Yesterday’s New York Times had an interesting article on uranium enrichment research in Iran. It begins as follows:

There are times when even a little bit of research can be a bad thing, especially if it centers on Iran and the bomb. On Tuesday, a wide range of nuclear scientists and analysts faulted as dangerous Moscow’s tentative proposal to let Tehran do small amounts of research on uranium enrichment, with some comparing it to being a little bit pregnant. “After a while, you tend to wind up having a baby,” said Peter D. Zimmerman, a professor of science and security in the war studies department of King’s College, London. “I do not believe the Iranians should have any access to enrichment technology until they prove to be a more responsible partner than they’ve been so far.” The Iranians have strenuously objected to such characterizations, saying the West wants to deprive them of atomic knowledge and expertise that they have a right to acquire for a peaceful program of nuclear power. They see it as nothing less than a devious plot by outside powers to keep their country from modernizing. In an interview with Al Arabiya television last month, for example, Ali Larijani, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, said, “The problem is that they look at the Islamic nations as being inferior, that we should not have modern technology, and it is enough for us to produce tomato paste and mineral water.”

The international issue of nuclear research in Iran is in my mind exactly analogous to the debate at the federal level over stem cell research in the United States in the follow ways:

1. A group in society – the researchers — wants to conduct research that has potential positive benefits to outcomes that they value.
2. Another group in society – the restricters — wants to restrict that research because of its potential negative impacts with respect to outcomes that they value.
3. Both groups seek to impose their values on the other, but both cannot succeed at the same time as their goals are in direct conflict.
4. In both cases the restricters have the upper hand from a political perspective.
5. In both cases the researchers are seeking ways around the research restrictions.
6. The researchers assert that this is about the right to conduct research.
7. The researchers accuse their opponents as being morally challenged.
8. In both cases the decision to conduct the research or not is 100% political.

These debates are about what research gets to be conducted, by whom, and how paid for. Did I miss anything? I’m interested in reactions.

The following is an op-ed I prepared a few weeks ago. It was accepted for publication at a major U.S. newspaper but, for whatever reason, I never heard back frm them again. So I am assuming that its window of opportunity has passed and am posting it here. However, if anyone reading this is interested in publishing it before a broader audience, please send me an email – pielke@colorado.edu. Thanks!

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Karen O’Brien, of the University of Oslo’s Department of Sociology and Human Geography, has a very thoughtful editorial in the current issue of the journal Global Environmental Change. She suggests, quite appropriately in my view, that debate and discussion on global environmental issues focuses too narrowly on “science” and not on important issues of “human security.” She is asking us to consider reframing how we think about and organize to act on environmental issues. In my view, O’Brien is absolutely correct in her analysis, but her perspective, and that of Oxford’s Steve Rayner which we discussed yesterday, are far removed from the center of the current politicized and scientized debates over global environmental issues. Here is an excerpt from her editorial:

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In an editorial in the latest issue of the journal Global Environmental Change Oxford’s Steve Rayner laments “a widespread pathology: the use of bad arguments for good causes.” Rayner cites work that I and colleagues have been engaged in on hurricanes and global warming to help make this point (However, one might also look up on Promethesus Richard Tol, Hans von Storch, and Indur Goklany to see similar points being made in various contexts):

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Robert Cook-Deegan of Duke University’s Center for Genome Ethics, Law, and Policy is another worthy addition to the fledgling group-blog now forming over at Issues in Science and Technology. From his first post:

Without an OTA equivalent, S&T advice is channeled through external constituencies and the executive branch, which is inherently administration-dependent. Congress has lost most of its S&T analytical capacity, and the executive branch has lost its credibility. Have we given up on bipartisanship, resigned to polarized S&T war rhetoric, without even the option of consensual, incremental building?

Mr. Gingrich and Senator Clinton, tear down that wall! Then build sturdy structures that restore a bipartisan ethos. A good place to start is science and technology policy, where partisanship is particularly stupid and destructive.

Registration is now open for the 2006 AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy in Washington, DC. The meeting will be held on April 20-21, 2006 (Thursday and Friday) at the Washington Court Hotel.

The AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy (formerly the “AAAS Colloquium”), held in Washington each spring, provides a forum for discussion and debate about budget and other policy issues facing the S&T community. Click here for the latest version of the 2006 Forum program. Click here for registration information. The 2006 Forum features sessions on the budgetary and policy context for research and development in 2007; achieving energy security; avian flu and other global health threats; science and technology and homeland security; the global innovation challenge, and responses by U.S. industry and policymakers; and protecting the integrity of science.

More info here.

Part 1 and Part 2 of this series discussed Chapters 1 and 2. This installment focuses on RAGS Chapter 3, which is titled, “How is America doing now in science and technology?” It really should be named, “How is science and technology doing now in America?”

The focus is regrettably not on what S&T can do for the U.S. public, but what the U.S. public can do for the S&T community. According to data that we discussed last month (here) the U.S. has 1.26 million workers who are classified as researchers, which represents roughly about 1% of the U.S> labor market. Given the small size of the R&D part of the workforce, compared to the whole, the most important question for using investments in S&T as a tool of “competitiveness” is: What is the relationship of investments in different areas of S&T and the quality and quantity of jobs in the broader U.S. labor market? This important question goes unasked by RAGS. Read on for details.

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Anyone with concerns about the politicization of the IPCC, and its stance of “policy neutrality,” should raise an eyebrow at recent stories from the BBC and The Guardian. Leaking information before the report has gone through full review smacks of overt politicking. But more generally, those doing the leaking and their representations of what will be found in the IPCC are far from “policy neutral.” Perhaps it is time for the IPCC to dispense with the illusion of being policy neutral and simply admit its political agenda.

As far as the “news” that has been leaked, it is hardly news. According to the Guardian:

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I’ll be giving a lecture on March 15, 2006 at 5:30 PM in the Baird Auditorium of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, details here. The lecture is the Annual Roger Revelle Commemorative Lecture sponsored by the National Research Council’s Ocean Studies Board. Please come out and do introduce yourself if you are a Prometheus reader. The title of my lecture is “Disasters, Death, and Destruction: Accounting for Recent Calamities.” Here is the abstract:

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