Ever hear of the London Killer Fog? Thousands dead from soot... that would qualify as a scare to me.
But seriously, a lot of people worry about "PM2.5" (particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter) potentially being the major component of air pollution leading to chronic (as versus acute) death - there is still controversy in the area though. Look up "Six Cities Study" and the HEI
reanalysis
It is true that nanotubes and buckyballs are found in ordinary soot: however, at very low concentrations. It is also true that they are likely inert. This doesn't mean that they can't cause lung damage - small sharp rods that get sucked into your alveoli could do nasty things. One
study shows oddly conflicting results: high acute death with no long term impact, because if the nanotubes don't kill the rat fast, then they clump up and become big enough for the lungs to handle them like large-size soot particles.
The summary: what a good scientist always recommends - more research needed! =)
-Marcus
p.s. My personal belief is that I think nanotubes will turn out to be fine - however, I would like them to be thoroughly examined before becoming available in products for mass consumption.
It is much closer to 1:1 rather than 3:1. Though your point still holds - we could probably afford to cut military spending in order to increase spending on other activities, and (the cynic's view) spending on space is a good way to keep our military technical superiority even if it isn't directly weapons spending.
-Marcus
ps. Nor do I believe that the US makes 55 billion profits on land mines.
As a liberal who believes in free trade, I take offense at your remark. While there are "protectionist liberals" (eg Gephardt), there are plenty of "free trade liberals" (eg Clinton), and on the other side, there exist "protectionist conservatives" (eg Bush).
The ways in which I (as a free-trade liberal) might differ from a free-trade conservative is that I believe in more unemployment protection, lower taxes on the middle class, figuring out how to deal with the Cayman Island issue, and ensuring that environmental and worker protection occurs worldwide.
However, all of these issues are complex: there may be reasons to delay certain elements of free-trade to ensure that it is done properly (the same way that implementing capitalism in post-USSR Eastern Europe worked best when they waited for the appropriate institutions to be developed rather than just saying "free market! go!"). Read Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, to see how a free-trade believing economist can see major problems with how free trade is being implemented...
"Gaming doesn't blur the distinction anymore than the training to take orders and it's "Us vs. Them" does for a soldier."
I would actually argue that Gaming might be a part of the toolkit of blurring the distinction... along with training and bonding soldiers together and all the rest of it. And interesting study I've heard referenced several times talks about how during World War II and before many soldiers intentionally shot to miss... unfortunately, I have not been able to find a properly reliable reference to this study, so here is the best one I could located on short notice:
"David Grossman, a Military Psychologist and an expert in the art of Kilology (training to kill), reveals shocking evidence by reporting that the same military training which creates killing machines out of relatively harmless boot camp recruits, are identical to the trainings our kids are getting from certain video games and movies. He explained that the U.S. army had a big problem. The soldiers were not shooting to kill. During World War II only 15 - 20% of soldiers shot to kill. One method of training used to correct this problem is known to as "Operant Conditioning." U.S. soldiers learn to fire at realistic, man-shaped silhouettes that pops-up in their field of view. That is the stimulus. David Grossman said that 75 to 80 percent of the shooting on the modern battlefield is the result of this kind of stimulus-response training. By the Korean War 55% were shooting to kill And by Vietnam over 90% were shooting to kill."
More data on CO2 emissions: http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22-01.pdf I PCC* states: 3/4 of anthro. emissions is fossil fuels: the remainder is deforestation/land use change.
US EPA inventory of greenhouse gases breaks down 1997 US fossil fuels into: 31% transport, 37% power plants, 21% industrial, 11% other.
The US produces about 1.8 GtC out of a worldwide 8 GtC (this is higher than RayBender's number because I am including deforestation emissions: fossil fuel only would look more like 1.5 GtC out of 6.4 GtC). http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/MITJPSPGC_Rpt7 9.pdf
-Marcus
*The IPCC report actually does a reasonable job of collating the work out there. I personally disagree with the section of their work based on the "SRES" scenarios, and others disagree with how they boil down the work they've collated into their "summaries for policymakers", but on a whole, they actually do a good job.
Sorry. I apologize if I answered perhaps more vehemently than was required. I saw your post more as a "I don't believe humans put out enough to matter" comment than a "I don't know how much humans put out, can someone enlighten me?" comment.
Those of us in the "rational climate scientist" camp (yes, we're biased, but we _try_ to be as unbiased as possible, unlike either the doomsdayers or the industry apologists) get frustrated by the fact that the people with the bullhorns (ie, people with money and access to the administration) keep burying good science and trumpeting bad science - all the while attacking environmental legislation with the mantra "no legislation without good science", when what they really mean is "let's postpone legislation which might hurt the oil industry as long as humanly possible, regardless of how much data is out there, because all you have to do is _claim_ something is in dispute and people will believe it, at least at little." Cf. evolution, WMDs, missile defense, etc..
Therefore, we spend a lot of time addressing known problems, rather than having a good discussion about a topic that is inherently complex and political...
(I also posted this elsewhere for someone else's comment)
You can clearly see the seasonal effect of biomass uptake (the sinusoidal squiggles). You can also see that there is a long-term trend. It is INDISPUTABLE that the long term trend is due to human emissions. NO REAL SCIENTIST, not even climate skeptics like S. Fred Singer, Lindzen, or Christy dispute the human emissions -> CO2 concentration increase link.
If you want to dispute the CO2 concentration -> significant warming link, there would at least be an interesting argument there. I think it is mostly settled, but that is where the room for more science lies.
(ok, there is some room for science in CO2 uptake: crossing ts and dotting is, and especially in predicting future uptake: will the oceans absorb less if it is warmer, will ecosystems absorb more with higher CO2 concentrations, etc.)
And to link to the main topic: the Bush league really enjoys manipulating the science on this issue. EPA reports, NAS reports, they are all buried when they say there is a good chance that global warming will be a significant problem. And don't get me started on Senator Inhofe's global warming speech, where he selectively picks quotes from reputable global warming scientists, including my advisor, to try and claim that they backed up his view, when they would never agree with him in a hundred years...
>Do you have any numbers to describe how much CO2 > is released into the atmosphere by humans every > year?
Yes. Humans release 6-7 Gt of Carbon (that's gigatons) (and that means almost 30 gigatons/petagrams of CO2) every year.
