another story of bush editing science

Al, your comment on Bill O'Rielly is very interesting. So do you have some personal knowledge which supports your comment or is this your opinion? Also, what is the basis of your position on CNN and the BBC ?

My opinion. Based largley on spending 6 weeks in the US towards the end of last year. At that time the US was discussing the merits of outgoing and incoming high court justices, and whether it was ok or not to say 'Happy Christmas' in Wall Mart.

Bill tends to be on the radio when I drive back to the hotel from work when I'm in the states. It's an intersting listen for a expericence of a different culture. I guess the best way to put it is that if I wanted to hear what the right in america felt about an issue I'd listen to Bill. He didnt reflect the average of opinion of most of the people I know in the US (and I do know republicans!).

My comments on the BBC and CNN are based on comaparisons to other networks and media outlets. I would put FOX slant on things on the right of the spectrum. Similarly I think Sky News is often a little questionable here and the UK. Some european news sources take a more left leaning approach to news. So based on the news feeds I do read and listen to I find that the BBC and CNN are examples of news sources with the least political bias. Particularly in what I have seen in the US, there are sources that are obviously right leaning and sources that are obviously left leaning (eg. airamericaradio); CNN appears to do a better job of steering towards the center. Of course thats not to say that we should believe everything it says either! if you want the truth you need to go and look for it.

Perhaps we just disagree on where the center is!

Back on topic to global warming. It may be that we are experienceing something that is part of a larger cycle. The average temperatures of the planet have been estimated going back thousands of years, one thing that these show is that the current speed of change is out of the ordinary.

I've recently been looking at some papers regarding the exploration of the Allen Hills in Antartica, where the famous Mars rock with much debated 'microfossils' was found in 1984. Antartica should be a relativly pollutant free place. However it transpires that examinations of ice cores show that pollution has increased dramatically since the 1900's. The relavence of this to ALH84001 is to see to what extent the freeze thaw cycle could have introduced certain carbonates into the meteorite. In any case the point is that pollution is real and growing and has global effect.

So we have two pieces of circumstantial evidence, and I'd say compelling ones to push for a conviction in court. The earth is getting warmer, and we have ice seet melting to show the effects. And this has been happening since industrialisation.

Based on that it seems prudent to look for ways to reduce pollution. In particular a reliance on polluting fossil fules and carbon combustion in general. Economically it seems to make sense also to not be so tied to oil, which afterall, we will have to find an alternative to at some point. Personally I would advocate the nuclear power option for electricity generation, but that isnt (yet) popular public opinion here! (I dont trust BNFL either...)

If the temperature continues to increase, and in future if pollution is proven to be the cause we (or our distant decendants) will look back in horror at our stupidity for doing nothing.

Things by and large have been going in the right direction. Some of you may remember when dublin was filled with smog. From the surrounding hills you could see the black cloud of soot hanging over the city. Now the coal fires are mostly gone, and those that are left use smokless coal. Currently the EPA is running an advertising campaign, part of which is to discourage the burning of household rubbish. Dual power and electric powered cars are a reality.

Or course Ireland is way behind where we should be as a developed nation in terms of pollution. Patting ourselves on the back for banning some coals is hypocritical when fish are dying in our rivers, we are unable to treat sewage at the scale we need, and incineration is the solution to all domestic waste etc.

How to help developing nations not pollute is another major challenge.

Cheers,
~Al

No intent on my part to position you or Al in anyway. That is a conclusion you drew.

Simply put and to point; the very thought that even when we think we know something inequitably this is generally based on unsubstantiated facts. Now we think our hardcore ideas are based on facts; but are they really facts?

As a for instance you mentioned the “raw” data to see for yourself. So how do you verify that this “raw” data has not been skewed? Even if you had the opportunity to examine the raw data yourself how would know how it was obtained and under what conditions. What errors were introduced due to unforeseen circumstances?

Secondly, science is not politics and it should not be treated as such which is what I belive you are doing. Science is speciall in that the raw data is there for anyone with a genuine interest to see for themselves. You don't neet to take people's word for things as you so often have to do in politics, you can look at the data yourself and then draw your own conclusions.

