Daily Science Dose

Some big news came out of Washington today…

Maybe you are aware that the US Congress is finally attempting to address anthropogenic climate change, and by that I mean to say that the US government is maybe poised to possibly pass legislation in support of not only lowering carbon emissions, but also promoting renewable and clean energy sources.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee (ECC for the rest of this post) has approved H.R. 2454 — the American Clean Energy and Security Act — and has reported the bill to the House, for what will undoubtedly be a fun time to start watching C-SPAN. The vote just among the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee was 33 to 25, which yes, is a decisive victory within the microcosm of a congressional body, but still, methinks that the fight against “clean energy” legislation will be, ahem, dirty.

However, maybe this country has had enough of the Bush Era thinking that if we bury our heads in the sand, it won’t get as hot. The ECC was urged by many an environmental group to send the bill to the House, but you might be surprised at how many energy and manufacturing companies have given their support to the proposed legislation. Energy companies like Shell and BP, Duke Energy and Entergy; manufacturing concerns like Alcoa and GE, DuPont and Dow Chemical . Even the Big 3 automakers are signed on to support reducing the US carbon emissions by 83% by 2050 (working off 2005 levels).

Now, whether you blame human activity for global climate change issues or not, this move toward clean, renewable energy is smart and forward-thinking. Oil, gas and coal will run out one day. Why not do some planning now to make the transition easier for everyone when that time comes? Not only that, but fossil fuels almost invariably result in some form of waste that pollutes our land, air and water. I’ve never heard of a wind turbine leaching heavy metals into the groundwater supply.

Then again, I don’t want to give too much credit to Congress just yet…but hey, it’s a start.

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Last week, Chicago one-upped the FDA by banning Bisphenol-A in products like sippy-cups, baby bottles, and all those things that parents think are safe for their babies, because you know, if they were not safe, the Government would do something about them, right?

Wrong.

The debate over BPA is long and storied, and one of those he-said-she-said affairs. The FDA has held true to one line: That there is little evidence that BPA is harmful to humans. And that the amounts of BPA exposure are so insignificant that no one needs to worry their pretty little heads about it.

But that doesn’t exactly fill the rest of us with confidence…In fact, it seems that even the Chicago ban faced pressure from the American Chemistry Lobby, I mean, American Chemistry Council. And you know money talks in governmental circles. Looking at Chicago as a microcosm for the whole debate over BPA is telling as to what kind of fight we have on our hands when it comes to protecting our kids (and ourselves).

From the Sun-Times:

Last year, [Manny] Flores [(1st)] and Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th) got nowhere with a more sweeping version that would have banned nearly all products made with BPA used by children under the age of 7.

The softer version approved Wednesday narrows the ban to “any empty bottle or cup specifically designed to be filled with food or liquid to be used primarily by a child under the age of 3.”

Former Ald. Terry Gabinski (32nd), one of Burke’s closest friends, is a registered lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council. The group has publicly lobbied against the ban and behind-the-scenes for a softer version of it. — Chicago Sun-Times

Will the Chicago BPA ban end up repealed like the Chicago Fois Gras ban? Well, fois won’t kill you, and maybe neither will BPA. But — and maybe I am crazy in thinking this — if there is a chance of this chemical leaching from our sippy-cups into the high-fructose corn syrup-laden juices we feed our kids, then shouldn’t we err on the side of caution? There is no real need to produce plastics that contain BPA, so why are we clinging to them like our guns and religion?

Good job, Chicago. Even if your ban is largely symbolic, it is step in the safer direction.

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It seems that Entergy’s CEO and chairman Wayne Leonard is the one of the few energy industry leaders that doesn’t oppose a proposed cap and trade system that is being debated in Congress. In fact, Leonard is not only not opposed, but he supports the legislation — as long as it is the right cap and trade system.

Entergy Corporation, based in Louisiana, is blessed with natural gas and a sizable “fleet” of nuclear power generation stations. And we all know that nuclear power is clean* and natural gas, according to energy experts like Sarah Palin, is clean and green. And that means that Entergy produces electricity from some of the cleaner sources around in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.

*But not in terms of radioactive waste that lasts and lasts.

So, let’s say that Congress passes cap’n trade legislation that would auction off credits for companies to be allowed to produce carbon emissions. A company like Entergy would have to buy fewer of those credits or permits in order to cover its rather low levels of emissions. That means less costs are passed down to you, the consumer. That makes Entergy’s Leonard happy.