>Do you have any numbers to describe how much CO2 >is released into the atmosphere by nature every >year?
What number do you want? The _NET_ ecosystem uptake of carbon is about 1 gigaton per year. The _NET_ ocean uptake of carbon is about 2 gigatons per year. 6 GtC - 1 - 2 = 3 GtC per year. The _increase_ in CO2 concentrations is therefore about 3 GtC per year, or about 1.4 ppm per year.
Other numbers: "Net primary productivity" (which doesn't include decomposition) is about 60 Gt per year. "Gross primary productivity" (which is respiration in of plants, but not respiration out) is on the order of several hundred GtC per year. But if you think about it, what goes in must come out, almost exactly. The difference is due to things like: disequilibrium (because of human emissions, more CO2 will go into the ocean from the atmosphere than vice versa), and changing conditions (higher CO2 concentrations means slightly more plant growth than usual, and it takes a few decades for decay to catch up, changing human land use).
If you want to see nice experiments, look at the Keeling carbon dioxide graph. You can see the seasonality of CO2 levels as the northern hemisphere "breathes in" in spring, and "breathes out" in fall. You can see the human effect: the curve overlaying that. (You can also measure historical CO2 levels in ice cores: 200 to 280 ppm for 400,000 years. 280 ppm to 370 ppm in the last 150 years. http://www.2think.org/keeling_curve.shtml
>Now you have to compare the two. Which one is >larger? Is the smaller one of significant size >compared to the larger one?
So, my person opinion is that anyone who questions the FACT that increased CO2 in the atmosphere is due to human emissions is an ignorant troll (sort of like people who question evolution). People who question whether or not human emissions _can_ cause I consider to be wrong. People who question whether human-induced warming in the future will be disastrous I consider almost reasonable... (my personal belief is that there will almost certainly be measurable human induced warming, and that there is a significant likelihood that the warming will be deleterious to humans - not end of the world, but not real happy, either).
Ever heard "give someone a fish, feed him for a day, teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime"?
By flooding developing countries with cheap food and causing them to be dependent on imports, you make them vulnerable to disruptions in the supply chain. You also make it much more difficult for these countries to develop strong local economies, since they are dependent on labor-intensive industries like food production. Reduced income in rural areas makes it difficult for those people to acquire food even though it is cheap.
btw: "Without exception"? Are you saying that there is no communist country without famine (wrong - Cuba, modern China), or that there are no democratic nations without famine (wrong: see India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia)? Or that transition from communism to capitalism will always improve matters (wrong: see Russia post-collapse of the USSR)?
Again, I restate from my previous post "I don't disagree with the statement that the spread of freedom and capitalism are also likely to help reduce hunger, as long as they are implemented along with the appropriate governmental/societal institutions". All other things being equal, capitalism is probably going to do a better job of food distribution than communism, democracies will probably be better than dictatorships. But democratic capitalism is not a magic wand: you also need good institutions, a check on corruption, and the ability to create local industry.
For an interesting discussion on this topic, you can look at: http://folk.uio.no/danbanik/NYTarticle2003.ht m
In other comments in this thread, I've talked about the problem being EU/US agricultural subsidies.
But here I want to hypothesize that the one situation in which the world would no longer produce enough food is if there is a large shift to biofuels. The amount of corn that would need to be grown for ethanol or biodiesel if we shift to a biofuel fleet would be staggering (whether for global warming reasons, or for oil depletion reasons). And then we might regret having built over the most fertile land we own.
But otherwise, you are right, we do grow more food than we need. Though perhaps we could grow it more cheaply if we had developed our urban areas differently...
The US government's agricultural subsidies actually significantly distort the entire market. If we got rid of them, we might actually see fertile land become more valuable. We don't let other countries dump steel on us, why should we dump agricultural goods on them?
Of course, I would also argue that this problem is actually much more severe in other countries. To use anecdotal evidence, Egypt has a very narrow fertile corridor (called the land next to the Nile). But it is busy building on all of its arable lands because people want to live next to where everyone else lives. If they had just a little bit of urban planning, they could shift new settlements out a couple miles into the desert (same climate, almost same location, but very different soil, and you have to pipe some water a little further), and thereby save their domestic agriculture market.
But as long as the US dumps food on them, they have little incentive to have domestic farms.
Actually, counterintuitively, some people are hungry because the US produces _too much_ food, at too low a price. Thereby outcompeting farmers in developing nations, thereby driving them out of business.
Oh - and in the process of heavily subsidizing agriculture, we effectively make fertile land worth less, which means it is easier for other activities to outcompete farming for the land. This is true both in the US and in developing countries.
(btw, I don't disagree with the statement that the spread of freedom and capitalism are also likely to help reduce hunger, as long as they are implemented along with the appropriate governmental/societal institutions. Read Globalization and Its Discontents to see how not to spread capitalism...)
http://www.bread.org/media/articles/2003/presbyt er ian_apr_15_hunger_report.html http://www.overpopu lation.com/articles/2001/000049.html
Hmm. So the last time I heard the theory vs. law argument discussed, I was informed that the term "law" was basically a historical artifact. Ie, pre-19th scientific theories were often labeled "laws", and their equivalent discovered today would be a "theory".
Of course, a brief perusal of the web quickly shows that I (and whoever discussed this with me) am in the minority: however, as evidence, I will bring forth "Newton's Laws": when did Newton ever observe an object that was not acted on by an external force? (1st Law, inertia). Alternatively, why couldn't Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity just be called an observation of the behavior of objects at high velocities? It doesn't really contain any more explanation than Newton's Laws.
And in any case, Newton's laws do not hold in regions of high gravity, or at very high relative velocities. So so-called "laws" can be amended just like theories are amended.
So despite the majority of the web, I'm sticking to my definitions.
-Marcus
One of the few sites that seems to agree with me: http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/evo/blf aq_sc i_law.htm
The smog that most people care about is ozone: ozone is formed from a cycle involved NOx, VOCs, (volatile organic carbons), light, and the hydroxyl radical (OH radical).
NO2 + hv -> NO + O O + O2 -> O3 NO + O3 -> NO2 + O2
which would be a closed cycle, except you can skip the last step by doing:
NO + RO2(rad) -> NO2 + RO(rad) where RO2(rad) is a result of the reaction of VOCs and OH(rad).
