Blogs / Reality Base

For the past few weeks, we’ve been posting thoughts from some of the biggest names in science regarding what the next U.S. president needs to do to promote/engender/rescue science in this country. And luckily, we’re not the only ones hammering away at this issue. Last week, scientists, business leaders, and policymakers gathered in Minnesota to discuss the future of science at the Innovation 2008 Conference. Here’s a report on what went down, from guest blogger and conference participant Darlene Cavalier.

“Everybody supports science, motherhood and apple pie, but when it comes to funding, it’s a different story,” IEEE-USA President Russ Lefevre told a national audience last week at Innovation 2008: Renewing America through Smarter Science & Technology Policy.

The event was co-hosted by Science Debate 2008 and the Center for Science, Technology and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute. It presented public sessions on critical issues facing the next United States president, including: Innovation and Competitiveness; Renewing Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education; Health Science Policy; Integrating Science and Technology in America’s Artistic and Civic Culture; and Energy Security and Sustainability.

“Energy and broadband are two critical fields where more attention is warranted,” Lefevre stressed. So what’s the sharpest thorn in these areas? Access.

The first step, the experts agreed, is to create Smart Grid technologies that can help manage the delivery of electricity better, and a national transmission grid to help open access to wind and solar resources.

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• Check your state’s voter-machine-hackability rating (chances are, it’s high).

• It was only a matter of time: The official “Palinisms” video game launches.

• More on the “What exactly is a ‘green job’ anyway?” question.

• For that matter, why not throw in a “Green New Deal” to save the economy (and the planet, while we’re at it)?

• While we’re on the subject of good news—aka the planet and the economy—it’s worth asking: Does the rise of one necessarily mean the fall of the other?

• A rundown of autism myths—though at this point, there are almost too many to count.

There’s a lot of talk about “green jobs” in this election. But for all the questions raised by the phrase—just how many jobs will be generated, where will they come from, how fast will they get here—so far we’ve had few definite answers.

Which is why it’s helpful to have at least one state paving the way as an example of how to incorporate energy efficiency and “greening” into the economic scheme, and save money and create jobs in the process. The state in question is California, and according to a new study out of U.C. Berkeley, its planned investments in fighting global warming and improving energy efficiency will create as many as 403,000 jobs and jack up household incomes by $48 billion in the next 12 years. These results are a big jump even from the state’s own estimates, which were around 100,000 new jobs and $14 billion in personal income.

The key to the mystical “green job,” according to the Berkeley study, is reallocation: When people use less energy, they spend less on energy bills, and thus have more cash to spend on other things, like consumer products. Cue economic growth and job creation.

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Seeing as global warming is a defining issue of our time and all, it’s not a shock that museums would want to feature exhibits on the subject. But given that climate change is still (somewhat, on a dwindling basis) a politically-charged and controversial topic, what stance should a museum show take on the principal point of contention—specifically, whether or not the cause is mostly (or only) human activity?

That’s the dilemma that New York’s famed American Museum of Natural History is flirting with in its new show, “Climate Change: The Threat to Life and A New Energy Future.” The exhibition takes the definitive stance that human activities are primarily responsible for climate change. Museum curator Edmond Mathez, who first proposed the show several years ago, said the man-made direction was a deliberate move to educate the public on the real scientific consensus about climate change. Of course, it’s unlikely Mathez could have foreseen that the show would open during a presidential election in which one side’s VP nominee stomps on the very consensus the exhibit was built to promote—but then, all the more reason for an injection of fact into the public discourse.

So what does the show look like?

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Everyone is losing this year. Whether it be the Lehman CEO or the evicted homeowner or the aging employee with a napalmed 401K, no one—not even the supercalifragilistamega-rich— is coming out of this unscathed. But given the present and future of across-the-board pain, it’s worth looking at which industries and interests should be salvaged, or at least partially shielded from damage.

Famed paleoanthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakey is already on the offensive, telling reporters during a speech the University of Arkansas at Little Rock that the economic crisis would be “just devastating” to scientific research. He fears that as the philanthropists, foundations, corporations, and governments that fund scientific research watch their coffers empty, money for grants, endowments, and other research efforts will fizzle. Starting in 2009, donations for research and exploration will be “hugely hit,” he predicts.

