By way of contrast, George W. Bush appointed two men to serve as Energy Secretary – the first, Spencer Abraham, is a conservative activist lawyer with no scientific education worth mentioning.  The second, Samuel Bodman, held a degree in chemical engineering but spent the majority of his professional life working in venture capital, and for several years was the COO of Fidelity Venture Associates.  With all due respect to these two men, neither was fit to serve as the head of the Department of Energy.

Steven Chu lives for energy as a physicist.  His life’s work is the study of matter and its motion through spacetime – energy - through a general analysis of nature.  He spends his days pondering the simplest of things in order to arrive at the most profound conclusions.

Like Newton’s legendary eureka-moment with the falling apple, for some odd reason it often takes a learned genius to realize the most basic truths, that after the fact seem so obvious it’s amazing no one realized it sooner – what goes up must come down, every action has an equal and opposite reaction… or, white paint can save our climate.

Last week at the St James’s Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium, Dr. Chu presented a solution so simple and so elegant, it’s nearly impossible to find it credible; paint the world white to stop global warming.  According to Chu, lightening the color of all the world’s roads, paved surfaces and roofs would be the equivalent of taking every single car off the road for 11 years.

(The Times of London has more here, but note the author incorrectly states this would “cut carbon emissions by as much as taking all the world’s cars off” – this is a matter of reflection, not emission – shame on you, Mark Henderson, ‘Science Editor’)

Obviously this is not a panacea for climate change, as there are household heating and cooling issues that come into play, and our environmental concerns go far beyond absorption and retention of solar heat – but it should serve to illustrate a few key points:

• Leave science to the scientists – educated, intelligent, non-dogmatic, curious explorers, and not to businessmen, ideologues and politicians.
• The simplest solution is often the best – elaborate government regulations have often caused more problems, pollution and wasted energy than they have alleviated, particularly because they didn’t leave science to the scientists.
  
• Government regulations should be as non-intrusive and low-impact as possible – global efforts to ban the use of CFCs in order to preserve the ozone layer had an unintended side-effect of increasing deaths from starvation in the developing world, where it was used a cheap refrigerant.  We have to keep the big picture in mind.
  
• Humanity is unendingly resourceful – which is terribly convenient, because we are also unendingly greedy and expedient.  But if we simply make a concerted effort to find simple, painless, effective methods of improving our environmental situation (something everyone wants), there is no need to result to either the zealous religiosity of the cult of Global Warming, or the arrogant denials of the “everything is just fine” know-nothings.
  

Kudos to Dr. Steven Chu for another in a string of world-changing ideas, and kudos to Mr. Obama for the wise appointment.

It’s worth nothing that the strain making all the headlines isn’t properly called swine flu, but is in fact a “reassortment” of human and swine flu strains designated H1N1.  These types of reassortant and recombinant strains of flu virus are an increased risk with “confined animal feeding operations,” or CAFOs, which most people know as “factory farms.”

Last year, the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production published a report on CAFOs which contains this little gem:

The continual cycling of swine influenza viruses and other animal pathogens in large herds or flocks provides increased opportunity for the generation of novel viruses through mutation or recombinant events that could result in more efficient human-to-human transmission of these viruses. In addition, agricultural workers serve as a bridging population between their communities and the animals in large confinement facilities. This bridging increases the risk of novel virus generation in that human viruses may enter the herds or flocks and adapt to the animals.

Reassortant influenza viruses with human components have ravaged the modern swine industry. Such novel viruses not only put the workers and animals at risk of infections, but also potentially increase zoonotic disease transmission risk to the communities where the workers live. For instance, 64% of 63 persons exposed to humans infected with H7N7 avian influenza virus had serological evidence of H7N7 infection following the 2003 Netherlands avian influenza outbreak in poultry. Similarly, the spouses of swine workers who had no direct contact with pigs had increased odds of antibodies against swine influenza virus. Recent modeling work has shown that among communities where a large number of CAFO workers live, there is great potential for these workers to accelerate pandemic influenza virus transmission.

Pew Commission researchers met with counterparts from the University of Iowa where were studying avian flu, and their discussions created a concern about a nightmare scenario of an avian-swine-human superflu that could be a repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic, believed by some to be an avian-swine flu spread worldwide by farm workers traveling to WWI training camps.

Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said on Monday that they have identified what they believe was the earliest known case of this current outbreak.  The 4-year-old boy was from the village of La Gloria, Veracruz – not far from the Granjas Carroll de Mexico plant, co-owned by Smithfield Foods.  The local community had been protesting pollution at the plant when the child contracted the virus.  Local citizens believe they were being made sick by air and water contamination from pig waste, following widespread outbreak of a “particularly powerful respiratory disease” in early April, according to the Associated Press.

