Archive for February, 2006

Greenhouse Gas Politics in a Nutshell

February 9th, 2006

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

One the one hand . . .

The world has seven years to take vital decisions and implement measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions or it could be too late, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday. Blair said the battle against global warming would only be won if the United States, India and China were part of a framework that included targets and that succeeded the 1992 Kyoto Protocol climate pact. “If we don’t get the right agreement internationally for the period after which the Kyoto protocol will expire — that’s in 2012 — if we don’t do that then I think we are in serious trouble,” he told a parliamentary committee. Asked if the world had seven years to implement measures on climate change before the problem reached “tipping point”, Blair answered: “Yes”.(link)

On the other hand . . .

Restricting cheap flights by putting a tax on air travel to cut pollution was ruled out by Tony Blair yesterday. . . The prime minister said it would take a “fairly hefty whack” for people to cut back on flights, adding that it would be hard to sell such a move. Instead, he said, the best way to tackle climate change was to invest in more environmentally friendly aircraft and in other new technology. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrats’ environment spokesman, later accused Mr Blair of “talking big on the international stage on climate change”, but throwing in the towel at the first difficulty at home. “Emissions from aviation represent the greatest challenge in tackling climate change. For the Prime Minister to wash his hands in this way is simply unbelievable,” said Mr Baker.” (link)

Political Plate Tectonics and Energy Policy

February 8th, 2006

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Does buying a hybrid car make its owner feel virtuous while helping the environment, or does it just make the driver feel virtuous?

According to an article in today’s New York Times, it may be the latter:

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What About Democracy?

February 8th, 2006

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

The WTO ruled yesterday that there is no scientific justification for opposition in the EU to genetically modified crops. According to the Financial Times,

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Transhumanism

February 8th, 2006

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

James Wilsdon of DEMOS, a U.K. think tank, has a thoughtful essay (subscription required) in the Financial Times on the occasion of the release of a new DEMOS collection of essays titled Better Humans? The Politics of Human Enhancement and Life Extension. Here is an excerpt from Wilsdon’s essay:

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Lindell on evacuation

February 7th, 2006

Posted by: admin

This morning I sat in on the first half of the National Science Board meeting in Boulder on “Toward a National Agenda for Hurricane Science and Engineering” (agenda link).

I have a couple of thoughts that I’ll spread out over two or three posts. (Roger gave a presentation at the meeting so he’ll probably have his own thoughts, too.) Here’s my first thought:

In a powerpoint presentation, Professor Michael Lindell of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M threw out a bullet point that said, “Evacuation is a sign of policy failure.”

This was said in a context of presenting evacuation as a very expensive, unpredictable, and largely unmanageable undertaking. He went on to say that the necessity for emergency evacuation means that intelligent pre-event planning was not in place and that building structures were not designed or retrofitted to withstand the hurricane event (obviating the need for evacuation).

I focused on the last. I can buy labeling “evacuation” as a “policy failure.” But I wonder if it’s possible that evacuation is actually less expensive than the total cost that would be involved in preventing its necessity, especially on the engineering side. Retrofitting buildings is extremely expensive (price per square foot to retrofit buildings for earthquake resilience is so much more expensive than new construction that generally only historical buildings are retrofitted….great example is this awesome building and retrofit project).

So it’s possible that in not addressing the evacuation vs. resilience problem, decision makers are getting the right answer (coming out on the cheaper side) for the wrong reason (not even addressing the issue). I discussed this with Michael after his panel discussion and he agreed that the numbers should be examined but haven’t yet been.

I’ll Take the Under

February 7th, 2006

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

NASA’s FY 2007 budget proposes 17 space shuttle missions between now and September 30, 2010. That is 55 months, or about one shuttle flight every three months. I am thinking that the odds of flying 17 flights over that time period are vanishingly small. Success-oriented planning has its limits. I’d put the over/under at less than 10.

Andrew Dessler on Climate Change

February 6th, 2006

Posted by: admin

Guest Post by Andrew Dessler

Ed.- Professor Andrew Dessler, of Texas A&M University’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, has been a frequent and substantive contributor to discussions here at Prometheus for a while now. On the occasion of the publication of his new book (The Science and Politics of Climate Change, co-authored with Edward Parson, Cambridge University Press, 2006), we thought it might be valuable to ask Andrew to present his views of science and policy in the climate issue to stimulate discussion and debate among our readers, and to give Prometheus readers a little diversity in the perspectives presented here. So I’ll now turn it over to Andrew. RP

During 2000, I was a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. I was OSTP’s staff atmospheric scientist, and one of my jobs was to explain to White House policymakers the scientific importance of newly published research as well as the truth or falsity of scientific arguments made in mainstream media outlets. Several times per week, I would run across the most ridiculous, obviously erroneous arguments about climate change in the media. I began to wonder why such outlandish arguments were being made and, more importantly, why these arguments got traction in the public debate.

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Especially Special Interests

February 2nd, 2006

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Many observers of and in the scientific community have quite appropriately decried the apparent undue influence of industry on political issues involving science. So it is very interesting to read in today’s New York Times how big industry lobbied the Bush Administration for more funding for science:

President Bush’s proposal to accelerate spending on basic scientific research came after technology industry executives made the case for such a move in a series of meetings with White House officials, executives involved said Wednesday.

Why would industry want more government spending on research?

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The Chronicle on the SOTU

February 1st, 2006

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Here is how the Chronicle of Higher Education reported President Bush’s State of the Union speech last night:

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Bush proposed spending billions over the next decade on basic science research and on mathematics and science education. In his speech to a joint session of Congress, the president provided few details of his plan, which he dubbed “The American Competitiveness Initiative.” Specifics are expected to be provided in his budget request for the 2007 fiscal year, which is due out next Monday. However, sources familiar with the plan say it will provide $146-billion over the next 10 years, including $50-billion to double the budgets of three agencies: the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology. In the 2007 fiscal year, which begins on October 1, it would provide $910-million in additional funds for those agencies.

According to AAAS, in FY 2006 NSF, DOE’s Office of Science, and NIST received $6.93 billion for research. The President’s Budget will thus recommend a collective 13.1% increase for these agencies research budgets. In terms of these agencies overall budgets, the increase is closer to 10%.