Science

The Hope At The Heart Of The Apocalyptic Climate Change Report

October 22, 2018 Jason Hickel, Foreignpolicy.com Create! Climate Change, Science

When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a new special report last week, it came with both good news and bad. The good news is that the carbon budget for staying under 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming is larger than we thought, so we have a bit more time to act. The bad news is that the consequences of overshooting that threshold are very, very bad. The catastrophes that we once believed would be triggered by only 2 degrees of warming are likely to occur at this lower threshold, including widespread collapse of food yields and extreme levels of human displacement. The IPCC has issued a clear and trenchant call for action—its most urgent yet. It says we need to cut annual global emissions by half in the next 12 years and hit net zero by the middle of the century.

The Creator Of GMO Potatoes Reveals The Dangerous Truth – Exclusive Interview

October 11, 2018 Staff, Sustainablepulse.com Educate! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Science

It is amazing that the USDA and FDA approved the GM potatoes by only evaluating our own data. How can the regulatory agencies assume there is no bias? When I was at J.R. Simplot, I truly believed that my GM potatoes were perfect, just like a parent believes his or her children are perfect. I was biased and all genetic engineers are biased. It is not just an emotional bias. We need the GM crops to be approved. There is a tremendous amount of pressure to succeed, to justify our existence by developing modifications that create hundreds of millions of dollars in value. We test our GM crops to confirm their safety, not to question their safety.

Scientists Say Logging Forests Won’t Reduce Wildfire Risk

September 22, 2018 By Annette Mcgee Rasch, Mailtribune.com Create! Environment, Science, Wildfires

A group of environmental scientists have written a letter to Congress advising that efforts to control wildfires should focus on reducing fire hazards near communities, homes and roads and not on logging larger, fire-resistant trees deeper in the forest. More than 200 scientists with backgrounds in areas such as wildfire ecology and natural resource management recently sent the letter to Congress urging the removal of pro-logging amendments to the 2018 Farm Bill. “It’s hard for most policymakers to ignore science from so many experts when they explain why the logging provisions would harm forests and worsen wildfire conditions in the West while doing nothing to protect communities,” said Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist with Geos Institute, which focuses on climate change and other environmental issues.

Open Access Plan To Make Scientific Work Free To Read

September 9, 2018 Holly Else, Nature.com. Create! Information, Media, Open Source, Science

Research funders from France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and eight other European nations have unveiled a radical open-access initiative that could change the face of science publishing in two years — and which has instantly provoked protest from publishers. The 11 agencies, who together spend €7.6 billion (US$8.8 billion) in research grants annually, say they will mandate that, from 2020, the scientists they fund must make resulting papers free to read immediately on publication (see ‘Plan S players’).

The Information Explosion

May 18, 2018 John Scales Avery, Popular Resistance. Create! History, Information, Schools, Science

We need to reform our educational systems, particularly the teaching of history. As it is taught today, history is a chronicle of power struggles and war, told from a biased national standpoint. We are taught that our own country is always heroic and in the right. We urgently need to replace this indoctrination in chauvinism by a reformed view of history, where the slow development of human culture is described, giving credit to all who have contributed. When we teach history, it should not be about power struggles. It should be about how human culture was gradually built up over thousands of years by the patient work of millions of hands and minds.

Scientists Accidentally Develop ‘Mutant’ Enzyme That Eats Plastic

April 24, 2018 Lorraine Chow, Ecowatch.com Create! Plastic, pollution, Science

Researchers in the UK and the U.S. have inadvertently engineered an enzyme that eats up plastic. The enzyme is able to digest PET (polyethylene terephthalate)—the same material used in the ubiquitous plastic bottle that's clogging up landfills, coastlines and oceans around the world. Amazingly, this discovery only happened by chance. Scientists from the University of Portsmouth in the UK and the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) were examining the structure of a natural enzyme, Ideonella sakaiensis, found in 2016 at a Japanese waste recycling center. This enzyme could already break down PET plastic—it just doesn't do it very quickly. To understand how Ideonella sakaiensis evolved, the research team "tweaked" the structure of the enzyme by adding some amino acids, according to John McGeehan, a Portsmouth professor who co-led the work.