So taking NO2 out of the cycle will be great for reducing ozone production.
And yeah, the problem is not only that it is easy to make NOx with combustion, but that the more efficient your engine (in terms of burning less fuel for the same energy) the more NOx it produces (usually).
So, I realize that this is heresy on slashdot, but, playing devil's advocate:
What is so wrong about paying for a resource you are using? Few people expect free phone calls, why should sending "email" bits be different than sending "voice" bits? (ok, a lot of people now use the internet to have free international phone conversation, etc. etc.). Many people on slashdot believe in capitalism - under which you expect to pay in some way for most services. Do we just expect free email because we've always gotten free email, or is there a fundamental reason why email should be free?
Note, I am asking this as a philosophical question separate from implementability of a system like email stamps, or whether it will cost more to charge for 0.00001 cents worth of service than you get, or whatever.
I actually think that the patenting of the Taq enzyme for use in PCR is actually a great example of both the wonders and pitfalls of patenting. Before Kary Mullis, copying DNA was a pain. So, with the incentive of getting a worthwhile patent, Cetus funded Mullis' research to develop PCR. And the invention of PCR revolutionized biology.
The questions this raises: would PCR have been invented without patents? How much did Cetus' (and then Roche's) patent slow down the use of PCR by others (given how widespread it is, in this case I'd have to say not much)? If what we care about is improving the welfare of the world, does this mean that in this case, patenting was a good thing? I would say probably yes.
In a slightly different case, Myriad Genetics tried to patent a breast cancer gene, BRCA1. Here, they were patenting a gene, not a process. Their incentive to discover that the gene was linked to breast cancer was the possibility of a patent. However, having shown that BRCA1 is the key gene, it is impossible to patent every way of detecting BRCA1, so they tried to patent the gene itself. Ethically dodgy? Possibly. But if they had thought that there was no chance of making a profit, they might never have done the research to discover the gene, and then one of the most valuable breast cancer susceptibility tests would not exist. Again, if we care about society's welfare, is allowing this type of patent good? Possibly.
The final question becomes, is there an alternative? There needs to be some reward system in place to provide incentives. Perhaps a government funded system to give money to companies that make good discoveries if those discoveries are made public domain? And now we have the university research system... But that system isn't perfect either, and there will always be a tension between university research and privately funded research, and that is what we are going to see in Antarctica as the patenting goldrush begins...
If you read the BBC article, rather than the Hemos summary, you get a very different feeling for what the "threat" is. The BBC article mostly concentrates on the problems of intellectual property and patenting that may stifle scientific research...
Economists recognize that patents are a double edged sword. Without patents, there is no incentive for companies to invest in basic research that can then be duplicated by freeriders. With patents, you slow down further scientific advances because the information isn't freely accessible.
This is where universities can (potentially) help - there is a parallel incentive system of "grants" and "ego feeding through publications and awards" that give professors the incentive to do basic research that becomes instantly publically available.
Yes, water is a thermodynamic result of combining water and oxygen. And in the early history of Mars, one would have expected large quantities of O and H to form H2O. However, just because water is formed, doesn't mean it hangs around.
Reaction with iron, or photodisassociation, can produce H2. H2 has this annoying habit, in low gravity situations, of escaping to space. See "hydrodynamic escape". Alternatively, water can bind to metals or form other compounds that make it rather useless.
So the question is: how much water is left, and how accessible is it? And accessible water (in the form of ice) in the poles - that is a useful and interesting result. (though the fact that they discovered water at the other pole last year makes this year's discovery less exciting).
And the other question is - when/for how long did liquid water exist on the surface? That's why Spirit is trying to show that it is in a lakebed, and not just a meteor crater... if _liquid_ water existed, then maybe life existed.
So, first, let me state: I agree with you that GFP fish are harmless.
Having said that, I would like to see a standardized method for approving genetically modified organisms, with an appropriate bureaucratic home, so that non-harmless mods do not slip through the cracks. (And yes, I note that we have been genetically modifying and transplanting organisms for millenia - africanized bees, kudzu, and Australian rabbits show that perhaps a little more regulation in "old fashioned" genetic modification can save a lot of angst later. Heck, I would like to see antibiotic use to bulk cattle regulated before we breed more antibiotic resistant bacterial strains). sfjoe, for all of his paranoia towards science, does have a point that there has been some history of industry suppressing studies showing that their product is nasty (asbestos and tobacco are two obvious examples). Of course, sometimes lawsuits work the other way, and something that may be benign gets axed (in my opinion, silicone breast implants).
Which is why standardized procedure (like the three trial phases for new FDA approved drugs) can be nice. GFP fish are harmless, but bungarotoxin fish may not be. Bt maize is great for reducing pesticide use, but should require a lot of thought before seeing widespread use.
I agree - government regulation is a serious thing. It does cost money to industry. But it also ensures that our cars don't explode, our medicines don't cause birth defects, our foods are contamination free, our cities have breathable air, our money is safe in our banks, our workplaces are safe, and our large companies don't lie in their accounting and cheat us out of all our money. So you have to balance the dangers of an unfettered economy with the dangers of regulating innovation out of existence.
And, a comment on rich people: Yes, society is set up to reward inventors for products that make people happy. People who become rich off of inventions, good management, hard work - all power to them. However, many rich people are rich because they cheat the system - look at golden parachutes that ensure that CEOs can pull down millions even as their companies go bankrupt, look at tax shelters for the rich like coal gasification plants. Now that there is no inheritance tax anymore, people can inherit large fortunes and then watch them grow without doing a lick of work (yes, there is value to people who risk capital in investments and therefore deserve a reward, but I am not at all convinced that the system really functions at the upper levels).
Anyway, just my two (or perhaps three or four) cents,
There are three potential biological dangers here.
One: can the genes be transmitted?
Answer: No. Bacteria can "infect" other bacteria with genes (see jumping plasmids), but multicellular organisms are pretty much limited to passing on genes by breeding.
Two: Will the new gene cause the animal to produce a toxin that can potentially bioaccumulate?
Answer: Depends on the gene. In this case, green fluorescent protein and its analogues are basically an expressed protein that folds and has a minor chemical reaction to produce a small, harmless fluorophore. Pretty inert. So, no. In other cases: maybe. Pretty slim chance, unless you are intentionally inserting sea snail poison genes (which wouldn't bioaccumulate anyway) (note that for food crops, Monsanto does insert toxins aimed at insects - see Bt Maize). Maybe you could weaken an animals immune system and make it a host for breeding viruses and other illnesses.
