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At Slate, A Need for Diplomacy in the Climate Wars

I have an article at Slate magazine today that ties together and elaborates on some of the themes explored at this blog over the past several weeks. Below is the lede to the full article. No doubt, the article will generate a good amount of discussion which I will highlight in follow up posts. I will also highlight specific comments made over at Slate. Chill Out: Climate scientists are getting a little too angry for their own good. By Matthew C. Nisbet As Congress continues to struggle its way toward new energy legislation, climate scientists are getting a little hot. A series of major…

Should Panelists Dismissive of Climate Change Be Included at Campus Forums?

That's the question raised in an American Observer article about this week's AU Forum held on the "Climate Change Generation? Youth, Media, and Politics in an Unsustainable World." The Observer is the digital news site run by graduate students in journalism at American University. Here's how reporter Kristen Becker described the issue with reactions from students, Forum moderator Jane Hall, and panelists Juliet Eilperin and Kate Sheppard: Although a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found the number of Americans who believe climate change is occurring has dropped from 80 percent to 72…

Richard Gallagher Steps Down as Editor of The Scientist

After nearly 8 years as founding editor of The Scientist magazine, Richard Gallagher is stepping down to pursue new journalistic ventures. Gallagher helmed The Scientist as it grew into one of the top international outlets for reporting on trends in research, industry, politics, and ethics in the life sciences. In his final editorial for the magazine, Gallagher reviews what he predicts to be the top ten issues facing the life sciences in the years ahead. Of note, a majority of these issues revolve directly on dimensions of public engagement and how scientists interact with societal…

Does Ideology Influence the Policy Preferences of Scientists?

As I noted last week, the Pew survey of scientists finds that more than 50% self-identify as liberals compared to just 20% of the public. Which then leads to the question: what role does ideology play in shaping scientists' policy preferences relative to science, especially in those areas outside of their specialty? Or on those issues where there are high levels of uncertainty about risks, benefits, and trade-offs? Heuristic decision-making is common in politics and policymaking, are scientists as a group any different? Put another way, in responding to the Pew findings, several commentators…

At UWisc-Madison, Science Literacy and Communication

My friend Dietram Scheufele sat down a few weeks back for a Q&A interview with one of the magazines produced by the the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Scheufele, a professor of Life Sciences Communication at UW, was asked about new directions in science communication. In the interview, he emphasizes several themes from social science research in the area that we first popularized in a cover article at The Scientist magazine back in 2007 and that we expand on in a lengthy article that is likely to be out later this year. Below are a few key comments from the interviews. I will be…

At the WPost, More Focus on the Miserly Public

As I have written in various articles, when it comes to science debates, the public is far more likely to be miserly in reaching a judgment than fully informed. Most citizens are cognitive misers relying heavily on information short cuts and heuristics to make up their minds about a science controversy, often in the absence of knowledge. As a result, in order to effectively engage the public, scientists and their organizations need to adapt their communication efforts to the realities of human nature and the media system. This means recasting, or "framing," their communication efforts in a…

Cheese Penguin

This poem was sent along by W.J. Galusky, occasional guest contributor to the site. One nice thing is that it's worth reading, as below, but also worth listening to someone reading it, as at this site. The poem is by Sarah Lindsay. It is from her book, Primate Behavior (1997). Cheese Penguin The world is large and full of ice; it is hard to amaze. Its attention may take the form of sea leopards. That much any penguin knows that staggers onto Cape Royds in the spring. They bark, they bow one to another, she swans forward, he walks on her back, they get on with it. Later he assumes his post,…

Oh World's Fair, how I've neglected you...

... although not without reason. Time has been really tight this semester so far, and the last couple weeks have seen a myriad of different things going on. In no particular order, they are: 1. This new global issues course. Talk about a new experience! Here, I was charged with talking about climate change science in a space of 4 and a half hours, to an audience where half the students were science majors and the other half were arts major. i.e. How to pick and choose the topics of most relevance for such a short timespan, and make it interesting and accessible to students from two very…

Hi, Joe!

William Cronon is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and he recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that placed the recent labor troubles in Wisconsin in historical context — he explained how many of the progressive policies in that state were actually the product of Republican lawmakers, that the state has long been a battleground between the progressive and conservative wings of the Republican party, and that a good part of the liberalism in the state is due to a reaction against the autocratic hand of Joe McCarthy, who violated the traditions of the…

Friday Rant: Why does Lou Dobbs still have a job?