Meteorologists Have A New Strategy For Bringing Climate Change Down To Earth

March 24, 2018 By Jim O'Donnell, Grist.org Organize! Climate Change, Science

“Beer is mostly water, right?” the Springfield Missouri, reporter says. “One of our local breweries gets the water they use from a nearby lake. Well, because temperatures are going up there has been an algae bloom in the lake. It’s not a dangerous bloom — but it impacts the taste of the water and, of course, the beer.” Mother’s Brewing Company also buys produce like peaches and cucumbers from local farmers, Raffa says. Those fresh fruits and veggies give brews like the Sunshine Chugsuckle and the Uncanny their signature flavor. But between increasingly violent hail storms and early blooms on the peach trees that then get hit with late freezes, that produce is in trouble. Mother’s and other Missouri brewers may have to turn to imported, frozen products.

22 National Science Academies Urge Government Action On Climate Change

March 14, 2018 By Georgina Gustin, Insideclimatenews.org Create! Climate Change, Global Warming, Science

As some of the world's biggest polluters resist efforts to address climate change—most glaringly, the United States—thousands of scientists from countries that make up the Commonwealth of Nations say their governments need to take bolder steps to lower greenhouse gas emissions. On Monday, the national science academies of 22 Commonwealth countries, including from the UK, Canada, India and Australia, issued a "Consensus Statement on Climate Change," declaring that the "Commonwealth has the potential, and the responsibility, to help drive meaningful global efforts and outcomes that protect ourselves, our children and our planet." The statement comes one month before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London, where leaders intend to discuss sustainability and climate change.

20,000 Scientists Have Now Signed ‘Warning To Humanity’

March 12, 2018 Lorraine Chow, Ecowatch.com Educate! Climate Change, Science

A chilling research paper warning about the fate of humanity has received 4,500 additional signatures and endorsements from scientists since it was first released last year. The paper—"World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice"—was published in November 2017 in the journal Bioscience and quickly received the largest-ever formal support by scientists for a journal article with roughly 15,000 signatories from 184 countries. Today, the article has collected 20,000 expert endorsements and/or co-signatories, and more are encouraged to add their names. The "Warning" became one of the most widely discussed research papers in the world. It currently ranks 6th out of 9 million papers on the Altmetric scale, which tracks attention to research. It has also inspired pleas from political leaders from Israel to Canada.

Cracks In Wall Of Capitalism: Zapatistas And Struggle To Decolonize Science

March 2, 2018 David Meek, Towardfreedom.com Create! Capitalism, Decolonize, Mexico, Science, Zapatistas

Below images of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, and a many-headed hydra consuming humanity, sit two groups. To the right, facing a stage, are approximately 200 delegates of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), seated as a homogenous block. Wearing black ski masks, they furiously take notes. To the left, 300 scientists and observers from throughout the world are seated. With a tiny pink ribbon pinned to her mask, Julía, a Zapatista delegate from Oventic, Chiapas, takes the microphone: “The rivers are drying up. We know that the people before had a way of planting their crops, but now it doesn’t rain like it’s expected to. Now, there are epidemics that weren’t common before, like cancer and diabetes…” Julía is unequivocal about the linkages between science and capitalism in perpetuating this crisis.

Western Science Is Finally Catching Up To Traditional Knowledge

February 27, 2018 George Nicholas, Theconversation.com Educate! Knowledge, Science

Our knowledge of what the denizens of the animal kingdom are up to, especially when humans aren’t around, has steadily increased over the last 50 years. For example, we know now that animals use tools in their daily lives. Chimps use twigs to fish for termites; sea otters break open shellfish on rocks they selected; octopi carry coconut shell halves to later use as shelters. The latest discovery has taken this assessment to new heights, literally. A team of researchers led by Mark Bonta and Robert Gosford in northern Australia has documented kites and falcons, colloquially termed “firehawks,” intentionally carrying burning sticks to spread fire. While it has long been known that birds will take advantage of natural fires that cause insects, rodents and reptiles to flee and thus increase feeding opportunities, that they would intercede to spread fire to unburned locales is astounding.

