Policy
cmooney | December 15, 2008We know who they are. We know they're determined. And we know they're qualified.
But precisely what measures will president-elect Obama's energy and environment team have to take in order to really get a handle on global warming? Will they use the Clean Air Act? A new law? Some combination of both?
And where will they be by the end of 2009, when the nations of the world assemble in Copenhagen, Denmark, to negotiate the successor to the Kyoto Protocol?
I definitely have my thoughts on this--and am doing an article on the subject right now. But here's your chance to sound off (and I'm very…
nisbetmc | December 15, 2008There's probably no one better qualified than Carol Browner to coordinate the administration's efforts on energy and the environment. The looming question is whether or not Obama's new uber-czar positions can really accomplish anything. The Wall Street Journal has the details, quoting several experts who point to history as casting doubt on the effectiveness of czars:
"There've been so many czars over last 50 years, and they've all been failures," said Paul Light, an expert on government at New York University. "Nobody takes them seriously anymore." He pointed to officials placed in charge of…
tlambert | December 15, 2008The quick way to see if the Australian government's CO2 emission targets are adequate is to check the reaction from The Australian. Since The Australian believes that it's not warming and we're not causing it and it will not be harmful and we can't do anything about it, they're not going to approve of any targets that will do anything. So what's the verdict?
the Prime Minister's policy response to the Garnaut report is largely balanced, prudent and cautious. While honouring his promise to act on climate change, it is mindful of the need to protect jobs in challenging economic times.
Ouch.…
mikethemadbiologist | December 15, 2008...never mind believe in. Obama can do much better than former Clinton official and current corporate lobbyist David Hayes for Secretary of Interior. As a lobbyist for Ford, Hayes chose to side with Ford over a poor Native American community:
Trying to stick the cost of the clean-up of a toxic waste dump on a rural, economically disadvantaged American Indian community is not the kind of behavior one would want to see from a potential Secretary of the Interior. The Ringwood superfund site is a little-known American tragedy and David J. Hayes, as recently as 2007, was trying to get the…
tqa | December 10, 2008
But I really don't know who it could possibly be.
If the latest set of transition leaks are as accurate as the previous few have been, President-Elect Obama will announce the nomination of Steven Chu for Energy Secretary.
And. The. Crowd. Goes. Wild.
Chu's background is a bit light on the politics side - no DC job, no elected political office - but even if you consider that to be a down side, the rest of his resume more than makes up for the lack. He's a career scientist. He's a world-class physicist, one of the 1997 recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics, and has been the director…
ddobbs | December 8, 2008At the New Republic, Seward Darby worries that Obama's choice for the head of his transition's education-policy team means he's not serious about shaking up the educational system:
In November, Barack Obama bewildered education reformers by tapping Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford professor who had advised his campaign, to oversee the transition's education policy team. Their verdict was swift and harsh. "Worst case scenario," wrote Mike Petrilli, vice president for national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank, the day after The Wall Street…
jjacquet | December 6, 2008In my Topics in Marine Science class that I teach at Western Washington University, we spend a week on marine mammals and a portion of that time talking about whaling. We discuss the use of whale oil for illuminants, the 1930s as the Whaling Olympic era, the devastation of certain whale populations, and the formation of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). We examine the shift in values as a world that was largely pro-whaling became largely anti-whaling and how science (e.g., the discovery of whale song) and conservation (e.g., Greenpeace) played a role in that ethical shift.
I ask…
drorzel | December 5, 2008A few days ago, I complained again about the relative lack of science books in the New York Times "Notable Books of 2008" list. Yesterday, one of the big stories was CNN axing its entire science unit, such as it was, which drew comments from lots of blogs (and more whose links I can't be bothered to track down).
I'm probably the only one who thinks this, but in my opinion, these two are related. I'm not saying one caused the other, but that they're both symptoms of the same thing: the broad lack of respect for science among educated people. (Which I've ranted about before.)
One of the…
nisbetmc | December 3, 2008
The NY Academy of Sciences offers a stunning venue for public talks, forums, and receptions, with a view from the 40th floor of 7 World Trade Center.
Thursday morning I will be heading up to New York to give a 7pm talk at the New York Academy of Sciences. A crowd of more than 100 is expected for what I am hoping to be an interesting discussion and entertaining reception to follow. (Register for free here.)
Here's a brief preview of what I will be talking about followed by more specific details:
Over the past few years there have been signs of a major shift in how the scientific community in…
mikethemadbiologist | November 30, 2008While this letter I found at AmericaBlog.com deals with religiously-motivated intolerance towards gays and lesbians, I think it's going to be germane (at least tangentially so) to the current stem cell discussion over at What's New in Life Science:
We as a group have become tolerant of intolerance.
Whenever anyone justifies their bigotry with what I call DHRB (deeply held religious beliefs) we roll over as if that were the end of the discussion.