That's right. I'm talking to you, Lou Dobbs of CNN. What fascinates me about you is that although you are a thug of at least comparable measure to Bill O'Reilly -- what with your nightly anti-immigrant rants -- your thuggery seems to have gone largely unnoticed in the liberal establishment. If my liberal friends will not watch Fox because they employ O'Reilly, why will they watch CNN while they continue to employ you? Aside from your regular anti-immigrant jibes, you seem to show the economic understanding of a shell-encased invertebrate. The protectionist measures you advocate were shown…

Watson loses his job at CSHL...they call that irony

James Watson, Nobel Laureate and member of the Watson-Crick duo that discovered DNA, has been suspended from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory after some comments about race and genetics: James Watson, in London to promote a new book, was forced to return to New York after Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island, relieved him of his duties because of his apparent views. It follows a hellish week for the 79-year-old geneticist who helped to unravel the structure of DNA more than 50 years ago. After being quoted in The Sunday Times saying that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of…

Live Fast, Die Young: Musicians Really Do Have Higher Mortality Rates

Shocking. An epidemiological study of bands in the US and Europe showed that musicians do really die prematurely. Equally shocking: drugs and alcohol are involved. From the BBC: A Liverpool John Moores University study of 1,050 US and European artists found they are twice as likely to die early than the rest of the population. In all, 100 stars died between 1956 and 2005 with US stars dying at 42 on average and those from Europe at 35. Drug and alcohol problems accounted for one in four deaths, the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health said. ... Lead researcher Professor Mark Bellis…

Bensteinian Rhapsody

From MartinC: Is this stuff real science?Or is it just fantasy,That belongs in a place likeBob Jones University?Just close your eyes,Don’t think, just accept IDI’m a game show host,I don’t know biology,But this sleazy bunch, told me so,It could be lies, how would I know?So long as the check clears, it doesn’t really matter to me,To me. Anyone? I just filmed a sham,Put some lies into your head,Libelled Darwin, coz’ he’s dead,Honor, you know I once had some,But now I’ve gone and blown it all away-Anyone? ooooohhhhhWas it mean to tell those lies?You’d learn more science by watching Rocky Horror…

Friday Poem (albeit on Saturday)

The Lay of the Trilobite May Kendall (1861 - 1943) A mountain's giddy height I sought, Because I could not find Sufficient vague and mighty thought To fill my mighty mind; And as I wandered ill at ease, There chanced upon my sight A native of Silurian seas, An ancient Trilobite. So calm, so peacefully he lay, I watched him even with tears: I thought of Monads far away In the forgotten years. How wonderful it seemed and right, The providential plan, That he should be a Trilobite, And I should be a Man! And then, quite natural and free Out of his rocky bed, That Trilobite he spoke to me And…

As I see it ...

There is a flamefest going on at the moment regarding atheism, agnosticism and creationism and it strikes me that many of us are missing the wood for the trees. I hope most of us can agree on the following: It has been claimed that there are two broad groups within the pro-science movement: those that see the issue in terms of science versus anti-science within the classroom and those that see that issue as being part of a larger cultural battle between science (identified with "rationalism") and religion (identified with "superstition"). Clearly, this broad-stroke characterization is a…

What's wrong with the media, in one paragraph

The Atlantic runs this regular column where they ask people about their reading habits — this time, they asked Aaron Sorkin, who sneers at the web and announces that he reads a couple of newspapers…or at least, he reads the front page and the op-eds in a couple of newspapers. When I read the Times or The Wall Street Journal, I know those reporters had to have cleared a very high bar to get the jobs they have. When I read a blog piece from "BobsThoughts.com," Bob could be the most qualified guy in the world but I have no way of knowing that because all he had to do to get his job was set up a…

Hyperbaric O2: Good for some things, but not others

Most of the stuff you hear about hyperbaric oxygen being used to treat is total nonsense. It isn't effective at treating autism or cerebral palsy. But an article in the Times makes the point that it is effective for treating some things: The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, the professional organization in this field, recognizes 13 conditions for which it is legitimate to place patients in high-pressure chambers that force pure oxygen into their blood and tissues. Eleven of those conditions have been approved by Medicare for reimbursement, indicating that solid evidence supports…

CBC Radio Series: "How to Think about Science"

