hrynyshyn | October 16, 2008Two things stand out in my mind about Wednesday's presidential debate, both of them the product of John McCain's imagination. First is his insult to every science educator in the country. Once again, he deliberately mischaracterized a grant request to update an aging projector for Chicago's Adler Planetarium as an earmark for an "overhead projector." Second, he insisted America "can eliminate our dependence on foreign oil by building 45 new nuclear plants, power plants, right away." How many times do we have to point out the flaws in his logic before it sinks in?
I have nothing new to say…
hrynyshyn | October 15, 2008Canadian scientists, and climatologists in particular, are probably among the most depressed this morning following Tuesday's federal election, in which the semi-governing Conservative Party was sort-of re-elected to another parliamentary minority.
In Canada, minority governments don't command enough seats to ensure passage of legislation, but for some reason no one seems to think that means a coalition is required. None of the opposition parties will entertain the notion of a governing coalition, so in all likelihood nothing in the way of consequential legislation will be passed for the…
hrynyshyn | October 13, 2008To no one's surprise, the New York Times prefers Barack Obama's energy policies to those of John McCain. I have no quarrel with that, of course. But I would like to nit pick one little phrase in its editorial of Oct. 11, the one in which both candidates are positively reviewed for their inclusion of nuclear power in an energy portfolio of the future. While I could go on again at length about the inadequacies of generating electricity from uranium decay, this time I'll just focus on to little words: "carbon neutral."
The editorialist wrote "Both candidates agree that because nuclear power is…
hrynyshyn | October 9, 2008I was going to post a rant about John McCain's dishonest reference to Barack Obama's "overhead projector" earmark in Tuesday's presidential debate, but Joe Romm beat me to it. Again. So let me just say this about planetariums (planetaria?) instead:
The planetarium at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg played a key role in fostering my love of science. I can remember, when in my single-digit years, looking forward to the star theater each time we made the four-hour drive from the middle of northwestern Ontario to the big city. My parents would almost always take my brother and me to the…
hrynyshyn | October 7, 2008The Canadian Press has this story about Canadian scientists who have written an open letter calling on the Canadian voter to consider climate change in next week's federal election. When will their American colleagues follow suit?
Here's the opening to the letter:
We have been disturbed by what we perceive to be a lack of attention to the environment during this election campaign. While it's clear the public accepts that global warming is a threat, it seems people have simply no idea how serious this issue is. Global warming is without a doubt the defining issue of our time, and we cannot let…
hrynyshyn | October 7, 2008The reliably poignant Ben Goldacre explores the declining signal-to-noise ratio in the scientific press through a recent paper that tentatively suggests ejaculation could be "a potential treatment of nasal congestion in mature males." This is to get your attention, as it apparently did. But his point is a serious one.
Goldacre, whose regular columns in the Guardian should be required reading for anyone interested in how science operates within the larger societal context, had a chat with the editor of the Journal of Medical Hypotheses, who
once gave me two excellent reasons for publishing…
hrynyshyn | October 2, 2008To the growing list of consequences of global warming add underwater noise pollution, which may make life difficult for the whales and dolphins who are already facing increased background noises from shipping. It may sound like a stretch, but it's actually pretty straightforward science.
The connection is laid out in a new paper published Wednesday in Geophysical Research Letters. "Unanticipated consequences of ocean acidification: A noisier ocean at lower pH" by Keith C. Hester and colleagues at the Monterey Bay Aquarium start off by describing the now well-established trend of declining pH…
hrynyshyn | September 29, 2008Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth, has just bought the world's largest wind turbine. This from the Daily Mail.
The 100-metre high turbine will supply 7.5 megawatts of power to the national grid when it is installed off the North East coast of England. It is hoped the Queen's involvement will speed up the development of specialist deep water turbines and encourage energy firms to invest in renewable energy.
Jolly good. If it's good enough for Her Majesty, it's good enough for us all!
hrynyshyn | September 26, 2008Some of the world's top climatologists, under the collective title of the Global Carbon Project, have released what is widely considered the definitive accounting of the greenhouse-gas emissions situation. And the news is, as you might expect, not good. Nature's Climate Feedback bloggers sum it up as "We're all doomed." The full report is a lot to swallow, but here's what policy makers and anyone thinking of casting a vote in either the Canadian election next month or the American election in November should know:
Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are growing x4 faster since 2000 than during the…
hrynyshyn | September 25, 2008I usually like to refer to the actual study, but I can't find it, so we'll have to make do with the Independent's story on a survey of thousands of British primary and secondary schoolchildren that found most have no idea that science is something of value.
