You know the creationist parable that "a watch implies a watchmaker"?

Someone ran an experiment.

The venerable Richard Dawkins receives an honorary degree from the University of Valencia. According to the Telegraph...

"Last year, [Richard Dawkins] announced his intention to write a book warning children of the dangers in believing what he called "anti-scientific" fairytales, including Harry Potter."

Now, wait a moment. Was there a child in my generation who genuinely, honestly, believed that they could go to Hogwarts or set fire to people with pointy sticks stuffed with unicorn hairs? While I agree with Professor Dawkins that taking a skeptical stance toward what you are told is for all intents and purposes a good practice, I don't think that extends to fiction when the understanding is there that you are reading fiction. There is a time and a place for escapism, and I think to ask people - children especially - to be 100% realistic and grounded in the real world at all times without any room for imagination would lead to a very dull life.

I will be the first to expound upon the wonders of the natural world and how exciting it is to live in these times when we can see to the beginning of the universe and read our own genome like a book. But sometimes, I want to pretend that there are wizards and dragons and Every-Flavor Beans and goblins running the banks and people flying around on broomsticks catching little golden balls with wings. It's fun. It's entertaining. I know it's fiction, and even though I was deplorably gullible in my youth, I always did.

What's more, Harry Potter supplies an excellent allegory for the world today, full of undeserved prejudice and untrustworthy government. Far from being a simple "anti-scientific fairytale", Harry Potter is an excellent work of literature (children's or otherwise) that in many ways exemplifies some of the key struggles of our time. And it's certainly an excellent mental playground for adolescents struggling with their own internal battles of good and evil.

Other than that, Professor Dawkins, I salute you. Congratulations on your honorary degree (like you really needed another one).

PS: According to this Pharyngula post, Dawkins was misquoted by the Telegraph in that he in fact called the pope "either stupid, ignorant or wicked."

Toxic Waste

me: http://www.ekonoiz.com/Eko_Noiz_Eco_Facts/Nuclear_Facts.htm This. THIS is the kind of thing that pisses me off. THIS is where people get their information. UGH.

1:04 AM What they fail to offer is PROOF. Of ANY of this. "More than 1,200 million people have been killed, maimed or diseased by nuclear power since its inception and more than 10 million victims a year will continue to die if this carnage is allowed to continue." Big vague number (1,200 million? Really? And 1.2 billion was just too much work because...?) + Dark and Serious Predictions of the Future + podium-pounding wordage = You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

1:06 AM This is what pisses me the fuck off about most of my community. When these are the facts we read and this is the news we spread, no wonder the more thoroughly-educated other classes think we're bleating infantile rebels.

1:09 AM robert.maiar: Ugh. :sigh:

1:10 AM LOL, jesus, look at the clustering in France.

Some people just can't get education through their heads. They have to believe in the magical power of something or other to be the cause or the cure for so many yada different problems.

1:11 AM me: "Nuclear material includes hundreds of radioactive elements that have different biological impacts in the human body, the most important being cancer and genetic diseases."

1) There are 109 elements that we have discovered. No more.
2) Huge quantities of our yearly radiation dosage comes from the ground, the air, and the sunlight.
3) I would like to see medical proof of these oh-so-scary "biological effects".

::shakes head:: I don't get it.

1:12 AM And seriously, I tried. I was well on the way to joining these folks, but you know what kept me sane when I tried? Education.

robert.maiar: Hrungeh.

Uh-huh.

Knowing what the fuck you're talking about really tends to help you not sound like an ass-wipe.

me: Uh huh.

1:14 AM It's one thing to sit aghast at the idiocy of flat-earth fundamentalists, but coming face-to-face with the willfully ignorant and sheerly stupid within your _own idealogical stomping grounds_... really makes you sympathize with not-asshole Christians.

1:15 AM "The incubation time for cancer is five to 50 years following exposure to radiation."

... Did I read that right? Since when does cellular mutation have an *incubation time*??

1:16 AM And... whti..shanlnb.a....dkjgh... ::brain melts:: There's just nothing salvageable in that statement. Nothing.

1:17 AM robert.maiar: Æryn, dear... this site doesn't pass the horse laugh test. stop reading it or your brain will melt.

1:18 AM me: But... but the...

It's like a train wreck.

robert.maiar: Haha.

1:21 AM me: "20 years after the fallout we are facing a cancer epidemic. Governments try to deny its existence and blame smoking or excessive sunbathing as major causes."

