I voted for John McCain as an Independent, and I decried the way the two party system discriminated against a third party candidate. In his case, in retrospect, I guess I am glad they did! His views on Science are postively toxic.
The message is getting out. Our economy depends on innovation, and hence we rely on a technocratic system that rewards innovation. Some candidates are responding to this. Not John McCain. He has shown some concern about global warming and has travelled extensively as part of a congressional group tasked with trying to discern what is going on with the climate. He has travelled to McMurdo and the South Pole (2006-2007), and doubtlessly he is part of the delegational group that went there because of the adventure of the trip, more than there being an actually serious attempt to accomplish something. He got a handful of "Dog and Pony" shows, surely. I have endured many of these VIP fiascos. I recall being angry that the science projects were interrupted or terminated, but that is me.
Having talked with many Antarctic researchers, they express several things to me. One is, "Honesty is poverty". You have to lie now and then to get ahead. Another is : "No one really cares what you say about Antarctica anyway", and "No one can verify anything we do because we control access and few actually care to come down here in any case." These dispirited people are happy enough taking their government money and spending it in New Zealand and Hawaii on their return. If you wanted to bolster up a fledgling positivism about Science in Antarctica, you could not depend on the likes of John McCain to help you out.
What did Senator McCain learn from his travels? This evening in the Republican debate for President, candidate McCain said he is concerned about global warming. He does not believe we should cut our emissions unless the Hindus and Chinese do likewise. We should think "nuclear". "If there is no global warming", he says, "We are nothing out conserving oil".
He is saying in other words, I do not know if the scientists know what they are talking about, if they are being honest or not. We can form a policy regardless. So he has learned really nothing from his travels. He has doubts about the scientists, possibly grave doubts. If they are lieing, we can form a policy and there is no harm done.
So polar scientists there you have it from the horses mouth. It makes no difference if you are BS'ing or not: you may still enjoy yourself if you come down, by beach-combing and hiking. Whatever the case do not be upset with Senator McCain. Above all else, he wants to be liked.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Happening in Antarctica : McCain for President of Antarctica?
Monday, January 21, 2008
Happening in Antarctica : Antarctic Glaciology Fails IPCC
Despite all the inadequacies of the IPCC report on global climate change, they concede one major fact about Antarctica : Very poorly understood glacial dynamics for West Antarctica. There is a new report on this in the recent issue of Science (Jan 18).
H Jesse Smith in his Science article (Science, V319, N5861, p. 259) entitled "Whither Antarctic Ice", examines the mass balance of Antarctica as a mean to deduce global climate trends. Broadly, it is understood from gross observation that the interior of E. Antartica remains cold, and at the periphery in W. Antarctica and the peninsula, there has been a warming. Mass balance in W. Antartica, however, depends on knowledge of the dynamics of W. Antartic Ice Streams. The IPCC report would not consider existing knowledge reliable or well-understood. That is a surprise, since it has made many far-reaching conclusions on other topics, based on many questionable hypotheses.
Why the caution here then?
Could it be that an intense NSF study of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (including the Ross Ice Shelf and the Siple Coast) concluded that West Antartica was stable, and was unchanging for the last 50 years, and likely to remain so for 400 years if not 1 million years, and then everyone watched as West Antartica proceeded to melt and large ice shelves to calf?
In one major study broad conclusions for the ice stream region were based on a single point measurement. It is not that this is all the data there is, but rather that there has been intentional misrepresentation in this situation, and no one to correct it. Also investigators seldom go the field themselves and leave it up to students to carry out the programs unsupervised. This, and no cross-checking, and one can only imagine the importance of NSF's results. One student involved in these studies, now a researcher and contributor to the IPCC report, claimed to have done considerable ice core studies, and had in fact, never looked at more than a few ice slides made from a microtome. He now leads an ice core lab.