The story starts off with the now predictable gnashing of teeth over the finding that "among every generation of school leavers, there are tens of thousands of potential scientists who are, partly owing to ignorance, turning their backs on careers with a science component." But the really depressing part comes in the form of some…
hrynyshyn | September 25, 2008It's not just Alaskan governors who have a problem with treating polar bears as a threatened species. For some reason, a lot of people who just can't bring themselves to accept the idea that we're heating up the planet seem to have it in for poor old Ursus maritimus. A year ago, the journal Ecological Complexity published an attack on the theory that the population of polar bears widely considered most at risk from climate change wasn't actually at risk at all. The inevitable rebuttal just appeared, and the exchange raises some questions about the peer-review process.
In a "Viewpoint"…
hrynyshyn | September 24, 2008Ed Brayton deserves a big tip of the hat for bringing to our attention Sarah Palin's latest demonstration of her expertise. On what I'm not sure, but get a load of this response when asked in a town hall meeting how she would help keep any new domestic oil produced in the United States:
"Oil and coal? Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, the molecules, where it's going and where it's not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first," Palin said. "So, I believe that what Congress is…
hrynyshyn | September 22, 2008Just about every serious proposal to cap fossil-fuel emissions involves an 80 percent cut below 1990 levels by 2050. This might, if we're lucky, keep atmospheric CO2eq (a unit of measurement that expresses the total contribution of all greenhouse forcing gases as just carbon dioxide, for the sake simplicity) at 450 parts per million. But more and more we're hearing that that won't be enough to avoid exceeeding tipping points. More and more we're hearing that even 100% won't do the trick. Instead, say a growing chorus of scientists and analysts, we need to think about getting below current…
hrynyshyn | September 19, 2008If not genuinely good news, then at least it's not bad news. I'm referring to a paper out today in Science (Vol. 321. no. 5896, p. 1648) that describes 700,000-year-old permafrost in the Arctic. It's an optimistic report because, if the permafrost has survived the last few ice ages, which come and go every 100,000 years or so, then they stand a good change of surviving the next few decades during which polar regions are expected to get unusually warm. And we want them to survive, because if they melt, they will release their massive carbon reserves in one of those nightmare positive-feedback…
hrynyshyn | September 16, 2008Barack Obama was the first to answer the questions put to the candidates by the Science Debate 2008 team, and now McCain has responded. As I did with Obama's, I will here deconstruct McCain's answers on climate and energy policy. My comments are italicized.
2. Climate Change. The Earth's climate is changing and there is concern about the potentially adverse effects of these changes on life on the planet. What is your position on the following measures that have been proposed to address global climate change--a cap-and-trade system, a carbon tax, increased fuel-economy standards, or research…
hrynyshyn | September 12, 2008By now, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's hypocritical position on budget "earmarks" is a part of the American political landscape. The former earmark champion is now the ostensible earmark slayer. Whatever. Unfortunately, a lot of science is funded through earmarks, so we should be careful what we wish for when it comes to reforming government. For example, Politico's Ben Smith has produced a list of scientific research earmarks that Palin recently requested, including $1 million for rockfish research along with:
⢠$400,000: Alaska Invasive Species Program: Continues to comprehensively prevent,…
hrynyshyn | September 11, 2008If you have never posted a comment on ScienceBlogs before, now would be the time. Every commenter who supplies an email these days gets entered to win one of the those all-expenses-paid things to New York City. The trip includes airfare, four nights in a four-star hotel, behind-the-scenes tours of top museums and labs, and dinner with your favorite ScienceBlogger. Which would mean the blogger with whom you choose to dine has to come to New York, too. So if you win, choose carefully. There are carbon footprints of air travel to consider, and whether the blogger can survive the pressures of the…
hrynyshyn | September 9, 2008Polls show that most Americans want to drill here and drill now. Why? Because the television media haven't told them just how stupid an idea that really is. That's the conclusion of a study by a group called the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a relatively independent economic think tank. The authors point out that there's a perfectly reliable source, in the form of the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Agency, that predicts that drilling on the outer continental shelf (OCS) will have little impact if any, on oil prices any time soon.
And yet, a survey of broadcast and…
hrynyshyn | September 8, 2008The Chronicle of Higher Education's Thomas Benton is worried about today's kids and declining levels of respect for academic excellence. In his review of a series of recent books about related subjects, he quotes author Naomi Baron favorably, lamenting the rise of multi-tasking:
Worst of all, the prevalence of multi-tasking -- of always being partly distracted, doing several things at once -- has diminished the quality of our thought, reflection, self-expression, and even, surprisingly, our productivity. Baron's solution is to turn off the distractions and focus on the task and people at hand…