Culture & Ethics
White House scientific integrity guidelines — a long wait for not much
Early on in the Obama administration, promoting scientific integrity in government decisionmaking seemed to be a high priority. Less than 2 months after his inauguration, the President issued a memorandum giving the Office of Science and Technology Policy 4 months to “develop recommendations for Presidential action designed to guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch.” …
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CONTINUE READINGOceans: the biggest loser from our international failure to address greenhouse gas emissions?
In this op-ed from Monday’s Los Angeles Times, UC San Diego scientists Tony Haymet and Andrew Dickson succinctly and directly summarizes the threat that ocean acidification poses to our world, and plead for reductions in carbon emissions. (My colleagues have blogged about ocean acidification before, here and here among other places.) Unfortunately, as my …
CONTINUE READINGGMOs and German Constitutional Law
The German Constitutional Court has issued an opinion upholding severe restrictions on the use of genetically modified plants. Science reports: “With the possibility to deliberately make changes in the genome, genetic engineering influences the elementary structures of life,” the court wrote. “The consequences of such interventions can be, if any, difficult to undo.” The court …
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CONTINUE READINGBottles and cans, bisphenol-A, and chemical regulation
The online magazine Yale Environment 360 has published an informative and rather frightening interview with Frederick vom Saal, a biologist at the University of Missouri’s Endocrine Disruptors Group, about bisphenol-A and what he sees as a completely broken regulatory system for managing hazards from chemicals. Elizabeth Kolbert, known recently for her stellar journalism in the New …
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CONTINUE READINGOur strawberries’ safety: will California approve methyl iodide this year?
As Margot Roosevelt reports in the Los Angeles Times, California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation has signaled that it will make a decision before Governor Schwarzenegger leaves office about whether to approve the use of methyl iodide as a strawberry fumigant. Farmworker advocacy groups and environmental advocates fear the pesticide will be approved, and are planning …
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CONTINUE READINGBlack Friday Reflections on Happiness, Consumption, and Sustainability
As discussed in a fascinating new book by Derek Bok, psychologists have been busily researching a new set of issues relating to happiness. As a result of this research, psychologists are beginning to develop a deeper understanding of the factors that control well-being. Well-being is a multi-dimensional concept that includes objective factors such as health, …
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CONTINUE READINGCommunity Planning: What Do People Want?
Gallup has published an interesting poll about the qualities that people value in communities. They conducted a poll to find out what made people feel attached to their communities. The top three on the list are: Social offerings are the top driver of attachment in 2010. . . . This includes the availability of arts …
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CONTINUE READINGMeltwater gourmet — just perfect
This isn’t quite law and policy, but some stories capture an era perfectly and I can’t resist. This one strikes me today: A guy from Newfoundland, who lost his former livelihood as a seafood broker when the cod fishery collapsed, now turns to selling melted iceberg water. He bottles it in glass, ships it around the …
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CONTINUE READINGWhose Nature? God, the GOP, and Everyone Else
Some Americans say they don’t believe in climate change because they believe in God – or, more exactly, because of what they believe about God. A few weeks ago, the New York Times quoted some Indiana Tea Party activists who explained that, because the world was created for human use and benefit, using its mineral …
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CONTINUE READINGMelting the Ice (But Not in a Fun, Life-of-the Party Way)
The Ny Times has a lengthy article about glacial melting and sea level rise, with bad news: But researchers have recently been startled to see big changes unfold in both Greenland and Antarctica. As a result of recent calculations that take the changes into account, many scientists now say that sea level is likely to …
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