The Holdren nomination: Obama politicizes science
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Tierney frankly conflates political agendas with making your best guesses about the future given current knowledge and resource constraints. He's a global warming denier version 2.0: it's happening, but we're not sure where we'll end up or it's too expensive to fix, so the best thing to do right now is nothing. Impugning the current best science by claiming it to be politically motivated is par for the course.
Or is everything black and white?
Because that was the point -- if you're going to spin things, you're politicizing it.
There's a lot of dissent, and there are a lot of questions that remain unsolved. Then there's the whole cost-benefit thing. Then there's the wisdom of trying to reverse-engineer something we've supposed inadvertently done. Then there's the question of what's the "right" climate. Then there's the question of what's natural or not. The list goes on.
The entire issue is deep in the political swamp, no matter how you slice it. Science advisers should stay clear instead of being part of the rabble. Science is better than that.
Then I think it's time we called political science appointments for what they are -- political appointments. Their job is political, not scientific.
This is the same as political appointments in other branches of government. The clear idea is that the appointee will uphold and support the politics of the administration, not pursue some other agenda -- pure science, clean waters, cushy prison cells for corporate crooks, etc
If those are the ground rules, then I can live with that. But it seems that when the guy was saying one thing he was political and when a different guy in the same job was saying another he was not, and that's clearly not the case. It's all politics.
This article has the same feel as one advocating for intelligent design: argument by incredulity (a billion people dead from climate change, really complex organisms arising from evolution, each just so unfathomable they simply can't be true), a professed rejection of the extremists the author might get lumped in with (id isn't creationism, focusing on capture isn't the same as denying global warming), even though the end policy effect is basically the same as if the extremist's views were adopted (don't teach evolution as fact, don't take real action against global warming).
And really, saying that "Science advisers should stay clear instead of being part of the rabble", what does that even mean? If a scientist believes that the scientific question of global warming amounts to a serious threat, what, exactly, are they supposed to do to "stay clear", when that's precisely what the political question is, as well?
2) It's interesting that the article has a certain feel to you. Feel free to continue commenting on the article. I wasn't.
3) Pick what you want: a science adviser that makes dramatic political statements (for which you may agree or disagree) or one who keeps his mouth shut and administers policy. Last administration we were told that "science was politicized" Fine. Then let's go with the keep-your-mouth-shut rule. But now it seems the rules are different. It's simple. Just pick one. I'm okay with either.
re: 2) You used the phrase "Because that was the point". If not of the article, which you weren't commenting on, than the point of what, exactly?
re: 3) You specifically said "Science advisers should stay clear instead of being part of the rabble", that hardly sounds like you're okay with either. All I was saying is that the scientific question is the political question, you can't have a scientific opinion without simultaneously having a political one. What good is a science advisor who can't give their opinion because it happens to also be political?
And the question of science being politicized in the previous administration referred mostly, imo, to people with no science experience at all making decisions about what did and didn't get funded based on strictly political considerations. This doesn't seem comparable, really.
2) some scientists try to disguise their political agendas as scientific fact was responded to with frankly conflates political agendas with making your best guesses about the future. I was making the observation that conflating things, whether by a writer or a political appointee, is political. To argue about it is to have a political argument. To say the sky is falling may be science. To say we all have to buy steel helmets to be saved and that the other party is working to stop helmet production is politics.
3) I would like science advisers to stay clear, but I'm okay with either position. Honest. In fact, in a different thread on this same topic I made that point. Advisers should give their opinion to the president. The question on the table is whether or not they should also do so to the world at large -- especially if it means glossing over scientific issues for political purposes. I like science too much to see that happen, but I pragmatic enough to realize that it might have to work that way. Like I said, I just want consistency.
The thing is, aside from formal proofs science is already a highly political arena. Funding decisions, professorships, research awards, publication rights -- it's all intricately connected to politics. It'd be simpler if that kind of politics stayed out of national partisan politics. It managed to do so for 200 years. Scientists do not want to get into the business of becoming expert witnesses for politicians. It's a marriage made in hell.
As far as non-scientific people making scientific funding decisions -- welcome to a democracy. It's supposed to work like that. I was of the opinion that the old science advisers were saying things supporting "global warming deniers" that didn't fit with the current paradigm and then acting on those beliefs. If so, then again, that's politics. Pragmatically perhaps it's supposed to work that way.
My understanding was that what people wanted was for the preferred role of adviser to simply advise the president -- not to play politics. That by getting on TV and making sweeping statements he/she was dragging science through the mud. That's what I thought the discussion was about, and it made some sense to me. If I was mistaken, sorry. But that's what I've been hearing.
On the contrary, the entire job of a science advisor is to present and interpret the available scientific evidence relevant to policy decisions.
Edit: I'm talking about Scientific American's vendetta against Bjorn Lomborg, during which they not only refused to publish his response, but threatened to sue for copyright infringement when he put it online, denying him permission to quote the passages he was defending himself against. If I recall correctly, Lomborg did as SA demanded (crippling his own rebuttal), which prompted one of the founders of Greenpeace to put the whole thing up on his own website, saying that while he didn't agree with Lomborg he disagreed with censorship more.
One approach would be:
Solar home / hot water heaters for every home / building in the continental US. (Pointless in Alaska) This would pay for it's self fairly quickly so IMO it's a good idea.
Power the grid with a combination of Wind, Thermal Solar, Hydro, and Nuclear, with large grid connected energy storage systems. This pays off in the long term, but it's expensive.
Electrify the nations highways, so electric cars can cross the country without backup power. Also add charging stations to most parking lots. This is where things get really expensive and there is not an off the shelf solution for this.
So, the real question becomes how far down that path you take before the costs outweigh the benefits. Which is where knowing how much damage you get based on what level of carbon output. While politicians might not like the answers, it's a reasonable scientific debate, with a definitive answer.