The Mexican government is currently testing hogs from Smithfield’s farms throughout Mexico, and Smithfield and Granjas Carroll have agreed to adopt government recommendations to “begin reinforcing its biosecurity measures to prevent workers and animals from being infected,” according to Mexican newspaper Reforma - which is also reporting that people in La Gloria have been threatened, harassed and even arrested for demonstrating against the huge company.

David Kirby at Huffington Post has more, here and here.

Unfortunately, these are not even close to new issues.  We’ve been having these discussions about pollution and dwindling oil supplies for decades now, but it’s been all talk and no walk.  Nate Silver recently showed how General Motors has been on the decline for the last 50 years.  We will never know how differently things would have gone, had they not been ignoring alternative technologies that have been around for over 30 years – check out Jack Nicholson driving his solar/hydrogen-powered car in 1978.

The U.S. auto-highway-oil industrial complex has long resisted new technologies.  Despite the success of the electric cars GM made in the early 90’s, they quickly pulled the plug on the project and somehow still got beat out by Honda and Toyota in the hybrid-car revolution.

Through fear of going bankrupt, government pressure, or both – GM is at least apparently trying now.   The PUMA, a joint project between GM and Segway, was unveiled today.  It’s ugly as hell, but if they can produce these at an affordable price they may be onto something.  Don’t get me wrong, nothing beats haulin’ some ass in a cherry red V8 convertible on the open road – but one of these for cruising around town on the day-to-day grind would be pretty handy.

The grassroots geeks haven’t been waiting for the auto industry to get its priorities straight.  There’s a growing movement of electric car conversion, and free plans are widely available on the internet for creating electric motorcycles for just a few thousand dollars in parts.  The open source model has been adopted by the OScar Project, making the car’s plans openly available for personal use and improvement by a limitless community of volunteers.

I would love to see these kinds of projects come together, and I’m optimistic that the new inkjet-printable solar cell technology will allow a vehicle like this to run without plugging in for much greater distances and periods of time when the sun is out.

The next big thing in transportation will likely come out of the mind and workshop of someone whose name we don’t know yet.  Seeing some new independent car companies stepping up and picking up the slack of the failing Big 3 would be a great thing, especially in terms of creating green jobs for the layed-off auto workers.

The only question is, will the hulking beast we call the automobile industry adopt these ideas and create vehicles for the 21st century – or will they continue to try to squash new technologies and attempt to maintain an unsustainable status quo?

It’s tempting to believe that the president has been consistently giving short “no” answers every time this question comes up simply because it is a political minefield to tread across.  For a first term president, openly seeking to reverse a drug policy that has been virtually unchanged in over 70 years is a risky move.  He seems to be a man who understands that lasting changes take patience and hard work to accomplish.

As noted recently, Obama’s approach to the war on drugs is appearing to show signs of a gentle path towards decriminalization or at least tolerance of marijuana.  The nomination of Gil Kerlikowske as “drug czar,” and Eric Holder’s statements about allowing states to determine medicial marijuana policy seem to be moves in the right direction, while not expressly advocating legalization.

Unfortunately, it is unclear which marijuana policy we will actually get; the one where individual states are allowed to set their own drug policies that has spurred movements in California and Oregon, or the one where the president glibly belittles the online audience – whose interaction he encouraged – for believing this is an important issue that needs a more nuanced discussion in Washington than “just say no.”

In spite of Attorney General Holder’s recent statements, DEA agents raided a licensed medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco this week, confusing those of us who have been watching this story with some modicum of hope.  It remains to be seen how much the federal approach to marijuana will actually change.

With over 20 million arrests for marijuana in the last 45 years, and an estimated $77 billion in lost taxes and wasted spending every year on an endless “war,” the time has come to have some serious debate and find a reasonable middle ground on this issue.

Arizona’s attorney general is talking potential legalization, and living in a border state he recognizes that this is not just an American problem.  He says that over 75% of the money that Mexican drug cartels take in comes from marijuana, most of that from the United States.  Secretary of State Clinton acknowledged U.S. complicity in the recent violence in Mexico this week, citing our “insatiable demand” for illegal drugs.  Yet in the face of all of this, President Obama laughs at the idea of eliminating the major source of funding for these criminal organizations.

“Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.”
-President George Washington, on cannabis

“Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.”
-President Thomas Jefferson, on cannabis

“When I was a kid I inhaled frequently. That was the point.”
-President Barack Obama, on cannabis

“I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”
-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, on public political pressure

CNN is reporting that NORML’s fundraising has quadrupled in the 24 hours following the president’s dismissive response.  If there’s ever going to be a serious debate, much less a change in policy, it will only come as a result of We, The People making them do it.