Environmental researchers and activists are already worried that climate work could be tossed aside in favor of more immediate (but not necessarily less worrisome) concerns. It’s not a stretch to predict that other scientific fields will be hit as well—and that the halting or delaying of research could be as big an aggregate loss as the mortgage crisis and Dow immolation combined.

Related:

Reality Base: High Gas Prices = Good; High Gas Prices = Bad
RB: Lose Your House, Lose Your Vote, Lose Your Self-Esteem
RB: DISCOVER’s Science Policy Project

So we’ve been driving a lot less, which is good. We’ve also been shifting attitudes about oil as a resource and adjusting our lives to consume less of it, which is even better. And we’ve been lavishing more time and attention (and money) on alternative energy, which is best of all.

But now oil prices are plummeting as fast as they rose, and analysts are worried that all those silver linings will be ripped out and tossed aside. As the economy grinds to a halt and the government doles out $700 billion checks, Time’s Bryan Walsh wonders if alternative fuel initiatives—and, for that matter, any climate change legislation—might be shoved to the back of the line behind our bubbling economic woes.

Even if the gas price dip is temporary and/or U.S. consumption habits remain changed, the credit and spending slashes that are already underway could put the kibosh on funding for many alt-energy projects, as Walsh points out. Plus there’s the matter of gas prices as a source of political leverage: The Warner-Lieberman bill, Congress’ first real attempt to pass cap-and-trade legislation, was defeated when Republicans throttled it with the charge that carbon caps would lead to even higher oil prices.

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• In the wake of its banking decombustion, Iceland heads back to an economy based on fishing—at least, for another 50 years or so.

• Should water be priced according to its market value? Vote today in The Economist’s water poll.

• Morality police or no, 25 percent of teenage girls have received the HPV vaccine.

• Nuclear energy gets a PR boost.

• Some how, pork seems a little less porky when it’s going to green energy.

• The Top Ten Biggest Nobel Prize shafts.

• Doctors and drug companies: How deep does the rabbit hole go?

• And finally, perhaps the best graphic representation so far of this week’s financial wreckage.

For all those climate change activists celebrating (rightfully, in our view) the steep gas price increase as a means of forcing U.S. drivers to stop guzzling fossil fuels, here’s more good news: As the Climate Progress blog notes, Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles, or 3.6 percent less, in July 2008 than July 2007, putting 2008 on track to hit the largest dip in vehicle-driven miles since 1983. Which, from a glass-half-full perspective, means that all those potential fuel emissions are staying out of the air … or, from a glass-half-empty view, that we’re careening towards the end of civilization as we know it. Which in and of itself would probably be good for the Earth—if not so good for us.

Image: iStockphoto 

Given the historical magnitude and importance of the 2008 election, it’s no surprise that the event has been prompting plenty of artistic interpretations. Obama has inspired prints and been the subject of numerous collaborations, while New Hampshire’s Currier Museum of Art is cashing in on the trend by selling t-shirts, magnets and pins with Warhol-inspired images of the two candidates.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles-based artist Kim Abeles had a slightly more incisive idea to illustrate each candidate’s commitment to emissions reduction: Make portraits with pollution. To create her prints, Abeles placed stencil images of each candidate on top of sheets of opaque glass, then left them on the roof of her studio in downtown L.A. Obama, who has proposed an 80 percent emissions reduction, was left out for nine days, while McCain, who promises a 60 percent reduction, was out in the air for 18 days (all lengths of time were based on Abeles’s estimation of the difference in emissions levels that the two would tolerate).

When she took the prints down and removed the stencils, the images revealed themselves in all their smog-catching glory. The depth and colors offer a pictorial comparison of the pollution each candidate would leave in the atmosphere.

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Despite her running mate’s acknowledgment of the scientific consensus, Sarah Palin has once again affirmed her denial that man is the primary (or only) cause of global warming, this time on the national stage:

IFILL: Governor, I’m happy to talk to you in this next section about energy issues. Let’s talk about climate change. What is true and what is false about what we have heard, read, discussed, debated about the causes of climate change?

PALIN: Yes. Well, as the nation’s only Arctic state and being the governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state. And we know that it’s real.

I’m not one to attribute every man — activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man’s activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.

But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don’t want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?