Starting in the 1970s, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists began to apply their methods and theories to understanding the processes and assumptions that shape the production of scientific knowledge and technology. These scholars argued that science does not stand apart from society as a collection of objective facts and theories, but is influenced by institutions, social norms, ideology, and even the laboratory technology that is used to observe nature. This new field of science studies offered important insight into the practice and craft of doing science while providing valuable…

FOX NEWS TALKING HEADS CLAIM DENVER BLIZZARD SHOWS THERE IS AN EAST COAST BIAS ON GLOBAL WARMING

In case you were wondering, why in an era of extreme media fragmentation, polls show that Republicans rank global warming as less of a priority than flag burning or the estate tax (Pew 2006, slide #22), the following comes my way via the email updates from the Center for American Progress and Think Progress: This past month, Denver, CO, was blanketed by two snowstorms, dumping approximately two feet of snow on the city during the holiday season. The right wing is now using these blizzards as evidence against climate change. Yesterday, climate skeptics Pat Michaels and Dan Gainor appeared on…

WARM WORDS AND CLIMATE PORN: Labour-Leaning British Think Tank Conducts Discourse Analysis of UK Climate Change News Coverage; Criticizes Media for Over-Dramatizing to Capture Audience Attention While Offering Few Meaningful Policy Options

A study released this week by the Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning British think tank, criticizes the UK media for engaging in a dominant "alarmist" interpretation of global warming. This alarmist interpretation is characterized by an inflated sense of urgency and "cinematic tones" according to the study, which used discourse analysis of a sample of 600 news articles to reach its conclusions. The problem with this lead media interpretation, concludes the report, is that it likely leaves readers "without a sense of agency," giving the impression that "the problem is…

Obstinate and oblivious

This past weekend, I was feebly confronted by a Canadian creationist, David Buckna, with a list of his objections to evolution. I spent a fair amount of time trying to hammer him with the answers, and the most remarkable thing was that every time we'd start digging into a topic, he'd suddenly change subjects to another item on his list, and then, later, he'd switch back to the original topic at the very beginning of his harangue, as if I'd never said anything. And now he's pestering me in email, sending me more quotes (that's all he's got — no thoughts, just quotes) and rehashing pointlessly…

The Mystery of the Wandering Daddy Longlegs

Here is a lovely little creature from Sri Lanka, Pettalus cf. cimiciformis, a member of the same lineage that includes the daddy longlegs we're all familiar with. You could call it a daddy longlegs too, but its legs aren't particularly long (plus it's tiny--the size of a sesame seed.) It may not seem like much, but it poses a fascinating riddle. It belongs to a family of daddy longlegs called Petallidae. Below is a map of where other species of Petallidae can be found. They seem to be scattered randomly across the world. But petallids are terrible at dispersing. Their ranges are small (…

Jesus and Journalists

This morning I noticed that on top of my blog there's an ad for an upcoming show on the Discovery Channel that claims to reveal the tomb of Jesus and his family. I haven't seen a preview of the show, and from an article in this morning's NY Times, I have very little interest in doing so: The filmmakers commissioned DNA testing on the residue in the boxes said to have held Jesus and Mary Magdalene. There are no bones left, because the religious custom in Israel is to bury archeological remains in a cemetery. However, the documentary's director and its driving force, Simcha Jacobovici, an…

Sickness All Around

I've got two stories in tomorrow's New York Times about getting sick. One is about malaria. I've always been fascinated by how parasites can manipulate their hosts for their own ends, and much of my book Parasite Rex is dedicated to explaining how this creepy remote control works. I've come across many new examples from time to time. Now a new study shows that the parasite that causes malaria can alter us humans to turn us into good mosquito bait. As with most stories about life, this one is ultimately about evolutionin this case, how parasites repeatedly have evolved ways to boost their own…

Flesh on the Bone

Two of the most important stages in hominid evolution were the origin of the entire hominid branch some six to seven million years ago and the first movement of hominids out of their African birthplace. This week we now get a new look at both. On the cover of Nature, the editors splashed the first reconstruction of Sahelanthropus, the oldest known hominid. The scientists who made the reconstruction used new material they found in the Sahara, adding to the material they described in their first report in 2002. There had been some argument over whether Sahelanthropus was an early hominid that…

