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macckone
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Science in danger - epa ordered to take down climate change page
The new US administration has declared war on science.
Soon all US science may either be corporate or amateur.
No news, data or papers may be published by a number of
Federal agencies including epa, hhs, and usda.
I expect additional agencies will follow.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN15906G
If this is too political please move it to detrius.
But I think this is of major concern to scientist everywhere.
A march for science is being organized.
http://www.scientistsmarchonwashington.com/2017/01/what-is-s...
[Edited on 25-1-2017 by macckone]
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macckone
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March on facebook
https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=407291609618143&ts...
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1862739727343189?tsid=0.798429...
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JJay
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Are you actually asking chemists to join a protest? Protesting accomplishes nothing but incites people to violence. I don't care what the issue is;
this post is clearly inappropriate.
If you wanted to discuss the science behind climate change, that would be one thing, but this appears to be overt and blatant politicking.
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j_sum1
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@JJ
Discussing climate change tends to be a bit of a hot potato around here with numerous posters tending to get more personal and less objective and
often completely missing each others' points to the detriment of good discussion.
I think mackone's complaint is the precedent of US government agencies withdrawing from all matters scientific and the resulting decline in objective
information necessary for quality decision-making. If I have interpreted him correctly, I believe his concerns are warranted. But whether a protest
is an effective or appropriate response is another matter entirely.
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Sulaiman
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If all of the links to research remain and only the opinion parts are removed,
I do not see it as an attack on science, just a political move.
Climate change is not a science,
we can observe, record, analyse and predict (so far predictions have all failed)
but we can not experiment, so how is it a science ?
individual aspects of climate change can be experimented with
but not the whole system
and we do not yet have a working model.
CAUTION : Hobby Chemist, not Professional or even Amateur
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Herr Haber
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But climatology is 
And to add to the links above:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/trump-issues-epa-media-b...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/24/keystone...
Oops, this last one is a bit more political. And they even use the words climate change science in the same sentence. Hope no one gets a stroke about
this ^^
Funny timing, I was on the phone with the IUCN this morning.
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AJKOER
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'Climate change' is a problem requiring the intervention of science.
Interestingly, China is a now major sponsor of environmental scientific research likely as a consequence of decades of reliant on dirty fossil fuels
contributing to significant air pollution. Here is a recent piece, to quote:
"As 2016 gave way to 2017, residents of Beijing, Tianjin, and many other northern Chinese cities suffered through the longest stretch of stifling air
pollution ever recorded in the country. They choked through eight continuous days of thick, light-blocking haze, starting Dec. 30, 2016. This stretch
of bad air began only a week after people in 70 northern Chinese cities were enveloped by similar days of haze..."
Link: http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i4/Peering-Chinas-thick-haze-...
If your a US scientist needing to publish, you might consider sending your work to China!
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macckone
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As I said in my original post, if this is too political please move it to detrius.
The issue goes well beyond the EPA and climate change.
And I might add climate change is only a small part of
The job the EPA deals with. The fact that two (hhs, is the other)
Very science heavy government agencies have been ordered
to stop publishing papers is very concerning. However this may
Allow amateurs an opportunity to fill in gaps for vital research.
As for the question raised, this is not removal of opinion.
This is removal of data, published paperes, etc as well.
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mayko
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Power concedes nothing without demand. Womens' suffrage? Gay pride and the modern trans rights movement? The 8 hour work day and the weekend? Protest
is not only worthwhile; it gets the goods.
The Legal & Social subforum is powerful because it allows scientists to organize on issues that impact us as scientists, not just flap our gums.
The SOPA/PIPA blackout, which ScienceMadness participated in, is a powerful example. I'm not saying the forum has to endorse the DC march (though I
would vote in favor, and am planning to attend). But if you think that this is anything but the first step down a very bad, flagrantly antiscience
road, your head is in the sand. Under Harper's Canada, scientists were quickly reduced to dumpster-diving valuable records collections:
http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/09/29/news/exclusive-in...
Call it politics as usual if you want, such behavior is an affront to everything I got into science for, and without vigorous opposition, It Will
Happen Here, and worse.
I am wgeting on the uni servers as fast as I can; plenty of people are making backups. The challenge coming up is going to be finding reliable hosting
for the mirrors.
My nightmare is if the NCDC is next on the slate.
[Edited on 25-1-2017 by mayko]
al-khemie is not a terrorist organization
"Chemicals, chemicals... I need chemicals!" - George Hayduke
"Wubbalubba dub-dub!" - Rick Sanchez
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Fulmen
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Science doesn't demand experiments, it only demand observation. If experiments were required, astronomy and astrophysics wouldn't be science either.
