The Death of Science in America | Stand Up for Science MARCH 7

 

The End of Science in America
This is a video about how science in this country is screwed.

It's Up to Us to Save Science in America
Find your local event or ACT locally with Stand up for Science: standupforscience2025.org

Here's how to respond to those misleading posts claiming our recent fires are all about tree huggers | President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

just a few items cobbled together...

this first one thanks to California Chaparral Institute on Facebook –

Here's how to respond to those misleading posts claiming our recent fires are all about tree huggers preventing logging and a supposed fuel build up via past fire suppression.

1. Most of California's most devastating fires were far from any forest (see map below).

2. For those few devastating fires that were near forests, all of those forests around the communities destroyed had the kind of suggested thinning and fuel treatments misinformed commentators claim didn't exist.

3. Much of the area around Paradise that burned in the Camp Fire had burned 10 years ago, had been salvage logged, and was composed of habitats other than forest (e.g. post fire shrublands). The wind-driven ember rain that destroyed the town came primarily from open grassland/post fire/mixed woodland environments northeast of the town. A large percentage of the trees within the devastated town did not burn. See the fire progression map here and match it with the current view on Google Earth:
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/map/6250/4/90791

4. Climate change is drying the state. Dryer conditions lead to a more flammable landscape. We may see more of the kind of winds that powered the Camp Fire into Paradise. More fires will dramatically alter the kinds of habitats we are used to seeing. Non-native weed filled landscapes that dominate places like Riverside County will likely become more common. More on this issue here:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/threatstochaparral.html

It is more than discouraging when someone claims our wildfires are all about forests, dead trees, lack of logging, or unnatural fuel build up via past fire suppression. Such claims are a disservice to the families who have lost so much and hamper our efforts to solve the problem.

What is it about? Flammable homes and communities located on flammable terrain.

Please see our solutions in our letter to Governor Brown below.

Here is a well-researched article on the Woolsey Fire from the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/proj…/la-me-woolsey-fire-progression/

Here's how to protect your home from wildfire:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/bprotectingyourhome.html

Here's our information flyer on external sprinklers:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/…/INDEPENDENT_EXTERNAL_S…

Here's why Governor Brown and the California State Legislature failed us - they ignored the real problem:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/…/Gov_Brown_2017_Wildfir…

Here are the most devastating wildfires in California to November 17, 2018 (fire, structures burned, fatalities):

Fires 2017-2018
Camp/12,263/71 (as of 11/17/2018)*
Tubbs/ 5636/ 22
Redwood/ 546 / 9
Carr/ 1599/ 8
Atlas/ 783/ 6
Nuns/ 1355/ 3
Woolsey/500+/3 (as of 11/17/2018)
Thomas/ 1063/ 2
Ferguson/ 131/ 2
Mendocino/ 277/ 1

Previous devastating fires prior to 2017 where losses were also unrelated to forests and dead trees:
Tunnel (1991)/ 2900 /25
Cedar (2003)/ 2820/ 15
Harris (2007)/ 548/ 8
Old (2003)/ 1003/ 6
Witch Creek (2007)/ 1650/ 2
Butte (2015)/ 921/ 2
Jones (1999)/ 954/ 1
Paint (1990)/ 641/ 1

Significant forested area involved, but not seriously impacted by dead trees:
Valley (2015)/ 1955/ 4
*Camp Fire involved forest within the fire perimeter, but most of the area within/near the devastated town of Paradise was a mix of habitats.

President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

(CNN)With the shocking loss of thousands of homes and dozens of lives in the Camp and Woolsey fires in Northern and Southern California, people are looking for answers as they try to understand how a tragedy such as this can be prevented in the future.

As people struggled to evacuate, President Donald Trump in a tweet blamed the fires on poor forest management and repeated the claims before his visit to California. While Trump did not explicitly call for an expansion of logging in his latest response, he has previously touted this strategy as a way to curb fires. Meanwhile, the federal government is moving to allow commercial logging in areas such as the Los Padres National Forest outside Santa Barbara, claiming it will prevent fires. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has also blamed "environmental terrorist groups" for preventing the government from properly managing forests.

It is deeply troubling that Trump and his administration would support logging as a way to curb fires when studies have shown it's ineffective. In the most comprehensive scientific analysis conducted on the issue of forest management and fire intensity -- which looked at more than 1,500 fires on tens of millions of acres across the Western United States over three decades -- we found that forests with the fewest environmental protections and the most logging actually tend to burn much more intensely, not less.

