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Lawrence Krauss: Congress Is Trying To Defund Scientists At Energy Department
Lasrick writes Physicist Lawrence Krauss blasts Congress for their passage of the 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations bill that cut funding for renewable energy, sustainable transportation, and energy efficiency, and even worse, had amendments that targeted scientists at the Department of Energy: He writes that this action from the US Congress is worse even than the Australian government's move to cancel their carbon tax, because the action of Congress is far more insidious: "Each (amendment) would, in its own way, specifically prohibit scientists at the Energy Department from doing precisely what Congress should mandate them to do—namely perform the best possible scientific research to illuminate, for policymakers, the likelihood and possible consequences of climate change." Although the bill isn't likely to become law, Krauss is fed up with Congress burying its head in the sand: The fact that those amendments "...could pass a house of Congress, should concern everyone interested in the appropriate support of scientific research as a basis for sound public policy."
Scientists taking sides? They took the side of reality. It's unfortunate for Conservatives that this reality doesn't line up with their views, but you can hardly blame that on the scientists.
Most scientists don't take political positions. They make observations, and when a consensus is reached, they sometimes take actions. For instance, when it became pretty clear that lead was dangerous, there was a movement to remove it from gasoline. This became political because some interests were only interested in quarterly profits, not long term costs to taxpayers. Fortunately the taxpayers won. For instance, there is really good science linking the buildup in the environment of lead to the increase in crime, and the decrease in crime of the past decade or so to the decrease in lead. It is not just correlation, cut actual causation.
Now, as far as NPR is concerned, compared to Fox News of course it looks biased. NPR is not going to invite John McCain on the air to talk about when he was a kid you could kill black people, and know he has to deal with a black man, as he has been saying this past week. But the thing about NPR is it probably does a better job of using the public air waves than other.
Here is the rub. Fox News can say and do whatever it wants because it does not use free public resources. This is the key. Free public resources, not funding by the government. The government funds lots of things, and that does not necessarily absolutely limit speech. For instance, many churches take money for schools, which frees up money that they then use to do stuff like encourage people to attack people going about their day to day business. For instance, one church in my area bought cameras so they could photograph people going into a gay club. But radio stations were given public bandwidth and were supposed to use it responsible ways. I think NPR is responsible and balanced compared to some of what I hear on the AM stations. AM stations are using free resources. We could take it back and make a great deal of money leasing it to other agents. We don't. They agree to use it, and should be more responsible.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Funny, as it actually turned out, energy efficiency research for both electricity and transportation has worked very well, as have wind turbines and solar power. And quite a bit of that comes from DOE research.
Fusion reactor? Well, that's still 30 years away.
Of course the vast majority of DOE money is devoted to the nuclear weapons infrastructure and environmental cleanup from decades of nuclear weapon infrastructure.
For instance, take the FY 2012 budget of Los Alamos National lab.
http://www.lanl.gov/about/facts-figures/budget.php
What fraction would you say is on basic science? I expected 30%. More like 4%.
57% NNSA weapons
9% NNSA nonproliferation
7% NNSA 'safeguards and security'
7% work for national security (most likely intelligence agencies)
8% environmental cleanup
4% undefined 'work for others'
4% DOE Energy and Other Programs
4% DOE Office Of Science
Well, that is IN FACT what they're doing. I'm sorry if you find this unpleasant, but that's the reality of the situation.
The Republicans, who currently hold a majority in the US House, are the ones who voted to strip the science funding.
Saying "Congress" makes it sound bipartisan. It's only the Republicans.
Give me a break. This is all about climate change, something which has a solid scientific consensus. Conservative denial of this is just as bad as their desire to push Creationism and Intelligent Design into schools. These threatened researchers are not doing politically motivated work.
Face it, if these goons had their way they would be defunding anything that wasn't explicitly endorsed in the Bible.
I'm not clear on the claim here. It seems to be, "You guys are using facts to support a position the other guys disagree with, so don't be surprised when they start directly attacking facts and the gathering of facts." I agree that this is typically what happens. I'm not so sure that it's fair to say that both sides are doing equally bad things when it happens, though.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Revenue == taxes, not spending. Starve the beast means cutting taxes (people happy because taxes are lower), keeping spending the same (people happy because they still get government service), and then letting the whole system pile up in debt and collapse (people don't care, because it'll be someone else's kids' problem. But not my kids, because I'll leave them a bunch of money when I become rich, which is bound to happen any day now).
How, specifically? Fundamentally, is the DOE doing bad research? Are the results wrong? Or is good research simply being used to support political ends that you disagree with?
