Why Open Science Failed After the Gulf Oil Spill

Great article by John Timmer over at Ars Technica on scientific uncertainty during an intensely political and costly crises.

One quibble, I don't think we can easily assume "Scientists, in general, just wanted the actual number" of oil being release into the Gulf, whereas all the other interests were political/economic. One can think of the intense and controversial period after Katrina in the engineering field, as engineers embedded in different institutions had conflicting results. The production of knowledge is always entangled with political, cultural, and economic relations. Scientist are not outside those relations.  

We Might Have to Move

The Pacific archipelago nation of Kiribati is setting up plans to relocate the entire nation to Fiji in case rapid climate change raises sea levels and wipes out their islands. It's a Plan B. They are buying 6,000 acres, at a price of about $9.6 million. This is a twist on the idea that the nation-state is based on a historically and culturally significant territory. Now, one country can buy a piece of land in another country, and move the nation-state over. This story also highlights the unequal burdens of climate change. 

 

Do We Need to Talk About Climate Change, In Order to Talk About Energy?

I am looking forward to reading  provocative sounding new book Before the Lights Go Out. Koerth-Baker's short answer to the question above: no we do not; we do not have to agree on the "whys" in order to reach the same solutions. We'll see. The book comes out in April.

The Republican Brain: Why Even Educated Conservatives Deny Science--and Reality

Chris Mooney on the "smart idiot" effect:

The idealistic, liberal, Enlightenment notion that knowledge will save us, or unite us, was even put to a scientific test last year—and it failed badly.

Indeed, if we believe in evidence then we should also welcome the evidence showing its limited power to persuade--especially in politicized areas where deep emotions are involved. Before you start off your next argument with a fact, then, first think about what the facts say about that strategy. If you’re a liberal who is emotionally wedded to the idea that rationality wins the day—well, then, it’s high time to listen to reason.

Great article on why educated conservatives deny climate change and believe erroneous things. Answer: it's not a lack of education. So, all the time spent bemoaning education, arguing on facts, trying to reason may not be the best strategy. Truth with a capital T doesn't guarantee political success. I think the occupy movement has been able to use the statistical data of wealth inequality in the US, combine that with a strong narrative, and street politics, which has enabled them to move past the limits of evidence fairly well. Narrative matters. 

Not time to cut

Richard Harris at NPR reports that Congress might be planning to cut subsidies to the wind industry. 37,000 jobs could be lost and a nascent industry set back. 

When the tax credit last expired in 2003, wind farms took a big hit. But in those days, the wind turbines were largely imported. Now, the domestic manufacturing industry is growing rapidly. And that changes the politics.

and Gamesa VP says,

As the technology improves, wind becomes cheaper. Rosenberg says his company only needs four more years of tax credits, and it will be ready to compete without further federal help.

Heritage Foundation wants them ended,

We're $15 trillion in debt," says Nick Loris at The Heritage Foundation. "We have a robust energy market. And electricity demand and the demand to transport our vehicles back and forth is always going to be there. And I think that profit motive is incentive enough.

We're in debt, yes. But it is not time to cut clean energy subsidies. We need to find more ways to scale these projects and roll out new ones. At the moment, subsidies for producers and consumers help this goal. 

Why Climate Change Will Make You Love Government

Provocative piece by Christian Parenti. He writes, 

Such calamities, devastating for those affected, have important implications for how we think about the role of government in our future. During natural disasters, society regularly turns to the state for help, which means such immediate crises are a much-needed reminder of just how important a functional big government turns out to be to our survival.

It's not very fashionable, both on the Right and on the Left, to advocate for government these days. But Parenti does make some good points, especially with regards to social and ecological crisis ("natural disaster" is a pretty inadequate term). There is only one institution that is capable and potentially willing to aid people during major crises: government.

Via Alternet, via TomDispatch

If you can't compete, sue

Via Matt Macari at The Verge, Honeywell International sues Nest Labs over the Nest Learning Thermostat, claiming patent infringements. Honeywell lists a number of patents it contends Nest violates. To me, they read like very very basic concepts related to UI and usability features, nothing extraordinary. How can other companies compete when they could be prohibited from using these features? Here is a sample:

U.S. Patent No. 7,634,504 - this patent was filed in 2006 (issued 2009) and covers displaying grammatically complete sentences while programming a thermostat.

U.S. Patent No. 7,142,948 - this patent was filed in 2004 (issued 2006) and covers a thermostat figuring out and displaying how long it will take to get to a specific setting, like temperature. The Nest definitely has this feature; it's a main selling point of the device.

U.S. Patent No. 6,975,958 - this patent was filed in 2003 (issued 2005) and covers a method of controlling an environmental control system from a remote to adjust the settings of the system.

Read the whole story over at The Verge.

Predatory Pythons Shift Everglades Ecology

Between fifteen and thirty years ago humans let loose pythons in the Everglades, now the pythons are changing the ecology of the Everglades by killing off the mammals. Other species can wreak havoc on biomes, but in this case it still goes back to those who let the pythons into the system decades ago. Well done.