Sorry Bart, gonna have to pull you on that one... Science is littered with political decisions, motives, agendas and so on. By way of some examples, scientists have provided extensive evidence for all kinds of harmful activities (smoking, diet, asbestos) yet people blindly go on smoking, SuperSizing themselves, and tearing down asbeston laden builidngs. Here in Ireland, the scientists have long been expressing serious concerns of the A&E situation - and, um, look what's happened...

Sorry ... I think you miss-understood me. I meant that politicians should not try to alter science, they should take the reports of scientists and base their decisions on the, rather than trying to change the reports they get into the reports they'd like to have gotten.

The policticans need to argue about what to do in response to the reposts they get from the scientists. The examples you give are where politicians have not done that.

We see political spin, smoke and mirrors day in and day out. Even with the scientists data, there's still a lot of harm going on to the human race and our environment. Remember the fuss about illegal waste dumps? Shell? So what's happened about those issues? Nothing.

You're right .... there are people who pretend to engage in science just to justify their goals. They are really dangerous. The whole point of science is to openmindedly seek answers, not to go in and try to proove an opinion you won't change! Thankfully in a lot of cases you can spot peopel who are abusing science by looking at who pays their wages.

The problem is people in general don't care - they're more concerned about the humdrum of getting through the traffic, watching the latest soap and so on. I bet if there was 100m asteroid headed our way, a lot of folks would simply sit and watch it coming in Live on Sky.

Saddly true

And as for the 'scientists' - all too often we consider them as pure, moral and driven by the search for truth and knowledge. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Most scientists are paid by an employer - be it private industry or academia or through a research grant. A lot of times, their judgements are made on the basis of 'don't bite the hand that feeds you'. And then of course, there are those scientists who blatantly falsify data, break ethical codes and so either to further their career or make money.

I think this is indeed becoming a bigger and bigger problem. (see my long blog post on the matter here: www.minds.nuim.ie/~voyager/blog/index.ph...ture-of-Science.html )

However, the data is still there in peer reviewed science so you still have resources at your dissposal to draw your own conclusions if you are interested enough.

So, what's the truth? Certainly what you see on TV and in the daily papers is a sanitised biased version of the truth. If that's what we base our opinion on, then its de facto a biased opinion.

The key to getting nearer to the real truth is to firstly realise that there are biases and secondly to understand the basis for the biases that are there so you can begin to untangle things better.

And as for the politicians themselves, whilst some are distasteful and odious, they're (mostly) human too. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to car - politician or Joe Public. But the politicians have to take account of all public (and private) opinion - not just mine or yours. And public opinion includes the old woman in number 37 as well as the multinational billion dollar companies...

Indeed ... however, sometimes it seems like the old woman in number 37 is ignored while the multinationals have the un-interupted ear of those at the helm.

As a final example, how much direct evidence do you think there is in support of closing down Sellafield? Do you think the East coast of Ireland is now home to bizarrely malformed animals and plants? Is the land and sea glowing in the dark? Do you think that the threat of Sellafield going up in smoke up is any different from a nuclear power plant in the North East of France going up in smoke and polluting Ireland? Did you know that Ireland still pumps raw, untreated sewage into the sea off the Donegal and Connemara coasts? And not 10 miles out, right on the shoreline...

TBH I have no idea because I havn't done the research on that one. Since I don't have a well thought out opinion of my own other than "I'd prefer there to be no Nuclear Fussion plants anywhere" I'm not going to say any more on the matter.

Politics - that's the name of the game for both politicians and scientists alike. A shocking indictment of the 21st Century in my opinion, but reality nontheless.

I don't think we have quite come to the stage where politics has destroyed science. Again, we come back to my main point, science needs to be protected from getting dragged into politics. The more science becomes politicised the worse off we all are.

Hi Al,

Your post is right on target. I appreciate your expressing the basis of your positions. I also find it very interesting that even though we may be half a globe apart we share some very common values and points of view.