We're not banging rocks together here. We know how to put a man back together.
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JJay
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Quote: Originally posted by mayko  | Power concedes nothing without demand. Womens' suffrage? Gay pride and the modern trans rights movement? The 8 hour work day and the weekend? Protest
is not only worthwhile; it gets the goods.
The Legal & Social subforum is powerful because it allows scientists to organize on issues that impact us as scientists, not just flap our gums.
The SOPA/PIPA blackout, which ScienceMadness participated in, is a powerful example. I'm not saying the forum has to endorse the DC march (though I
would vote in favor, and am planning to attend). But if you think that this is anything but the first step down a very bad, flagrantly antiscience
road, your head is in the sand. Under Harper's Canada, scientists were quickly reduced to dumpster-diving valuable records collections:
http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/09/29/news/exclusive-in...
Call it politics as usual if you want, such behavior is an affront to everything I got into science for, and without vigorous opposition, It Will
Happen Here, and worse.
I am wgeting on the uni servers as fast as I can; plenty of people are making backups. The challenge coming up is going to be finding reliable hosting
for the mirrors.
My nightmare is if the NCDC is next on the slate.
[Edited on 25-1-2017 by mayko] |
That statement is ridiculous. Power has conceded you free speech without demand. You don't seem to appreciate it, though.
Protest sometimes does accomplish things though rarely. In Ukraine in recent years, protesters managed to oust the government, but some were shot, and
Ukraine lost some territory and a lot of business deals that had been cut previously. They still can't join the EU because they have an ongoing
territorial dispute. This all happened in spite of a political process that could have brought about a peaceful regime change.
Eight years of Wall Street protests led to Donald Trump as President. I mean, seriously... do you really think protesting is a worthwhile endeavor?
The science behind climate change is not as cut and dried as some people seem to think. The climate has been warming since the last ice age. The
amount of arable land in the USA has increased over the past 50 years.
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macckone
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All science is observation.
Archeology, Anthropology, Climatology, Astrophysics,
Astronomy, Evolutionary Biology, Volcanology,
Seismology, Meteorology, Paleontology
These are just a few examples of sciences where it is
impossible or unethical to do experiments. However,
they allow the making of predictions and those
predictions can be checked against future data to
validate the hypothesis. In astrophysics it can take
decades to validate a hypothesis, the same in
many of these other sciences. Meteorology is
science where the predictions can be checked
rapidly. But it is also complicated by chaos theory
as is climatology. That doesn't make them less
scientific, it just makes it harder to validate a
hypothesis.
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macckone
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JJay, this was not intended to be a debate about climate change. But rather a raising of awareness of the fact the new US administration (many here
are not in the US) is extremely anti-science and has the intention of eliminating anything or anyone that disagrees with them. One of the agencies
proposed (not actually axed yet) to get the ax is the NSF. By far the majority of the NSF's work has nothing to do with climate change. This is not
about that one issue. HHS does not do much climate change research but they have been gagged as well, no papers, no press releases, no grants.
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JJay
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@macckone: I don't agree with you, and I'm not interested. If molotov cocktails aren't enough, you'll just have to steal weapons or something.
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Metacelsus
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A vision of the future (adapted from the past):
First they came for the climatologists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a climatologist.
Then they came for the stem cell researchers, and I did not speak out, because I was not a stem cell researcher.
Then they came for my NSF grant money, and there was nobody left to speak out for me.
We must prevent this. Speak out now.
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elementcollector1
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Update: They've lifted the gag order on the EPA after the widespread public outcry (how's that 'protesting doesn't work' shtick coming along, JJay?).
Unclear if the other silenced agenices will follow, but time and effort will tell.
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JJay
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Did the protest happen?
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mayko
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Edit: that they backed off is great news! It was not acausal, however, and it is not reason to return to complacency!
| Quote: Originally posted by JJay |
That statement is ridiculous. Power has conceded you free speech without demand. You don't seem to appreciate it, though. |
You must think that the lead-up to the American Revolution (ie, a necessary prerequisite for the first amendment) was a series of pillow fights. Nor
was the right to free speech preserved and expanded in a vacuum. The state didn't recognize symbolic speech and the rights of students spontaneously -
that was fought for and won through aggressive legal challenge ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independe... ) and amid widespread agitation for freer expression.
