SCIENCE MATTERS COLUMN
Earth Day beyond face-painting: thinking about energy and man's place on earth
by Cate Marquis
As Earth Day, April 22, approaches, it might be a good time to reflect on the state of the earth and man's impact on it. Before it became about parades, Earth Day was intended as a day of action for the environment.
Three April events sparked reflection on the original meaning of Earth Day.
On April 11, Japan's nuclear regulators raised the severity level of the nuclear plant disaster to level 7, the level of the Chernobyl disaster. It now ranks as the world's second worst, above Three Mile Island at level 5.
On April 20, we will mark the first anniversary of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which started the Gulf oil spill disaster. Oil flowed for months into the gulf and that disaster is far from over.
Read more in the Current by clicking on this link:
http://thecurrent-online.com/opinions/envinronmental-diasters-bring-harsh-reality-to-earth-day-2011
© The Current
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Climate Change exhibit hints at changing climate at Science Center
by Cate Marquis
There is a climate change of sorts underway at the St. Louis Science Center, as demonstrated by a new special exhibit.
“Climate Change” is an excellent, just-the-facts exhibit exploring the science of global warming and climate change, its impact on the planet and what we can do.
This new exhibit is a follow-up to its outstanding 2010 exhibit on Charles Darwin. That attractive, comprehensive multi-room, multi-media exhibit covered the whole of Darwin's life and work on evolution and natural selection, including the historical context of the publication of his theories and our nation's ongoing sociopolitical debate on evolution.
This pair of engaging yet serious science exhibits signals a climate change of sorts for the St. Louis Science Center.
For many years, our Science Center seemed more a children's museum with a safely-sanitized science theme, rather than museum for anyone who loves science. There seemed to be little to interest adults and a kind of determination to avoid anything that could be remotely controversial or challenging - even that bedrock of biology, evolution.
Now the Science Center seems to be breaking free of this narrow restraint, with a new willingness to present science exhibits to engage both children and adults.
The new, free “Climate Change” exhibit, displayed in the Exploradome, focuses on the scientific facts. It is a handsome, interactive, multi-media exploration of the subject. The visually-dynamic displays illustrate the various points in an engaging and clear manner, offering accessible science information to both adults and kids.
http://thecurrent-online.com/opinions/climate-change-exibit-at-st-louis-science-center
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'Science Matters' column
by Cate Marquis
Congress’ failure to pass a market-based cap-and-trade solution to address climate change, a method that worked against acid rain, occurred despite: wide public support for taking action on climate, a Democratic president and majorities in Congress, Obama’s campaign promises, and even an environmental disaster caused by a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The results of this failure may be catastrophic for all of us, as it closes the door on the best chance to mitigate the worst of global warming and preserve a livable planet. Where does that leave us now?
While the rest of the world has accepted the facts of climate change and moved forward, our country remains mired in a political debate that continually questions well-established science. Caught in this paralyzing loop, backed by “old energy” companies, we are choosing to benefit oil and coal companies short-term at the expense of the rest of us long-term.
Global warming is underway already, so these late-date efforts were to soften its blow. Unlike health care and other social issues, nature only ever afforded us a limited window of opportunity to act on climate change. That window is closing now, so it will be up to the rest of the world, along with individuals and local governments here, to do want they can. Like a house afire, throwing a bucket of water on the problem four years from now is meaningless.
There is an additional cost to the U.S. in this failure. By choosing to stay with oil and coal, we will miss out on economic opportunities in the coming switch to renewable energy. Even China, a major coal-burning nation, is investing in green energy technology, due to economic opportunity. Yet, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman recently wrote in his New York Times column “American Goes Dark,” our nation is already in economic decline due to failure to build for the future.
(Read more at the Current by clicking on this link: http://thecurrent-online.com/opinions/no-cap-and-trade-may-close-door-on-addressing-climate/)
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by Cate Marquis
When it was first founded, science fans were thrilled with the idea of a St. Louis Science Center. Many hoped for a melding of Forest Park's Planetarium exhibits on space and physics and Chicago's excellent Museum of Natural History.
What we got was something else. Over time, the science center skewed younger and younger. Special exhibits have become less about science and more about entertainment, ranging from the Titanic to pirates.