However, Entergy has not done much to expand its renewable power portfolio. And one form of the cap and trade law could include a government mandate as to how much renewable energy a company has to produce. That would make Leonard sad. He doesn’t think the Fed should mandate this renewable component, as he feels that the free market will prevail in encouraging companies to invest in the most economical renewables (if there are any in Leonard’s eyes) in order to decrease costs for pollution permits.

And then, there is the whole idea of the Fed giving away the credits to companies based on its individual emissions based on say a year chosen at random, like 2005. And if your company can reduce its emissions and not have to use all of those permits, your company can sell them to companies that still pollute. Well, Entergy had already reduced what emissions they could have by 2005, because they were responsible and did it way back in 2000. So, now all that hard work they already did, when it was voluntary, will work against them, as Entergy will get a smaller amount of credits to sell off to the the coal plant down the street, who never did anything in the first place or even now to reduce its emissions levels.

So, this insight into how one energy company views the current debate over cap and trade legislation is interesting to me, but also rather irritating. Think about it. Entergy is but one of many, many large and rich corporations that produce energy and do in it a way that pollutes the Earth. Each company is going to do its best to pressure someone in Congress to adjust, rewrite or add an amendment to the cap and trade law, if it even passes, that will be advantageous to that company, perhaps to the detriment to another company, who will then fight the new law. I just don’t see cap and trade passing any time soon, but then again, I’m not sure if it will make a difference in the long run.

And then again again, it’s not fair to blame the energy companies. They are only giving us what we want — cheap energy and a lot of it.

Reading the article in the Times-Picayune, I noted that Entergy is spending more than 4 million dollars on lobbying Congress to pass a cap and trade law that will benefit them. It makes you wonder how much the Coal Industry as a whole is spending to fight cap and trade altogether? What if all that money were spent on research and development of new technologies, more efficient energy infrastructure, and a better way to deal with spent nuclear fuel?

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I was happy with the “talk the talk, but does he walk the walk” comment.

Thank you, CBS, for covering this charade foisted on the American Public for far-too-long. I can bitch and bitch about coal, but when it comes right down to it, nothing is going to change anytime soon.

What I don’t get is this fanatical need for the US Energy Kings to push the “grow the economy” paradigm. Maybe our economy is built on the same inflated values of Wall Street. It’s like we just found this cheap energy trough, and like pigs, we are stuffing ourselves with no thought to the consequences (like why is the farmer fattening us up in the first place?).

I am seeing the same scary consumptive trend in anything eco- or green or earth-friendly. Earth friendly would mean cutting back on all that sh*t you buy every day. If we all go out and replace our entire wardrobes with organic cotton and bamboo, we are still creating a waste stream that undermines our efforts to live lightly. If you don’t need it, don’t buy it. That’s as eco- as you can get, but then that doesn’t “grow our economy,” does it?

Back to 60 Minutes…it’s about time that a major news organization calls our the Emperor’s nudity. Will it make a difference? Ah, heck no. Seriously, I hate to be pessimistic here, but we are doomed. Like I mentioned yesterday, we are not all going to die, but it’s going to be bad.

Here’s my great idea, and you heard it here first. Use carbon dioxide in fission-style reactions and capture the energy released while producing oxygen and carbon monoxide, which can then be converted into liquid fuels. Oh, crap, someone beat me to it.

First, let me begin by saying that yes, I do believe that anthropogenic activity is creating a dangerous imbalance in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. But do I think that everything can be chalked up to global warming or that we are all going to die from global warming, then the answer is no.

Global warming is not going to kill us all, but it will kill some and it will make life on this planet a heck of a lot more difficult for many, many others. But the most important thing is that any imbalance creates further imbalance in other systems, and by continuing to pump more and more GHG into our air, we are mucking up the system, which will lead to other systems going out of whack. If there were only a few of us living on this planet, then we would be able to migrate to other areas when our homes get flooded from rising seas or pull up stakes and leave an arable agricultural area turned desert from a shift in ocean currents (Australia anyone?)

Well, it seems that researchers are alarmed at the extent of the solar minimum going on. And with less sun activity, that means that less of the sun’s heat is hitting the planet. It’s true that the sun goes through cycles, but this is an unusually long minima, which scientists call a grand minima if it’s long enough.

