16

Times of India , Pune

December TIMES
13 , 2015 Pp. 17

TRENDS

Satellites to check climate vows

SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA, PUNE

DECEMBER 13, 2015

SHORT CUTS
XMAS CHEER:
Decked out in santa
hat and tinsel, this
dog was among the
18 canines that
strutted their stuff
at the Festive Best
Dressed Dog
competition at
QV Melbourne

Corbis

Sunder at SRCC
On his first visit to India after
taking over as CEO of the
restructured Google in August,
Sunder Pichai is expected to
outline his vision for India and will
be joined by senior global
executives from the
company. On Thursday,
he will visit Shri Ram
College of Commerce
to interact with the
students

Authors awards
The fate of the Sahitya Akademi
awards returned by over 35
protesting authors will be
decided on Thursday. The
Akademi panel will decide on
whether to strip the writers of
the award or to take a middle
path to convince them to rethink
returning the honour

Vijenders bout
Star Indian boxer Vijender Singh
will face his most experienced
opponent so far Bulgarian
Samet Hyuseinov in his third
professional bout at the
Manchester Arena on Saturday.
The 30-year-old
middleweight boxer
hopes to become
Indias first ever
professional world
champion and end
the year undefeated

Meteor shower
Skygazers will be able to see a
meteor shower, called Geminid,
that will light up the sky around
11.30pm on Monday. The
spectacle that began last week
will hit its peak on Monday with
a frequency of over 75 meteors/
hour and decline over the next
three days

Satellite launch
India will be launching six
Singaporean satellites weighing
a total of around 625 kg on
Wednesday through
its Polar Satellite
Launch Vehicle
(PSLV) rocket. The
blast off from the
Sriharikota rocket
port is scheduled
for 6 pm

A space race has

kicked off to make
the first climate
monitor which can
keep an eye on
countries adherence
to emission promises

cientists from the US, Japan,

and China are racing to perfect satellite technology that
could one day measure greenhouse gas emissions from
space, potentially transforming the
winner into the worlds first climate
cop. Monitoring a single countrys net
emissions from above could not only
become an important tool to establish
whether it had met its promises to
slow global warming, a point of contention at climate talks in Paris, but
also help emitters to pinpoint the
sources of greenhouse gases more
quickly and cheaply.
The real success of a deal here
fundamentally revolves around whether we can see emissions and their removals, said John-O Niles, director of
the US-based Carbon Institute, which
studies methods of carbon dioxide
(CO2) measurement. While spacebased measurement is unlikely to be
mentioned in any deal agreed by the

COP IN THE SKY: The challenge for NASA is to convert images that pick up carbon
concentrations in the form of yellow, orange and red blobs into emissions data

nearly 200 countries negotiating in

Paris, the EU is leading a push for a
system of measuring, reporting and
verifying emissions data.
European and Japanese satellites
have been monitoring overall carbon
concentrations in the atmosphere
since 2002, but calculating emissions
at a national or local level is far harder. For example, the margin of error
for China, presumed to be the worlds
top carbon polluter, is greater than the
entire carbon footprint of Europe, according to experts.
China announced plans ahead of
the Paris talks to launch its first emissions-monitoring satellites next year.
But it says trade restrictions are hampering cooperation. NASA and Japan

are sharing the best sensors, but not

China, said Yi Liu, a lead scientist in
Chinas effort. This is a problem. We
need to work to make this work.
NASA launched its first satellite to
measure atmospheric CO2 in July last
year. The challenge now is to convert
the images which pick up carbon
concentrations in the form of yellow,
orange, and red blobs into emissions
data, said Steven Pawson, chief of the
Global Modelling and Assimilation Office at NASAs Goddard Space Flight
Center. NASA scientist Lesley Ott said
that the satellite, named OCO-2, also
showed there was potential to zoom into
urban areas to record carbon pollution.
Scientists are also struggling to
measure changes in forests that absorb

CO2, a key part of the calculation for

net emissions, from space. Trees bind
carbon while they are growing, but
stop once they mature.
Masanobu Shimada of at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency
JAXA, is working on distinguishing
between the two on a global scale. We
can get an idea about biomass from the
shading of its images, he said.
Back on earth, climate activists
hope a Paris deal will include helping
poor countries measure their own net
carbon emissions on the ground, a
process that can be difficult and costly.
Michael Gillenwater, of the not-forprofit Greenhouse Gas Management
Institute, said that kind of monitoring
was better suited than satellites to pinpointing the source of emissions. We
need to know where emissions are coming from, he said.
But calculating net emissions at
a single poultry farm in China, for
example, requires a 54-page UNcertified rulebook that factors in
everything from the amount of
methane removed from the chicken
manure to local temperatures and
animal weight to come up with a figure. At some point, that kind of detailed analysis may also be possible
from space. A Canadian satellite
company called GHGSat has
launched a small-scale effort to do
exactly that. Its nanosatellite, nicknamed CLAIRE, will launch in April
aiming to provide a way for energy
producers to measure their carbon
footprint. REUTERS

In session: Classes on etiquette, chivalry

Alyson Krueger

iddle schoolers are

not generally known
for their good manners. But Cord Ivanyi, a teacher in Arizona, said that he was
fed up after seeing the sheer
rudeness and carelessness the
boys showed, especially during parties when they would
shove their way to the front of
food lines. And so a few years
ago, Ivanyi began teaching
etiquette to seventh, eighth
and ninth graders, giving a
15-minute lecture on lessons
from the past, he said, from
holding doors open to offering
to seat to people, carrying
books when others are overloaded or injured, waiting
while being spoken to and using phrases such as in my
opinion. The students soon
started championing the
rules themselves, he said.