Three: If the animal escapes into the wild, can it breed and imbalance ecosystems.
Answer: Depends on the gene. With GFP, an escaped zebrafish in a region that is hospitable to zebrafish - quite possibly you might spread the gene around. It wouldn't imbalance ecoystems though. With inserting insect toxin genes into crops - oh, yeah, it could potentially be a problem.
So, to sum up: GFP zebrafish: Mostly harmless. Other gene modifications: It depends. However, what we need is a consistent system for evaluating these modifications, and some bureaucracy to administer it. Yes, bureaucracies are a pain, but you know - I like the fact that food poisoning is pretty rare, that medicines go through rigorous trials before they reach the shelves, etc. etc. and sometimes it requires being overly cautious about safe advances in order to catch the nasty ones (thalidomide).
(And yes, you can develop similar dangers without high tech gene insertion: see africanized bees. It might not be a bad idea to include serious cross-breeding in this sort of review).
Actually, due to the phenomenon known as redshift, most of the outer regions of the universe are becoming redder as we speak. Mars is just a local example of that tendency. We definitely need to alert our government about this communist threat!!!
(with credit to Science Made Stupid, a brilliant book that everyone should read)
"Simple statistics shows that it's hardly unusual"
Do you really think that climate change science is based on a few anecdotes? That there aren't statisticians working in this field?
There is significant work being done looking at global average temperatures, looking at global extreme weather events, looking at el nino/la nina incidence rates, looking at droughts, heat waves, etc. etc.
And certaintly for global average temperature, the evidence from land and ocean based measurements is very strong that the earth has been warming rapidly (oft cited statistic of 10 warmest years on record all coming since 1990 - http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2003/ ann/ann03.html ). There is reasonable (though disputed) evidence to show the 20th century as the warmest of the millenium (Mann study).
El nino/la nina incidence is certainly up (though possibly due to complex causes).
Data on extreme weather events vary: For examples, reported tornadoes are up, but we have better reporting, so who knows if actual tornado incidence is up. I believe that heat waves, hurricanes, droughts, and floods are all supposed to have had measured increases, but I'm not as sure about this as I am about the rest of the post os don't quote me.
And the people who care like insurance agencies (who have really good statisticians) believe in global warming - do a search on Munich Re and climate change...
In any case: we increase the concentration of major greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by 50 to 130% (CO2 + CH4), and you don't expect this to have any impact??? Yes, temperature changes naturally, and to a certain extent we have to adapt to it. The worry is that if we apply enough forcing to the system, the temperature will change so rapidly as to cause major disturbances to our way of life.*
*Actually, mostly disturbances to the way of life of the third world. With irrigation, dyke building, air conditioning, etc. the US will probably be able to adapt with only minor disruptions. Though we will probably lose much of southern Florida at some point in the next 150 years...
So people keep on trotting out the "1970s cooling scare". While the "scare" did make it into the popular media, it wasn't nearly as widespread among the scientific community as you make it sound.
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
Global warming, on the other hand, has been real science since Tyndall and Arrhenius (late 19th/early 20th century).
-Marcus
ps. the "corrected" satellite data now show some (small) warming (even Christy admits that): a recent paper by Santer (Science, May 2003) about a reanalysis shows there is controversy about whether the satellite data might show even more warming.
And while I will be the last to claim that climate models are perfect (I use them myself, I am intimately aware of their problems), I will point out that climate and weather are two very different problems (think about the difference between solving the three body problem, and the the ideal gas law that predicts mass behavior of millions of particles). And at the very simplest level, if you add forcing agents (CO2) to the atmosphere, all other things being equal, you will indisputedly get warming. The question is how much, because feedbacks (positive + negative) complicate the issue greatly. Which is why one does uncertainty studies - see
The question is: how much are we willing to spend to reduce the chance of the really bad outcomes? The answer is unlikely to be "our entire GDP", but is also unlikely to be "zero".
Actually, the good scientists _do_ show both the good and the bad. And then they promptly get taken out of context by politicians.
Exampe: Look at Senator Inhofe's floor speech on climate change:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2003Q4/211/artic le s_optional/Inhofe2003_GWspeech.pdf
He quotes Reilly of MIT as saying productivity of crops will be 30% higher in a high CO2 world. True - though he doesn't look at the fact that weedy plants are, on average, going to be benefited more than food crops (difference between C3 and C4 plants). Also, look at
http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/
the program where Reilly works and note that the majority of articles published both think that global warming is a real phenomenon (with uncertainty bounds, admittedly), and that we should do something.
Next, Inhofe cites Tom Wigley of NCAR as stating that the Kyoto Protocol would not make a measurable difference by 2100. Duh, of course it wouldn't, it is meant as a starting point not as an ending point. Look up Wigley's papers and see if he doesn't think that we should do something about climate change.
Ditto for Inhofe's citation of James Hansen.
He cites Peter Stone, also at MIT, about uncertainties. Yes, there are large uncertainties: but the MIT program thinks that they are between 1 degree and 5 degrees of human induced warming in the next century, not uncertainty between "is there human induced change or isn't there".
Ditto with Steve Schneider.
So here I have mentioned 5 scientists who all publish papers saying "it would be a good idea to take measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" but who, as good scientists, also publish papers about uncertainties, flaws in proposed policies like Kyoto, CO2 fertilization, etc.
And their reward for being good scientists? Like many evolutionary biologists, they are quoted out of context by extremists on the other side of the argument because they admit some grey areas.
-Marcus
ps. By the way, once any scientific question becomes relevant to "real world interests", it instantly becomes politicized to a certain degree, whether it is studies on mercury, second hand smoke, silicone breast implants, or climate change, and the issues become quite obfuscated... see papers by Sheila Jasanoff on the topic...
Slashdot Mirror
But seriously, a lot of people worry about "PM2.5" (particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter) potentially being the major component of air pollution leading to chronic (as versus acute) death - there is still controversy in the area though. Look up "Six Cities Study" and the HEI reanalysis
It is true that nanotubes and buckyballs are found in ordinary soot: however, at very low concentrations. It is also true that they are likely inert. This doesn't mean that they can't cause lung damage - small sharp rods that get sucked into your alveoli could do nasty things. One study shows oddly conflicting results: high acute death with no long term impact, because if the nanotubes don't kill the rat fast, then they clump up and become big enough for the lungs to handle them like large-size soot particles.