I guess we will just have to wait until these guys retire, and then hope they are not replaced with their graduate students, right? Perhaps the Inspector General will pick up on them, and the justice department will continue its aggressive prosecutions. Its a good thing the system works, because of the human impact on the climate and its immediacy.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Happening in Antarctica : Climate Report
There is a link to the World Climate Report here. They have an interesting post on reports about climate change in Antarctica that shows scientific reports totally reversing themselves, from global melting, and then suddenly global cooling (ice thickening).
Why the US Antarctic Program is Money Poured into a Black Hole
The US Antarctic Science Program never had a sensible mission. The policy that created the Antarctic Program was a US tactical decision made in 1960. The science program was an excuse for a US presence, has scientific results that are never checked or examined by any other agency, and since its inception has been severely corrupted by outside influences.
Ronald Reagan wanted to abolish NSF, and perhaps he had his reasons. One of them might have been the corrupted Polar Program. The Antarctic program is a good example of a government program that has no purpose, is strongly influenced by groups anti-alined with US interests, and never ends. Could Iraq continue for 50 years like the Antarctic Science program? Possibly.
Can we rely on scientific findings from Antarctica? Peter Jennings said it succinctly something like this : "They are telling us it is cooling and the ice is thickening, and they are also telling us that it is warming and the ice is thinning. What in the hell is going on here?" Peter died before he got an answer. A Congressional committee looked into this same matter. Scott Borg from NSF, when faced with stark contradictions between NSF and NASA results said something to the effect that this was what his observers had told him. They all scratched their heads. Concern about an Antarctic datasets was unusual.
The Soviets began the exploration of Antarctica in the modern era. They began in 1955, to explore the environment, and to search for resources. Their primary interests were mining and fishing. They occupied the terra firma, that is the part of the Antarctic that was underlain by continental crust, i.e. above sea level.
As Johnny come lately, the US strategy was to thwart all territorial claims, so tactically they occupied the South Pole and established an air route to maintain station resupply, something the US has done ever since. The primary utility for this station has been establishing satellite orbits. Most of the region occupied by the US groups is underlain by ocean or oceanic crust, i.e. below sea level.
NSF established a Polar Programs office in order to coordinate and support US activities in Antarctica. A man responsible for passing nuclear monitoring technology to the Soviets, was put in charge of the program, I would presume, largely as an oversight. This same individual was connected to Soviet agents and spies in the US, involved in passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets in the 1940's. Spies also accompanied Admiral Byrd to the ice. It was their intention, apparently, to monitor all military activity and to curtail or arrest all commercial interests of the US in Antarctica.
This strange arrangement has continued to this day. In the early 1990's during the Clinton administration, an influx of Soviets scientists again flooded the ranks of NSF and also the Polar Programs. There is no real mission in the Antarctic. There is a contract company not unlike Halliburton that provides logistic support and supplies for the program. The scientists, this contract company, and the Russians are the prime movers in determining what happens to the US Antarctic Program, and this largely is thus, under the control of the Russians. Their sole concern to is maintain this situation for as long as possible, at the US taxpayer expense. While this is taking place, the Russians have been repeatedly accused of resource extraction which they have denied. The US on the other hand, has extracted nothing, has not studied the natural resources of the region, and has been the only country actually held to account in violating the Antarctic Treaty which prohibits commercial development but permits research.
So, then, is it any wonder that Antarctic scientific information is unreliable? Some of these same groups are involved in the global warming debacle. When Congress was checking into discrepancies in reports from Antarctica, was it being sincere? Reagan knew there were problems at both NASA and NSF. He sent Ed Meese to NASA, and James Watt to spook the Russian affiliate scientists in the US Antarctic Program. Although some inroads were made at NASA, NSF basically was left untouched. It makes no sense to alter US policy based on either NSF or NASA results unless they cleanup these programs first, and impart a sensible mission. If America needs to rely on its innovation, we are doomed since our science programs are preplanned to fail. I think the US government is possibly afraid to take on these groups, and the problem in an open society is constant vigilance is necessary. We have lived with this, rather than taking on the challenge. Our government has yet to properly assess blame even for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets back in the 1940's, even though they must have known it had been people connected with the Columbia physics department in New York.
The US Antarctic Program is more poorly organized than McMurdo Base.