While the Science Center does well with physics, with bits on perception, weather and geology, biology has always been a weaker point. The Science Center has plenty on dinosaurs but something has been missing: evolution.
Why would an institution called the science center ignore one of the central tenets of biology and its discoverer? A few years back, I posed this question to Science Center staff and was told that many parents visiting with children would express delight with the exhibits but then ask why there is no creationism exhibit. Clearly, some educational effort on the topic of evolution was needed.
Finally, the Science Center has directly addressed the issue. It was worth the wait.
The free multi-media, interactive “Darwin: A Reluctant Revolutionary” exhibit is, simply put, completely marvelous. Attractive, informative, engrossing and pleasingly complete without being overwhelming, the exhibit includes videos, skeletal and mounted specimens, samples of Darwin's writings and hands-on displays. It has something for every age and level of science knowledge.
What's more, the public response has been overwhelmingly positive, according to staff. In fact, the exhibit was packed on the week day afternoon it was visited.
The exhibit is visually appealing, using tasteful tones of brown and cream and delightful sepia-tone botanical and species prints as you enter. These give way to color, with family portraits, videos and multi-media displays. There are recreations of the landscapes found of Darwin's voyage on the Beagle and a replica of his study.
The exhibit strikes a balance in covering Darwin's life and his work, setting his landmark theories into the context of his time. It includes information on Darwin's personal life and his interesting family of wealthy innovators, doctors and manufacturers who were leading abolitionists, fighting against slavery. The concepts of evolution and natural selection are explained in a clear accessible manner without dumbing down the science, meaning the exhibit will appeal to both adults and children.
Read more by following this link to at the Current:
http://thecurrent-online.com/opinions/science-center-features-exhibit-on-darwin%E2%80%94finally/
Congress is working on legislation while at Copenhagen, the world leaders are working towards a new international treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol. But what will actually need to be done now to keep widespread climate change from growing out of control? What science do we have to address global climate change?
“Number one, we should be reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, that's the first thing” Dr. Patrick Osborne, executive director of University of Missouri-St. Louis' Whitney Harris World Ecology Center, said. “And (we) should be doing that by whatever means are technologically sustainable. Any new technology we bring in, we need to be certain its impact on the environment is small and it generally results in reduced greenhouse gas emissions.”
Osborne is one of the faculty participants in the University of Missouri-St. Louis' Climate Change course being taught this semester at the St. Louis Zoo. While climate change poses a threat to many species and whole ecosystems but it also will have wide-scale impact on humans, according to Osborne.
(to read more, go to The Current (www.thecurrentonline.com) or (www.thecurrent-online.com)
******************************************************************************************************Science reporting matters: If media misrepresents science, what price does society pay?
This Science Column is going to do something that always makes management nervous: speak truth to power.
This is about how the media in the country cover science.
Recently, there was a disturbing report on a mainstream news program. What was disturbing was not its content but that it was being reported on a prime-time news program, rather than circulated through blogs, email forwards and by right-leaning talk shows. Also unsettling was the lack of understanding of how science works displayed in the news report.
The report was about emails hacked into, by individuals who think global warming is a hoax, emails between scientists discussing some findings on global warming. The non-scientists who obtained the emails were circulating them as proof global warming is not really occurring but is a hoax by a vast scientific conspiracy.
But what the news report really showed was a profound lack of understanding about how science works, both on the part of the email hackers and those reporting the story.
Science is, perhaps, like sausage-making. Scientific facts do not leap cleanly and wholly formed out of the earth. Often scientists discuss among themselves the significance of raw data and what analysis is needed to discern the facts underlying that data. One of the things that scientists might discuss is whether to include anomalous results, occasional “outliers” that seem not to fit the rest of the data. Outliers might tell you something significant or they might be random noise that muddies an analysis.
These kinds of discussions take place all the time, not because scientists want to fudge the data but because they want data to accurately reflect what is really going on. Any scientist reading this email exchange would see it for what it is, ordinary back-and-forth discussion. But to the non-scientist, especially someone who believes scientists conduct their work in the same manner as business people or is prone to ascribe them evil motives, it is possible to misconstrue the discussion.
(to read more, go to The Current (www.thecurrentonline.com) or (www.thecurrent-online.com)