We have confused respecting a persons right to hold whatever religious beliefs they chose with respecting those beliefs. The truth is there are…
sb admin | November 21, 2008An underground coal miner who works in eastern Kentucky took the next step in his legal battle to force the Secretary of Labor to reduce respirable dust levels in our nation's coal mines. It started in March 2008 when Scott Howard of Lechter County, KY filed a lawsuit in federal court (Howard v. Chao) against the Secretary of Labor and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) asking the Court to compel the Labor Department to issue a more protective health standard to prevent coal miners from developing black lung.  On Monday, Mr. Howard's attorneys, Nathan Fetty and…
clock | November 15, 2008The meme started here, so if you decide to do it yourself, please post a link to that as well (so your post can be tracked).
A number of people have already posted their responses - some quite thought-provoking - so take your time to read them and reflect. Then write your own.
See responses by:
Eva Amsen
Henry Gee
Clare Dudman
Steffi Suhr
Stephen Curry
Martin Fenner
Massimo Pinto
Larry Moran
Kristi Vogel
Maxine Clarke
T. Ryan Gregory
Mike Haubrich
John Wilkins
Paulo Nuin
Heather Etchevers
Lee Turnpenny
Ricardo Vidal
Bob O'Hara
Andrew Perry
Pedro Beltrao
Shirley Wu
Deepak Singh
Thomas…
gregladen | November 15, 2008So, for the next two weeks or so, an army of volunteers, state workers, and lawyers are going to be counting and observing the counting, and contesting and arguing about, every single one of the nearly three million ballots cast last election day in Minnesota in the race for Senator.
I had spent some time during the latter period of the election season working on the election, mainly for Ashwin Madia, but also for Al Franken and Barack Obama. The recount extends my own commitment, and that of thousands of others, to keep working on this. (Yes, I'm trying to make you feel a little bad if…
sheril | November 14, 2008by Philip H.
Now that the Election is over, there is the serious business of communicating and framing science to get back to. We learned a few things this year - science issues aren't yet ready for primetime debates, but if you ask cogent questions, and keep the number relatively small, you can get answers. Likewise, we learned that many Americans, and their politicians, still don't get the links between the science we practice, and the policies that candidates were debating. So, what's a scientist to do in these circumstances?
Well, I thought a little research was in order to help me…
mikethemadbiologist | November 14, 2008Not that this is a real concern of mine, but something Kos wrote a while ago about the possibility of Huckabee becoming the RNC party chairman interested me:
But if Huckabee has the ground troops, what is he missing? The money. He got far in his primary race without any, winning Iowa with something like $27. But he won't be able to rebuild his party on shoe leather alone.
Us Demcoratic rebels bypassed the Terry McAuliffe wing of our party by building our own alternate small-dollar fundraising mechanism. Without that cash, Dean would've never existed, and the establishment's favorite candidate…
clock | November 13, 2008An e-mail from the Orange County (NC) Democratic Party:
The exciting and historic 2008 election stirred our souls and mobilized millions, but how did it happen? And what does it mean for electoral politics going forward? Bring your questions and your friends to a public forum presented by the Orange County Democratic Party and the Orange County Democratic Women:
The Historic 2008 Election: Analysis and Reflections
Hodding Carter III, University Professor of Leadership and Public Policy, UNC-CH
Rob Christensen, Reporter and columnist, The News and Observer
Ferrel Guillory, Director, Program on…
jrosenhouse | November 13, 2008As I am sure you are aware, there are still three Senate elections that have yet to be resolved. The Democrats need all three of them to get to the magic sixty. On November 4 I would have considered that very unlikely indeed. But now I'm not so sure.
The big one, from my perspective, is the Franken-Coleman race in Minnesota. Not only is Coleman the emptiest of Republican empty suits, but Franken is an impressive fellow just on his merits. The twittering, halfwit, gossip-mongering, know-nothing, cable-news pundit set have largely dismissed Franken as just a comedian. This should be…
bcohen | November 11, 2008Pt. I | Pt. 2
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The World's Fair is pleased to offer the following discussion about Agroecology in Action: Extending Alternative Agriculture through Social Networks (MIT Press, 2007), with its author Keith Warner. Warner is a Franciscan Friar and currently at Santa Clara University, where he lectures in the Religious Studies Department, and serves as assistant director for education at the Center for Science, Technology & Society.
Agroecology in Action, says its publisher, "shows that agroecology can be put into action effectively only when networks of farmers, scientists, and other…
mikethemadbiologist | November 10, 2008While the talk about symbolism is important, a president actually has to do stuff. I've been hoping that somewhere there are a bunch of smart people figuring how to unfuck all the stuff that Little Lord Pontchartrain has fucked up using the power of the Executive Branch (here's one example)--hell, just coming up with a list of said fuckups would be a challenge. So I'm delighted to read this in the Washington Post:
Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse…
oracknows | November 4, 2008OK, even though I have said time and time again that I rarely do any posts that are strictly political in nature, mainly because political bloggers are a dime a dozen, great political bloggers are rare, and I don't consider myself anything better than an at best passable political blogger. However, when politics intersects my areas of medical interest, I can't resist diving in, and unfortunately, Walter Olson gave me a reason to dive in today. In fact, to some extent he killed my election day buzz about the prospects for an Obama victory and a return to a government that respects science and…