This may seem counterintuitive, but logging leaves behind combustible twigs and branches on the forest floor, which can make fires spread faster. It also reduces the cooling shade of the forest canopy, which creates hotter and drier conditions, and the invasive weeds that take over readily burn. Denser forests buffer and reduce the winds that drive wildland fires, but this effect is largely eliminated by logging.

The fact is that Northern California's Butte County, which has been ravaged by the Camp Fire, had been heavily logged in previous years. In the area immediately to the east of Paradise, dead trees had been extensively logged and removed on both private and public lands, and commercial "thinning" operations had been conducted across large expanses of the nearby Plumas National Forest, supposedly to protect nearby towns from wild land fire…

more: President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

As California Burns, Trump and Zinke Use Catastrophe to Benefit Industry | Earthjustice

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wrote recently that “radical environmentalists would rather see forest and communities burn than see a logger in the woods. ” In Zinke’s zero-sum equation, the devastating wildfires in California would stop if those radical environmentalists would let the timber industry cut down more trees.

The truth is that Zinke and House Republicans are using the destruction across the West as an excuse to chip away at bedrock environmental laws created to ensure that science drives decisions about the future of our nation’s forests.

Everyone agrees that we must protect homes and lives from the catastrophic effects of fires, but Zinke’s argument is dangerously oversimplified, cynically disingenuous and downright false. And that’s not the worst part. He also proclaims that climate change has “nothing to do” with these wildfires, even as scientists and firefighting officials unanimously assert that climate change is creating the conditions that allow destructive wildfires to thrive. These types of fires will only grow in intensity and frequency if we do nothing to address climate change…

more: As California Burns, Trump and Zinke Use Catastrophe to Benefit Industry | Earthjustice

see also: 

Trump, offering no evidence, blames deadly California fires on “gross mismanagement of the forests”

Camp Fire: The Terrifying Science Behind California’s Massive Blaze | WIRED

IPCC climate change report calls for urgent action to phase out fossil fuels – as it happened | UN report on global warming carries life-or-death warning

UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says coal-fired electricity must end by 2050 if we are to limit global warming rises to 1.5C

• Full report: We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN
• Overwhelmed by climate change? Here’s what you can do

more:  IPCC climate change report calls for urgent action to phase out fossil fuels – as it happened | Environment | The Guardian

Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday. But they provide little hope the world will rise to the challenge.

UN report on global warming carries life-or-death warning | phys.org

Intergenerational Trauma: Understanding Natives’ Inherited Pain - Indian Country Media Network

Trauma May Be Woven Into DNA of Native Americans

Trauma is big news these days. Mainstream media is full of stories about the dramatic improvements allowing science to see more clearly how trauma affects our bodies, minds and even our genes. Much of the coverage hails the scientific connection between trauma and illness as a breakthrough for modern medicine. The next breakthrough will be how trauma affects our offspring.

The science of epigenetics, literally “above the gene,” proposes that we pass along more than DNA in our genes; it suggests that our genes can carry memories of trauma experienced by our ancestors and can influence how we react to trauma and stress. The Academy of Pediatrics reports that the way genes work in our bodies determines neuroendocrine structure and is strongly influenced by experience. [Neuroendocrine cells help the nervous and endocrine (hormonal) system work together to produce substances such as adrenaline (the hormone associated with the fight or flight response.] Trauma experienced by earlier generations can influence the structure of our genes, making them more likely to “switch on” negative responses to stress and trauma…

more: Intergenerational Trauma: Understanding Natives’ Inherited Pain - Indian Country Media Network

Robert Cherwink's Daily • #RCDaily #ECO :: Environment, Science, Politics & more!

Robert Cherwink's Daily • #RCDaily #ECO

issue of 22 May –

check out the current edition!
Robert Cherwink's Daily • #RCDaily #ECO

*** the archive copy of the May 29th issue has loads of petitions (available until approximately June 30) ***

Robert Cherwink’s Daily • #RCDaily #ECO | #RCDaily #ECO ::: WEEKLY edition

Click Here to Support Robert's #RCDaily #Eco News

note:

PUBLISHING SCHEDULE IS ERRATIC DUE TO MY MEDICAL CONDITION... i am trying to update at least twice per week at this point. please see what next: regarding today's edition

Scientists Worldwide Speak Truth to Power

Tens of thousands of people celebrated Earth Day Saturday by taking to the streets in a historic day of action for science and truth. A massive March for Science took place in Washington, DC, and more than 600 sister marches took place in other cities around the world.

