Many of my followers are not my students, and might even be actual adults! With the swift privatization of public education, our science department has no money for even the most basic supplies. I have set up a Donor’s Choose account where you can personally donate to specific projects. Please help support public science education! We need scientists!
“The question, “If I were President I’d…” implies that if you swap out one leader, put in another, then all will be well with America—as though our leaders are the cause of all ailments.
That must be why we’ve created a tradition of rampant attacks on our politicians. Are they too conservative for you? Too liberal? Too religious? Too atheist? Too gay? Too anti-gay? Too rich? Too dumb? Too smart? Too ethnic? Too philanderous? Curious behavior, given that we elect 88% of Congress every two years.
A second tradition-in-progress is the expectation that everyone else in our culturally pluralistic land should hold exactly your own outlook, on all issues.
When you’re scientifically literate, the world looks different to you. It’s a particular way of questioning what you see and hear. When empowered by this state of mind, objective realities matter. These are the truths of the world that exist outside of whatever your belief system tells you.
One objective reality is that our government doesn’t work, not because we have dysfunctional politicians, but because we have dysfunctional voters. As a scientist and educator, my goal, then, is not to become President and lead a dysfunctional electorate, but to enlighten the electorate so they might choose the right leaders in the first place.”
-Neil deGrasse Tyson, New York, Aug. 21, 2011
Go figure.
This is Lisa P. Jackson. She is the director of the Environmental Protection Agency. Armed with loads of science, new mandates from the Supreme Court and basically no allies thanks to the 2012 election season, she is about to make history by rolling out new regulations on smog, mercury, carbon dioxide, mining waste and vehicle emissions. The EPA is also has climate change emissions FINALLY in its sights.
“The only thing worse than no E.P.A. is an E.P.A. that exists and doesn’t do its job - it becomes just a placebo,” she said last week. “We are doing our job.” Go Ms. Jackson!
A new low for Arctic sea ice for the summer of 2010. A new study out by the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute shows that the understanding of climate change falls along party lines. Republicans think it either isn’t happening or that the changes are natural. Democrats tend to acknowledge that human activity is the primary cause.
This is a stark contrast to the scientific community’s unified stance regarding the warming of our planet.
“Although there remains active discussion among scientists on many details about the pace and effects of climate change, no leading science organization disagrees that human activities are now changing the Earth’s climate,” said study researcher Lawrence Hamilton, professor of sociology and senior fellow with the Carsey Institute. “The strong scientific agreement on this point contrasts with the partisan disagreement seen on all of our surveys.”