If I ask an expert if X is true and then use his answer to support my position, does that make him a "puppet" that my enemies should attack?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I agree, we shouldn't be subsidizing the green industries, instead we should just regulate the shit out of the extraction industries which manage to externalize so much of their costs.
How much should the coal industry pay for the ~1M deaths/year?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
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OK, one more time. Can you state your position clearly? Because the best I can read is something like this:
Congress wanted to stimulate green technology growth so it approved a bunch of loans and had the DOE administer them. The DOE did so, losing money on some ventures (but far less than Congress allocated for expected losses on a program that wasn't supposed to be profitable) and ending up with something like 3% of their portfolio in failed ventures. Therefore, we should defund the science work that the DOE does.
There's a jump in there somewhere that I'm not fully following. I mean, I missed the part where the American way of life was destroyed, industries collapsed, and cats and dogs began to live together. But even if that was the case, why are we gutting the science funding again?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Unfortunately, you don't seem to get it. The actual model in place is not tax and spend. The model in place is "strip revenues and keep spending" which is intended to collapse by those who push it. As I said, the Republicans.
It will run the risk of destroying the country in the process.
And you seem to want just that. Really, you pretend you're trying to force others to cut spending. Yet it never really happens. Why is that?
Perhaps because you don't intend it to actually happen.
Your own words, in reply to another:
If the US government needs to go bankrupt to short circuit your parasitic political games then so be it.
That's your justification. Right there. Because you think it'll destroy a system you despise. Never mind that it's not actually in place. But you believe it is, so regardless of what happens as a result, you'll let things burn down. You want a crisis. You want a cataclysm. You want the fires to come in and purge the structure that's around you.
And no, the founders probably didn't think such nihilism was likely to happen. Sure, they may have known of the various doomsday cults in the Middle Ages and even Ancient Rome, but I'm sure they believed man was too enlightened to fall for it. They didn't have much experience with the later anarchists, let alone the modern sovereign citizens. Or how deceptive certain powerbrokers and oligarchs could be. Or maybe they did know. Hard to say, we can't dig them up. It is interesting what party cloaks themselves in the power of the founding fathers though. Come to think of it, that happened in Rome too. The worst enemies of the Republic and even the Empire were often the ones pretending to save it.
But you're right, the best hope for this country is for somebody to wise up. You. Or the people who believe the lies like you. Or for you to be exposed for the deceitful and destructive fraud you are.
Because you see...the real cancer is you. You are the rat eating away the tree. You are the one proclaiming that you must destroy the village to save the village. You are Emperor Palpatine.
Well, not really. You're more like one of his clones obeying his commands, as you've been raised to do. You're drinking the Kool-Aid, and pretending you're special. That you're the hope for the Republic.
At best. At worst? You're one of the clever ones who knows what you're doing. Who knows the lies. But is smart enough to keep using them, because you know how seductive they are, how easy it is to demonize the other side as "Tax and Spend" that way you can blame them for the debt crisis eventually exploding. Then like John Galt, you can pretend you're the savior. That probably appeals to your psychology, it lets you think you're the hero even as you destroy everything that you claim matters to you.
PS, what brought the Roman Empire down is widely debated, ranging from internal problems with the environment, uncontrolled climate changes, some of which they may even have helped cause, and even a lack of infrastructure development as they could no longer seize the wealth of their neighbors and put a lot off to the barbarians at the borders. And more than a few nihilists, I'm sure. Though some of those were the ascetic kind, rather than the hedonistic kind. Don't be so quick to blame it on giving into the mob, and appeasing them. That's the easy choice, and convenient for those who have a particular agenda to push.
This administration has never tried to kill fracking.
You are a fucking liar.
"The EPA and similar organizations have been trying to stop and forbid fracking for years."
false.
"The DoE was used as a tool to hurt people."
nonsense.
It's a political fight becasue the pubs made it one. The DoE funding wasn't political.
You should actual learn history and mission of the DoE, you fucking limp wristed cum stain.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
From the last time we had this discussion: http://i.imgur.com/sjH5r.jpg
How many people does solyndra employ today? Where are the green jobs?
Here they are. The solar industry of the USA now employs more people than the coal industry of the USA.
Funny how you weren't aware of that fact, isn't it? It's almost as if your media sources chose not to mention it, because it doesn't fit their narrative.
This is the recurring problem with the left. They promise everyone a world of rainbows and unicorn cheeseburgers. But when push comes to shove... you fail. You don't deliver.
Or, they succeed, but the right-wing media bubble pretends not not notice. Cherry-picking reality might help them keep their market share in the short run, but as time goes on more and more people will realize they're full of shit.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.