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Jorroh
climber
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Also worth pointing out that to get caught falsifying data is often the end of a scientists career (not neoliberal economists of course).
Climate change denying think-tank blowhards....not so much (or more correctly a prerequisite for the job).
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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so TGT2, you must have a list of engineers who have killed people...
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Okay Ed, how about this: Say I'm a department head fir DOE and I put out a grant for design of a small scale accelerator using existing off the shelf parts from the bone yard. Are you going to submit a proposal for CERN or the Scroungatron?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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they didn't ask for the Scrounge-a-tron, we invented it as cost effective way to solve another problem...
it was the end-product of a series of studies and cost trade-offs. But it isn't the same thing as climate science... the USG has invested in weather (and climate) research for a very long time, predicting both the weather and the climate is something of interest to the USG for obvious reasons.
Interestingly, to predict the climate, it turns out you have to take into account the human activities that put CO2 into the atmosphere... this is the result of the program of predictive climate science.
Climate change funding is a very recent occurrence when compared to the decades of funding the weather and climate science programs across the USG.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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So, Malmute et al.:
If you are so worried about climate change, are YOU going to stop driving? Stop flying? After all, we aren't about to change what the Chinese do. The Canadians seem to love their oil shale. I can't change Canadian or Chinese politics. We can all, however, take direct, individual action: Stop driving. Are you willing to take the pledge? I'm not.
BAd
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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To nuclear energy and Teslas?
I like it.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Dec 10, 2016 - 08:05am PT
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Well, it looks like the witch hunt is starting:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/politics/climate-change-energy-department-donald-trump-transition.html
Perhaps not, but it's hard to understand a different motive than to scourge the Energy Dept. of individuals informed about climate change. Probably like much of his business, Trump appears to be outsourcing the presidency to corporate interests. He has also named an Exxon Mobile chief as a primary candidate for Secretary of State. That, and the nomination of Pruitt to head the EPA, Trump seems very beholden to the energy industry. Does not bode well for positive action to address climate change, or even alterate energy.
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Curt
climber
Gold Canyon, AZ
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Dec 10, 2016 - 09:23am PT
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To nuclear energy and Teslas?
I like it.
When the country reemerges from the Trump dark ages and once again becomes interested in global warming, nuclear energy will almost surely be part of the energy mix.
Curt
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Dec 10, 2016 - 09:25am PT
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We humans are lazy and stupid...How many people do you know who chain smoke , can't finish a sentence without hacking up flem , and laugh off warnings about cigarettes being bad for your health....? Climate change to most people is this invisible boogeyman that has no bearing on their quality of life or ability to earn a living... Expecting people to buy into climate change is futile especially when you have the oil industry telling lazy car owners what they want to hear...it's the same scenario as the tobacco companies lying to the FDA and saying smoking doesn't cause cancer...If you live in the mountains you can tell something is up with the weather patterns...If you live in a city , more traffic gridlock and warmer days at the beach are the new norm...Nothing to worry about..
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Dec 10, 2016 - 11:26am PT
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Cost effective. That's great Ed, you don't often associate cost effectiveness with government agencies. Talking of agencies; are you employed by DOE and if so did you get the questionnaire circulated there by the incoming administration? p.s. I thought I remembered you mentioning that you are a contractor and not a direct employeee.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Dec 10, 2016 - 01:20pm PT
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As a software modeler, here's my take on the situation using a simple flow chart.
Note the big decisions are
1. Is the climate getting warmer, and
2. Is it a bad thing? (a nod to MadBolter1)
3. Is CO2 responsible?
Highlights of the flowchart
If you select "Yes" to the first and second decisions, then do nothing is not an appropriate response, period.
If you select "Yes" to the third, then it is logical to assume the possibility that limiting the flux of human-caused carbon into the atmosphere and/or sequestering atmospheric carbon via engineering methods are potential mitigative measures that are worth exploring.
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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Dec 10, 2016 - 09:59pm PT
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>If you have been travelling up the Icefields Parkway at all, you can see how the glacier has receded over the years, just in our lifetime.
Reminds me of the MCR post from this summer with a photo of Skyladder on Andromeda in the Icefields, "which is now mostly dirt".
https://mountainconditions.com/reports/mt-athabasca-0
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 10, 2016 - 11:19pm PT
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Cost effective. That's great Ed, you don't often associate cost effectiveness with government agencies.
well rick, if you don't actually know about government agencies you wouldn't know if they were cost effective or not, would you?