The disappearance of sunspots happens every few years, but this time it’s gone on far longer than anyone expected – and there is no sign of the Sun waking up. “This is the lowest we’ve ever seen. We thought we’d be out of it by now, but we’re not,” says Marc Hairston of the University of Texas. And it’s not just the sunspots that are causing concern. There is also the so-called solar wind – streams of particles the Sun pours out – that is at its weakest since records began. In addition, the Sun’s magnetic axis is tilted to an unusual degree. “This is the quietest Sun we’ve seen in almost a century,” says NASA solar scientist David Hathaway. But this is not just a scientific curiosity. It could affect everyone on Earth and force what for many is the unthinkable: a reappraisal of the science behind recent global warming. –The Independent

Here’s the kicker. The last solar maximum ended right around the end of the last century. And some researchers are showing data that shows that the Earth’s temperature has tapered off since that time, so if the current solar minimum is holding global temps in check, then maybe, just maybe this whole global warming thing is false alarm.

I foresee this solar minimum issue becoming the next talking points for the climate sceptics on their next round on the talkshow circuit.

Ok, I’m going out on a limb here. Let’s say that yes, the Sun is going into a cooling period and we can buy some time before the full effects of the Carbon Crisis are felt. That might just be our only chance to ensure that we can curb our reliance on living fat of the oily and gaseous land, and start reversing some of the damage we have inflicted on our closed-ecosystem. Global warming may be held off, but for how long? For every Minimum, there is a Maximum. And if when that next Maximum hits, will we be worse off due to inaction and inertia, or could we be ready for it?

Just sayin’ is all.

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In a not-so-stunning reversal of the Bush Era Suppression of Science, the EPA has supposedly sent a proposal for a “endangerment” finding for greenhouse gases to the White House, according to Reuters.

Finally.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in a case brought before it by a alliance of states and environmental groups that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are indeed a pollutant, and therefore should be regulated by the Clean Air Act and its erstwhile enforcer, the Environmental Protection Agency. You see, the EPA’s argument against regulating GHG emissions (and in particular carbon dioxide) was that there was uncertainty as to whether or not GHGs caused global warming.

The Bush Years were not a happy time at the EPA, and let’s just be glad it’s over.

What does an endangerment finding mean for us? Well, if something is a public danger it is then regulated by the EPA in terms of how much of it can safely be pumped into the air, water, what have you. That begs the question what is a safe amount of carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, even water vapor (although water vapor is directly related to temperature, so keep the temperature low and there is in turn less water vapor).

To determine a safe amount…This is what I’ve been waiting for, people. I am curious as to how much more carbon dioxide and CFCs and nitrous oxide can be allowed before we hit a tipping point. Not trying to be a Negative Nelly today, but we really need to take a sober look at the state of our planet.

On a positive note, I was heartened to see President Obama put out an op-ed in newspapers across the globe, calling for collective action and cooperation in the economic crisis. I’m hoping that his next international appeal will be for collective action on climate change.

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A new Gallup poll has been released that shows that more Americans believe that the threats of global warming are exaggerated. When asked the question, “Thinking about what is said in the news, in your view is the seriousness of global warming …generally exaggerated, generally correct, or generally underestimated”, 41 percent of respondents answered that they felt the seriousness is generally exaggerated.

Ok, what news programs are they watching? Other than a few “specials” on CNN, I never see reporting that makes a big deal about climate change; in fact, most stories I see add more doubt that necessary. More than a few environmental and media watchdog groups feel that the media, in their pointless pursuit of fair and balanced reporting, often add global warming sceptics, not matter how much of a minority they are in the scientific community, just to appear to be objective.

Now, as a quasi-reporter, I can give the media props for trying to appear objective, but when the media is owned by men like Rupert Murdoch and ran by men like Michael Eisner and Sumner Redstone, then it is only natural to question the objectivity of a news organization that is part of a multinational corporation whose main purpose is to keep the profits rolling in. Furthermore, the “news” is no longer the pace where one goes for hard reporting and in-depth analyses of current issues — no, sadly, the news is nothing more than entertainment. (Sorry, Keith Olberman, I usually end up agreeing with you, and even though I am also a liberal thinker, I cannot call you an objective newsman.)