Yes. Because cigarettes contain carcinogens which cause problems with your cellular structure. And UV radiation from sunbathing directly impacts your cellular process. And both of these sources have direct contact with millions of people on a regular basis.

robert.maiar: You should put your responses on your blog.

me: Oooh. Good idea.

robert.maiar: Also, that's just....

At that point I start to wonder about parody.

1:22 AM me: I doubt it. It's that T-shirt company, which got promoted by the Environmental News Network, who are generally pretty sane.

1:23 AM robert.maiar: :loooooooong sigh:

(With my barrel chest I really can make a sigh very long. :nods:)

me: Hehe.

1:24 AM "!Did you know that? - the industry doesn’t know what to do with its waste?" So, that proposal I read that outlined the exact protection measures in development for deep-geological burial was... just a fluff piece?

1:25 AM robert.maiar: Hah.

1:26 AM Damn you! Hurry up and cool down pizza bagel!

me: "None of these is safe or deals in any real way with solving the problem of what to do with all the existing waste which will remain poisonous for thousands of years."

Yeah, well, the point is, we have it, and we have to deal with it *somehow*. How do you propose we deal with it? I would like solutions please, not an endless barrage of threats. Oh, wear a T-shirt saying "stop nuclear power"? Great.

1:28 AM robert.maiar: You know, maybe you should actually email these people, mention how much you support the environmental protection movement, and love many of their shirts. But that their entire screed about Nuclear power is entirely out of line and quite simply factually incorrect.

me: I should.

I'd have to provide support for my arguments, of course - seeing as that's exactly what I'm berating them for not doing.

1:29 AM robert.maiar: Also, I've always wondered. Yes, reactor waste stays radioactive for thousands and thousands of years. But you know what also stays radioactive for thousands and thousands of years? The giant churning mass of it that fuels our planets tectonic activity.

Uh-huh.

me: lol, Exactly. Also the giant fusion reactor in the sky.

1:30 AM robert.maiar: And the couple billion of them in the other direction.

Well, visible in the other direction.

me: Uh huh.

In every direction, really.

robert.maiar: There's another couple billion in the direction of the near-by one. And some in every other direction, yeah that too.

1:32 AM me: ::sigh:: I resent the terminology used to describe deep-geologic burial. "Dumping" suggests carelessness.

1:33 AM robert.maiar: Uh-huh.

It'd be nice if we got a bean-stalk. It'd be easy to hurl it into the sun.

1:34 AM me: A "dump" is an open pit where waste is piled in from all sides. A deep-geological burial site is a closely-monitored and well-shielded facility in a carefully-chosen area far from the water table and any nearby agriculture, residence, or abundant wildlife.

robert.maiar: :claps:

me: ::bows::

robert.maiar: Good point.

1:36 AM Ahhh.

me: At the moment, most of our nuclear waste is held in derelict facilities in decaying barrels within spitting distance of rivers and residence. Would you like it to stay there? No? Then give us something else to do with it. XP (I'll be done soon, I promise.)

robert.maiar: Haha.

5 minutes

1:42 AM me: "Evidence has been piling up for years that there is no safe dose of radioactivity." A) Define safe. B) Define dose. Safe dose to eat? breathe? take a bath in? C) I repeat: Most of our radiation comes from radon and phosphorus within the earth and our own bodies, and UV from the sun.

1:44 AM "Sloppy maintenance in the nuclear industry raises serious concerns"

Finally, you make something like a truthful statement.

robert.maiar: That really is... this isn't related to any kind of real objective reality. This is some poor dumbass pouring their subjective "knowledge" ont the internet.

1:47 AM me: I know. It's painful how little grasp this person has of what radiation, cancer, and nuclear power actually is or does.

robert.maiar: Uh-huh.

1:48 AM me: Radioisotopes = not a word.

1:49 AM robert.maiar: I saw the bomb blast images. Does he try and say anything like a melt-down being a nuclear explosion, or a nuclear plant running on controlled nuclear explosions?

me: "There is evidence that the fallout caused a significant increase in stillbirths and in infant mortality." Can you present or describe this evidence? Can you drew a logical line of reasoning from cause to effect?

1:50 AM robert.maiar: Can you present any evidence that nuclear plants cause any kind of "fallout" at all/

*?

me: Not directly, but they seem to indicate nuclear power and nuclear weaponry pretty much interchangeably.

1:51 AM robert.maiar: Like with fallout.

me: Uh huh.

::sigh::

1:52 AM If anybody or anything has the power to destroy our civilization, it is the willfully ignorant. Of this I become increasingly certain.

1:53 AM robert.maiar: Say it again brutha, amen.