I presume you also know that the research that the DOE is engaged in is not something that you can decide is cost effective or not, the whole idea of the research is that you don't know the answer before you start... that includes build research facilities that are cutting edge, so much so that no one has every built anything like them before...
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Dec 11, 2016 - 07:30am PT
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Cost effectiveness is such a dicey thing.
EMS systems in research are very questionable, as to whether they accomplish much, in terms of saving lives. Many studies have demonstrated that "lights and siren" as they are used in EMS ambulances have little, if any, change in outcomes.
And yet, no one would think of abandoning this, to save money.
(you're safe, YOSAR)
But the topic of Climate Change is not the inconvenience of more expensive hamburgers, or the death of a rare person who has a heart attack. The consequences are a massive change in how the entire human race interacts with the planet.
Carbon pollution of the atmosphere clearly is happening, it is happening because of human activities, and it is getting worse. Irrespective of any other involved issues, increasing CO2 in increasing the problem. Also clearly, this is within our power to alter. Already people are having to relocate due to seawater rise.
Unchecked, it will effect billions, those who live along coasts, which is much of humanity.
Why is it not in the interests of everyone to alter the curve through re-imagining our power sources? Losing coal as a fuel source, for example, has only the downside of those loss of jobs. The coal doesn't disappear. Undoubtedly, technology will reveal to us other ways to utilize coal in a truely "clean" way, with time. We have no need to burn it NOW.
On the other hand, cleaner, or in the potential of the newest types of nuclear, actual "clean", will create an entire industrial base, with a massive number of good jobs.
It seems to me that impeding this progress is simply a cry out for the virtues of buggy whips, and with no horses to whip, we whip each other.
<sigh>
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c wilmot
climber
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Dec 11, 2016 - 07:35am PT
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Let them work in nuclear power plants....
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Dec 11, 2016 - 07:36am PT
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Ed, you are so right about research and cost-effectiveness (like I'm telling you?)
I'm engaged in a water fight in the City of Los Angeles, and one of the fights is over cost-effectiveness. I'm all for that, when we get to established engineering.
However, there is a lot of new, untested technology....and even poorly studies old technology--some of it Roman(!).
I've had to do battle over the issue of pilot projects, things that you have to try, to see what the issue might be, and to really find out the costs. Small scale.
If we don't do that sort of thing, which might be relatively expensive, we might miss decades of advances, because we committed on a large scale to something else.
I appreciate that you work on a different scale, and towards different goals, but the thinking process revolves around the same things.
No rational person wants to waste money (unless as fraud or personal enrichment).
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 11, 2016 - 10:59am PT
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learning something, even if it is that a particular approach won't work, is not loosing money, it is gaining knowledge.
the only failed research is that for which nothing is learned at all.
The national laboratories are an incredible resource for the country, they engage in a huge variety of research the utility of which may not be apparent from the outset, and whose execution may require invention, that is to say, we don't know how to do something before we try to do it.
As one can read in Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945 by Lillian Hoddeson, Paul W. Henriksen, Roger A. Meade, Catherine L. Westfall, the highest profile science project in recent history, the technical path to achieving its goal was not at all evident when it was started. In current dollars, the cost of the project was $26 billion, of which 90% was used to create infrastructure, and 10% on the actual production.
The point being that, at that time, it was deemed essential to produce the atomic bomb for the defense of the country. How you calculate the "cost efficiency" is a mystery to me.
The Manhattan Project is only one example, and the best known one, of how science was used in WWII. Radar was another technical development, as well as a number of other, less dramatic, contributions (e.g. how to mass produce penicillin).
The Trinity test happened on July 16, 1945, the successful demonstration of the atomic bomb. On July 25, 1945, Vannevar Bush wrote a reply to a request from F.D. Roosevelt in which he asked four questions... two of which:
Third: What can the Government do now and in the future to aid research activities by public and private organizations? The proper roles of public and of private research, and their interrelation, should be carefully considered.
Fourth: Can an effective program be proposed for discovering and developing scientific talent in American youth so that the continuing future of scientific research in this country may be assured on a level comparable to what has been done during the war?
The answers to these questions was contained in Bush's reply entitled Science - The Endless Frontier
http://www.nsf.gov/about/history/vbush1945.htm
which stated answered these questions and argued for the creation of federal government support for research.
