Rewriting Environmental Science 500
Aqua OS X writes to tell us CBS News is reporting that government scientist James Hansen recently spoke out against the White House in an appearance on 60 Minutes. From the article: "Hansen is arguably the world's leading researcher on global warming. He's the head of NASA's top institute studying the climate. But this imminent scientist tells correspondent Scott Pelley that the Bush administration is restricting who he can talk to and editing what he can say. Politicians, he says, are rewriting the science."
Parallels with Easter Island (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, they also brought rats with them on their canoes.
The rats ate the birds and bird eggs. The trees were cut down for timber and kindling. The land was farmed to exhaustion. And the entire civilization that arose there quickly collapsed under its own weight.
The whole time, people thought things would last forever, but they couldn't see the end coming.
We have our rats too.
This is all throughout the scientific community (Score:1, Insightful)
That recent Bush appointee that tried to go against the Big Bang theory is just the sort of problem, as is recent funding cuts to NASA. I don''t just blame the current administration however--because it is the scientist's job to convince the public and politicians of the importance of their work, and it is clear that they are currently largely failing at this.
Privitization? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this under a "more-reasons-to-privitize" department? I'm all for private ventures going into space, but you're quite delusional if you expect there to be any large scale investment in global warming research by the private sector. Yes, I know there might be some exceptions, but privitization is not going to give us better research.
Better rockets, cheaper missions, maybe... but, in general, this sort of basic scientific research is *exactly* the sort of thing the government should be doing. Of course, in a perfect world, the government wouldn't be trying to stifle the scientists either...
Re:Privitization? (Score:2, Insightful)
> thing the government should be doing.
The inherent nature of the State is that it screws up what it does. State run enterprise is bloated, inefficient, expensive and a political football.
Medicare, Medicaid, spending bills, the FDA...
Research would go exactly the same way if the Government took it over.
Indian Wisdom: "The Earth Does Not Belong to Man." (Score:2, Insightful)
ExxonMobile and its supporters in Washington state, " The earth belongs to man; he can wreck the earth in any way that he sees fit ".
Before 2050, we will know which bit of wisdom is the right wisdom. By 2030, we will have burned up all easily retrieved oil. Significant portions of Artic and Antartic ice shelves will have melted away.
Unless we do something now to create carbon-neutral energy processes and to achieve zero-population growth, we -- rich and poor alike -- will face a miserable future of unstoppable climatic catastrophes.
Re:Science section? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Indian Wisdom: "The Earth Does Not Belong to Ma (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks for the laugh (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm a hair over 20 years old and I've heard people bitch and moan about the end of the world, global warming, WW3, etc, since I was born. And frankly, I'm a lot more afraid of WW3 than global warming. While I'm all for alternative energy, recycling, minimizing fossil fuel consumption, and what not, all the bullshit from BOTH SIDES of the global warming argument have made me extremely cynical of wether or not it should be taken seriously.
Frankly (and I have absolutely no credentials to back up my opinion) I think the sea levels rising several meters of more in the next 20-30 years has about as much chance of occuring as Bush resigning from office so he can star in the next gay cowboy movie. Maybe if people would stop bitching about nuclear power and accept the fact it's 19233274928734 times better than burning shit loads of carbon compounds, the world would be a better place.
Safe Havens (Score:3, Insightful)
However we now live in an age when even this is being eroded and where the forces of politics, never the most rational of disciplines, feel safe in attempting to pervert its path. Will anyone really care? Will anyone notice? Scientific learning is looked down on. You are more likely to be admired in society for your knowledge of baseball scores than buckyballs.
I would suggest to our american colleagues that they look elsewhere for those that will value their work. The US isn't going to get better any time soon, whatever the shade of the next party in power. It's either that or organise your own political party and take control...
interesting counterpoint... (Score:2, Insightful)
Meh (Score:2, Insightful)
It's because the scientists are rewriting the theology.
Re:Privitization? (Score:3, Insightful)
So while government may inherently screw things up, it seems to be the case that some matters are guaranteed to be screwed up even worse by any private enterprise.
