Archive for the ‘Science’ Category
By Alan Caruba
In late April, AccuWeather.com, led by Joe Bastardi, its chief meteorologist, issued a news release that was, to be kind, pure mush. The early warning forecast for 2008’s June to November hurricane season said that conditions like La Nina and a “continued warm water cycle in the Atlantic Basin” held forth the “chance for U.S. landfalling storms.”
The operative word here is “chance” when predicting hurricanes because it is largely a question of gaming odds on how many. What no self-respecting meteorologist, whether in private forecasting or working for the U.S. government’s weather service, wants you to know is that their highly sophisticated computer weather models quite simply cannot factor in a whole range of factors, not the least of which is clouds. Yes, clouds.
As I am fond of telling people, the best definition of the weather is “chaos” which is to say, beyond maybe four days, accurately predicting it is nearly impossible. This is not to denigrate the work of meteorologists and the scholarship of climatologists who study long-term trends and cycles. Bless them, bless them all!
Men have been trying to predict the weather since ancient shamans studied the entrails of chickens. The weather is one of the great determinant factors in all aspects of life on Earth and it is in a constant state of change.
A fine example is the last ten thousand years or so of temperate, even moderate, weather the planet has enjoyed. It gave rise to civilizations based on agriculture, allowing some to grow food while others engaged in conquest on foot, on horseback or sailing to places they then claimed for themselves. Nasty bunch those human beings. What we call history some might uncharitably call organized thievery, but farmers still want to know if it will rain next week.
Knowing about hurricanes takes on importance these days because most of the nation’s population lives within fifty miles of either coast. Since hurricanes are an East Coast and Gulf of Mexico event, the West Coast has to content itself with earthquakes (entirely unpredictable), wildfires, and other unpleasantries.
By Warner Todd Huston
The fields of DNA and gene manipulation research are incredibly exciting for the good that it can offer mankind. Imagine a day when the results of such research can assist mankind to treat previously untreatable diseases, maybe even prevent them? Wouldn’t it be tremendous to be able to alter the DNA of an unborn fetus to prevent its developing spina bifida or Down’s syndrome? Wouldn’t it be a Godsend if we could manipulate our genes in order to shut off the cancer cells that ravage us or rebuild broken spinal chords? Who would stand against such worthwhile gains in health, medicine and science? Of course, no caring human could oppose such work.
But that same work has its dark side and this is a subject that medical science is doing its level best to pretend does not exist. That dark side is not getting its due in the debate of the future of mankind through science. Unfortunately, it is not merely something to scoff at as unlikely because, for all our scientific knowledge, we are still, after all, men. Evil, selfishness, hatred and ignorance will remain with us whether we are free of cancer or know our full DNA sequence or not and those innate flaws inherent in man has, can and will corrupt the good that his science can do. The potential for evil is there no matter how wondrous that science can be.
The New York Times recently published a story about this very topic. Naturally, to further their own agenda, they only discussed a small portion of the potential evil that could result in the misuse of DNA research and left an awful lot of the debate unaddressed. In a story by Amy Harmon, the Times worried only abut racial prejudices being revived by DNA research ("In DNA Era, Worries About Revival of Prejudice") as that research begins to decode the small differences that accounts for skin color or other things that denote racial groups. From physical characteristics to propensity for race specific disease, DNA research is beginning to map these differences giving hope that, at least in the case of disease, those differences might lead to treatments and prevention. But, the Times worries that this research might also revive discrimination based on those differences. "The notion that race is more than skin deep," the Times reports, "could undermine principles of equal treatment and opportunity that have relied on the presumption that we are all fundamentally equal."
By Alan Caruba
To put it quite simply, unless you and everyone else becomes a vegetarian or adopts the vegan (no animal products, period!) lifestyle, the Earth is going to come to an end or you will probably die from some horrid disease.