1:54 AM me: "Nuclear power also emits other greenhouse gases besides carbon dioxide with far stronger global warming consequences, such as CFCs." Does it? How? Honestly, *how*?

1:55 AM robert.maiar: :writhes:

Ohoatnshkbarsoex cr.dcipyb5pbd

CLOUROFLOUROCARBONS AREN'T EVEN A GREENHOUSE GASS,IRXK'., G,XG8

me: LOL

1:56 AM That's right, they're the ones that fuck up the ozone.

robert.maiar: :nods:

Which we've managed to stop.

me: ::sigh::

I know! That's one of the (few) success stories of American environmentalism.

robert.maiar: In five years, the chances of melanoma in the general population will've gone down by 5%.

me: Woot.

1:57 AM robert.maiar: 5% doesn't seem like a big number. But millions die of melanoma and other UV caused cancers.

me: You know, I think I need to keep this site around. It's certainly a nice bit of validation on the side of my education actually being worth something.

robert.maiar: Hahaha.

Awesome.

1:59 AM me: "Nuclear power only produces electricity and can only possibly displace electricity plants, not the bulk of CO2 emissions which come from cars, trucks, factory smokestacks and home furnaces."

Electric cars? Electric furnaces? Replacing coal? Anyone? C'mon, people, where's your imagination?

robert.maiar: HOEUKBSO

2:00 AM YOU ARE MELTING MY BRAIN

me: lol

robert.maiar: NOW MY EYES ARE BLEEDING

ARE YOU HAPPY!?

me: LOL. I'm sorry.

robert.maiar: Seriously though, what the fuck is up with that non-sequitor? Like, solar panels somehow generate magical blow-job leprechuans or something?

2:01 AM me: LOL

Yeah, there's a huge contradiction of priority here.

robert.maiar: Uh-huh.

me: Because four lines down they toute the necessity of solar and wind power, and other alternative sources.

2:02 AM robert.maiar: Electric heating is less efficient than on site combustion... but if the electricity is clean, the impact should be much lower in total.

2:03 AM me: Exactly.

robert.maiar: What are the byproducts of natural gas combustion, for instance?

2:04 AM Doesn't that produce some carbon-dioxide?

me: And no one's saying we shouldn't invest in other sources of energy *too*. No one's saying either that we should abandon all conservation efforts because, oh, we can just get it from nuclear. The point is to use a whole bunch of things instead of relying on a non-existent miracle pill.

Yeah. Not as much as oil, but some. And I think there's some other things... methane, maybe? I can't remember.

2:05 AM robert.maiar: Hmm.

me: Or maybe not.

I'm not sure.

robert.maiar: Well, natural gas is a mixture of different chemicals.

2:08 AM Well, almost everything we use for anything is a mixture of multiple molecules, but I mean that there's more than one that combusts in the natural gas mixture.

me: Uh huh.

2:09 AM robert.maiar: Oh man. Whenever I sneeze it wreaks carnage on my throat.

Hmm. I should probably go to bed.

me: Me too.

Just one more.

2:11 AM "Studies need to be peer-reviewed by experts in the field to be published in journals and become considered science. As these experts tend to be funded either by the nuclear industry or the State, these referees tend to exclude information which threatens their beliefs and by consequence it is nearly impossible to publish papers arguing that radiation is dangerous."

-That's not quite how the peer-review process works.
-The people who know the nuclear industry are likely to be in the nuclear industry. Is there a possibility for dishonesty here? Yes. That's why we peer-review.
-It's difficult to publish those papers because most people educated on the matter have the scoop on radiation already and know that it's not the evil magical doom-spell that will darken the earth and kill our babies.

2:12 AM robert.maiar: :snicker:

2:13 AM me: Ok. And on that note, I'm going to bed.

2:14 AM I'll copy this chat into my blog and make it a proper entry... sometime... later...

Some Presidential Ramblings

As will hopefully become clear over the course of this blog, my vote for President has already been won by Barack Obama. Why? Because his stances on every issue, from the environment to Iran, nicely reflect my own. Besides that, he has several personal marks that I believe have made him into the kind of man we need as President in the 21st century: He comes from a diverse ethnic and cultural background, which gives him a decided edge in this era of globalization. He is honest and forthright, traits that are directly contrary to many stereotypes about politicians - he says what needs to be said, and doesn't play those political games (any more than is absolutely necessary). He may be young, but what he lacks in experience he makes up with intelligence, enthusiasm, and confidence. Besides that, at only 46, he would be the nation's first post-baby boom president.