I've been arrested while practicing citizen journalism and I've been pepper-sprayed for speaking out; I think I have ample appreciation for free
speech, its power, and its limitations.
| Quote: | | Eight years of Wall Street protests led to Donald Trump as President. I mean, seriously... do you really think protesting is a worthwhile endeavor?
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I have no idea what you are talking about here (Obama was re-elected during the tail end of OWS, remember? Canadian scientists similarly protested Harper, who was soon defeated by Trudeau.) but I think I made it pretty clear that I enjoy the fruits of
various protest movements. I specifically mentioned the weekend, for example. There is no evidence that it would have come about without vigorous
action on the part of 19th century labor movements - often far rowdier than the permitted street march being discussed here.
| Quote: | | The science behind climate change is not as cut and dried as some people seem to think. The climate has been warming since the last ice age. The
amount of arable land in the USA has increased over the past 50 years. |
This is frankly unscientific nonsense, but that is beside the point. The point is that public access to extant data and information is being
threatened, and the collection of future data is in jeopardy. Without those things, the science will only get LESS cut and dried. To anyone who
actually cares about our ability to answer questions, and I hope that any self-proclaimed scientist does, that is a travesty worth preventing.
[Edited on 25-1-2017 by mayko]
al-khemie is not a terrorist organization
"Chemicals, chemicals... I need chemicals!" - George Hayduke
"Wubbalubba dub-dub!" - Rick Sanchez
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macckone
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The protest is scheduled for March 4th.
The new budget is due at the end of March.
The USDA has lifted the gag order on it's employees.
I am not seeing the HHS and EPA gag orders lifted.
But they have not removed any of the climate change
info yet either, so I don't know that progress has been
made. Other agencies may be impacted but no one is
leaking the gag memos.
All grant and contracts have been frozen across the
board and that is still in place. This is impacting all
agencies. Security, Policing and military are exempted.
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JJay
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You're a protester. You like protests. People probably think you're crazy. You should have free speech. But the purpose of it is to protect us from
you.
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elementcollector1
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| Quote: Originally posted by JJay | | You're a protester. You like protests. People probably think you're crazy. You should have free speech. But the purpose of it is to protect us from
you. |
This statement is so far removed from reality as to be laughable. My dad, a perfectly respectable software engineer in his 60s, was just as
involved in the recent marches as I was, much as he has been involved in protesting all his life. Are you calling him crazy? Do you think you need
protecting from him?
America was founded on protests. The Boston Tea Party mean anything to you? No? How about the Old South Meeting House and the Boston Massacre
protests, that ring a bell? If you're going to make foolish claims about things you fear out of ignorance, then you should fully expect your claims to
be soundly and thoroughly mocked.
What kind of person claims that people standing up for what they believe in are "crazy?"
But enough about your irrational fear of organized disagreement, let's get back on topic here. The fact of the matter is, Trump's administration
submitted gag orders to and pulled funding from most major scientific publishing agencies that worked on climate change - the Environmental Protection
Agency, Department of Agriculture, Health and Human Services Department, and National Institute of Health. Source here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/us/politics/some-agencies...
This is not a 'political move.' This is not a minor inconvenience. Grad students across America are now without funding, and access to valuable
scientific research has plummeted. Regardless of what these institutes were researching, I think it's fairly obvious to everyone that silencing
publishers of scientific works is a dangerous agenda.
'Overt and blatant politicking', indeed. What next, are you going to suggest we just sit back and take it?
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JJay
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Ok, so you're a protester too. Anyone else?
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macckone
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Many of my former military acquaintances are going to be protesting as well. I will not be attending the paris accord protest but I will protest for
science.
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Magpie
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| Quote: Originally posted by AJKOER |
Interestingly, China is a now major sponsor of environmental scientific research likely as a consequence of decades of reliant on dirty fossil fuels
contributing to significant air pollution. Here is a recent piece, to quote:
"As 2016 gave way to 2017, residents of Beijing, Tianjin, and many other northern Chinese cities suffered through the longest stretch of stifling air
pollution ever recorded in the country. They choked through eight continuous days of thick, light-blocking haze, starting Dec. 30, 2016. This stretch
of bad air began only a week after people in 70 northern Chinese cities were enveloped by similar days of haze..."
|
As smart as we think we are we have to get to this point before doing anything about it.
[Edited on 25-1-2017 by Magpie]
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
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JJay
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| Quote: Originally posted by macckone | | Many of my former military acquaintances are going to be protesting as well. I will not be attending the paris accord protest but I will protest for
science. |
Why don't you have a symposium or a congress or something? Scientists like those.
[Edited on 25-1-2017 by JJay]
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