Sound extreme? Sound just a bit nutty? Not according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) or a recent study, “Food, livestock production, energy, climate change, and health” by Professor Tony McMichael of the Australian National University and Dr. John Powles of the Department of Public Health and Primary Care of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
If either of these deep thinkers took a moment to contemplate the success of the human race in terms of survival and expansion, they would find that humans have twenty teeth in their mouth designed exclusively to eat meat, but only twelve for fruit and vegetables. Moreover, the human stomach is, in fact, a carnivorous organ designed primarily to digest lean meat. The small intestine, pancreas, and the liver are mainly herbivorous and designed to digest vegetables, fruits, fats and farinaceous (starch) foods. All this has been known for a very long time.
Why am I telling you this? Because for quite a while, there has been a vigorous campaign by the United Nations agency and by militant vegans to convince people that eating meat is a bad thing. The only way to respond to these “studies” and claims is to examine and debunk them.
By Alan Caruba
New technology drives out old technology. As often as not, its impact is not known until many years after its introduction. Meanwhile, we live our lives day to day.
This is what is happening to the business of publishing newspapers and magazines, places where, traditionally, writers have earned a living. In an article in the summer edition of the newsletter of The National Association of Science Writers, the headline read “Reporting withers while information explodes.” The author, Stuart F. Brown, like easily 85% or more of the NASW membership, myself included, is a freelance writer.
“As the number of readers who turn to the Internet for their news has boomed, the business equation in publishing has pretty much collapsed,” said Brown. “So we find ourselves in the curious situation of living in a society that increasingly runs on technology and information—while witnessing the withering of the original reporting that tells us what’s going on.”
It’s worse than a “curious situation.” A society dependent on technology and science really needs to understand it in some fashion and most Americans haven’t a clue. This leaves them vulnerable to a lot of bad or “junk” science news. In the past, there were fulltime science writers on the staffs of the nation’s newspapers who made the phone calls, did the interviews, collected the data, and explained it to us.
By Alan Caruba
I have lost track of when I first noticed that Greens were engaged in a war on chemicals, but it has been a long time. Almost any chemical, whether used in agriculture or for industrial purposes, and even chlorine which is vital to the purification of the water we drink continues to be under attack.
In the simpleminded view of the Greens, all chemicals are “toxic” and, therefore bad. Toxicity depends on the amount of any chemical to which one is exposed and we routinely use all kinds of chemicals to keep our homes and workplaces clean and safe. Chemicals are the building blocks of virtually everything we take for granted and enhance our lives in countless ways.
Recently I received a news release from the SafeLawns Foundation announcing it would “hold its launch rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on April 4.” A parade of “high profile doctors, scientists, activists and politicians” were to help kick off a campaign designed to “cause a quantum change in lawn care behavior.”
By Alan Caruba
In March of 1857, in the famed Dred Scott decision, the United States Supreme Court declared that all blacks, slaves as well as free, were not and could never become citizens of the United States. It also declared that the 1820 Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, thus permitting slavery in all territories and future, new States. By 1861 the United States was fighting a Civil War.
Sometimes the Supreme Court makes spectacularly bad decisions and this was manifest on April 2 when five of its nine members yielded to the specious argument by twelve States and several environmental organizations that the science of “global warming” was so conclusive that it could declare that carbon dioxide (CO2) should be regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as “a pollutant.”
CO2 is not a pollutant. It exists in the earth’s atmosphere and every blade of grass and every great tree is utterly dependent upon it. In that regard, other than the oxygen on which all living creatures depend, CO2 is the second most essential gas for its ability to harness the energy of the sun and, through photosynthesis, maintain every form of vegetation on earth.
by Robert E. Meyer
An issue that has garnered much attention lately, in between the media bites about Iraq and the salacious lives of celebrities, is the controversy over global warming. Both the pro and the con side consider their opponents the heretical misfits and purveyors of junk science.
But the debate is not so much about whether the earth is actually warming, but whether the phenomenon is man-made, and must culminate in catastrophe.
While most of us lack any academic credentials to have an informed opinion on the matter, we do possess the logical faculties to philosophically cross-examine the cogency of any theory presented to us.
By Alan Caruba
There is an effort in Congress—mostly thanks to the Democrat leadership—to strangle the energy baby in the cradle.
Why they and some addled Republicans would want to do this defies an answer beyond the hatred environmentalists have for all forms of energy other than windmills, solar panels, and crops which should be eaten instead of poured into one’s gas tank.