I share many of your concerns about the issues we face on the globe. Perhaps the internet will afford us with a way to better understand the issues and to work together to resolve them.

No intent on my part to position you or Al in anyway. That is a conclusion you drew.

Simply put and to point; the very thought that even when we think we know something inequitably this is generally based on unsubstantiated facts. Now we think our hardcore ideas are based on facts; but are they really facts?

As a for instance you mentioned the “raw” data to see for yourself. So how do you verify that this “raw” data has not been skewed? Even if you had the opportunity to examine the raw data yourself how would know how it was obtained and under what conditions. What errors were introduced due to unforeseen circumstances?

You do need some faith in the scientific method yes. Proper scientific data is more than an excel spreadsheet, it is published with a complete and detailed description of the steps taken to record the data, the instrunents used and hte method as well as the steps taken to process and collect the data and finally to analyse the data. You can read all these things for yourself and then decide if the data tells you what the scientits tell you it tells you.

I have some experience of this kind of thing in the IT arena where you get data published by one side showing that some proprietary system is better and then data published by the other side showing the opposite. When you read the reports in detail you can see where the differences come from and then make your own call on the validity and conclusions of the study.

I think ( ) in general, pretty much everyone agrees on the basic facts that we cannot continue polluting our land, water and air.

This change in the way we live is required irrespective of whether climate change is due to our activities or some other greater natural change.

If it turns out that all the CO2 we pump into the atmosphere was a red herring, at least we can all live in a world we we don't have to wear masks in smog-laden cities, have to drink water that's been processed with chemicals and so on.

So I think we're all on the same page about change being required.

However, the difficulty comes from humanity not wanting to change. For example, what right do I have to tell some bloke in Brazil to stop cutting down trees? That is more than lilely his livelihood and pays for the food he puts in his children's mouths. Likewise, what right does *he* have to tell me to stop driving around in my car pumping out noxious gases, using narual gas to heat my house and have double glazed windows that are, er, made from hardwood he provided... And what right do I have to tell a US citizen to stop driving that 6 litre gas guzzling Hummer whilst I happily burn my rubbish in the back yard?

This is where the politics comes in. It has to. Unfortunately, its impossible to stop 6 billion people from polluting the planet or removing forever those natural resources all at once.

After all, whether we like it not, we have to eat, breathe and look at the stars! All have an element of pollution attached to them.

Nuclear Fusion is the Holy Grail - nuclear fission is a different matter I understand that nuclear fission power plants are a touchy subject, as are incinerators. But we can't (in Ireland) continue to burn fossil fuels ad infinitum. The question of nuclear fission powered generating stations will eventually arise.

What surprises me most though is that Ireland has the ability to harness copious natural resources but the public has of yet to be fully sold on the idea. Luckily, there are folks out there developing wind and wave power and solar energy panels plus wood pellet systems (renewable resources) but they cost - and people refuse to pay. Worse, they actively disagree with wind turbines going up in their back yard.

When I build our house (someday) it will be an eco house - as self sufficient and efficient as possible. Hopefully, the Politicians will give me back some of the taxes I have paid over the years and make sure that it costs me no more to build than a polluting house. Preferably cheaper...

The basic premise of politicians messing with scientific data is deplorable though. Especially if they are messing about with it in order to achieve some nefarious objective...

And as far as any of us having access to raw data and manipulating it so we can see the unbiased picture, I think that's something that would very rarely happen. All of our opinions are mostly based on second or third-hand data. That's probably why we all have differing opinions - we've all be taking it in from different sources...

Back to the little old lady in number 37 - she is more powerful (in principle) than the multinational corporations because she has a vote. But of course she then has to rely on handing that vote to an honest politician who will represent her views and will make balanced decisions based on both her and GlobalCorp Inc's opinions.

Its a very interesting subject area and raises some fundamental questions and gives rise to polarised opinion. My hope would be that some day, real soon for all our sakes, agreements will be reached that will extend our stay on the Blue Planet for the good of all.

Bart - that's good blog by the way. Enjoyed it.

Cheers

Dave