Here is another nicely written article regarding North Atlantic Right whales and the Bush administrations determination to let them struggle. Oh, yes, and it’s also another slice right out of this government’s modus operandi, which is, let industry regulate itself, because it always does the right thing.  Mwa, haha.  Oh, and it’s also more feedback on the Bushies attempting to rewrite, ignore and/or suppress science.  I don’t know why any self-respecting scientist would work for this administration, except maybe to valiantly shine a light into the dark, dark caves of double-speak and propaganda these sychophants-to-industry have erected all over our federal government.  Anyway, these poor whales were nearly hunted to extinction and they haven’t bounced back yet.  Most scientists agree that it is very important to minimize collisions between ships and whales, and one way to minimize this is to have the ships obey slower “speed limits” in certain areas off the east coast.  Industry has not obeyed “voluntary” speed limits and is resisting the limits becoming law.  They say, in fact, that the boats should go faster through the whale habitats, so they have less chance of hitting them.  Hah!  So, as the article mentions, we all need to start speeding through school zones so we have less of a chance to hit any children that might be straggling around out there.  So, funny.  Not really.

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What? A politician talking about something of which he is not quite learned? Well, no big surprise there, eh? Shame, though. All it takes is a little time and patience and a commitment to the truth, not pandering to a crowd that may be as uninformed about the subject as McCain himself. And the subject in question? The conservation of wildlife, bears to be more specific. Yah, it’s important, not something to belittle. Who sponsored part of the original funding to study the bears? Conrad Burns, a republican.

• McCain Unbearable

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The Bush administration is now infamous for its efforts at suppressing and censoring science. This is bad for all of the obvious reasons, and we can only hope that this horrible trend can be stopped, and the damage inflicted be remedied. Information, data and scientific results must be free from political attack, or we in the United States will suffer greatly in this modern world. Hear this, President-to-be, it will be one of your most important mandates.

• Governmental Science Suppression

• The Republican War on Science, by Chris Mooney

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As a scientist, I have of course followed the evolution of global warming‘, or now, ‘climate change’ for many years. Before it became politicized, not many people even knew about it, or took it seriously. These days, many people have an opinion, and I can say for certain, that and $5 will buy you a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, most don’t bother to actually read any actual scientific journal articles to really back up their opinion, one way or the other, and instead base it on politics. You know the drill, those who don’t like Al Gore, don’t ‘believe’ in climate change. Well, I for one am tired of people saying they don’t ‘believe’ in climate change. It’s not a religion to be believed in, it’s science, and the only way to arrive at a conclusion worth anything is if you do your homework. That means reading papers and thinking, and then you are entitled to your opinion, but that doesn’t guarantee that you are correct.

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Upon first reading the title of this article, and the first few paragraphs, I was a little upbeat, but then, as usual, it was because I was not well-informed enough to properly evaluate the content of this article. The alarm bells started to go off, though, when I saw that the Bush administration was encouraging this deal, and happy with it. Oh boy, this means something bad is afoot, only, what is it? Well, the devil is in the details, and in this case, it boils down to the government getting certain parties to sign off on the deal (meaning give up their rights), because the government promises to do something for them.

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Old MacDonald had a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Julie MacDonald, subject of an earlier Zeitgeistland blog, resigned as deputy assistant secretary from the agency in May, and it has taken until now for damage control to start reversing her political influence over endangered species decisions. I am glad to see that the Bush administration wasn’t allowed to permanently run rough shod over the agency, but I am also sorry to see how easily politicized things can become, in such a short period of time. I’m sure I am not alone on this issue. I thought there might enough of a balance in the government, and enough historical momentum to ensure that decisions were made on the basis of science, most of the time at least.

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I’m going to make a little departure here, for Zeitgeistland. I’ve been following the whole Alabama/Siegelman/Canary/Rove scandal for a while now. I don’t have access to the documentation that Congress has right now, so it would be folly to go too far in a statement
condemning the justice system in Alabama. However, it looks very, very bad right now. There is also a rather questionable outcome in litigation involving the state of Alabama and ExxonMobil. I must say, if the state of Alabama can’t get its basic business done fighting against a behemoth like ExxonMobil, what hope do environmental causes have against them? Food for thought.

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The field of stem cell research is an amazingly fast-paced and competitive one. It seems that in the latest big discovery, two teams have figured out how to get human skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells. Wow. This route avoids the whole human egg/stem cell issue that has deprived many labs of federal funding. They caution, however, that by using a virus to ferry four genes into the cell, a technique referred to as ‘direct programming‘, there is a certain cancer risk for now, but there should be a way to avoid this in the future.

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It’s just for scientific research, really! Not! The Japanese have begun their commercial whaling season again under the ruse that it’s all for the scientific purpose of studying them so that they can be conserved. Gotta kill ‘em in order to save them. Riiiiight. How lame. Their prey includes the once nearly extinct humpback whale, which numbered only a few over a thousand in the 1960’s. I wonder what would have happened to them if a world-wide moratorium hadn’t been enacted in 1966? Would they have been hunted to extinction this late in our “civilization”, even though a world-wide community of scientists was on the job, warning us about their drastically reduced numbers, mostly due to hunting? Humans don’t need whale meat to survive, they eat it for the taste.

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California is once again at the forefront of tackling pollution. Why does it always seem to require California to challenge the way we manage our environment? California has a great tradition of supporting higher education, and that may play a role, but I’m sure that its huge economy is what really gives policy leverage to the state. I don’t think the average American needs to be convinced that limiting the amount of pollutants in our air and water and land is a really good idea. It should simply be policy that industry should prevent pollution as much as possible. And why not? The cost for doing so would be added to the price of what we are consuming. Americans are ready for that, it’s just industry that is fighting it tooth and nail. Why? Because they want more profit, and they get that if their products are cheaper or if they don’t have to spend money to keep their businesses from polluting the environment. But, guess what? You the consumer will still pay in the long run. If our taxes are needed to clean superfund sites, or you have children or elderly relatives with breathing problems that send them to the hospital, your money will find a way out of your wallet to pay for these environmental infractions. There is no free lunch.

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