Re:This is all throughout the scientific community (Score:5, Insightful)
I am all for listening to both sides of a story, but where did scientists worried about the future of the planet exactly do wrong? If someone except the politicians are to blame here, it is the sheep public who lets this happen. Or write posts like yours.
Re:Privitization? (Score:3, Insightful)
The inherent nature of the state is that, whatever it does, there is always some smartass who thinks it is bloated, inefficient, expensive, and a politial football. Let me break it to you: the government does a lot of valuable things nobody else would do. That they always could be done better is trivially true, as pretty much everything anyone ever does could be done better.
The nature of the failings of the state are a simply consequence of the way the state works. Deeds done by the private sector have a different set of failings, also a consequence of how the private sector works. However, while we have a say in the workings of the former, we have little choice but to accept most decissions of owners of private property.
The private sector does better at some things, and at others the advantage is with the public sector.
Re:Meh (Score:2, Insightful)
Socialist trees (Score:3, Insightful)
While the common wisdom is that each individual trees need space around it to grow, the theory was that this was only true for capitalist trees. Rather than compete with each other for resources, socialist trees would cooperate for the common good.
Every official report from the forestry shows that the experiment was a great success.
Re:imminent scientist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Politics and Science (Score:5, Insightful)
We've seen it everywhere from the debate on Global Warming (where scientists have joined forces with ecologists to engage in massive social engineering in the form of the Kyoto accord) to the debate on evolutionary science (where fundamentalists attempted to redefine science with Intelligent Design) to the debate on gun control (where researchers have attempted to show a direct causal link between guns and crime) and pesticides (Alar, anyone?)
Now, whenever I see a news report on a political topic start quoting "scientists" or "researchers", I generally don't think "oh, good; a concerned scientist trying to weigh in on an important topic", but "whose special interest money is paying for this guy?"
It's hard to play in the mud and not get muddy yourself.
Easy Way to Limit Population (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a long-observed direct corrolation between poverty and birth rate. Societies with greater poverty have higher birthrate. Even in China it's commom for city-dwellers to observe the 1-child rule, but poor farmers still have families of 6 or 7 simply because they need all the labor to help create an income. The same is true in the slums of Calcutta where children are needed to rifle through trash piles looking for recyclable goods. This happens across all the great poverty centers: Manilla, Bangkok, Mumbai, Calcutta, Nairobi, Cairo, etc.
Japan is a perfect example of the opposite. They have a NEGATIVE birthrate because the affluence of their society has led many to chose not to have children.
The solution to overpopulation will come hand-in-hand with our solution to many other injustices: great a fair distribution of resources and we'll be able to live sustainable on our planet.
Re:T Minus 5 minutes (Score:5, Insightful)
Comrade Lysenko believes in Michurianism, and Michurin believes in Lamarckism! So don't try to fool us with Darwin, the People's Science teaches that acquired traits can be inherited. It is by this inheritance of acquired traits that the Proletariat will triumph over the Bourgeois Revanchist "science"!
We will win with out half-human, half-ape battalions! [mosnews.com] (Seriously, the Soviets really did try to breed human-ape crosses for "super-soldiers".)
From the first link: Lysenko called Mendelian genetics "reactionary and decadent" and Mendelians or Darwinists "enemies of the Soviet people". It wasn't until 1965 that soviets were allowed to even begin to catch up in biology.
The Nazis proposed their own "German Science" in reaction to what they called the "Jewish Science" of, among others, Albert Einstein and (the ironically non-Jewish) Werner Heisenberg. The "Jewish Science" was nothing other than modern physics, of course. [reference.com]
And when the Jewish scientists fled Nazi Germany, many came to America to work on the atomic bomb -- a bomb originally intended for use against Germany.
So as the Bush Administration and the Kansas school board repress honest science in America in favor of ideology and religion, ask yourself where we'll be in five or ten or fifty years.