The snakes, many of which measure 10 to 16 feet, are called Burmese pythons. But make no mistake: Virtually all of the roughly 30,000 living in southern Florida were born in the Everglades. Ecologists now report that populations of mammals have begun plummeting throughout the pythons’ expanding range. And the timing of these mammal losses matches the geographic spread of the snakes, which federal officials believe were initially released into the wild by snake fanciers, probably 15 to 30 years ago.

The next question is: what kind of super predator are we going to release to kill the pythons?

Sustainable Death and Destruction

This really pushes the concepts of "sustainability" and "green" right off a cliff:

But while some branches of government have displayed a penchant for caution, the United States Department of Defense has been more assertive in its intentions. One DoD researchrequest, for example, asks synthetic biologists to create greener explosives and rocket fuels. In the "statement of need," the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), which seeks to green the military, argues that microbes could eliminate the heavy-metal and toxic solvents in conventional explosives production.

Does not sound "benign" or "benefitial"; sounds like BS:

On the surface, greening weapons of war sounds like a project that we might dismiss as benign, even beneficial, if a little incongruous. But this application treads a step closer to the line drawn by the BWC in 1975 and reaffirmed by the U.S. government many times since.Article 1 of the BWC states that signatories must never produce or possess microbial or other biological agents "that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes." Because explosives-producing microbes in themselves would not be weapons, they would not appear to violate the convention. That said, as part of the production chain and a means for making weapons components, they wouldn't qualify as having “peaceful purposes,” either.

"Scotland Guns for 100% Renewable by 2020"

United States: "Let's builds a giant oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico for international export, and continue to drill in precarious locations (deep-water horizon). Let's demonize the clean energy industry and cut all government support."

Scotland: "Let's get to 100% renewables by 2020."

2020 is only eight years from now. That's not the distant future.

 

Obama and the Urban Agenda

Greg Hanscom on Grist:

The thumbnail version is this: Under President Obama, key federal agencies have begun to shift away from subsidizing suburban sprawl and toward reviving cities and creating dense, walkable, transit-friendly communities. Obama has put smart-growthers and new urbanists in key positions, begun to realign government agencies to prioritize sustainability, and launched partnerships and initiatives that one Bush administration veteran calls “mind blowing” — in a good way. Even Obama’s allies agree, however, that serious reform may have to wait for a second term. If there is one.

There is more than meets the eye to Smart Growth. Ending subsidies for suburban sprawl is good but we need to think comprehensively: both the so-called central city and the so-call suburbs need to be revived. We can't allow the central city to become the green playground for the affluent and young professionals, while the suburbs slip into social and environmental neglect. If this happens, it will end up just the reverse of what happened after World War II when affluent whites moved out of the central city, into the suburbs, and left a wake of crisis behind in city after city. The sustainable modern metropolis will have a re-imagined and revitalized center and suburb. 

Not out of science fiction

The President of the Maldives is establishing "a sovereign wealth fund, drawn from its tourist revenue, to be used to buy land overseas and finance the relocation of the country's population of 350,000," reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

SMH reports:

THE President of what could be the first country in the world lost to climate change has urged Australia to prepare for a mass wave of climate refugees seeking a new place to live. The Maldivian President, Mohamed Nasheed, said his government was considering Australia as a possible new home if the tiny archipelago disappears beneath rising seas.

''It is increasingly becoming difficult to sustain the islands, in the natural manner that these islands have been,'' he told the Herald in an interview ... ''If nations won't do good for themselves, they really must do good for everyone around, simply in your self-interest as well ... I think it's really quite necessary for Australians and for every rich country to understand that this is unlike any other thing that's happened before.''

Science fiction author, Kim Stanley Robinson, described a fictional low-lying nation to permanently relocate to Washington DC in his global warming trilogy. Only now, it's becoming a real possibility for the Maldives and other low-lying areas in the global south.

Via Tree Hugger.

The Next Big Thing

Mathew L. Wald, NY Times:

If solar energy is eventually going to matter — that is, generate a significant portion of the nation’s electricity — the industry must overcome a major stumbling block, experts say: finding a way to store it for use when the sun isn’t shining (italics added).

Very true.

Giant Plumes of Methane

Russian scientists have discovered hundreds of plumes of methane gas, some 1,000 meters in diameter, bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean. Scientists are concerned that as the Arctic Shelf recedes, the unprecedented levels of gas released could greatly accelerate global climate change.

Great.

Times Are Changing

Anecdotal: both High Schools in Chico have solar arrays covering their parking lots, Butte Community College is one of the first colleges to be grid positive, a farm in rural Butte county has four wind turbines and a solar roof, and a farm along side I-5 in Northern California is deploying a solar array on some of its farmland. Couple this with David Roberts post on Grist last week showing the above maps, and renewables are appearing more and more in daily life. First one 1970, second one 2011.