The summary: what a good scientist always recommends - more research needed! =)
-Marcus
p.s. My personal belief is that I think nanotubes will turn out to be fine - however, I would like them to be thoroughly examined before becoming available in products for mass consumption.
I think you have your ratio of US to world spending wrong:
e / Spending.asp
http://www.cdi.org/issues/wme/spendersFY03.html
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrad
It is much closer to 1:1 rather than 3:1. Though your point still holds - we could probably afford to cut military spending in order to increase spending on other activities, and (the cynic's view) spending on space is a good way to keep our military technical superiority even if it isn't directly weapons spending.
-Marcus
ps. Nor do I believe that the US makes 55 billion profits on land mines.
As a liberal who believes in free trade, I take offense at your remark. While there are "protectionist liberals" (eg Gephardt), there are plenty of "free trade liberals" (eg Clinton), and on the other side, there exist "protectionist conservatives" (eg Bush).
The ways in which I (as a free-trade liberal) might differ from a free-trade conservative is that I believe in more unemployment protection, lower taxes on the middle class, figuring out how to deal with the Cayman Island issue, and ensuring that environmental and worker protection occurs worldwide.
However, all of these issues are complex: there may be reasons to delay certain elements of free-trade to ensure that it is done properly (the same way that implementing capitalism in post-USSR Eastern Europe worked best when they waited for the appropriate institutions to be developed rather than just saying "free market! go!"). Read Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, to see how a free-trade believing economist can see major problems with how free trade is being implemented...
-Marcus
Erg. Please, ignore the webpage I cited in my previous post, I read some more of the page and it almost made me throw up.
l .h tml
3 au tumn/chambers.pdf
The following still isn't what I would call a reputable reference, but maybe it is closer.
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/98g
But it is also controversial:
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/0
"Gaming doesn't blur the distinction anymore than the training to take orders and it's "Us vs. Them" does for a soldier."
n .a sp
I would actually argue that Gaming might be a part of the toolkit of blurring the distinction... along with training and bonding soldiers together and all the rest of it. And interesting study I've heard referenced several times talks about how during World War II and before many soldiers intentionally shot to miss... unfortunately, I have not been able to find a properly reliable reference to this study, so here is the best one I could located on short notice:
"David Grossman, a Military Psychologist and an expert in the art of Kilology (training to kill), reveals shocking evidence by reporting that the same military training which creates killing machines out of relatively harmless boot camp recruits, are identical to the trainings our kids are getting from certain video games and movies. He explained that the U.S. army had a big problem. The soldiers were not shooting to kill. During World War II only 15 - 20% of soldiers shot to kill. One method of training used to correct this problem is known to as "Operant Conditioning." U.S. soldiers learn to fire at realistic, man-shaped silhouettes that pops-up in their field of view. That is the stimulus. David Grossman said that 75 to 80 percent of the shooting on the modern battlefield is the result of this kind of stimulus-response training. By the Korean War 55% were shooting to kill And by Vietnam over 90% were shooting to kill."
http://www.centurionministry.org/mind/televisio
More data on CO2 emissions:
I PCC* states: 3/4 of anthro. emissions is fossil fuels: the remainder is deforestation/land use change.
7 9.pdf
http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22-01.pdf
US EPA inventory of greenhouse gases breaks down 1997 US fossil fuels into:
31% transport, 37% power plants, 21% industrial, 11% other.
The US produces about 1.8 GtC out of a worldwide 8 GtC (this is higher than RayBender's number because I am including deforestation emissions: fossil fuel only would look more like 1.5 GtC out of 6.4 GtC). http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/MITJPSPGC_Rpt
-Marcus
*The IPCC report actually does a reasonable job of collating the work out there. I personally disagree with the section of their work based on the "SRES" scenarios, and others disagree with how they boil down the work they've collated into their "summaries for policymakers", but on a whole, they actually do a good job.
Sorry. I apologize if I answered perhaps more vehemently than was required. I saw your post more as a "I don't believe humans put out enough to matter" comment than a "I don't know how much humans put out, can someone enlighten me?" comment.
Those of us in the "rational climate scientist" camp (yes, we're biased, but we _try_ to be as unbiased as possible, unlike either the doomsdayers or the industry apologists) get frustrated by the fact that the people with the bullhorns (ie, people with money and access to the administration) keep burying good science and trumpeting bad science - all the while attacking environmental legislation with the mantra "no legislation without good science", when what they really mean is "let's postpone legislation which might hurt the oil industry as long as humanly possible, regardless of how much data is out there, because all you have to do is _claim_ something is in dispute and people will believe it, at least at little." Cf. evolution, WMDs, missile defense, etc..
Therefore, we spend a lot of time addressing known problems, rather than having a good discussion about a topic that is inherently complex and political...
Look at: http://www.2think.org/keeling_curve.shtml
(I also posted this elsewhere for someone else's comment)
You can clearly see the seasonal effect of biomass uptake (the sinusoidal squiggles). You can also see that there is a long-term trend. It is INDISPUTABLE that the long term trend is due to human emissions. NO REAL SCIENTIST, not even climate skeptics like S. Fred Singer, Lindzen, or Christy dispute the human emissions -> CO2 concentration increase link.
If you want to dispute the CO2 concentration -> significant warming link, there would at least be an interesting argument there. I think it is mostly settled, but that is where the room for more science lies.
(ok, there is some room for science in CO2 uptake: crossing ts and dotting is, and especially in predicting future uptake: will the oceans absorb less if it is warmer, will ecosystems absorb more with higher CO2 concentrations, etc.)
And to link to the main topic: the Bush league really enjoys manipulating the science on this issue. EPA reports, NAS reports, they are all buried when they say there is a good chance that global warming will be a significant problem. And don't get me started on Senator Inhofe's global warming speech, where he selectively picks quotes from reputable global warming scientists, including my advisor, to try and claim that they backed up his view, when they would never agree with him in a hundred years...
-Marcus
>Do you have any numbers to describe how much CO2
> is released into the atmosphere by humans every
> year?