One of our hopes is that after the war there will be full employment. To reach that goal the full creative and productive energies of the American people must be released. To create more jobs we must make new and better and cheaper products. We want plenty of new, vigorous enterprises. But new products and processes are not born full-grown. They are founded on new principles and new conceptions which in turn result from basic scientific research. Basic scientific research is scientific capital. Moreover, we cannot any longer depend upon Europe as a major source of this scientific capital. Clearly, more and better scientific research is one essential to the achievement of our goal of full employment.
The idea of "scientific capital" is important, and the idea that V. Bush was getting across was that if science had to be employed in future conflicts, the time necessary the "capital" may be too long, thus we have to "bank" it... and since we didn't know what science would be necessary, we had to fund all science.
Basic research is a long-term process - it ceases to be basic if immediate results are expected on short-term support.
The Importance of Basic Research
Basic research is performed without thought of practical ends. It results in general knowledge and an understanding of nature and its laws. This general knowledge provides the means of answering a large number of important practical problems, though it may not give a complete specific answer to any one of them. The function of applied research is to provide such complete answers. The scientist doing basic research may not be at all interested in the practical applications of his work, yet the further progress of industrial development would eventually stagnate if basic scientific research were long neglected.
One of the peculiarities of basic science is the variety of paths which lead to productive advance. Many of the most important discoveries have come as a result of experiments undertaken with very different purposes in mind. Statistically it is certain that important and highly useful discoveries will result from some fraction of the undertakings in basic science; but the results of any one particular investigation cannot be predicted with accuracy.
Basic research leads to new knowledge. It provides scientific capital. It creates the fund from which the practical applications of knowledge must be drawn. New products and new processes do not appear full-grown. They are founded on new principles and new conceptions, which in turn are painstakingly developed by research in the purest realms of science.
Today, it is truer than ever that basic research is the pacemaker of technological progress. In the nineteenth century, Yankee mechanical ingenuity, building largely upon the basic discoveries of European scientists, could greatly advance the technical arts. Now the situation is different.
A nation which depends upon others for its new basic scientific knowledge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak in its competitive position in world trade, regardless of its mechanical skill.
As is implied by the highlighted section, basic research is not "cost effective" if viewed on a project-by-project basis... but viewing it as an investment where the results are banked and the possibility of return deferred into the future, at which time the dividends are "paid."
While this seems like a, by now, old idea, the advocacy for basic research was radical in its time. The national character of the US was deemed by an early observer to be quite at odds with the idea of "basic research."
de Tocqueville wrote in his 1835 work De La Démocratie en Amérique in Chapter 10:
"Why The Americans Are More Addicted To Practical Than To Theoretical Science" his observation that
In America the purely practical part of science is admirably understood, and careful attention is paid to the theoretical portion which is immediately requisite to application. On this head the Americans always display a clear, free, original, and inventive power of mind. But hardly anyone in the United States devotes himself to the essentially theoretical and abstract portion of human knowledge.
he goes on to note:
Nothing is more necessary to the culture of the higher sciences, or of the more elevated departments of science, than meditation; and nothing is less suited to meditation than the structure of democratic society.
It is interesting that this captures the debate regarding "cost effectiveness," which in the end is the desire to show how basic scientific research contributes directly to "the bottom line." And note that this is in 1835, based on 4 years of observation.
In most cases, it doesn't.
However, that basic research is essential to "the bottom line" however you define it.
The debate is important, and is ongoing, and has been a part of the national dialog since its beginning.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Dec 11, 2016 - 11:12am PT
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What's to know Ed. Baseline budgeting says all one needs to know. From a business perspective this practice is unsustainable. As your Scroungeatron demonstrates you are of a different mindset, probably of a conservationist bent. That's admirable. What's not admirable is supporting the alarmist meme of imminent disaster after disaster when your own expert opinion is mankind's contribution is feeble compared to the range of natural variation.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Dec 11, 2016 - 11:18am PT
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Rick...How do you measure natural variation...?
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Dec 11, 2016 - 11:21am PT
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Dec 9, 2016 - 07:01pm PT
except that's not how it happened, rick...
it started out looking at weather and climate and trying to make sense of what was being observed...
the result of that study was the conclusion that human activity was changing the climate.
That's what explains the observations.
sure thing Ed.,.,
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