Year 3, Month 9, Day 15: Take That! And That! And That!

The Lawrence Journal-World (KS) discusses the role of science in campaigning and governance:

This fall, President Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney will have a series of debates covering domestic and foreign affairs. The first debate should be about Science, with a capital S. Why? Because Science affects every aspect of society, underpinning smart policy governing energy, food production, human health, national security, economic growth, environmental fitness, natural resources and the quality of life.

How well versed or advised are our candidates in the science of climate? Water? Biofuels? Biomedicine? Is the science they cite credible or quack? Face it: Political expediency never lets the scientific facts get in the way, opting for soothing delusions over tough, responsible policy implications.

Let’s begin with two questions.

Climate Change. As The Economist magazine declared recently, we have entered the Anthropocene Era, in which humans are the greatest agents of change on a planetary scale. Global warming, much of it human-induced, is playing with the life-support systems of the planet. If unchecked, potentially we face: devastation of our oceans, protein resources, fresh water and agro-production; virulent diseases run amok; disruption of ecosystems that clean our air, water and soil; extinction of half or more of Earth’s plants and animals; and sea-level rise and inundation of coastal cities. Yet, during the Republican primaries, all but one of the candidates proudly ridiculed climate change and the science behind it.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Sent September 8:

Even taking into account their long history of scorn for expertise, the Republican party’s eagerness to deny the essentiality of science and mathematics in formulating public policy is a spectacular celebration of ignorance. While their spokespersons proudly oppose “cultural relativism,” the GOP’s tenuous and tortured relationship with the verifiable reality of climate change suggests that they are the party of factual relativism, where ideologically inconvenient truths are twisted when they’re not ignored outright.

How else to describe it when, confronting rising sea levels, North Carolina legislators outlaw accurate measurement and analysis, Virginia lawmakers simply ban the phrase, and Mitt Romney, on stage in Tampa, turns it into a laugh line? While television news often distorts the facts to further a preconceived narrative, the real world is not so malleable. Any politician who treats the laws of chemistry and physics as annoyances to be mocked or dismissed is inherently unworthy of the public trust.

Warren Senders