Yes. Humans release 6-7 Gt of Carbon (that's gigatons) (and that means almost 30 gigatons/petagrams of CO2) every year.
>Do you have any numbers to describe how much CO2
>is released into the atmosphere by nature every >year?
What number do you want? The _NET_ ecosystem uptake of carbon is about 1 gigaton per year. The _NET_ ocean uptake of carbon is about 2 gigatons per year. 6 GtC - 1 - 2 = 3 GtC per year. The _increase_ in CO2 concentrations is therefore about 3 GtC per year, or about 1.4 ppm per year.
Other numbers: "Net primary productivity" (which doesn't include decomposition) is about 60 Gt per year. "Gross primary productivity" (which is respiration in of plants, but not respiration out) is on the order of several hundred GtC per year. But if you think about it, what goes in must come out, almost exactly. The difference is due to things like: disequilibrium (because of human emissions, more CO2 will go into the ocean from the atmosphere than vice versa), and changing conditions (higher CO2 concentrations means slightly more plant growth than usual, and it takes a few decades for decay to catch up, changing human land use).
If you want to see nice experiments, look at the Keeling carbon dioxide graph. You can see the seasonality of CO2 levels as the northern hemisphere "breathes in" in spring, and "breathes out" in fall. You can see the human effect: the curve overlaying that. (You can also measure historical CO2 levels in ice cores: 200 to 280 ppm for 400,000 years. 280 ppm to 370 ppm in the last 150 years.
http://www.2think.org/keeling_curve.shtml
>Now you have to compare the two. Which one is >larger? Is the smaller one of significant size >compared to the larger one?
So, my person opinion is that anyone who questions the FACT that increased CO2 in the atmosphere is due to human emissions is an ignorant troll (sort of like people who question evolution). People who question whether or not human emissions _can_ cause I consider to be wrong. People who question whether human-induced warming in the future will be disastrous I consider almost reasonable... (my personal belief is that there will almost certainly be measurable human induced warming, and that there is a significant likelihood that the warming will be deleterious to humans - not end of the world, but not real happy, either).
-Marcus
Ever heard "give someone a fish, feed him for a day, teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime"?
t m
By flooding developing countries with cheap food and causing them to be dependent on imports, you make them vulnerable to disruptions in the supply chain. You also make it much more difficult for these countries to develop strong local economies, since they are dependent on labor-intensive industries like food production. Reduced income in rural areas makes it difficult for those people to acquire food even though it is cheap.
btw: "Without exception"? Are you saying that there is no communist country without famine (wrong - Cuba, modern China), or that there are no democratic nations without famine (wrong: see India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia)? Or that transition from communism to capitalism will always improve matters (wrong: see Russia post-collapse of the USSR)?
Again, I restate from my previous post "I don't disagree with the statement that the spread of freedom and capitalism are also likely to help reduce hunger, as long as they are implemented along with the appropriate governmental/societal institutions". All other things being equal, capitalism is probably going to do a better job of food distribution than communism, democracies will probably be better than dictatorships. But democratic capitalism is not a magic wand: you also need good institutions, a check on corruption, and the ability to create local industry.
For an interesting discussion on this topic, you can look at:
http://folk.uio.no/danbanik/NYTarticle2003.h
In other comments in this thread, I've talked about the problem being EU/US agricultural subsidies.
But here I want to hypothesize that the one situation in which the world would no longer produce enough food is if there is a large shift to biofuels. The amount of corn that would need to be grown for ethanol or biodiesel if we shift to a biofuel fleet would be staggering (whether for global warming reasons, or for oil depletion reasons). And then we might regret having built over the most fertile land we own.
But otherwise, you are right, we do grow more food than we need. Though perhaps we could grow it more cheaply if we had developed our urban areas differently...
The US government's agricultural subsidies actually significantly distort the entire market. If we got rid of them, we might actually see fertile land become more valuable. We don't let other countries dump steel on us, why should we dump agricultural goods on them? Of course, I would also argue that this problem is actually much more severe in other countries. To use anecdotal evidence, Egypt has a very narrow fertile corridor (called the land next to the Nile). But it is busy building on all of its arable lands because people want to live next to where everyone else lives. If they had just a little bit of urban planning, they could shift new settlements out a couple miles into the desert (same climate, almost same location, but very different soil, and you have to pipe some water a little further), and thereby save their domestic agriculture market. But as long as the US dumps food on them, they have little incentive to have domestic farms.
Actually, counterintuitively, some people are hungry because the US produces _too much_ food, at too low a price. Thereby outcompeting farmers in developing nations, thereby driving them out of business.
t er ian_apr_15_hunger_report.htmlu lation.com/articles/2001/000049 .html
Oh - and in the process of heavily subsidizing agriculture, we effectively make fertile land worth less, which means it is easier for other activities to outcompete farming for the land. This is true both in the US and in developing countries.
(btw, I don't disagree with the statement that the spread of freedom and capitalism are also likely to help reduce hunger, as long as they are implemented along with the appropriate governmental/societal institutions. Read Globalization and Its Discontents to see how not to spread capitalism...)
http://www.bread.org/media/articles/2003/presby
http://www.overpop
Hmm. So the last time I heard the theory vs. law argument discussed, I was informed that the term "law" was basically a historical artifact. Ie, pre-19th scientific theories were often labeled "laws", and their equivalent discovered today would be a "theory".
f aq_sc i_law.htm
Of course, a brief perusal of the web quickly shows that I (and whoever discussed this with me) am in the minority: however, as evidence, I will bring forth "Newton's Laws": when did Newton ever observe an object that was not acted on by an external force? (1st Law, inertia). Alternatively, why couldn't Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity just be called an observation of the behavior of objects at high velocities? It doesn't really contain any more explanation than Newton's Laws.
And in any case, Newton's laws do not hold in regions of high gravity, or at very high relative velocities. So so-called "laws" can be amended just like theories are amended.
So despite the majority of the web, I'm sticking to my definitions.
-Marcus
One of the few sites that seems to agree with me:
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/evo/bl
The smog that most people care about is ozone: ozone is formed from a cycle involved NOx, VOCs, (volatile organic carbons), light, and the hydroxyl radical (OH radical).
NO2 + hv -> NO + O
O + O2 -> O3
NO + O3 -> NO2 + O2
which would be a closed cycle, except you can skip the last step by doing:
NO + RO2(rad) -> NO2 + RO(rad)
where RO2(rad) is a result of the reaction of VOCs and OH(rad).