A massive undersea volcano spewed thousands of feet into the air, creating a new island off the coast of Tonga in the Pacific “ring of fire,”  and leaving “no living thing left” on another tiny nearby island, via its two vents.

Here in the U.S., the Alaska Volcano Observatory and U.S. Geological Survey increased the threat level of the Mt. Redoubt volcano to orange, indicating “heightened or escalating unrest with increased potential of eruption,” and threatening to be a repeat of the sort of natural disaster suffered by Americans in the Pacific Northwest when Mt. St. Helens blew in 1980.  That eruption cost 57 lives (including a geologist who was monitoring the mountain) and an estimated $2.74 billion.

According to John Eichelberger, program coordinator for the USGS’s Volcano Hazards Program, effective monitoring of Mt. Redoubt’s escalating threat level has been difficult due to a lack of funds for a GPS network.

Unfortunately, Redoubt is not the exception to the rule.  Of the 65 historically active volcanoes in the United States, 18 are considered a “very high threat” with another 18 a “high threat” as ranked by the Geological Survey.  A 2005 report found that approximately 60% of these high- and very high-threat volcanoes do not have real-time ground-based monitoring.

Louisiana Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal criticized President Obama’s stimulus package last month over “$140 million for something called ‘volcano monitoring,’” ignoring (or ignorant) of the very real threat posed to millions of Americans living in the shadow of some of these active volcanoes.

After the billions of dollars and dozens of lives lost in 1980, this seems a trifle to pay for increasing our ability to predict such cataclysmic events.  However, and perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise given Jindal’s record, he was either ignorant or deceptive with his numbers – only about $15 million of the $140 million earmarked to the USGS would be spent on volcanic monitoring projects.  Much of the rest of the money would go towards monitoring of earthquakes, floods, landslides, tsunamis, wildfires and hurricanes – yes, Mr. Jindal, hurricanes in your state – and gathering scientific data to reduce the cost of natural disasters.

More at The Week Magazine, including details on the “overdue” volcano at Yellowstone that punched a hole the size of Connecticut in the Earth’s crust and threw ash as far as Louisiana the last time it erupted.

This can’t really be called a “new baby boom” by anyone besides hyperbolic headline writers seeking your attention.  While it’s a new high, numbers have been slowly rising for decades, nothing like the massive spike of the post-WWII era, and we’ve been barely hanging on to a roughly 1% per year rate of population increase.

This tiny margin of growth makes the U.S. the world’s fastest growing industrialized country, but the upward trend is not expected to last.  Birth rates crashed during the Great Depression, and many believe the recent economic downturn will negatively impact American birth rates in the years to come.

We’re a long way from needing to worry about the kind of catastrophic population decrease that Russia is currently experiencing, with an expected 22% drop in population over the next 45 years, and the idea that we need to dramatically increase our birth rate is really only espoused by religious zealots and people with thinly-veiled xenophobia.

While developed nations fret over the possibility of more and more retirees demanding benefits and over-taxing a shrinking workforce, the developing world faces a population explosion. Unfortunately those who might have the most ability to reverse this trend choose to ignore the problem.  This week the Pope visited Africa, and regardless of some of the world’s highest birth rates (not to mention HIV infection rates), the Vatican still condemns the use of condoms and insists Catholics should go forth and multiply.  The African continent’s population is expected to double to nearly 2 billion by the year 2050.

China has the world’s largest population at 1.3 billion, and the government has established a strict 1 child per couple policy in order to fight overpopulation.  Even with one of the lowest population growth rates in the developing world (.006% per year) as a result of these harsh measures, the population is expected to continue growing for another 25 years before peaking at 1.5 billion.

200 years ago, there were 1 billion people alive on the surface of the planet, today there are over 6.75 billion, and by 2050 the global population will be around 9 billion according to most estimates.

I’d hate to be perceived as a doomsayer, but inevitably at this rate we will eventually reach the carrying capacity of the Earth.  With growing concerns of climate change as a result of human activity and scarcity of resources, it’s hard to believe we aren’t getting very close to that limit.  The present system simply cannot handle a substantial portion of the developing world demanding the consumption rate or quality of life that Americans currently enjoy.

What are we to do?  Americans refuse to apologize for our quality of life, and we’re generally loathe to reduce our consumption or change our habits.  Lowering birthrates admittedly creates economic concerns, and obviously draconian and inhumane methods of population control/reduction are strictly off the table.

Certainly, investing in family planning education and distribution of birth control in the 3rd world will do wonders, but it’s still only a band-aid.  Perhaps, barring the invention of free or nearly-free energy, the only option available to us now is to finally get serious about space exploration and colonization.

The one thing we undoubtedly cannot afford is to continue business as usual.

