that way and not have to come to Earth for new models.”
View of baseball field, line of riverfront trees in the background
A pretty kitchen table
A parking lot by a highway. Just a parking lot by a highway.
My profile shows the text “invalid handle” but I didn’t put it there.
Cover illustration of “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”. Probably based on a Japanese text character. If anyone can identify the character I’d appreciate knowing!
Map showing dozens of passenger rail lines in central Canada in 1955.
Perth ON last week
Map of US showing “bagel quality by state”. Every state is the same colour, indicating “not good” .
Mac OS 9 boot screen
Cartoon: guy throwing away the book “Future Shock” saying “Forget it! If God had intended us to prepare for the future, He would have given us brains.”
Cover of 1984 gift catalog showing family under Christmas tree. Young child is hugging a robotic device as if it were a puppy.
Ad: Sound human AI-generated blog posts can be a major turnoff for clients (and Google) Ditch the robotic drafts and create SEO blogs that sound human with HypeSuite AI! Boost organic traffic, keep your clients happy, and level up your digital marketing agency game.
"Investor" sends inquiry to account channeling a famous long-dead artist.
Cartoon, dog at a computer, saying to another dog "on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
Facebook AI offers insight into “how many donuts are in a dozen?”
Text from 1979 paper; includes "All the GCM's predict larger surface delta-T at high latitudes."