If you want to look at a handy chart to see who owns what in the media, click here.

I went to school for screenwriting, and in those classes, the number one lesson is “create conflict.” And for some reason, the News Media have taken that same lesson for fiction and drama and have added that ingredient to the objective news. Sometimes reporting the news should report the story itself, and not try to make a huge dramatic production of it, but adding players that have nothing to do with the story itself, much like those global warming deniers.

The worst part is that you often see the same “naysayers” on all the shows. They just make money by going around the news curcuit, bringing their own mics, mindlessly disagreeing with the science being presented by scientists that are actually working in the field and not going around the news circuit commenting on other scientists’ work.

Back to the poll…

The largest group responding “generally exaggerated” are, ta dah, Republicans.

Gallup attributes the rise to Republicans and independents believing media coverage of global warming is exaggerated. In the past 12 months alone, the ranks of Republican doubters grew from 59 percent to 66 percent, and independents from 33 percent to 44 percent. Among Democrates[sic], the rate remains about 20 percent. –Environmental Leader

Go figure…And do you notice how the spikes in the poll are in election years?

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After 8 long, long years of a presidential administration who couldn’t separate their religious beliefs from scientific facts, President Obama changed the science “climate” in the White House with the stroke of a pen.

Yesterday, not only did President Obama overturn the Bush limits on embryonic stem cell research, but he also signed a memo to his science adviser to choose only the best experts in their scientific fields, rather than those scientists that are willing to change outcomes, omit data and manipulate evidence to fit certain ideologies. The new directive also calls for increased protections for those who uncover inappropriate handling of science or “whistleblow” on bad science.

The idea, the president said in remarks before an audience of lawmakers, scientists, patients advocates and patients in the East Room, is to ensure that “we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology”: a line that drew more applause than any other. Irv Weissman, who directs an institute at Stanford University devoted to studying stem cells, called the declaration “of even greater importance” than the stem cell announcement itself. –NY Times

Well, praise the lord and hallelujah. The Bush Era was downright hostile to science in many aspects — you can read more about that stuff here and here and here. And those examples are all from only the last few months of Bush’s Reign. Before that, numerous reports were released detailing the Bush Admin’s penchant for asking scientists to add “doubt” to the science behind global warming and climate change, to delete info about contraception on federal websites, and just generally use science to its own ends rather than scientifically-sound ends.

Will this mean that all policy will suddenly become better? Probably not, but at least there is an understanding in our national leadership that science is not our enemy.

As a science writer and teacher, I couldn’t be more pleased at Obama’s attempt to change the presidential attitude toward intelligence and reasoning, but it is just that, an attempt. Still, to have that kind of thinking in such an influential office is a breath of fresh air.

President Obama, science, stem cell research, embryonic cells, Bush, global warming, policy, whistleblower, global warming, contraception, ideology, conservative

The retired head of the University of Alberta’s physical and theoretical chemistry department, Professor Gordon Freeman thinks so. And he has been studying the site for almost thirty years. Too bad he’s not an archeologist.

Wait, Gordon Freeman…Where have I heard that name before…oh, yeah, Half-Life.

Anyhoo, Freeman has been studying a site east of Calgary, Alberta, and he believes that this 26 square kilometer (16 miles) site is a host for a very precise calendar, made of stones and dating to 5000 years ago. That’s older than both the Pyramids at Giza in Egypt or the other Stongehenge in England.

By the way, Stonehenge is only 30 acres in size. This Canadian “stonehenge” covers more than 10,000 acres. So if this Canadian upstart were a calendar, why so big? How can a calendar this big be accessible to those needing it? These are just the questions that I have, having not been on site, obviously, but still, it is odd to have a community calendar in such a remote place and on so big of a site.

You can read the whole article by clicking the link here, but it is kind of one of those “is it?” or “isn’t it?” scenarios. You see, Freeman is not a trained archeologist, but he is a highly trained scientist. Archeologists have dismissed this particular site as only glacial-strewn rocks known as erratics. The stones are “erratically” placed in the eyes of the archeologists, and not placed by early man in any kind of pattern. Well, there may be one part in the middle that may have been human-power, but that is it and even that is doubtful.