Stress Test: Democracy Confronts Climate Change

January 3, 2018 By Gus Speth, Thenextsystem.org Educate! Climate Change, Democracy, Global Warming, Science

Many climate scientists and others have reached the conclusion that, because we have dithered so long, we now face the prospect of either extreme rates of emission reduction or extreme impacts from global warming and ocean acidification. I fear that we could experience both of these great disruptions, despite all the technological progress now underway and despite the climate action commitments we see outside of Washington. Major climate impacts are now inevitable. Global temperature has already increased by 1˚C, with huge consequences. Another 0.5˚C is essentially baked in. I think we will easily exceed 2˚C global average warming in this century, and quite possibly more.

Why Physicists Don’t Rule The World

December 29, 2017 Stan Sorscher, Huffingtonpost.com Strategize! Science

I was a physicist for 30 years. My brain still works that way. In a post-factual world, scientists are at a distinct disadvantage. That may explain why very few physicists hold positions of authority. A few years ago, I had a moment of insight in Los Angeles, after watching eight powerful videos at a labor conference. One video documented the joy of accomplishment for dancers negotiating their first contract. Another video shared an unforgettably poignant moment for family members on opposite sides of the border wall between the US and Mexico. A third video connected workers around the world who would lose social, political and economic power through our misguided approach to globalization. In the videos, we experience the dignity of work and the power of solidarity.

Proposed State-Run STEM School Raises Questions, Suspicions

October 17, 2017 Bill Raden, www.capitalandmain.com Educate! California, Education, Schools, Science

By Bill Raden for Capital and Main - A hastily revised bill introduced in Sacramento last month is attempting to address the state’s STEM crisis by adding a single new privatized state STEM school to California’s already contentious K-12 landscape. The plan to create an 800-student “State School for Instruction in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)” that would serve grades six through 12, and be located somewhere within Los Angeles County, has met heated resistance from public school advocates. Part of their concern lies in just how much the proposed new breed of state STEM schools resembles charter schools, which are privately managed but taxpayer-funded. School districts have long contended that charters siphon off their higher achieving students while leaving the districts with less money to teach a larger percentage of far-needier kids. Authored by Assemblymember Raul Bocanegra (D-San Fernando), Assembly Bill 1217 stipulates that the new STEM school would operate similarly. It would be managed by a private non-profit corporation and get its funding from the same combination of private philanthropy and the state ADA (average daily attendance) money that would follow its 800 students, probably from Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

Climate Change Brings Socialism And Science Together

September 27, 2017 Eve Ottenberg, www.truth-out.org Strategize! Climate Change, Science, Socialism

By Eve Ottenberg for Truthout - Thanks to climate change, science and socialism have become entwined in ways previously unimaginable. Science brings the news that, unless we act swiftly to control climate change, we will inhabit a dying planet. Socialism traces the causes of this catastrophe to the destructive and chaotic growth model of capitalism and advocates for a different system. Meanwhile, sensing the source of danger to their profits, corporate and government reactionaries fuel disinformation campaigns to discredit science and confuse the public. This has been going on for years, with disastrous results. Ian Angus' new book, A Redder Shade of Green, (red for socialist revolution, green for ecological revolution) is about the prospect of ecosocialism in the face of capitalist ecocide. Angus has written previously about the "Anthropocene," a name for our era that emphasizes the centrality of human-influenced climate change. He does not accuse humanity as a whole of environmental destruction, but only a small sliver of humanity -- the capitalist class, which has left a gigantic, planet-sized carbon footprint. Angus repeatedly stresses that billions of people have a negligible impact on climate change and that the overpopulation argument -- which blames humanity as a whole for climate change -- has been used to distract and undermine an effective, ecosocialist movement. The US military has a hugely destructive impact on the environment.

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