So taking NO2 out of the cycle will be great for reducing ozone production.
And yeah, the problem is not only that it is easy to make NOx with combustion, but that the more efficient your engine (in terms of burning less fuel for the same energy) the more NOx it produces (usually).
-Marcus
So, I realize that this is heresy on slashdot, but, playing devil's advocate:
What is so wrong about paying for a resource you are using? Few people expect free phone calls, why should sending "email" bits be different than sending "voice" bits? (ok, a lot of people now use the internet to have free international phone conversation, etc. etc.). Many people on slashdot believe in capitalism - under which you expect to pay in some way for most services. Do we just expect free email because we've always gotten free email, or is there a fundamental reason why email should be free?
Note, I am asking this as a philosophical question separate from implementability of a system like email stamps, or whether it will cost more to charge for 0.00001 cents worth of service than you get, or whatever.
-Marcus
I actually think that the patenting of the Taq enzyme for use in PCR is actually a great example of both the wonders and pitfalls of patenting. Before Kary Mullis, copying DNA was a pain. So, with the incentive of getting a worthwhile patent, Cetus funded Mullis' research to develop PCR. And the invention of PCR revolutionized biology.
/ www.ssgm.ch/sections/News/brca1testing.htm
The questions this raises: would PCR have been invented without patents? How much did Cetus' (and then Roche's) patent slow down the use of PCR by others (given how widespread it is, in this case I'd have to say not much)? If what we care about is improving the welfare of the world, does this mean that in this case, patenting was a good thing? I would say probably yes.
In a slightly different case, Myriad Genetics tried to patent a breast cancer gene, BRCA1. Here, they were patenting a gene, not a process. Their incentive to discover that the gene was linked to breast cancer was the possibility of a patent. However, having shown that BRCA1 is the key gene, it is impossible to patent every way of detecting BRCA1, so they tried to patent the gene itself. Ethically dodgy? Possibly. But if they had thought that there was no chance of making a profit, they might never have done the research to discover the gene, and then one of the most valuable breast cancer susceptibility tests would not exist. Again, if we care about society's welfare, is allowing this type of patent good? Possibly.
The final question becomes, is there an alternative? There needs to be some reward system in place to provide incentives. Perhaps a government funded system to give money to companies that make good discoveries if those discoveries are made public domain? And now we have the university research system... But that system isn't perfect either, and there will always be a tension between university research and privately funded research, and that is what we are going to see in Antarctica as the patenting goldrush begins...
-Marcus
http://www.myhealthspan.com/mullis.shtm
http:/
If you read the BBC article, rather than the Hemos summary, you get a very different feeling for what the "threat" is. The BBC article mostly concentrates on the problems of intellectual property and patenting that may stifle scientific research...
Economists recognize that patents are a double edged sword. Without patents, there is no incentive for companies to invest in basic research that can then be duplicated by freeriders. With patents, you slow down further scientific advances because the information isn't freely accessible.
This is where universities can (potentially) help - there is a parallel incentive system of "grants" and "ego feeding through publications and awards" that give professors the incentive to do basic research that becomes instantly publically available.
-Marcus
Yes, water is a thermodynamic result of combining water and oxygen. And in the early history of Mars, one would have expected large quantities of O and H to form H2O. However, just because water is formed, doesn't mean it hangs around.
Reaction with iron, or photodisassociation, can produce H2. H2 has this annoying habit, in low gravity situations, of escaping to space. See "hydrodynamic escape". Alternatively, water can bind to metals or form other compounds that make it rather useless.
So the question is: how much water is left, and how accessible is it? And accessible water (in the form of ice) in the poles - that is a useful and interesting result. (though the fact that they discovered water at the other pole last year makes this year's discovery less exciting).
And the other question is - when/for how long did liquid water exist on the surface? That's why Spirit is trying to show that it is in a lakebed, and not just a meteor crater... if _liquid_ water existed, then maybe life existed.
-Marcus
So, first, let me state: I agree with you that GFP fish are harmless.
Having said that, I would like to see a standardized method for approving genetically modified organisms, with an appropriate bureaucratic home, so that non-harmless mods do not slip through the cracks. (And yes, I note that we have been genetically modifying and transplanting organisms for millenia - africanized bees, kudzu, and Australian rabbits show that perhaps a little more regulation in "old fashioned" genetic modification can save a lot of angst later. Heck, I would like to see antibiotic use to bulk cattle regulated before we breed more antibiotic resistant bacterial strains). sfjoe, for all of his paranoia towards science, does have a point that there has been some history of industry suppressing studies showing that their product is nasty (asbestos and tobacco are two obvious examples). Of course, sometimes lawsuits work the other way, and something that may be benign gets axed (in my opinion, silicone breast implants).
Which is why standardized procedure (like the three trial phases for new FDA approved drugs) can be nice. GFP fish are harmless, but bungarotoxin fish may not be. Bt maize is great for reducing pesticide use, but should require a lot of thought before seeing widespread use.
I agree - government regulation is a serious thing. It does cost money to industry. But it also ensures that our cars don't explode, our medicines don't cause birth defects, our foods are contamination free, our cities have breathable air, our money is safe in our banks, our workplaces are safe, and our large companies don't lie in their accounting and cheat us out of all our money. So you have to balance the dangers of an unfettered economy with the dangers of regulating innovation out of existence.
And, a comment on rich people: Yes, society is set up to reward inventors for products that make people happy. People who become rich off of inventions, good management, hard work - all power to them. However, many rich people are rich because they cheat the system - look at golden parachutes that ensure that CEOs can pull down millions even as their companies go bankrupt, look at tax shelters for the rich like coal gasification plants. Now that there is no inheritance tax anymore, people can inherit large fortunes and then watch them grow without doing a lick of work (yes, there is value to people who risk capital in investments and therefore deserve a reward, but I am not at all convinced that the system really functions at the upper levels).
Anyway, just my two (or perhaps three or four) cents,
-Marcus
There are three potential biological dangers here.
One: can the genes be transmitted?
Answer: No. Bacteria can "infect" other bacteria with genes (see jumping plasmids), but multicellular organisms are pretty much limited to passing on genes by breeding.
Two: Will the new gene cause the animal to produce a toxin that can potentially bioaccumulate?