"We are marching today to remind people everywhere, our lawmakers especially, of the significance of science for our health and our prosperity," Bill Nye, honorary co-chair of the March for Science, told the crowd in DC.

Saturday's March for Science was the perfect launching pad to a week of action that will culminate in the Peoples Climate March in Washington, DC, on April 29. As Ploy Achakulwisut, PhD Candidate in Atmospheric Science at Harvard University, put it, "the Science March is about respecting science, the People's Climate March is about acting on it."

The week of action, dubbed "From Truth to Justice: Earth Day to May Day 2017," will feature more than 50 events, including the launch of visionary clean energy legislation, a speak-out of the 21 young people suing the U.S. government, massive youth convergence, direct actions and more...

more: Scientists Worldwide Speak Truth to Power

Arctic meltdown: Sea and land ice are cracking up at a record pace | ThinkProgress

The images from the Arctic ice death spiral are haunting.

The impacts will be terrifying.

Arctic meltdown: Sea and land ice are cracking up at a record pace | ThinkProgress

The top photo of Disko Bay, Greenland is titled “Broken Arches.” It’s by photographer Diane Tuff from her forthcoming book, “The Arctic Melt: Images of a Disappearing Landscape.”

March for Science on April 22!

Why

Science, scientists, and evidence-based policymaking are under attack. Budget cuts, censorship of researchers, disappearing datasets, and threats to dismantle government agencies harm us all, putting our health, food, air, water, climate, and jobs at risk. It is time for people who support science to take a public stand and be counted.

What

The March for Science is the first step of a global movement to defend the vital role science plays in our health, safety, economies, and governments.

How

We are building a broad, nonpartisan, and diverse coalition of organizations and individuals who stand up for science. We are advocating for evidence-based policymaking, science education, research funding, and inclusive and accessible science. All with your support!*

Who

People who value science. Science advocates, science educators, scientists, and concerned citizens. More than 170 partner organizations and counting. And you!

Where

The National Mall in Washington, DC and 425+ satellite marches around the world. For DC, event details [here], and info on buses [here].

When

April 22nd, 2017. But that’s only the beginning…

March for Science

March for Science on Facebook

March for Science and Earth Day Network Rally and March in DC (Facebook event page)

These experts say Congress is ‘legislating scientific facts’ — and wrong ones, too - The Washington Post

A group of forest scientists, ecologists and climate researchers has sent a strongly worded letter to the U.S. Senate, arguing that pending bipartisan energy legislation incorrectly claims that burning trees for energy is carbon neutral.

read: These experts say Congress is ‘legislating scientific facts’ — and wrong ones, too - The Washington Post

The Anthropocene: Hard evidence for a human-driven Earth | Phys.org

The evidence for a new geological epoch which marks the impact of human activity on the Earth is now overwhelming according to a recent paper by an international group of geoscientists. The Anthropocene, which is argued to start in the mid-20th Century, is marked by the spread of materials such as aluminium, concrete, plastic, fly ash and fallout from nuclear testing across the planet, coincident with elevated greenhouse gas emissions and unprecedented trans-global species invasions...

READ: The Anthropocene: Hard evidence for a human-driven Earth

Big business declares war on science: The secret story of the Chamber of Commerce’s battle against the environment, global warming action

Driven by a fervor for profit and an anti-government frenzy, the Chamber is a fighting force for the 1 percent 

by ALYSSA KATZ

"...Caterpillar, Duke Energy, General Electric, PG&E, Dow Chemical, Alcoa, DuPont—-the inaugural membership of the Climate Action Partnership had much in common with the list of Chamber board members past and present..."

"...once environmentalists started looking at what the Chamber was actually saying in its case to the EPA, they were flummoxed. It wasn’t just calling for a showdown over issues where scientists hadn’t yet reached consensus or where there was a case to be made for the benefits of rising temperatures. The Chamber was literally demanding that settled science be opened for debate, with testimony from industry consultants contending that the oceans were not, in fact, turning more acidic or rising as polar ice melted..."

Excerpted from "The Influence Machine: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Corporate Capture of American Life"

more at salon.com

WATCH: Uranium emits radiation inside a cloud chamber - ScienceAlert |

"Ever wondered what radiation looks like? If you have, I bet you didn’t think it would look as cool as this. This is a small piece of uranium mineral sitting in a cloud chamber, which means you can see the process of decay and radiation emission..."