President Richard Nixon announced the “War on Drugs” in 1969, coining a phrase likely inspired by LBJ’s “War on Poverty,”  and we’ve been locked in a bloody and expensive fight ever since.  Leaving aside the insane notion of declaring war on everything we intend to eliminate for another article (soon the pacifists will declare the War on War), it’s hard to see the benefits of criminalization of an arbitrary set of untaxed, non-patented  psychoactive substances.

To those who had eyes to see, the benefits of prohibition were a myth even in 1969 when the long and unsuccessful crusade earned it’s fancy new moniker courtesy of Nixon.  We just passed the 100 year anniversary of the formation of the International Opium Commission, which made the recommendations that eventually led to global prohibition of opium in 1929 via the Treaty of Versailles.  International bans on cannabis and cocaine quickly followed.

Since then, as the attempts to stop or even reduce production and consumption of illegal drugs have faltered and failed, the U.N. has picked up the cause.  Over 10 years ago, the proclamation of the United Nations’ member countries was “A drug free world – we can do it.”  This was after 90 years of evidence to the contrary, and this week in Vienna U.N. member nations have signed a declaration extending the failed policies of the War on Drugs for another tragic decade.

However, after a year of debate, it appears there is not yet a consensus over how to move forward.  Antonio Maria Costa, the director of the United Nations Office of Drugs Crime, whose office crafted the declaration, makes the case for continuing global prohibition:

“The crime and corruption associated with the drug trade are providing strong evidence to a vocal minority of pro-drug lobbyists to argue that the cure is worse than the disease.

This would be an historical mistake, one which United Nations member states are not willing to make.

Because drug trafficking enriches criminals, destroys communities and even threatens nations, it has to be dealt with urgently and forcefully. Policy change is required against crime, not in favor of drugs.”

In the face of these assertions, some countries have indicated they will be interpreting the policies as they see fit.

Notably, President Barack Obama has sent strong signals through his words and his appointments that American policies will be shifting.  As noted by the Guardian, Obama’s nomination of Gil Kerlikowske to be the nation’s “drug czar” could hint at a shift in drug policy, given Kerlikowske’s emphasis on treatment and rehabilitation over prosecution during his 8 years as Seattle’s police chief.  Attorney General Eric Holder recently announced that the Justice Department will cease raiding medical marijuana providers that are established legally under state law, fulfilling Obama’s campaign promise.

In the face of a White House that respects the 9th and 10th amendments to the Constitution, California’s assembly is debating AB 390, which would essentially legalize marijuana in the state – a short step from the current prescription system which in reality is essentially a licensing program.

No one can deny that total legalization of drugs – an end to the War on Drugs – would bring new and interesting problems for consumer nations like the U.S. and Europe, but as The Economist argues, legalization is the “least bad” solution.

“By doing this, we will ensure America’s continued global leadership in scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs.  And that is essential, not only for our economic prosperity, but for the progress of all humanity.” – President Barack Obama

The new administration has moved on several fronts to restore the importance and influence of hard science in public policy since President Obama took office less than 50 days ago.

Having signed a memorandum to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy “to develop a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making,” and declared that scientific policy decisions must be “based on facts, not ideology,” Obama has set the tone for his adminisitration’s approach.

Backing words with action, his first week in office saw an order to the EPA to review California’s application to regulate greenhouse gases, which had been rejected by Bush, and an order to the DOT to implement the fuel efficiency standards passed last year, which were never put into place by Bush’s transportation department.

Obama has overturned Bush’s 2001 order banning new stem cell lines, and $500 million will go towards green job training from the stimulus as part of a plan to get 25% of our energy from renewable resources by 2025.

While some are questioning the president’s ability to fix the economy and make a commitment to increasing funding for scientific research, I’m optimistic this kind of investment will pay off many times over.  I’m still holding out hope for a “Manhattan Project” for solar energy.

The AP is reporting that some doctors are now asking their patients to sign what is essentially a gag order, agreeing not to post negative reviews or comments about their performance on consumer rating websites.

The North Carolina neurosurgeon, Jeffrey Segal, who is pushing these agreements also provides the service of monitoring online reviews.  If a negative review is found, and the author can be proven to have been a patient who signed the waiver, doctors can use the documents as leverage to get the reviews removed.

While Segal denies knowledge of any “longtime patients” having been denied care or treatment for not signing the agreement, his wording leaves open the possibility that new patients may be rejected, and it seems unlikely that a doctor who has been convinced this is a good idea would accept a patient who outright refuses to sign.

What’s more, given the flurry of paperwork snapped onto clipboards and thrust in front of our faces in the doctor’s office, this raises a question of informed consent.  Much like the multi-page End-User License Agreements common in consumer software, we tend to simply agree, sign our names, and push through the red tape to get the service we need.