The first half of this political sidestep comes as no surprise. The last paragraph is, in a word, nuts. Here are a few past examples of the Palin method—i.e., “solving” scientific problems without first determining the cause:

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Remember how un-cuddly and un-fuzzy animals were getting the shaft from both the media and the public alike? Well, finally an organization is taking a stand for the rights of the slimy, the toady, and the generally awful. The Conservation Law Foundation has asked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to add the Atlantic wolffish—the picture speaks for itself—to the Endangered Species List.

As with the majority of aquatic species, the fish is being royally screwed by commercial fishing and could soon be wiped off the planet. The only difference between it and all those photogenic dolphins, however, is that the wolffish is, well, freaking hideous. Which makes it all the less likely that the CLF’s push will be well-received—especially considering that New England fishermen are already eying this move as a potential source of more fishing restrictions.

So unless it’s discovered to make pearls or form the world’s greatest sushi, we’re not holding our breaths for the foundations and charities to spring forth trumpeting the species’ survival. Ah well—we’ll always have pictures.

Image: Flickr/eirikm

EcoGeek’s Hank Green notes that while nothing could touch the 500 mph freefall of bank stocks last week, the stocks that took a surprising second-worst hit were solar. Green’s reasoning for this, which we agree with, is that the solar industry was a victim of seriously bad timing: Just as renewable energy tax credits—which have been floundering in political quicksand for months—were finally passed in the Senate, a host of mega-banks decombusted, leaving the House with the small task of saving the American economy from collapse.

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While there’s little doubt the economy will be the defining issue in this election, the candidates’ positions on environmental issues can’t be downplayed (after all, what good are $700 billion bailouts if our coastlines are underwater). With the goal of keeping the environment front and center during this election season, best-selling author and DISCOVER contributor Thomas Kostigen put five questions to the two candidates, on topics including climate change, the dwindling water supply, hazardous waste, alt-energy investments, and the private sector’s role in contributing to the clean-up.

As you may recall, both Obama and McCain recently answered 14 questions on science policy from ScienceDebate 2008. While the Obama camp’s answers concerning climate change and alt-energy investments are largely consistent with what ScienceDebate received, this time he includes more detail, including his plans for allocation of the revenue generated by cap-and-trade auctions as well as his proposal to create a $10 billion venture capital fund to bolster clean technology development.

Similarly, McCain’s responses on energy and global warming echo what he told ScienceDebate, including his pledge to instate permanent alt-energy tax breaks (a promise that Obama makes as well) and a vow to “lead by example” in the “greening of the federal government.”

Questions to Barack Obama

TK: Ensuring an adequate water supply is a huge issue, arguably a bigger challenge than energy. Recent estimates say we are going to have to increase our supply of freshwater by 20 percent in the next 20 years to meet world demand. Two-thirds of the world’s population will experience water shortages by 2025. Meanwhile, the Clean Water Act hasn’t been updated since 1972. What plans do you have for addressing the freshwater issue?

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• Congratulations to Andy Revkin, New York Times reporter and DISCOVER alum, on winning the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism, which is given to journalists who provide excellent reporting on “stories that simmer instead of explode”—though whether global warming falls into the former category or the latter remains to be seen.

• DrugMonkey sounds off on the “broken” NIH grant review system.

• The National Institute of Mental Health calls off a study on chelation in children. Why? Because it was dangerous and “unethical.” No kidding.

• We here in Mother Russia do not like silly American “Google.”

• Is media sensationalism a product of evolution?

• No politician is safe! An activist group hacks into Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account, leaving McCain grateful that he doesn’t know how to use the Internet.

• Which scientific experts should the next U.S. president appoint to guide him? The National Academy of Sciences has a few ideas—and they’re happy to share.

• M.I.T.’s president calls for a major R&D funding increase for alternative energy; the world (hopefully) listens.

• Newsflash: Doctors admit to sometimes acting unprofessional. Good thing they’re only laughing at you while you’re anesthetized, and not handing you prescriptions for a drug they’ve been paid to endorse… oh, wait, never mind.

• Ed Brayton summarizes McCain’s “sex ed-gate” mess.

• And Gristmill offers a breakdown of the “Palin v. Palin” climate change message.

• The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund has its say on aerial wolf hunting.

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