– WATCH: Uranium emits radiation inside a cloud chamber - ScienceAlert 

A sealed glass container contains liquid alcohol at the top. Emanating alcohol vapors fill the whole volume of the container until they reach the bottom of the chamber maintained to a very cold temperature (-40°C).
Most of the vapour condenses on the glass surface creating a mist, but a small fraction of it stays in vapour form above the cold condenser. This creates a layer of unstable sursaturated vapour which can condense at any moment. When a charged particle crosses this vapor, it can knock electrons off the molecules forming ions. It causes the unstable alcohol vapor to condense around ions left behind by the travelling ionizing particle : the path of the particle in the matter is then revealed by a track composed of thousands droplets of alcohol...

more: ▶ Cloudylabs cloud chamber working approx 50 min [720p] - YouTube

The Uranium Waltz

By Sue Prent

 Unless you’re a science geek who routinely trawls YouTube for entertainment, you probably haven’t seen this fascinating clip that observes a small pellet of uranium as it just sits sealed in a lighted cloud chamber infused with vaporized alcohol.

 To the strains of a Strauss waltz, puffy little trails begin to erupt from the uranium in staccato straight lines, shooting through the alcohol cloud and radiating in all directions like soft white fireworks. It’s a mesmerizing sight to behold.

 It is also a sobering one, because what we are enabled to observe through that cloud of alcohol is the behavior of one of the most aggressive toxins on earth: radioactive decay.

This is the stuff that gives nuclear weapons their destructive energy; the instability that, in the course of things, has been somewhat inefficiently harnessed to generate simple electricity.

 It takes a whole lot of uranium, a relatively low energy source of radiation, to produce a little bit of weapons-grade plutonium. Between the mine and the battlefield, turning uranium into reactor fuel is a convenient first step on the way to enabling nuclear weapons, which is a major reason so many countries want “nuclear power”.

 The dependent relationship between nuclear weapons and nuclear power stations provides one of the biggest bones of contention in the world today.

 Setting that aside for others to consider, and returning to the simple lesson that is so vividly illustrated by the video, one cannot ignore the fact that even the tiniest particle of uranium is alive with radioactive potential.

 Imagine the environmental hazards associated with every stage of uranium processing, from extraction to waste disposal, when every tiny particle is literally bristling with projectile energy.

 While uranium in minute amounts is a common enough component of rock and soils available almost everywhere, there are relatively few places on earth where concentrations of uranium rich mineral deposits are great enough to represent opportunities for cost-efficient mining.

 The danger to mine workers is not so much from the uranium ore, which has low concentrations of pure uranium relative to the mass in which it is sequestered. The real danger lies in the fine particulates and radon gas that are released from the rock in the course of mechanical extraction.

 This hazard threatens the surrounding environment and population as well, since slurry and waste from the mining operation find their way into groundwater and may be redistributed through the air as well.

 Even decades after uranium mines have been exhausted for all practical purposes, surrounding populations must endure the continuing threat posed by tailings, a waste byproduct of uranium mining. For example, hundreds of residents of the Navajo communities of North Church Rock and Quivera, New Mexico, where two nearby uranium mines ceased to be profitable and were abandoned at the close of the Cold War have suffered enormous health risks due to the mountainous piles of waste that the uranium mines simply left behind.

 Ever since these New Mexico mines closed, corporate owners of the two lethal stacks have been feuding with the federal government over who is responsible for the cleanup.

 At least one of the waste piles is scheduled to move down the road to a tailings dump, which will distance it somewhat from the local population, if not from the greater environment.

 That move in itself raises another point of contamination in the uranium fuel chain: transportation. To transfer the waste to a less objectionable location, it is estimated that 38 open dump trucks will be required. Loading the trucks will stir up so much harmful particulate matter that the government will relocate residents for up to five years following the move in order to allow the dust to settle again, and to monitor the grounds for remaining contamination.

 Just imagine each of those tiny particles being energized like that uranium pellet in the cloud chamber, and small enough to be inhaled… Now imagine what happens on a cellular level when all that bristling energy lodges deep in the human lung and continues to radiate indefinitely.

 As those loaded dump trucks wheel through the environment to their ultimate destination, it isn’t difficult to imagine that they will be seeding the air with radioactive dust and particulates, endangering all who live and work along the way.