Let’s start by understanding there are now three hundred million Americans. More people increase the need for more electricity. America currently must generate 15.43 trillion kilowatts of electricity and is in immediate need of more.
By Alan Caruba
In his book, “State of Fear”, author Michael Crichton appended an opinion entitled “Why Politicized Science is Dangerous,” and cautioned against, “a social program masquerading as a scientific one”, citing the widespread eugenics movement in the early part of the last century. (http://www.michaelcrichton.net/fear/fear_main.shtml)
“A second example of politicized science is quite different in character,” warned Crichton. “It exemplifies the hazard of government ideology controlling the work of science, and of uncritical media promoting false concepts.” Just as eugenics drew praise and support from politicians, academicians, and media in its time, so too has the manufactured crisis of global warming today. (Emphasis added)
This politicizing of science can be found in the way the United States government spends billions to fund various research programs. One example is the $40 billion spent by the U.S. Global Change Research Program since 1990. For that kind of money one would think something conclusive has been ascertained about “global warming”, but if its recent report is any indication, the answer is no.
Another egregious example can be found in the Environmental Protection Agency that, over the past decade, has made grants to more than 2,200 nonprofit groups. An Associated Press article by Rita Beamish in December 2005 noted that those grants often went to groups “that lobby and sometimes sue the agency.”
If anyone has been following all the talk about global warming in the last few years, it should be evident that the science of global warming is truly junk science. There are no scientific facts pointing to a global warming as the environmental scientists and greens have lead many to believe. Instead they point to unscientifically derived data to support their false theories.
Scientist have been recording the rise in global temperatures, but the data they are using is collected in urban areas. In the article, Debunking Modern Climate Myths, the fallacy of collecting temperature data in urban areas only enhances the urban heat island phenomenon. If satellite data is used and all the surface of the globe is considered there would be no evidence of increased temperatures found. But they might find small drops in the temperature.
Last year the junk scientists have mislead the public that another sign global warming was the record high number of violent hurricanes. Every major liberal news media picked up this false information, and many were lead to believe that the 2005 hurricane season was indeed foretelling global warming.
Again in the 2002 article, Debunking Modern Climate Myths:
Whether it be extremes of heat and cold, droughts, floods, hail, tornadoes or hurricanes, there is absolutely no evidence that these phenomena have increased globally over the twentieth century. In fact, there is much empirical evidence to suggest that more warmth leads to a more stable climate.
But occasionally the liberal media will report the truth, even if it is buried within the a news story reporting. The Hartford Courant, published the article, Hot Debate Over Hurricanes, which presents some truth on the fallacy of global warming but in reality only confuses the issue.
At the close of the catastrophic 2005 season, NOAA's official position was summed up in the headline on a Nov. 29 article posted on the agency's website. "NOAA attributes recent increase in hurricane activity to naturally occurring multi-decadal variability," it read.
The long article identified three prime reasons for the cycle's current activity. First, waters were warmer than average in the tropical Atlantic. Also the West African monsoon (the seasonal pattern of wind and rainfall) was stronger than usual while the Amazon Basin monsoon was weaker. The article stated flatly that the decadal cycle, also called a signal, "is not related to global warming."
[..] At a press conference Aug. 8 updating forecasts for the current hurricane season NOAA's response to questions about global warming was far less definite than it had been. Gerry Bell, NOAA's lead forecaster, said global warming could be adding to the multidecadal signal.
"There's still a lot we don't understand," he said. "Is global warming contributing this much? Is the [Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation] contributing this much? We can't say."
In a subsequent interview, Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center said, "there is a rich and robust debate going on in the country about what's going on with hurricanes."
With all this said, the reason the global warming scare is perpetrated is to scare the mis-informed to accept rules and regulations that would reduce the quality of life and freedom that western civilization enjoys today.
The UN treaty, Kyoto Protocol is an international wealth transfer scheme masquerading as an environmental agreement. Fortunately, the Bush administration has declared that it will not agree to any pact that exempts countries such as China and India, while requiring punishing sacrifices from the U.S. is an international wealth transfer scheme masquerading as an environmental agreement.