Think of the implications of that! The world of post-1950 has been an extremely different one from the first half of this century, marked by an ever-increasing upswing in technology, global connectivity, and wave after wave of civil rights movements, starting, for the US, in the 1960s with the Civil Rights movement (you know, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr). Obama has grown up in *that* world, was born and raised in it, and the difference, to me, is evident.

On the Iraq war, which I believe to be the hugest mistake of the Bush administration, he has opposed it from the beginning and would withdraw troops with suitable swiftness. His commentary on war in general: "I not oppose all war - I oppose rash wars," resonates very nicely with a moderate sensibility. It is not the knee-jerk response of aging and new-wave hippies in the post-Viet Nam decades, but a rational stance that promotes peace without fearing to use force.

And unlike our current administration, Obama has been paying attention to the global scientific outcry against global climate change as it has escalated over the past several months.

Honestly, the only thing that I can find anyone saying against Obama is that he *might* not be able to win votes in the south, which is hardly a poor reflection on him, but on the stiff-necked attitudes that region of our country tends to take. But the south alone is not enough to turn the election, even with Texas's thirty-odd electoral votes (don't even get me started on the electoral college).

At every turn, Obama has impressed me with his sense of vision and hope, his determination to be what this country needs: An honest, genuine leader.

Climax at Bali (Ohh yes - Yes!)

The international climate conference at Bali came to its final conclusion yesterday after going a day into overtime to resolve certain complaints held by certain party members. ::cough cough::The US::cough cough:: The outcome of the conference is optimistic, even if not Best Case Scenario. We still do not have specific goals for 2020, as scientists say we should, but this does mark a significant turnaround in the climate of climate change. In the end, the US stood deserted by all of its former allies - Japan, Canada, Australia, and Russia - who had been on its side of the debate thusfar. But in the end, it was the US that stood directly in opposition to the wills of every other nation represented at the conference.

The friction at Bali stemmed from a simple fact: No environmental treaty would succeed without the US on board. As producer of 25% of world GHG emissions, their cooperation was essential. Bush knew that, and used it to his advantage for much of the two weeks, achieving such aims as to cut out the provision of specific emissions goals for 2020 in the last few days of the conference. But what Bush and his administration failed to realize was that he had no friends in the Bali conference, and they would proceed without him if they found it necessary. This was highlighted by the EU's promise to boycott Bush's planned climate meeting in Hawaii next month, and by former Vice President Al Gore speaking out directly against his old opponant, saying: "I am not a representative of my government, so I am not bound by diplomatic niceties. My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali. [Applause.] We all know that." (qtd in "Letter from Bali: A Tragic Truth", by guest writer Andrew Light at Gristmill: Environmental News and Commentary.) (See? I did learn something in Writing 121!) With the pressure both domestic and foreign threatening to burst, the Bush administration finally decided to bow with some semblance of dignity remaining, and go along with the consensus.

As said wonderfully in an article that I, unfortunately, cannot locate at this moment, "It should be difficult for a country to make the final concession that enables a treaty to move forward and still appear self-centered and churlish. Yet somehow the US has done so."

Somewhat overlooked in the final drama over emissions cuts is one of the real successes of the Bali conference, an initiative for countries to prevent deforestation, especially in rainforest nations.

The Bali conference has made no final decisions yet: It is pending a further 2 years of negotiations to produce a treaty by the end of 2009 to replace the Kyoto protocol after 2012. Until then, the US is still the only industrialized nation to not have ratified the Kyoto protocol. Also note the careful positioning of the 2009 deadline to several months *after* Bush leaves office. There is little doubt that environmental concerns will play a huge role in 2008's presidential campaigns.

Introductions

::tap tap:: This thing on?

This is the obligatory introductory post. My name is Aeryn, an environmental science student currently at Portland Community College, soon to be (hopefully) Evergreen University. This blog will be my perspective, my soapbox, my place to rant and ramble, and if some people care to read it, more's the better. I will make some attempts to remain objective, or at least to report both sides of a story, but I make no pretense at not being biased. The topics that will get my attention will be focused primarily on environmental protection and climate change, and on political commentary and happenings (especially when the two combine). However, this is also a science blog, which will follow exciting things in the worlds of biology, astronomy, and physics. It is also a geek blog, and will enjoy occasional ramblings on whatever geekdom happens to catch my interest (which, for the past several months, has been Star Trek).

In essence, this is my blog, and I'm a fickle person. Therefore, the range of topics covered will also be broad.

Keep in mind also: I'm just learning.