Just say "no" to stupid surveys

I was not alone in receiving a silly survey from an ID creationist: Tara, Mike, John, and Wesley all got it, and all rejected its premise. I'm joining in the universal dismissal. If you're curious, I've put the "survey" below the fold, but here's my answer. A. Insert thumbs in ears. B. Flap hands. C. Cross eyes. D. Make loud raspberry sound. P.S. Now the guy is whining that the "defenders of science" refuse to participate in his "scientific" survey, failing to note that our complaint is that it is not scientific in any way…and as expected, he's turning any response into an excuse to berate…

A Complete Crock(er)

The IDists have continually argued that they are being oppressed by some sort of Darwinist hegemony. One such case is that of Caroline Crocker, a biochemist who was released from a position as a visiting professor* by George Mason University and now claims that her academic freedom (to teach ID) was infringed. PZ highlights an account in the Washington Post and neatly skewers her claims, showing her to be an appallingly ignorant mouthpiece for DI talking points. In Fall 05, Crocker taught general biology at North Virginia Community College. This spring, she does not seem to be teaching there…

When Small is Bright and Big is Dark: Synaesthetes Perceive The Luminance Of Magnitudes

Synaesthesia refers to the phenomenon where certain perceptual stimuli induce an unrelated and illusory perception - for example, a digit-color synaesthete may experience a sensation of the color green whenever exposed to the number 3. The relationships between the inducers and the induced synaesthetic experience are widely considered random; one anecodotal explanation is that letter-color synaesthesia could reflect a childhood memory of the particular colors used inrefrigerator magnet letters. A recent Current Biology article from Kadosh, Henik and Walsh turns this common wisdom on its…

Videos of developmental trajectories in cortical thickening

In an update to their groundbreaking earlier demonstration that high-IQ children initially show a thinner cortex, and later show an initially thicker one than their average-IQ peers, Shaw et al. have now documented those trajectories of cortical thickening which are invariant to socio-economic status and IQ, but vary between regions of the brain. These videos show the peak in gray matter in cortex between the ages of 5 and 15 years, as assessed from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of 375 subjects of varying ages. And another video below the fold... Dark red areas indicate those…

Friday Cephalopod: Undead Squid Penis

First, a little background: When squid mate, a male transfers its sperm to a female enclosed in complex structures called spermatophores. These are accumulated in the spermatophoric sac, a storage organ inside the mantle cavity, before ejaculation through the penis. Squid that spawn in shelf waters and epipelagic waters of the open ocean usually have short penes hidden completely inside the mantle. Males pick the ejaculated spermatophores from inside their mantle with a specially modified arm called the hectocotylus, to transfer them to the female. Females spawning in shallow water have…

Jon Stewart Needs Your Help!

Last night Jon Stewart hosted the Israel/Palestine peace activists Anna Baltzer and Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. The angry response from the Pro-Israel crowd resulted in a backlash against the show for even having the discussion (including the show's first heckler in eleven years). Baltzer, an American-Jewish author, has put out a public letter asking that people contact The Daily Show thanking them for hosting the discussion as a way to counter the angry response they've received so far. Last night Dr. Barghouti and I were on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart talking about Palestine. The show was…

Obesity gene found in Labrador retrievers

Image from Pete Markham via Flickr Creative Commons (https://flic.kr/p/8ctqVC) Researchers at the University of Cambridge in Britain recently studied 'willpower' in pet Labrador retrievers. After allowing each dog to smell a hot dog, the researchers placed the hot dog in a hamster cage and sealed it shut with duct tape. While some dogs showed only mild interest in the sealed-up hot dog, others were fixated on the out-of-reach treat. One dog, named Ash, broke apart the contraption to obtain the treat. This is interesting because although Ash is not obese or overweight, he has a genetic…

Is gun ownership by women increasing?

Glenn Reynolds writes: Here's another in a steady stream of reports along these lines: 76 million people own a gun in this country. And now more than ever, the number of women who are buying and learning to fire guns is increasing. It is indeed one of a steady stream of reports. A steady stream of bogus reports that gun ownership by women is increasing. Tom Smith and Robert Smith thoroughly debunked this notion in a paper published in The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (86:1 1995). They examined such claims and the evidence and concluded: Through the…

