A few items on NASA stitched together . . .

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Some time ago a few of my students emailed me (from a bar somewhere I believe) to alert me to the fact that I had a Wikipedia biography page. I had known this already because one of the site administrators had emailed me for a photo. I never though much of it, but my students seemed to think it was cool (or maybe they were laughing at me, it is sometimes hard to tell;-).

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Al Gore will be the next president of the United States. He will win with at least 293 electoral votes, and perhaps in a landslide. This post explains why.

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This news story from Reuters highlights the consequences of neglecting certain areas of research and policy:

One billion poor suffer from neglected diseases: WHO

Last Updated: 2007-02-14 9:44:10 -0400 (Reuters Health)

JAKARTA (Reuters) – One billion people in tropical countries are still suffering from debilitating and disfiguring diseases associated with poverty, but many remain untreated due to official neglect, health officials said on Wednesday.

Despite the existence of inexpensive and safe treatment, those who suffer from diseases such as leprosy, elephantiasis and yaws remain untreated due to a lack of resources and political will, said Jai Narain, South East Asia director of communicable diseases at the World Health Organization (WHO).

“These tropical diseases have been neglected by policy makers, by the research community and also by the international community,” Nairan told a news conference at the start of an international meeting to tackle tropical diseases.

“But at the same time these diseases cause considerable amount of suffering, disability, disfigurement and even social economic impact, particularly for populations which are extremely marginalised,” he said.

Nairan said the fact that the diseases were not in the headlines and not global problems like polio, HIV/AIDS and malaria contributed to the lack of attention.

“These diseases are closely related to poverty. The elimination of such diseases would be a significant step toward poverty reduction,” he said. Many who contract the diseases suffer from discrimination and are shunned by their communities, said Nyoman Kandun, director general for communicable disease control at the Indonesian health ministry. . . .

Benny Peiser kindly offered a number of comments on a recent thread in which we were less-than approving of the Bush Administration’s trans-Atlantic diplomacy on climate change. In order to provide a range of perspectives on the current state of climate politics, which is very much in flux, we have asked Benny Peiser to expand on these comments and offer a perspective on climate politics, particularly U.S.-Europe relations. We welcome posting a range of other perspectives here as well, simply send them to me by email and we’ll post them up. Here are Benny’s comments:

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Two years ago NOAA’s Chris Landsea resigned from participating in the IPCC citing concerns that the chapter on hurricanes had been politicized, specifically citing the role that Kevin Trenberth, IPCC convening lead author for the chapter that covered hurricanes, had playing in an October, 2004 media event hyping a hurricane-global warming connection.

With this post we’d like to follow up and in the process close the book on this particular dispute — at least for us here at Prometheus. The “hurricane wars” are probably far from over, but we should acknowledge that both Chris Landsea and Kevin Trenberth both come out of this situation looking pretty good. Both can and should feel vindicated. Read on if you are interested in a few final details from the last chapter in this story.

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There is an excellent letter to the editor in today’s Daily Camera (our local newspaper) by Robert Davis, who comments favorably in reaction to a recent op-ed by Chris Mooney and Alan Sokal. Mr. Davis wisely distinguishes advice as policy analysis, and underscores the importance of honest brokers of policy alternatives. Here is Mr. Davis’ letter in full:

Your editorial pages for Feb. 11 contained an abundance of thoughtful and relevant writing. In particular, the piece by Mooney and Sokal offers a welcome defense of science as evidence-based reasoning that deserves protection from ideologues (“Taking the spin out of science,” Feb. 11).

As a policy analyst who worked as a civil servant in the office of one of the president`s cabinet secretaries through three administrations, I would offer the caution that scientists themselves can become ideologues and need to be reminded of their roles in the decision-making apparatus of a government.

Effective and helpful policy analysis for the head of an agency includes laying out all of the alternatives for addressing a particular problem and exploring the consequences of each alternative. It is in this phase that scientists make their most valuable contribution.

In the case of global warming, we need desperately to know the consequences of the actions we might take. I include costs as one of the consequences, and, of course, probabilities must be addressed, because, in any policy-making, certainty is the rarest of commodities.

Scientists are least helpful when they try to short-cut the policy analysis by prescribing what we must do. At this point, they stop being scientists and the most visible among them become pontificating celebrities. Any government has an obligation to keep its scientists from making fools of themselves, but it is a fine line to hoe.

Certainly, we want the opinions of scientists at the appropriate point in the process of making policy. Without judging the Bush administration or its critics, I would maintain that we have a right to expect that scientists be held to the rules of rational, effective and disciplined policy analysis.

ROBERT DAVIS
Boulder

The Bush Administration has provided the most substantive presentation of its climate policies (that I have seen at least) in the form of a speech yesterday by Kurt Volker, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs before the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, Germany. With this post are a few reactions to this self-evaluation of U.S. climate policies presented by the Bush Administration. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I come to a different conclusion than the Bush Administration when evaluating U.S. climate policies.

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Last Friday I visited Savannah, Georgia to participate in a viewing and discussion of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” This is the second time I have had a chance to participate in such an event, and it was a pleasure to participate in this event (including getting to see a thoughtful talk by Georgia Tech’s peter Webster).. This time I thought I’d collect a bit of data. So like the college professor that I am I gave a pop quiz right after the movie. After watching a documentary on climate change one should have the basic facts down, right? Unfortunately, no. Here is the pop quiz I gave with answers on the other side.

1. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its 4th Assessment Report last Friday. It projects a likely global average temperature increase for 2100 of (degrees C):

A. 1.1 to 6.4
B. 1.5 to 4.5
C. 5.0 to 11.5
D. 7.0 to 9.0

2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its 4th Assessment Report last Friday. It projects a (mid-range) global average sea level rise for 2100 of:

A. 16 inches
B. 48 inches
C. 10 feet
D. 70 feet

3. If the Kyoto Protocol is fully implemented, including US participation, the effects on global average temperatures in 2080 would be:

A. Undetectable
B. Reduce the projected increase by 0.5 degrees
C. Reduce the projected increase by 1.0 degrees
D. Reduce the projected increase by 2.0 degrees

4. If the global greenhouse gas emissions magically stopped right now global average temperatures would:

A. Stop increasing immediately
B. Continue increasing for many decades

5. In order to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide requires that net global emissions be reduced from today’s levels:

A. to 1990 levels
B. by 20%
C. by 50%
D. by 100%

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The Honest Broker is soon going to the printer with Cambridge University Press. Amazon has the cover up, here it is:

If you are qualified (an editor, in the media, a popular blogger, etc.) and you would like a review copy, please email me at pielke@colorado.edu with your details and I will add you to the list I am sending to CUP. Others can pre-order the book here and here. Thanks!