Will any great biologists come out of Kansas if they need, at best, several semesters of remedial training to disabuse them of the lies of "Intelligent Design"? Will the breakthroughs in stem-cell research -- breakthroughs that could cure numerous diseases and extend human life for decades -- happen here, under the Christian eyes of Dr. Frist, or in freer and more open lands like India and Korea?
Or will that not matter at all, as global warming and environmental collapse literally drown America for the profit of the oil companies?
For a hundred years or more, America has been at the forefront of scientific research and development. Scientific leadership has been a pillar supporting our country's wealth and power. Will you let that pillar be chopped down so a few plutocrats can profit while science-hating fundamentalists cheer?
In the next several elections, you'll be voting not just for Representatives or a President -- you'll be voting on the future, or the future decline, of your country. Will you emulate the courage of Dr. Hansen, or will you surrender to an American Lysenkoism of ignorance, ideologically-fettered science, and superstition?
Re:Meh (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is all throughout the scientific community (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mankind does not belong to Man (Score:5, Insightful)
The same four people also supported the thesis that the earth is round. This does not mean that the earth is flat. Just because evil people can see the obvious does not mean that the obvious isn't obvious. The earth has only so much stored energy; it receives only so much energy from the sun. The more people the energy has to be shared with, the less there is for each. The faster we use up the stored energy, the sooner we're forced back onto just the energy we get from the sun. That's just straightforward.
We cannot sustain our present rate of population increase; we probably cannot even sustain our present population indefinitly, once cheap energy runs out. This is obvious; so obvious that you don't need to be an evil genius to understand it.
What you may need to be an evil genius to do is to come up with a good solution, because this problem looks intractable in a free society.
There are indeed. Their names are Famine, Pestilence, Predation and Death. If we don't come up with a better solution, the Four Horsemen will be along shortly with one of their own.
Re:Parallels with Easter Island (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Parallels with Easter Island (Score:4, Insightful)
Censorship huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
I have no doubt that the Bush administration has manipulated information coming out of the lab for their own political benefit, since that is what politicians do. What gets me, is how many high-profile stories I keep seeing about how these people aren't allowed to do interviews. I mean, logic would say that if they aren't allowed to voice their opinion, then they wouldn't be on TV voicing their opinion.The definition of censorship has obviously been softened a lot recently, when you can go on TV and talk about how you are being censored, and what is being censored. I mean, I have been reading articles about how these people aren't allowed to say anything, pretty much since Bush got into office, yet they still seem to have websites up, and go to conferences, and make all sorts of press statements. It is certainly an insidious form of censorship.
I'm not even sure how you tell if someone is being censored any more. In the old days, you could tell because they weren't allowed to say anything. These days I guess you just have watch them on network TV so they can tell you how badly their free speech is being trampled.
Hmm, what's next, people launching $100,000,000 ad campaigns to let us know they don't have any money?
Re:Parallels with Easter Island (Score:3, Insightful)
Corporate lobbyists pay for the elections so that they have leverage to "get their way" on issues that impact their business -- like environmental awareness.
Re:imminent scientist? (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you expect from the network that brought us: "OK. I admit it was forged, but it's still true." and is courting that nasty little hatemonger Katie Couric to be an anchor.
Most mainstream journalists have stopped even pretending they care. It's all about smearing your enemies and promoting your agenda. The simple ability to communicate in English is far less important than pledging allegiance to political agenda of the editors-in-chief or network news vice-presidents.
Re:Parallels with Easter Island (Score:1, Insightful)
these people didn't get elected by accident (Score:3, Insightful)
The average person in this country couldn't even begin to tell you what science is, what it's useful for, or what scientists do. To be fair, it's not a question with a simple answer like 42. But it's not surprising that people who make policy decisions at all levels of government know nothing whatsoever about science. It's mis-portrayed almost completely in the media, and probably mis-taught at all levels of education. Scientists are not valued by society in any meaningful way.
Any scientist whose work is in the popular press probably has a story about how their work was portrayed in a way to mislead, not inform people. Perhaps someone will repost the link to that recent insightful article about how few science reporters have any science background.
