Ecosystems in the Age of Cassandra

Kristen L. Marhaver, a PhD student in marine biology, has written a piece titled "Ecosystems in the Age of Cassandra" in Science Progress that urges the scientific community to change the way research findings are shared with the public and with policy makers.  Currently, major scientific research results get minimal time in the fast-paced media cycle before they are brushed aside and forgotten.  If a policy maker wants to compile the latest information on a scientific subject by going to the source instead of relying on mass media, s/he must sift through hundreds of publications, many of which are subscription based or protected by the university or lab who 'owns' the results.  Because there is no coordinated database for compiling such results, many policy makers are ill-informed of the current recommendations and warnings the scientific community is making, especially in regards to climate change and ecosystem deterioration due to human actions. 

The solution Kristen discusses is to create a comprehensive, free, open-to-the-public database of all federally-funded research.  It would also feature a search engine that policy makers could use to type in, say, "wetland habitat damage" and immediately have access to the latest information from the experts.  This would make it much easier to determine the scientific consensus as to which recommended actions would avoid said problem or threat.

The importance of getting the appropriate information to the decision makers of our country cannot be overstated.  Kristen puts it like this:

"Science produces some of the world’s most powerful information and we should be harnessing the full power of the information age to compile this knowledge and transmit it to policymakers. Otherwise we will simply be documenting, in exquisite detail but out of earshot of our decision makers, the death of planet Earth."

Really, Louisiana Senate?!?

Social and environmental justice concerns are converging in the midst of the massive oil leak/spill/volcano. Mother Jones blogger Mac McClelland's post "A Strike Against Oil Spill Lawsuits" discusses the Louisiana legislature's current project: Senate Bill 549. This bill, which the senate is holding a hearing on tomorrw, would severely limit the work of university law clinics that represent low-income clients. These clinics would be barred from filing suits against government agencies, suits seeking monetary damages, or suits that raise state constitutional challenges.

The main target is the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, where law students take on cases against industrial polluters on behalf of Louisiana's citizens. The reason for being targeted? The senate wants Louisiana to be seen by businesses as pro-industry and wants to send a message that all these pesky lawsuits are doing is hurting Louisiana's economy. What's worse still is that environmental lawsuits won't be the only suits restricted. Not only is this bill pro-business, it is pro-wealthy. Also barred will be suits by civil rights plaintiffs, domestic violence victims, and juveniles. Those who cannot afford their own lawyers and turn to such clinics to seek justice will have that resource removed. But hey, at least industries will know that they can pollute without repercussions for their irresponsible, damaging actions!

"Climate Change and the Integrity of Science"

Yesterday, 255 National Academy of Sciences members published this statement in the journal Science, standing up to the recent attacks on scientists and clearly laying out why inaction toward climate change is not an option. This is exactly what the scientific community needs to be doing, because reason and facts are on their side.

"Climate Change and the Integrity of Science"

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet.

Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial—scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That’s what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of “well-established theories” and are often spoken of as “facts.”

For instance, there is compelling scientific evidence that our planet is about 4.5 billion years old (the theory of the origin of Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about 14 billion years ago (the Big Bang theory), and that today’s organisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory of evolution). Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong. Climate change now falls into this category: There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.

Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific assessments of climate change, which involve thousands of scientists producing massive and comprehensive reports, have, quite expectedly and normally, made some mistakes. When errors are pointed out, they are corrected. But there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:

(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.

(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.

(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.

(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

Much more can be, and has been, said by the world’s scientific societies, national academies, and individuals, but these conclusions should be enough to indicate why scientists are concerned about what future generations will face from business-as-usual practices. We urge our policy-makers and the public to move forward immediately to address the causes of climate change, including the un restrained burning of fossil fuels.

We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.

The Gusher in the Gulf

The past few weeks have been a stark reminder of the perils of our fossil fuel addiction. So much has been written about the Gulf spill and its catastrophic damage to the ecosystems and economies in the wide area that is bound to be affected before this disaster is over. While obviously tragic, there is a great opportunity here for a reframing of the energy and climate debate. Because the Senate bill has been indefinitely postponed, this is a prime chance to demand more support for renewables and eliminate the giveaways to the oil and coal companies that are in the current bill. Barack Obama needs to clearly and strongly lay out to America and the world why the path we are on is so dangerous. He needs to connect the major catastrophies of the past few years and show that the financial industry, coal industry, and oil industry disasters were all a result of a lack of government oversight and regulation.

Limited regulation is necessary in these industries. Without it, we have seen how greed for profit trumps all thoughts of what is good for the public. The government's job is to protect the public from such tyranny. We gave corporations the chance to self-regulate through voluntary safety standards, and as a result we have seen irresponsible sub-prime mortgage lending that led to the biggest economic recession since the Great Depression, we've seen 28 coal miners killed because of negligence to enforce basic safety standards by Massey Corp, and now we're seeing a tragic, thus-far unstoppable underwater volcano of oil erupting.

If BP had complied with the voluntary safety recommendations from the US Minerals Management Service to place a remote-control shut off for the well, the well could be closed by now. For a company who made $5.6 billion in the first quarter of 2010, spending $500,000 on this technology seems like a drop in the bucket, but its absence has now led to a gusher in the Gulf.