How not to make women welcome at your institution

Long time readers of my old blog may remember that earlier in my career at my institution, I was the recipient of a number of harassing phone calls. And that the resolution of these calls was largely unsatisfying. But it's been three years since the last one, and so I thought that maybe that was it, that I could start to relax. Ha. I got yet another one this weekend. Same modus operandi as usual. This one, at least, didn't mention me by name, but it definitely sounds as if it was targeted at me. There is one key difference this time: I have the support of my colleagues. My chair…

scio10: podcasting in science

part deux (actually this is the regular conference session) This is the session on Saturday morning at 9. Moderated by Deepak Singh (coast to coast bio) and Kiki Sanford. What is podcasting? audio or video plus subscription plus portability. Some of the podcasters have gone away from calling things podcasts â they call them âshowsâ. Deepakâs experience is different â theyâre only looking to talk about what theyâre interested in, which maybe 50 people are interested in. Heâs found that the conversation is better â have 1000 people listening a week. Theyâre not worried about doing it…

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Gets Starred PW Review and a Shiny New Cover

Lots of excitement here at Culture Dish:  The final cover for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has arrived (see left). And ... <drum roll> ... the the book's first pre-publication review has hit the press:  In the issue coming out this Monday, Publishers Weekly gives The Immortal Life a starred review, calling it, "a remarkable debut ... a rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society's most vulnerable people." (wOOt!) Full review here and here: "Science journalist Skloot makes a remarkable debut with this multilayered story…

Edgar Suter's dishonesty

Lawrence Kennon writes: The following documents exactly the kind of "junk science" being foisted off on the public by the medical profession, and in particular the CDC and the NEJM. It does nothing of sort. There are dozens of falsehoods, and dozens of claims that are extremely dubious. It would be possible to put these down as honest errors, caused by Suter's pro-gun bias, except for the following example which can only have resulted from blatant dishonesty on Suter's part: Edgar Suter writes: harmful and unconstitutional nostrums Crime and homicide rates are highest in jurisdictions,…

Late Victorian Holocausts: The Indian Famines

Severe famines killed many millions in India between 1700 and 1900. [Chronology at Wikipedia]. Nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen's work on endemic deprivation stems from his experiences of the Bengal famine as a child. Photograph of a South India family in 1878 by W.W. Hooper, a Colonel in British army who took many photographs of Madras famine. The apathy and greed of Colonial rulers had a hand (directly or through inaction) in many famines. With that introduction let me pass you over to George Monbiot's reveiw the book Late Victorian Holocausts at Guardian where he points out the…

Climate change: Possible scenarios

A summary of a forecasting (sort of) report at RealClimate: The group imagined three potential scenarios, labeled expected, severe, and catastrophic. These are not forecasts exactly, since forecasting society is even harder than forecasting climate, which is itself pretty dicey on a regional spatial scale, but rather a fleshing out of plausible possibilities, a story-telling, visualization-type exercise. The "expected" scenario calls for 1.3 °C of warming globally above 1990 levels, by the year 2040. Changes in precipitation and sea level prompt migration at a scale sufficient to challenge…

International Crime Victimization Survey results

Look in "Experiences of Crime across the World" van Dijk, Mayhew and Killias (1991). This reports the result of an international victimisation survey in the US, Canada, Australia and 11 European countries. Danny Low said: The last time I looked at an atlas, the world included places like Mexico and other Latin American countries. The book has a rather grandiose title "across the World" but seems to exclude most of the world. Are the countries you listed the only ones in the book? If it is so I would consider the sample to be very biased. The only countries. They also surveyed Warsaw and…

Gleanings from the past week

from The Everett Collection, via Vanity Fair Notables I didn't get to. Blog posts, MSM stories, and tweets living together. Fron the genomics front NOVA | Ghost in Your Genes | PBS streams some of the Skip Gates program I mentioned in my post last week on the Genomes, Environments, and Traits conference. What can you learn from a whole genome sequence? : Genetic Future ponders just the Lancet/Quake genome Heritable, yes, which gene...another issue Razib drills down. He argues elsewhere that The origins of morality do not matter | AP IMPACT: Testing curbs some genetic diseases -…

Riding the Daily Wing (my buddy Bryan's new bird blog)

I've been following a new birding blog lately, "The Daily Wing," kept by Vermont bird guide, dragonfly follower, and writer Bryan Pfeiffer. It's a nice mix of ⢠birding how-to, with guidance both basic and intricate, such as his lovely entry on a bird-attraction technique he calls spishing (especially effective in winter): The woods were otherwise silent. Vacant. But I suspected otherwise. So I stopped and spished. "Spshsh-spshsh-spshsh-spshsh. Psssp-psssp-psssp-psssp-psssp. Spshsh-spshsh-spshsh-spshsh." Two white-throated sparrows jumped into view from a tangle of catbrier. Then several…

