Ponderings of a Scientist

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, this blog was a place for me to expunge neat science facts and compose scholarly prose about topics of importance to the World.  And a place for friends to add their witty thought. Then a little fairy (re: baby) came and took over my life, and this blog spot is now an area to post baby picture updates for friends and family (mostly family I imagine), whom look, but don’t write.  So in keeping in that tradition, instead of commenting on topics of renewable energy, here is a link to a neat blog about environmentally-friendly movements and technologies throughout the World.

So our lovely administration and the crazy right wingers have spent the last ten plus years trying to undercut science at every turn.  At its core, the “sound science” movement (read:  only believe scientists if they are paid my industry, deny all standard science thought, give even weight to minority thoughts and main stream views…) are a group of Bush appointees working in our “nonpartisan” environmental organizations (EPA, Food and Wildlife, NOAA, etc.), including a women named Julie MacDonald who has made it her goal in life to kill the Endangered Species Act.  Check out this article on all she has accomplished.  The newest atrocity occurred today with the removal of the Yellowstone Grizzly from the ESA list.

The United Nations just released a report citing the opinions of over 2,500 scientists in regards to Global Warming.  Guess what, there is a 90% chance humans are causing/increasing global warming.  No surprise there, any intelligent human knew that. The more exciting news, Exxon Mobil has given an American Think Tank over 1 million dollars to pay scientists to dispute the findings.  That’s right if you are a relatively important scientist willing to write a paper or give a speech against this report you can get up to $10,000 from Exxon Mobil.  What’s wrong with that, there just encouraging debate (read: bribbing scientists!)?

Last week G.W. signed into law the 2006 reauthorization of the Magnuson Steven’s Act.  This act, originally written in the 1970s, is what created the U.S. economic exclusive zone. The new authorization has stricter limits on overfishing (which must be stopped in all fisheries by 2011), creates (what else) a commerce, business incentive based system for many fisheries (basically get rid of the small guy, consolidate the fisheries to large corporate interests, give them each a share of the industry, if they f**k it up, their loss), and has some international level legislation for highly migratory species.  Overall the bill isn’t bad in my opinion, but its not great either.  Essentially, we have just set NOAA up to fail, yet again, and be sued, yet again, by everyone and their brother (NOAA is tasked with ending overfishing by 2011, without causing unreasonable harm to the economy!) and it will create a quota system for many fisheries (essentially you own x% of the industry, you are guareenteed x% for the year, so no race for the fish, however this severely limits the number of people in the industry).  New Zealand is the most famous example of quota fisheries, which have worked to save many species, but caused much economic hardship for small fishing communities.

And of course the White House is spinning this signing in such a way as to present the Pres. as a ocean conservationist and hero to the environment.  Yeah right!

I hate blogging at work even if it only takes a few minutes.  Shouldn’t I be working on something job related?  I’m just going to suck it up and deal with this early morning guilt, because I heard something on NPR I can’t let pass.  So today the State of Mass. and many other’s are taking the EPA to court over carbon dioxide.  The EPA, that is the Environmental Protection Agency, is tasked with protecting us Americans against all chemicals that have a reasonable chance of being pollutants and causing harm to us, our land, water, weather, or climate.  However, the EPA does not regulate CO2 emmisions, why you might ask?  The short answer is because a former oil lobbyist heads the EPA (and every other seat in the administration); the slightly longer answer is such:  The EPA and G.W. do not find CO2 to be a pollutant, and even if it was there is not enough scientific evidence on how to solve the problem (which remember isn’t a problem) to write any EPA regulations.  How do they get away with this crap!

Back to Work!!!

I parked in between two other Honda Civic hybrids today at work!  A neat little row of hybrids!  I wish I had a picture.

After all this time you think I would have something to say…hum…haa…eek..aah YES

Happenings:
Condo - moved in still painting and staining
Job - still cool, very busy, students start visiting next week
Pleasures -  now that we aren’t so busy I’ve been running more and finding new running routes, woot!  I’ve also been reading some good marine science/natural history books: “Entanglements” by Tora Johnson and “The Lobster Coast” by Colin Woodard.
Annoyances- Comcast is extra dumb, not only did they keep the Zipy waiting for two hours today, they also sent me an email saying my bill is ready to pay, but then wouldn’t let me log in, because my old account no longer exists!  Well, how do they expect me to pay the final bill from the old house?  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Oh, and WordPress is doing some annoying spacing things, so if there are ackward extra or lacking spaces in this post blame the software not the user.  Well haha Comcast I know something you don’t!  Anyone up for Red Sox in our basement?
Thoughts:

As an educator, I have to say “Go Detroit Teachers!”  I know it’s killing many of them to be striking, rather than teaching, but they really have no choice.  The school district wants to cut their pay by 5.5% this year and another 5.5% next year and freeze their benefits, this atop pay freezes and cuts the last few years - how much can you cut from a $30K salary before our teachers become the working poor?  For anyone not following the story, essential G.W’s school voucher program has bankrupt the Detriot school system, because as many parents have chosen to send their children to out of district charter and private schools (a legit parental decision) their childrens’ federal funds leave the Detriot district. Every child that leaves a public school, via the voucher system, takes with them school $1,500 of funding, leaving limited money for the remaining students.  In fact, last year, Detroit teachers spent their own money to purchase toilet paper among other things.  How do we solve this problem?  I’m not sure.   I support a parent’s right to send her child to a vouchered school, however, I can’t stand what it is doing to our public schools.  Unfortunately, the more students that leave, the worse the effect, because dollar for dollar it costs more to run a school for 50 students versus 500.  Likely, Detriot will end up in a worse position when everything is said and done, because more parents will  remove their child from Detroit, rather than have them sit in auditoriums all day, not learning, while the strike works itself out.

A big boo to the oil companies for finding a new way to further rob our natural resources.  Just what we need more oil rigs in the Gulf of TMexico!  My biggest fear is that this new discovery will dissuaded people from conserving.  Global WARMING will get worse, our cities will sink, smog will rob our children from breathing without asthma, but hell we can still look real cool driving our Hummers in laps around Main Street blaring 80s hairbands.

HEADLINE, HEADLINE, Read all about it

Another interesting link from my colleagues:  Sturgeon attacks jet skier! Hum, nature fighting back?

Check out the whale poop sniffing dogs! - (Fixed the link!)