The government has been rewriting science more blatantly in environmental sciences than in other areas. But it's the other kind of rewriting that's more insidious and harmful. Necessarily, most science funding comes from the government. They decide what to fund and what not to fund. Serious scientists get input into this decision, but not the last word. What's insidious about it is that no individual scientist is doing what they do because the government told them. But since there's such an oversupply of scientists, including a healthy supply interested for their own reasons in doing the specific things the government would like, the government can shape science to whatever extent they want without there ever being a single scientist who was specifically influenced.
Re:Indian Wisdom: "The Earth Does Not Belong to Ma (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know what kind of environmentalists you hang out with, but as a born and bred son of Oregon hippies, I think you are full of shit. Most environmentalists are far more educated and open minded and pro-technology than you give them credit for. However, where I think you get confused is believeing that pro-coal burning power plant is somehow the equivalent to being pro-technology. I think most environmentalists are, almost by definition, liberal, progressive, pro-progress, pro-equality, and striving towards both inner and external perfection. They are pro-technology because when they look around they say, "there must be a way to do this better." For most environmentalist, this is an inherintly pro-technology stance.
I have a new experiement to try.
Go visit your local Baptist (or any religion, really) church or even a professional football stadium. Start talking about technology, genetic manipulation, virtual reality, prevasive computing, nanotechnology. See how far you can get. Compare your results to your previous results in the "eco village" and see which group is more open to your ideas. I belive that the environmentalists, where they do disagree with you vision, are more likely to be able to express an alternative vision and be able to intelligently debate. Who knows, you might even learn something.
Re:Privitization? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because if you invent a new spaceship you can make lots of money, but if you invent a new device to clean the air you can't make a dime, even though there is clear value in it. All you have to do is change this problem with the economy and suddenly the air will start getting a whole lot cleaner. That was the point of the Kyoto protocol.
Re:How to quote a misspelling (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's clear that neither the submitter or editor recognized it. Also, as the summary text, though verbatim from CBS, wasn't an explicit quote, "sic" would be needlessly pedantic; they should just have silently fixed it.
Re:Some notable quotes and comments from the artic (Score:3, Insightful)
Who is trying to gain more power -- the politician or the scientist? Surely the fact that being a politician is the business of wielding power implies the former? Who has the greater vested interest -- a scientist working for the government whose coming to the press could at best get him a book deal, or the politician representing the power of the U.S. government and the lobbyists of multi-billion dollar multinationals?
It's like the Bush administration who tried to discredit Clark by saying he had a conflict of interest in promoting his book. And the Bush administration had no vested interest... except for defending the "preemptive war" doctrine of the only superpower. Surely these interests are equal...
Or maybe, as the many who have come forward to describe the truth-fudging of the administration suggest, they aren't. Maybe one has a little more vested interest in muddying the truth. Naw, couldn't be... both are human!
Of course scientists are human. Of course they want things for themselves. Yet lying and fudging answers is not a good way to get what you want in the field of science. Look at Fleischmann and Pons, who went to the press with research that wouldn't as it stood withstand peer review. Their fame is limited to having their names be synonymous with disgraced scientists.
Is it thus plausible that every scientist who believes global warming and climate change are occuring, which is virtually every one not tied to a party with a vested interest in denying these are occuring, is themselves operating solely for their agendas and not science?
Scientists will always be human. If them being human is your reason for disregarding them (as well as every other human, I would presume) then that's just laziness. Engage your brain, use critical thinking, and try to see for yourself what the truth is through the noise caused by everyone's respective bias. And don't be afraid of the common-sense conclusion that one group may in fact be more biased than another.
Re:How many trees would it take? (Score:2, Insightful)
So you just want to burn it again, after going through all that to get the carbon out of the air? Intriguing idea, you'd just have to keep up this cycle though to stay at the same level, unless you were considering burying the diesel somewhere instead of using it.
