Category Archives: Current Events

Request to Colorado Senators

Posted on by

Colorado now has a Democrat and a Republican as Senators, and I want them to forget that they are a Democrat and Republican and set an example. I want them to team up to bring legislation that is good for the country regardless of the opposing party lines. Cory Gardner’s defeated Mark Udall despite or perhaps because of the ads from Udall and at least one of his supporting organizations that Gardner was so opposed to birth control that he wanted to outlaw condoms. (That beyond-silly accusation was made in an ad by something called NARAL.) The majority of voters in the race ignored the insulting ads and elected a person they hope will be a better Senator.

I suppose it would be tempting to some of the new soon-to-be-Senators such as Gardner to follow the model established by President Obama. I recall seeing news reports of his narcissistic and arrogant response to Republican appeals when Obamacare was being debated, “I won.” I certainly hope that Gardner doesn’t waste any time celebrating that he won. I hope he instead teams with Democratic Senator Michael Bennet to start the process of addressing important issues. Tax reform, freeing up energy production and transportation (i.e. the Keystone pipeline) and addressing immigration should be on the list. Mr. Bennet and Mr. Gardner, put aside “what my party expects me to do” and think about what’s good for the country. Continue reading →

Nuclear Weapons and Safety

Posted on by

command and controlSchlosser states his goal for Command and Control: “This book assumes that most of its readers know little about nuclear weapons, their inner workings, or the strategic thinking that justifies their use… It was ordinary men and women, not just diplomats and statesmen, who helped to avert a nuclear holocaust. Their courage and their sacrifices should be remembered.” The book works very well this way. If you wonder “why would anyone want to blow up the world?”, this book shows the premise of that question is wrong. You will learn the “whys” behind the nuclear arms race. This is a long book: 448 pages of text, with 229 pages of notes, bibliography, and index. So even if you’re familiar with the Cold War, you’re bound to learn something.

Schlosser’s book covers efforts to ensure American nuclear weapons don’t “go off by accident, [or] by mistake.” Schlosser uses an accident with a Titan II missile as the frame for the book. He covers the accident in great detail from the view point of many of those involved, so stringing the chapters together would have been an information overload. Instead, he intersperses chapters on the accident with history of the Cold War, political battles among military and scientific factions, biographies of some of the people involved, and other accidents – especially with airborne warheads.

Schlosser shows how “trivial events in non-trivial systems” can lead to significant problems. Some of these incidents sound ridiculous: a janitor cleaning the floor in a nuclear reactor caught his shirt on a circuit breaker, tripped the breaker and shut the reactor down for four days; a plane on an aircraft carrier inexplicably rolled off the deck, sending the pilot, plane, and its nuclear warheads to the bottom of the ocean, never to be recovered.

In many of the accidents, blame was placed on human error, but “the real problem lay deeply embedded within the technological systems… what appeared to be… a one-in-a-million accident was actually to be expected. It was normal.” Continue reading →

Colorado Proposition to Label GMOs

Posted on by

Colorado voters will determine whether to “mandate labeling of genetically modified food products that are sold in the state.” Those who favor the proposition believe it is needed to protect consumers. As one advocate wrote in a letter to the editors of the Denver Post, “Because GMOs are not natural, we simply don’t know what the long-term health consequences might be, and therefore consumers should have the right to know where their food comes from, so that they can decide whether they want to accept those risks.” Another supporter writes, “The GMO debate boils down to freedom—the freedom to chose what I eat. That freedom simply does not exist if food producers are allowed to deny me the information I need to make my choices.”

Those opinions are in opposition to an editorial by Don Ament, former Commissioner of the Colorado Department of Agriculture. He writes that approval of the proposal would “…give Colorado consumers inaccurate, unreliable and misleading information.” What sways my opinion so far is his further statements that “Consumers already have reliable options to choose foods made without GE (Genetically Engineered) ingredients. They can select from thousands of food products labeled ‘organic’ or ‘non-GMO’ under existing federal labeling standards.” Continue reading →

Climate Science is Not Settled

Posted on by

There was an excellent article by Steven E. Koonin by this title in the Wall Street Journal. The subtitle was “We are very far from the knowledge needed to make good climate policy…” The author refuses to be on either side of what has become an increasingly contentious argument about whether or not man’s activities are leading us to a climate disaster that, according to some of our politicians, beats terrorism as the greatest threat. The article adds refreshing reason to the discussion. He was undersecretary for science in the Department of Energy during President Obama’s first term. Perhaps those who are convinced that climate science is settled will dismiss his ideas because one previous position was chief scientist of British Petroleum. I suggest you will learn something regardless of your position if you chose to read his article.

The article leads with the statement that the claim that “Climate Science is settled” “…has distorted our public and policy debates on issues related to energy, greenhouse-gas emissions and the environment…it has also inhibited the scientific and policy discussions that we need to have about our climate future.” The author observes that the crucial question isn’t whether the climate is changing “The climate has always changed and always will.” The average global temperature did increase by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the 20th century, and there is little doubt carbon dioxide levels increased in the atmosphere and influenced the climate. But the author follows those observations with, “The impact of human activity appears to be comparable to the intrinsic, natural variability of the climate system itself.” He also writes that he has “…come to appreciate the daunting scientific challenge of answering the questions that policy makers and the public are asking.” Continue reading →

As Kermit Says, It’s Not Easy Being Green

Posted on by

“Red or green” is supposed to be the official New Mexico question, asked about the chili you want smothering your meal. But in my little home town of Silver City, the question has been “paper or plastic,” and plastic lost.

At least, thin, filmy, single-use plastic bags lost. A ban against such bags will go into effect shortly, and since 90% of our bags come from inside the town limits, it will impact the whole county.

Silver City joins a list of cities worried about bags, for a variety of reasons. Mother Jones has an article out that says when stores charge for the bags, in one study “usage dropped to 27 percent (33 percent switched to reusable bags and 40 percent made do without).” Substitutes are not obviously better, depending on what parameter you are trying to make “better.” If your goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, versus single-use bags: Continue reading →

More Natural Methane Sources Discovered

Posted on by

climate change blue marble

Our regular readers know we have posted often on global warming and climate change. While I don’t think a single study warrants a lot of concern, I recently read about a discovery of methane vents off the US east coast that promises confirmation soon.

“The ease of access has set off an exploration stampede, with several new projects in planning stages or already funded… ‘We’re setting the stage for a decade of discovery.'”

Unfortunately, these vents do not mark gas pockets that drillers can extract.

A study of a few seeps in 2013 found “them teeming with crabs, fish and mussel beds,” which sounds good to me. In deeper, colder waters, the seeps could be a natural laboratory for studying how methane hydrates respond to warmer oceans. There’s little in nature that’s all good or all bad. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, so releases could accelerate the documented trends in global temperatures.

For me, this discovery demonstrates that there is a lot we don’t know about the world. Also, that science is the right process for learning more. I accept that I will never know enough to make 100% sure predictions about climate change, which is hardly unique.

I’ve observed that polemics lead people to take harder and harder positions on narrower and narrower arguments. I think old political habits are getting in our way. What the global warming debate needs is wider discussion; on mitigation measures as well as reductions in human contributions via pollution, land use, etc. Balancing costs and benefits is nothing new. Let’s do it.