Ponderings of a Scientist

So I just came from an “all hands” meeting and I
have another meeting at 10am so I
have a few minutes to kill and thought I would share with you the insights of
the federal government. Before that a legal disclaimer, “I’m a
contractor working for the U.S.
federal government, however all the opinions stated on this page are my own or
my readers and do not reflect those of my coworkers or those of the U.S.
government.” Okay, I think the covers it; I now can’t be sued.

So we are getting a new building (built from scratch – why use
a pre-existing structure when you can use up more resources (space, trees,
etc.) instead), which will be three times as large as our current building and
have all sorts of neat things in it like a fitness room, etc. Most people will have offices; Good bye “Office
Space” cubicle world.

In the Q & A section of the meeting a few people brought
up environmental issues. Turns out the
building was originally planned as a Green building, however the appropriation committee
decided that was too expensive!! Can you believe that, how short-sighted the
feds are! One guy very crassly mentioned
the cost effectiveness of alternative energy over say 5-10 years. He then asked about walking access out of our
industrial park into downtown, again something the feds don’t value. Man I’m glad the government is setting such a
good example of how we can curb our “addiction to oil” (insert sarcastic tone
here).

On another note we will have a training room, multiple
kitchens/lunch rooms, a fitness center, room for 260 cars, yet we can’t even
get windows that open! That would ruin
the heating/ac balance. Wouldn’t it save energy just to open the windows! I also didn’t hear any mention of daycare,
which if we truly do not discriminate against working parents you think a
building of 8000 square feet, set up for 250-300 employees might consider this!

I’ve had a few topics on my mind the past few days that are
blog worthy. I don’t have much time so I
will touch on each briefly and follow up at a latter date if I see fit.

First and most important: Go Sox!! Thank you to Mirabelli and the rest of the
gang for kicking some Yankee BEE-hind.
Hopefully they won’t get rained out tonight.

Second, the “Day without Immigrants”, I feel I should
mention something about yesterday’s events for prosperity’s sake. I’m really not sure how I feel about the
immigrant issue. On the one hand,
immigrating illegally is a crime; on the other hand, there is something
seriously wrong with our immigration policy if the only way to live here (at
least for Hispanics) is illegally.
Fixing the policy for the future will be the easiest part, what to do
with the mistakes of the past is beyond me, and what about all the legal
immigrants who have been in the system for 10 + years and still aren’t citizens. Any thoughts?
I just can’t help thinking that we all have immigrants not too far back
in our genealogy (I’m 3^rd generation), we have no right being
righteous.

Third, I’m sick of lazy Americans trying to solve our
dependence on fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources with quick fixes
(i.e. dump the federal gas tax of 18c per gallon during the summer driving
season). Boy can everyone talk the talk,
but when it comes down to it no one is willing to walk the walk and I mean that
literally!! I (besides my stupid commute)
make it a point to avoid the car as much as possible. However, I’m still going to re-evaluate my
car use and try to limit it further and I encourage all of you to do so as
well! The Diane Rehm Show yesterday had
a good discussion on oil policy if you are interested.

Last, I hate light pollution. How many of you (those that don’t leave in
apartment buildings) leave the outside light on all night? Why?
To scare away the bad guys; to act as a beacon to midnight guests?
While I think the porch light is unnecessary, I’m really bothered by
businesses (other than Store 24) that leave their lights on 24/7. I
understand the security concern, but wouldn’t motion sensored lights serve that
purpose. I don’t really understand the desire
to advertise 24/7; I don’t want to see your sign up in lights if you aren’t
open, I’ve actually been tricked before into thinking a store was open because
it had some many lights on after hours.
The same goes for the hallways in my apartment building, the place is ablaze
at night, couldn’t we do with every other light on, or perhaps less
wattage? Not only are unnecessary lights
wasteful (see #3 above), but that also disturb nature. You can barely see the stars because of the
light pollution of downtown Dover. A recent article in Science News outlined the
effects of light pollution from southern California
and Las Vegas on reptile and
amphibian species in national parks up to 300 miles away!! These nocturnal species
are going extinct because their feeding and mating behaviors are disturbed.

In summary, Go Sox, Go immigrants, WALK and SHUT OFF THE
LIGHTS!!

Check it out, two of my favorite things come together, the ocean and renewable energy.

In the name of full disclosure I feel it necessary to lay
out my ideological framework for any of you who haven’t already had the
pleasure of debating with me or listening to my verbose ranting, usually as the result of reading some new book or listening to NPR.-*Warning advice coming, avert eyes as desired, author is not responsible for injury* READ!! and listen to NPR (I recommend the Diane Rehm show…most intelligent conversation on the radio…again I don’t know how to link our I would direct you to her site for podcasts and other archived media). NPR is the only non-conservatively biased news broadcast in the U.S. and its only slightly liberally biased, which really means it caters to intelligent people who make obvious decisions based on the facts in front of them.

Well thanks to my drifting from the thesis sentence of
paragraph one you can begin to get a sense of my ideological framework, aha my scrabbled thought process actually has an underpinning of order. Back to business with a little anecdote: before upgrading to my current career, I was
a high school science teacher and my loving students (they really did love me…ah to be a teen idol again) would say to me “Mrs. H. you’re a tree-hugger”. They were right, in the sense that I care about the environment, drive a hybrid car (wot, stop the over consumption of
fossil fuels), eat organic food (wot, stop the over consumption of poorly
treated animals, pesticides and genetically modified organisms), and think
whales are cute. Well, I don’t really think whales are cute, as a fisheries biologist I have much deeper, more scientific, opinions on cetaceans and the role they play in the ocean, but that is for another day.

I wouldn’t call myself a hippie (think 1960’s), but I do live my life while being conscience of our Earth and how its mistreatment pollutes nature and ourselves (although I’m not perfect, unfortunately I’m currently commuting 100 miles each day for work- stupid economy- and spend too
much money on fashionable clothing). In fact, I live my life more conscientiously then many of the true 1960’s hippies currently do. Dad what happened to you and your buddies??? To many once objectors of the status quo are now conservative, nascar car watching, rednecks (this is meant to be minimally offensive and thought provoking to former hippies near and dear to me). I applaude those of you that have not let the big business, wasteful, consumer-driven bandwagon (that word again!) plow you over. As for the rest of us, all I’m saying is take the extra minute to think about the decisions you make everyday. For example, next time you are at the market buying fish, select something local and support your neighbors, not a foreign country, select something caught sustainably and support the continued consumption of fish as a good quality protein instead of supporting the collapse of fish populations. If your grocer doesn’t know the answers to
your questions or can’t supply you with good quality products (this goes for
things besides fish for those of you not seafood inclined) go somewhere else,
your dollars spent in the correct places, whether you like it or not, help
force change, more than just about anything else you can do.

As you can see I have a lot of things to get off my chess. Apparently, I should have started this blogging thing earlier (Zipy and others no comments please). In an attempt to not scare off my small, but growing, readership I will end here today, take a deep breath and when I blog again I will have a clear focus. I will give you my biased view on only one topic and I will hopefully present it in a persuasive, yet not offensive manner.