At a turbulent time in
America, with guns invading
workplaces and gender politics dividing college campuses, some adults are trying to
impart lessons on old-fashioned civility, even chivalry,
to children. The Etiquette
School of Manhattan trains
nannies and caretakers on how
to teach kids about proper behavior. It has lessons on how to
help kids build listening skills,
overcome shyness and calm
themselves when angry and to
express themselves with kindness and consideration.
Heather Haupt, a mother in
Dallas, created what she calls a
knights in training program
for her boys (ages 7, 9 and 11),
when they were toddlers. She
armed them with fake shields
and foam swords and gave
them rewards for showing
bravery, honesty or gallantry
toward women.

STARTING YOUNG: Classes for middle-schoolers and kids include

learning to hold utensils and shaking hands the right way

Swords are optional, of

course. Debbie Hays enrolled
her two young sons in a sixweek session at Polite Is Right,
a school for life-skills classes
for kids and teens.
There, the boys learned to
greet a new acquaintance by

making eye contact and offering a firm handshake. They

were instructed to debate respectfully, listen to others without interrupting and make arguments in a kind tone. They
learned to set a table with multiple plates and utensils and to

take care of their looks and

hygiene by wearing clean
clothes and combing their hair
every day. Years before their
first crushes, they learned to
give up their seats for women
on the bus and to open the
doors for them.
Being the mother of two
boys, I was determined that
this tradition would live on,
Hays said. Her older son,
Grant, 16, said: I talk to adults
in a more grown-up way I guess
than most kids my age and I
shake hands with them. I dont
give them a one-hand shake. I
hate when people do that.
Some parents have been
motivated to turn to chivalry
as a small measure of taking
control after seeing violence
and aggression on the news.
With our culture, where it is
going, we dont honour and
respect one another, Haupt
said. NYT NEWS SERVICE

Avian evolution linked to climate change

ew research by the American Museum of Natural History says that the

evolution of modern birds was shaped by the history of our planets
geography and climate. The study found that birds arose in South America
and survived the extinction event that killed the non-avian dinosaurs. They
started moving to other parts of the world during periods of global cooling.

We do have grammar in our heads

ver wondered how we could comprehend even nonsensical phrases?

According to linguist Noam Chomskys theory, thats because of an
internal grammar in our head. Now, a new study further supports this
idea. We make sense of strings of words because our brains combine
words into constituents in a hierarchical manner a process that
reflects an internal grammar mechanism, said lead researcher David
Poeppel from the New York University.

Should we fear the

rise of the robots?
Jamie Nimmo

nyone whos had the

pleasure of watching the
blockbuster film I, Robot
starring Will Smith could be forgiven for not taking the robots
could take over the-world argument too seriously.
Everyone in the movie loves
robots except Will Smith, who
doesnt trust them. The robots
turn against humans, everyone
wishes theyd listened to Will,
and then our hero saves the day.
The plot seems far-fetched.
But this week came the launch
of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics (FRR), an organisation formed by leading robotics
academics whose job will be to
address the urgent societal
issues highlighted by the rise of
the machines.
The foundation is chaired by
Noel Sharkey, a renowned expert
in the field and professor of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics at the University of Sheffield. Sharkey wants the foundation to help to shape public policy on robots. The purpose is to
avoid the kind of nasty wake-up
call seen in I, Robot. We are
rushing headlong into the robotics revolution without consideration for the many unforeseen
problems lying around the corner, Sharkey said.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, there

will be 31 million so-called service robots helping out in households by 2018, aiding in anything
from cooking to caring for children and the elderly. While the
market for industrial robots,
such as those used to make cars,
is expected to rise modestly, there
could be a huge surge in demand
for robots used in households.
But some fear the technology
could be vulnerable to cyber-attacks, especially in the early
stages. Could hackers break in
and gain control of a domestic
robot, driverless car or drone?
Then there is the issue of
mass job culls. However, Jonathan Crane, chief commercial
officer of IPsoft, the American
AI company behind Amelia, the
worlds most advanced virtual
assistant, believes the robot
revolution is a good thing.
There are a lot of things in
work that are repetitious, tactical, boring and mundane, he
said. If you could automate
some of those functions, you
would always do that, just like
hiring an assistant.
Sharkey and his team insist
that they do not want to stifle
this development rather to
make sure responsibility is at
the forefront of decision-making. THE INDEPENDENT