Re:This is all throughout the scientific community (Score:3, Insightful)
Science is of course very respected in our societey, and therefore dangerous for certain politicians and other with a rigid, fundamentalistic world-view were facts is not of importance. The reason science is so respected is because the scientific method has been increadible succesful to explain the physical world around us and through this made possible the technological advances we all appriciate. Science is not the truth, but it is a proven method to reach trusth-worthy knowledge. I assume all this is self-evident.
The problem with the competing theory you are mentioning above is that these two people are not scientists. In this respect, these two guys are better labeled as politicians or people with an agenda (suggestion, follow the money...), than people producing scientific theories.
If you want a practical definition of science, it is what is done by a scientist. If you want a practical definition of a scientist, it is a person who publish in respected, per-reviewed scientific journals. It can sound like a circular definition, but it isn't really, and I think it is difficult to find a better one (try!). It is also a definition that in principle does not exclude anyone, with any level of education, to call themselves scientists. I am sure the two so-called "researchers" you mention would be happy to publish in say Nature if their work was of any merit, but Nature does not publish quasi-science like this. Though luck, we are not all cut out to be scientists.
Since you clearly do not understand much about the climate, current climate theories, chaos theory (dynamical systems), modelling in general etc, and also base your view on false information (I asume you are not lying to make a point), wouldn't you support that the government actively supported experts from say NASA to go out in the media and inform? That is the question we are talking about. You seem to be somewhat interested in understanding climate science (hopefully not just to support some political view). You should be asking for more inform about what are the current accepted scientific theories about the climate and what are the well-established facts. Why don't you? I do not see why this should be dangerous to you ...
Re:Impeachment? (Score:1, Insightful)
You are completely wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
"The nation's forest resources, although abundant, have not been well developed to sustain a large lumber industry. Of the 245,000 km of forests, 198000 km are classified as active forests."
245000/377835(area of japan)= around 65%.
I don't know why you think what you think, but I can't honestly say that having 65% of your land area covered by forests really supports the idea that
"Japan has eaten through it's tree population and is not having to import every square inch of wood."
In fact, that statement is just ridiculous.
The fact is that forests in Japan are hard to reach, so logging them is more expensive than importing from somewhere else.
So, my I ask you a serious question? Why would you post something that you hadn't researched? Any search at all would have given you the information I have.
Re:Indian Wisdom: "The Earth Does Not Belong to Ma (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Censorship huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now most of these people just have to suck it up, because 60 Minutes isn't calling them up for an interview about it, and if they did talk to a network, they would be immediately fired, and have to stop their work. These guys at this NASA lab have been incredibly vocal about how they think their research is being misused, and have been actively involved in opposing the policies of the government on this particular issue, yet they still have their jobs! In fact, it was the guy who was rewriting their reports who got fired, not them. I think that is pretty much the opposite of censorship, and a luxury most researchers would love to have. People working in the private sector certainly don't have that luxury. If a researcher for a pharmaceutical company was actively and publicly criticizing his employer, and working against the interests of that employer, they would have a hard time ever finding work again. If you want to maintain your autonomy, and make sure your research is untainted, and independent, then the first simple rule would be not to take money from people who have an agenda counter to the findings of your research. I don't think this is really that hard for most people to understand, so why are these geniuses at the NASA climate lab having such a problem grasping it?
Yes, it is a proven fact that the Bush administration has a penchant for misusing information to forward their agenda. However that was established a long time ago, and people still reelected them. Obviously people get the government they deserve. That doesn't somehow make it anything more than petty whining for these guys at the NASA lab to run all over the place crying because they don't like how the people paying their salary are using their research. If they have a problem with it, they can do what everyone else in the world does, and refuse to take the money, and try to go somewhere else where their research will be presented in the way they want.
Re:That was quite ignorant (Score:2, Insightful)
Eight hundred thousand years ago, Yosemite Valley was filled with glaciers a mile thick.
They melted before Man had learned to tame fire.
So why should I care about a few tiny glaciers in Montana? Glaciers are always going to be getting either bigger or smaller. Right now they are getting smaller. Big fucking deal.
It's the people who think the Earth is a steady state system, always has been and always should be, who are the real morons in the global warming debate.
-ccm