But Freeman has 28 years of careful photographic evidence that the 28 radials to a central stonework that he found and believes to not only mark out positions of the sun but also correlate by length to a lunar calendar. Equinoxes and solstices are also precisely recorded in notches in large rocks that line up to the central cairn.

Freeman’s own research is being denied for publication in scholarly journals, which he thinks is because he is not a member of the archeology gang. Or it may be because he really is just finding tremendously accurate but accidental coincidences.

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File this one under archeology…

An Oregon widow was discovered to have in her possession something illegally taken from Panama. This little old lady was the head of an international theft ring that specialized in tomb raiding for gold pieces…and she would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids at the FBI.

Ok, so that is not entirely true. True, a widow was in possession of several pre-Columbian artifacts and true, the FBI investigated the matter and returned those artifacts to the nation of Panama. No international tomb raiders, though.

According to the FBI, the woman’s husband, who passed away in 2004, was a teacher on a United States military base and during his time in the country, he began acquiring the clay pots and gold jewelry during the 1980’s. The man married a Panamanian woman (aforementioned widow) and when he returned to the US, he brought more than his new bride. The couple brought several artifacts into the US, and that, my friends, is illegal.

The couple did sell some of the artifacts at antiquities markets and online. I’m sure the FBI is following up on those pieces as well. It doesn’t matter if you purchase the pre-Columbian pieces or not, Panama passed a law (and it’s in the country’s constitution as well) making it illegal for anyone to even own antiquities from that small Central American nation. The Panamanian Government are the rightful and lawful owners, and only it may give permission to anyone or anything institution to possess such items.

However, the FBI will not be pressing charges against the widow.

Panama, pre-Columbian, artifacts, antiquities, Oregon, archeology

I may have given up my subscription to TIME magazine last year, but I still read it online. I ran across this little article by Dr. Sanjay Gupta — who seems to be everywhere lately, media-wise. Gupta gives us his reasons for not legalizing marijuana.

The great debate over marijuana is one that makes no sense to me. Granted, marijuana may not be the best thing for your health, but the question over the legalization of marijuana should not be based on health consequences unless those that criminalize are also willing to criminalize other more harmful substances like alcohol and tobacco.

Oh, yeah, we tried banning alcohol and that didn’t go over so well. Crime rose and people still drank. Police departments were stretched thin and people still drank. Huh, sounds like the same thing with pot. People still smoke. But unfortunately, those caught with even what is considered a “personal” amount may face time in prison for it. And our prisons are overflowing due to drug crimes.

In last week’s article, Dr. Gupta brought up the upcoming ballot initiatives in Colorado and Nevada that will legalize the possession of marijuana for adults over 21 years of age. Gupta then explains why he would vote no on that initiative. He points out the obvious, that pot may possibly lead to addiction. Furthermore…

What are other health consequences? Frequent marijuana use can seriously affect your short-term memory. It can impair your cognitive ability (why do you think people call it dope?) and lead to long-lasting depression or anxiety. While many people smoke marijuana to relax, it can have the opposite effect on frequent users. And smoking anything, whether it’s tobacco or marijuana, can seriously damage your lung tissue. — Time

Ok, seriously, this is why you would vote no, Doctor?

The criminalization of marijuana is built on faulty reasoning. Lots of things are dangerous for us, but the government doesn’t spend millions of dollars every year enforcing ridiculously punitive charges against people that are getting high “off the books.” If you could grow your own tobacco, do you think the government and their corporate benefactors would allow you to do so? This “crime” is based on politics rather than science.

Alcohol is still legal, and I am sure that Dr. Gupta would agree with me that alcohol is much more dangerous in terms of potential for addiction and deleterious health consequences. Cigarettes are legal, so smoke damage can not be the real reason for pot being an illegal narcotic.

And what doesn’t cause depression and anxiety in people? And who cares if you are depressed, your drinking water has residual anxiety and depression pharmaceuticals, so you’re covered. Alright, that was glib, but if you think about it, smoking pot can be considered a form of “self-medication.” So why are researchers and scientists and eggheads looking into why people feel the need to self-dose? Another glaring lack of science in the criminalization of pot argument.

First, I would like to see some hard science to back up the reason that marijuana is illegal and alcohol and tobacco are fine. And for a doctor to not address that the ban on pot lacks the science to effectively show that pot is more dangerous than other legal controlled substances is just silly to me. I would have been more impressed if Dr. Gupta had called for similar bans on other more harmful substances that are sold to us ad naseum during sports events.