Kandel on camera

I profiled neuroscientist Eric Kandel for Scientific American Mind a while back; a huge pleasure. Two things stand out.  First, Kandel's work makes a wonderful foundation for an understanding of neuroscience, as his mid-20th-century insights into the dynamics of memory underlie much of the discipline. Second, Kandel  is a gas -- gracious, funny, and stunningly brilliant. When I interviewed him for about 90 minutes in his office at Columbia, he was 73. As he described to me the history of his work, and of modern neuroscience, he seemed to have complete and effortless recall about…

Will government involvement drive up health-care costs?

Opponents of a public health-insurance plan pose two main objections: that it will create an 'unlevel playing field' that will harm the private market for insurance (an odd objection, since that playing field already tilts quite sharply away from patients' pockets and health and toward the wallets of the health-insurance industry); and that government involvement will raise costs.  These objections seem to hold sway to the degree we limit our discussion to what already exists in the U.S. As with squabbles about the problems with our educational (non)system, the picture gets clearer if we…

Harassment by FOIA

Kevin Folta, a critic of the Food Babe, has been sent a list of demands for his email correspondence under the Freedom Of Information Act. I'm all in favor of transparency, and I can see where FOIA requests can be used to uncover conspiracy or expose intent, but this is a case where Folta has been outspoken and up-front: he thinks Vani Hari is a quack. You don't need a shadowy paymaster and ulterior motives to explain why a scientist would publicly explain that someone said something that is scientifically wrong. I also don't need to rifle through her correspondence to figure out why she's…

Politics Tuesday (on Wednesday): Hot Grandmas for the Ocean!

Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org Sunday's N.Y. Times carried a story, "Washington Feels Hollywood's Heat", about entertainment industry "eco-wives" descending on D.C. to lobby for strong climate change legislation. Despite the inclusion of passages like this: On Wednesday morning, Ms. Meyer and Ms. McCaw, a former model, discussed how they would handle being young grandmothers when the children from their husbands' prior marriages had children of their own. "You'll be the hot grandma, I'll be the kind-of-hot grandma," Ms. Meyer said. [see the picture and judge for yourself]…

Cold War, Tropical Fisheries

This evening I met with Joaquim Tenreiro de Almeida, former Secretary of State for Fisheries in Mozambique during the 1980s. He kindly provided feedback on the Mozambique catch reconstructions and some interesting insights into a couple allegations about Mozambique's involvement with the Soviet Union. Brief history refresher: The Portuguese colonized Mozambique in the 16th century. In 1962, anti-colonial forces formed the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and initiated an armed campaign against Portuguese colonialism. The country gained independence in 1976, which was…

Politics Tuesday: If a Bottom Trawl Cuts Down a Coral Garden and There's No One There To See It, Did It Still Happen?

Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org O.K., I know that "Politics Tuesday" is supposed to be about D.C. politics, not mass mobilization, but what's a political junkie to do when Congress is on vacation but think about how to move the masses who don't seem to care about your issue? Congress is finally back in session today, and so hopefully we'll have some scoop to report next week. Word on the street is that we may start to see some action on OCEANS-21. In the meantime, though, let's finish up the mass mobilization thread, because it's really a crucial piece of politics as it's…

Politics Tuesday: Fishgate - Gored by a Tiny Tooth

Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org So what are the lessons about fish politics (and politics generally) from last week's silly flap about the Patagonian toothfish that Al Gore ate at the rehearsal dinner at his daughter's wedding? People expect a level of perfection out of politicians that they don't expect of themselves. Granted that Al Gore has become a potent (and at times hypocritical) symbol of the environmental movement, but do we really expect him to pay any attention to the menu at an event that the groom's family was paying for? Was he really supposed to make a scene…

Politics Tuesday: Would You Like A Napkin With That Democracy?

Posted by Dr. David Wilmot, dave@oceanchampions.org When I returned from Washington, DC last weekend, my son told me he will learn (8th grade social studies) how we make laws. I can imagine his textbook will have a neatly drawn two-page diagram of the process, with each step fitting precisely in a box. As we all know, our process is neither neat nor precise. Democracy is messy. A bill may travel through the process but instead of fitting into boxes, it spills over the edges, through the halls, and out in the streets. Enter the Ocean Conservation, Education, and National Strategy for the…