Answer: Depends on the gene. In this case, green fluorescent protein and its analogues are basically an expressed protein that folds and has a minor chemical reaction to produce a small, harmless fluorophore. Pretty inert. So, no. In other cases: maybe. Pretty slim chance, unless you are intentionally inserting sea snail poison genes (which wouldn't bioaccumulate anyway) (note that for food crops, Monsanto does insert toxins aimed at insects - see Bt Maize). Maybe you could weaken an animals immune system and make it a host for breeding viruses and other illnesses.
Three: If the animal escapes into the wild, can it breed and imbalance ecosystems.
Answer: Depends on the gene. With GFP, an escaped zebrafish in a region that is hospitable to zebrafish - quite possibly you might spread the gene around. It wouldn't imbalance ecoystems though. With inserting insect toxin genes into crops - oh, yeah, it could potentially be a problem.
So, to sum up: GFP zebrafish: Mostly harmless. Other gene modifications: It depends. However, what we need is a consistent system for evaluating these modifications, and some bureaucracy to administer it. Yes, bureaucracies are a pain, but you know - I like the fact that food poisoning is pretty rare, that medicines go through rigorous trials before they reach the shelves, etc. etc. and sometimes it requires being overly cautious about safe advances in order to catch the nasty ones (thalidomide).
(And yes, you can develop similar dangers without high tech gene insertion: see africanized bees. It might not be a bad idea to include serious cross-breeding in this sort of review).
-Marcus
Actually, due to the phenomenon known as redshift, most of the outer regions of the universe are becoming redder as we speak. Mars is just a local example of that tendency. We definitely need to alert our government about this communist threat!!!
(with credit to Science Made Stupid, a brilliant book that everyone should read)
"Simple statistics shows that it's hardly unusual"
/ ann/ann03.html ). There is reasonable (though disputed) evidence to show the 20th century as the warmest of the millenium (Mann study).
Do you really think that climate change science is based on a few anecdotes? That there aren't statisticians working in this field?
There is significant work being done looking at global average temperatures, looking at global extreme weather events, looking at el nino/la nina incidence rates, looking at droughts, heat waves, etc. etc.
And certaintly for global average temperature, the evidence from land and ocean based measurements is very strong that the earth has been warming rapidly (oft cited statistic of 10 warmest years on record all coming since 1990 - http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2003
El nino/la nina incidence is certainly up (though possibly due to complex causes).
Data on extreme weather events vary: For examples, reported tornadoes are up, but we have better reporting, so who knows if actual tornado incidence is up. I believe that heat waves, hurricanes, droughts, and floods are all supposed to have had measured increases, but I'm not as sure about this as I am about the rest of the post os don't quote me.
And the people who care like insurance agencies (who have really good statisticians) believe in global warming - do a search on Munich Re and climate change...
In any case: we increase the concentration of major greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by 50 to 130% (CO2 + CH4), and you don't expect this to have any impact??? Yes, temperature changes naturally, and to a certain extent we have to adapt to it. The worry is that if we apply enough forcing to the system, the temperature will change so rapidly as to cause major disturbances to our way of life.*
*Actually, mostly disturbances to the way of life of the third world. With irrigation, dyke building, air conditioning, etc. the US will probably be able to adapt with only minor disruptions. Though we will probably lose much of southern Florida at some point in the next 150 years...
So people keep on trotting out the "1970s cooling scare". While the "scare" did make it into the popular media, it wasn't nearly as widespread among the scientific community as you make it sound.
m l# wheel
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
Global warming, on the other hand, has been real science since Tyndall and Arrhenius (late 19th/early 20th century).
-Marcus
ps. the "corrected" satellite data now show some (small) warming (even Christy admits that): a recent paper by Santer (Science, May 2003) about a reanalysis shows there is controversy about whether the satellite data might show even more warming.
And while I will be the last to claim that climate models are perfect (I use them myself, I am intimately aware of their problems), I will point out that climate and weather are two very different problems (think about the difference between solving the three body problem, and the the ideal gas law that predicts mass behavior of millions of particles). And at the very simplest level, if you add forcing agents (CO2) to the atmosphere, all other things being equal, you will indisputedly get warming. The question is how much, because feedbacks (positive + negative) complicate the issue greatly. Which is why one does uncertainty studies - see
http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/outreach.ht
The question is: how much are we willing to spend to reduce the chance of the really bad outcomes? The answer is unlikely to be "our entire GDP", but is also unlikely to be "zero".
Actually, the good scientists _do_ show both the good and the bad. And then they promptly get taken out of context by politicians.
c le s_optional/Inhofe2003_GWspeech.pdf
Exampe: Look at Senator Inhofe's floor speech on climate change:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2003Q4/211/arti
He quotes Reilly of MIT as saying productivity of crops will be 30% higher in a high CO2 world. True - though he doesn't look at the fact that weedy plants are, on average, going to be benefited more than food crops (difference between C3 and C4 plants). Also, look at
http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/
the program where Reilly works and note that the majority of articles published both think that global warming is a real phenomenon (with uncertainty bounds, admittedly), and that we should do something.
Next, Inhofe cites Tom Wigley of NCAR as stating that the Kyoto Protocol would not make a measurable difference by 2100. Duh, of course it wouldn't, it is meant as a starting point not as an ending point. Look up Wigley's papers and see if he doesn't think that we should do something about climate change.
Ditto for Inhofe's citation of James Hansen.
He cites Peter Stone, also at MIT, about uncertainties. Yes, there are large uncertainties: but the MIT program thinks that they are between 1 degree and 5 degrees of human induced warming in the next century, not uncertainty between "is there human induced change or isn't there".
Ditto with Steve Schneider.
So here I have mentioned 5 scientists who all publish papers saying "it would be a good idea to take measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" but who, as good scientists, also publish papers about uncertainties, flaws in proposed policies like Kyoto, CO2 fertilization, etc.
And their reward for being good scientists? Like many evolutionary biologists, they are quoted out of context by extremists on the other side of the argument because they admit some grey areas.
-Marcus
ps. By the way, once any scientific question becomes relevant to "real world interests", it instantly becomes politicized to a certain degree, whether it is studies on mercury, second hand smoke, silicone breast implants, or climate change, and the issues become quite obfuscated... see papers by Sheila Jasanoff on the topic...