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He’s been a professor at Stanford, he runs the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, oh, and he was part of team of scientists that won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997. Not a bad choice for Energy secretary, eh?

And the best part is that he understands the carbon conundrum. Kudos, Mr. Obama, for choosing Mr. Chu as your man to lead this nation’s energy policy.

So much better than that Dick Cheney, plain and tall…and in the pocket of the oil and coal companies. Not that Cheney was Secretary of the Department of Energy, but he might as well have been with his closed door energy wheelings and dealings. Not to mention the team of henchmen Bush employed to allow those oil and coal companies to ignore the consequences of carbon emissions.

I see a brighter and more informed energy future for America and in turn, the World.

Steven Chu is a big advocate for energy conservation. In a Q&A with Science News, he details that buildings account for nearly 40% of all energy consumed, and that with new more efficient technology and building methods, we can get that percentage down to half of that. He also feels that number can drop further, achieving the same results on 25% of what had previously been needed to run the same buildings.

Chu also advocates governmental tax credits to spur advances in energy technologies. In addition to tax credits, Chu feels that the US should be building a “greener” workforce in energy industries, by supporting universities and laboratories in developing the next generation of scientists that will continue to advance the field. Give more grants to professors, who in turn can employ more graduate students, who will in turn become the scientists that develop new and better technology to work to solve our inevitable energy crisis.

Steven Chu, Obama, Secretary of Energy, Department of Energy

Ah, again, I write about coal. This time it is good news indeed.

The Environmental Protection Agency has had to swallow its own hot air over new coal-fired power plants. This week, the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board (kind of an independent oversight) decided that the EPA had no reason to not regulate carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants.

This all started when the Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide (CO2) is indeed a pollutant last year. As such, and as all pollutants, the EPA has a responsibility to regulate the amount of said pollutant into our environment. However, the EPA (with the Bush-appointed Stephen Johnson — booooo!) didn’t seem to see why it should bother to regulate the coal industry and its lobby (or any other industry that emits CO2), as Big Coal is Big Biz, and we all know that when the environment and Big Biz are competing for George W. Bush’s attention and favor, Big Biz will always win.

But cooler and smarter and fairer heads have prevailed. Now, over 100 coal plants that are in the pre-production process across the US, have to rethink their business plan and their blueprints. Any new coal-fired power plant will have to take its CO2 emissions into account, which essentially means that it is doubtful that the US will see new coal plants anytime soon.

The Sierra Club had originally sued to stop the construction of Deseret Power’s Bonanza Generating Station in Vernal, Utah, part of their nationwide campaign to stop new coal. The 110-megawatt plant, which received its EPA permit in July 2007, would have emitted 3.37 million tons of CO2 a year — the equivalent to putting another 660,000 cars on the road. In detail, Thursday’s decision means that any new air pollution permits for coal plants will require that Best Available Control Technology (BACT) be used to reduce CO2 emissions, the same criteria currently used for other pollutants, like sulfur dioxide or soot. BACT requires companies involved in power plants to use the best available technology to control pollutants — it’s a tool to keep pollution controls up to date as both safety technology and our understanding of pollution impoves. In the past, CO2 wasn’t affected by BACT because the EPA didn’t recognize it as a pollutant. This decision changes that.

Right now, however, there is no definition of BACT for CO2, and environmentalists estimate it will take six months to a year to figure that out. In the meantime, all other coal plants in the permitting process, or stuck in the courts, will be frozen. Over the longer term, it’s possible that new coal plants may be impossible to certify at all until a technology exists to greatly reduce or sequester carbon emissions from coal plants — and currently none has been proven. “The decision says the EPA can’t ignore CO2,” says Nilles. –Time

It is nice to see this kind of justice happen, not only in regards to keeping more coal plants from being built, but also that George W. Bush’s plans to gut the EPA’s protections in regards to CO2 are being frustrated — well, finally.

Still, it doesn’t help that China and India are building coal plants. Check out this graphic below for a wake up call. Click on the image to see the details better.

EPA, environment, coal, power, plants, coal-fired, carbon dioxide, CO2, pollution, George Bush, George W Bush, China, India

The other day, I brought up the topic of politics and science and their somewhat tenuous relationship with each other.