 These same hazardous scenarios play out on a daily basis around active uranium mines, and at the processing plants where uranium ore is refined into nuclear fuel. I would guess that the concentration of harmful radiation in millings and tailings might be even greater as the uranium undergoes further refinement in the fuel production process.

 Even if none of the collateral contaminants distributed by mining are considered, when nuclear energy production is viewed strictly from the perspective of fuel sourcing, it is clearly far, far from a “clean” energy source.

– via Fairewinds Energy Education​ [email]

U.S. Right to Know Calls for Investigation of Monsanto Cover up, Harassment of USDA Scientists | Sorry, Monsanto. The Science Is on Our Side, Not Yours

U.S. Right to Know sent letters today to the chairs and ranking members of the U.S. Senate and House Agriculture Committees, and to the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, requesting an investigation of a possible cover up for Monsanto, and whether USDA scientists are being harassed when their work runs counter to the interests of the agrichemical industry.

more: USRTK Calls for Investigation of Monsanto Cover up, Harassment of USDA Scientists


SEE ALSO

Sorry, Monsanto. The Science Is on Our Side, Not Yours: Here are just a few examples of the latest reports, articles and books exposing the dangers of GMOs, Big Ag’s toxic chemicals and evidence of a decades-long cover-up to keep consumers in the dark.

SIGN THE PETITON TO BAN ROUNDUP

OCA: Tell the EPA: Ban Monsanto’s Cancer-Causing Roundup Herbicide

Science, Meet Journalism. You Two Should Talk. by Louise Lief | Wilson Quarterly

When I began my term as a public policy scholar at the Wilson Center last year working on the project “Science and the Media,” I ran into a journalist colleague I hadn’t seen in years. When he heard what I was doing, he said in astonishment, “Science? How did you get interested in that?”

He wasn’t the only one to react that way. It’s a symptom of the relationship — or more precisely, the lack of a relationship — between scientists and the vast majority of journalists who do not cover science that such an interest is seen as unusual.

Not only journalists view science in this way. Many in the public do too. To the majority of Americans, science is a foreign country.

I don’t have a science background, and developed an interest in the sciences through a somewhat roundabout route. Years of taking groups of editors on fact-finding/study tours to Africa, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere introduced me to landscapes and creatures in the natural world of astonishing beauty and variety, and the fascinating professionals who often took insane risks to study them, seeking to understand how things worked and why.

So for my project I decided to concentrate on the general media — the 90 percent who almost never meet scientists or write about science, and to focus on the natural world. I wanted to see what the barriers were to engagement, and to explore how these two groups might begin a conversation, and maybe even work together in mutually beneficial ways.

In the process, I discovered how much these two communities have to offer each other, far beyond the subject matter.


MORE: Science, Meet Journalism. You Two Should Talk. by Louise Lief | Wilson Quarterly

9.20-21 PEOPLE'S CLIMATE MARCH - NYC / EVERYWHERE

A massive, history-making march in New York City.
Hundreds of coordinated actions around the world. 

PEOPLE'S CLIMATE MARCH

peoplesclimate.org

facebook.com/peoplesclimatemarch

NUCLEAR FREE CARBON FREE CONTINGENT
People's Climate March Hub: 
http://peoplesclimate.org/nonuclearpower/

whats up: #BustTheMyth
you can't nuke global warming!

WATCH "Disruption: Climate. Change." ENTIRE FILM NOW ONLINE | PEOPLE'S CLIMATE MARCH

Be a part of the largest climate march in history: watch this, then join up!

ENTIRE FILM NOW ONLINE > Disruption: Climate. Change.

‘When it comes to climate change, why do we do so little when we know so much?’

Through a relentless investigation to find the answer, Disruption takes an unflinching look at the devastating consequences of our inaction.

The exploration lays bare the terrifying science, the shattered political process, the unrelenting industry special interests and the civic stasis that have brought us to this social, moral and ecological crossroads.The film also takes us behind-the-scenes of the efforts to organize the largest climate rally in the history of the planet during the UN world climate summit.

This is the story of our unique moment in history. We are living through an age of tipping points and rapid social and planetary change. We’re the first generation to feel the impacts of climate disruption, and the last generation that can do something about it. The film enlarges the issue beyond climate impacts and makes a compelling call for bold action that is strong enough to tip the balance to build a clean energy future.

PEOPLE'S CLIMATE MARCH

peoplesclimate.org