Seems like I am not the only one thinking about the political structure and in particular, how a president can influence good policy by using, nay relying on good science.

The New York Times blog, Dot Earth, reported today that 178 scientific, academic, and business-related organizations have sent letters to both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama urging them to not only appoint a science adviser as soon as they are inaugurated, but also to elevate that position to a Cabinet-level position.

I couldn’t agree more. George Bush has been a cautionary example of when a President uses his faith rather than science to write and implement policy. Without getting into a discussion regarding Bush’s “faith-based initiatives” to solve all of society’s ills, with the next President (cough, Obama, cough), we need more “science-based inititatives.”

Courtesy of The Onion

I am going to go one step further, and suggest that our next POTUS will also focus on science education. This nation is losing ground not only because our politicians deem science as suspicious, but also because we are not educating the next generation of scientists to help our future presidents and by extensions our nation, and by another extension, the world.

I took a national science policy course in 2003, and it was frightening how many ph.D’s in science are awarded to foreign students that do not stay in the US, but rather take that education back to their home country. Not that there is anything wrong with educating any and all students that seek the training and knowledge, but it really underscored the fact that science is just not a priority in this nation.

We need not only a president that values science, but also a nation that values science. It is more of a cultural shift that is needed, and perhaps by elevating that next science adviser to a Cabinet-level position will be a step in the right direction.

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There is nothing I find more oxymoronic than the term “political science.” More often than not, politics and science are locked in battle, with politics trumping science.

When Good Science Is Ignored

With the upcoming election, it is hard not to be thinking of politics lately, and if you have read some of my previous posts, you will notice that I tend to think in political terms often when it comes to science. For example, what can the new President and Congress do to compensate for 8 years of bad science by way of the Bush Administration? Do you remember those days, less than 2 years ago, when Bush and his “scientists” claimed that global warming was a hoax, the science was bad, it wasn’t man-made, there wasn’t a consensus among scientists on the issue, it was the fault of alarmist environmentalists, etc, etc, etc…

Seems like global warming isn’t the only crisis that is worsening due to politics trumping good science. I ran across this article recently, and despite our nation’s growing (excuse the pun) obesity problem, it seems that the food industry is trying its hardest to undermine science. And why, you ask? Money, profits, returns to shareholders, call it what you want, I call it greed.

All that processed food Americans eat come from major corporations that all form a, shall we say, club. That club then goes to Congressional leaders asking them to let them market their products, however unhealthy, to kids. And by way of thanks, those corporations have employees that give lots of money to that same Congressional leader that is letting them sell their processed, sugary, salty, so-good-but-oh-so-bad foods. If you don’t think that your favorite snack food is from a major corporation, check out the website. Look around for the parent company, usually at the bottom of the page, next to a year and a copyright symbol or trademark. Better yet, go to the corporate websites for Kraft, Nabisco, or even Kelloggs. You will see how many brands are owned by the same company. Even seemingly competing brands, like the so-called healthy brands like Snackwells and the far-from-healthy Oreos, are being marketed by the same company (in this case, Nabisco) or for another example, Hormel not only sells Hormel Chili, but also Stagg Chili. For goodness sake, look at the cola wars. Coke and Pepsi are great examples of corporate-power-gone-wrong.

I remember in high school when a soda vending machine was installed in our cafeteria. And then I read that soda machines went into elementary schools. Soda? Soda is so far-from-healthy that no one should drink it, much less little kids.

Now, don’t get me wrong, every little kid wants soda, and it is not going to kill anybody sparingly or at least in moderation, but we are seeing the effects of children and processed, sugary foods. This nation is fat and our kids are going to suffer for it. And rather than reign in the companies that are pitching their goods at little kids, the Government is putting its head in the sand.

Kind of like with global warming. Will an 8 year absence of reason be too long to rectify when saner heads prevail in our nation’s capital? Will saner heads ever prevail in Washington, or will we, as a people, reject the constant bombardment of advertising at our kids and show that rejection by passing on the high fructrose corn syrup?

science, global warming, politics, Bush, environmentalists, alarmist, scientists, greed, corporations, shareholders, Kraft, Nabisco, Kelloggs, Coke, Pepsi, Hormel, Stagg, processed food, junk food, cola, high fructrose corn syrup, advertising, kids, children