[Coral-List] Don't be such a scientist

Tue Jan 10 10:27:20 EST 2012

This year at the Rio plus 20 conference (http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/index.html) important issues need to be addressed, and in particular we need to look back at the twenty years that have passed and determine what progress has been made.

In the last twenty years the theme of "governance" has popped up in virtually every human endeavor and in varying ways set standards, rules and regulation for detecting and correcting substandard performance, and policing bad procedures and practices.

I find it conspicuously lacking though in the scientific realm.

It would be fairly simple to come up with the ground rules of what constitutes good science and then explain in simple layman's terms how to check for it.

In the end good science is all about about the truth as perceived by the eyes of the beholder, often times the press.

Governance for science like governance for good government is all about frameworks of reference that make sense and are indisputable.

Once these are in place, even detecting and pointing out bad/biased reporters becomes a simpler task.

Milton Ponson, President
Rainbow Warriors Core Foundation
(Rainbow Warriors International)
Tel. +297 568 5908
PO Box 1154, Oranjestad 
Aruba, Dutch Caribbean 
Email: southern_caribbean at yahoo.com
http://www.rainbowwarriors.net

To unite humanity in a global society dedicated to a sustainable way of life

________________________________
 From: Ulf Erlingsson <ceo at lindorm.com>
To: Steve Mussman <sealab at earthlink.net>; Coral Listserver Listserver <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> 
Cc: Eugene Shinn <eshinn at marine.usf.edu> 
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 10:19 AM
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Don't be such a scientist

Steve,

Argument #2 in the link you gave is invalid and the similitude with climate / weather is flawed. At any rate the planet is facing serious problems and IMHO it is very irresponsible to cry wolf over something that is so self-serving as this for the scientists involved.

Respectfully,

Ulf Erlingsson

On 2012-01-09, at 15:49, Steve Mussman wrote:

> Gene,
> 
> With all due respect there are sources and there are . . . . sources.
> I'm not a scientist, but I know enough to question sources of information.
> I can find sites that claim that cigarette smoking is beneficial, but 
> that doesn't mean that one should give credence to this perspective.
> Proclaiming rising atmospheric CO2 levels and current rates of ocean 
> acidification to be a good thing is reprehensible in my view. 
> 
> Here is a alternate perspective that deserves serious consideration 
> based on the credibility of the author and the list of sources cited.
> 
> http://www.skepticalscience.com/ocean-acid.html
> 
> 
>   Respectfully yours,  
>    Steve Mussman      
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Eugene Shinn <eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
>> Sent: Jan 9, 2012 10:39 AM
>> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>> Subject: [Coral-List] Don't be such a scientist
>> 
>> I missed the 60 minutes program because I was at sea when it aired. I 
>> nevertheless wonder if they discussed any of the scientific issues 
>> presented in the WSJ (below). or the lengthy technical presentation 
>> at   http://co2science.org/subject/o/acidificationphenom.php.  Gene
>> 
>>>> Source:  WSJ
>>>> [SPPI Note:  More in-depth papers on this issue can be found at the 
>>>> SPPI website:
>>>> C02 Science's Ocean Acidification Database
>>>> Quantifying the Effects of Ocean Acidification on Marine Organisms
>>>> Effects of Ocean Acidification on Marine Ecosystems
>>>> Answers to a Fisherman's Testimony about Ocean Acidification
>>>> EPA's Role in Protecting Ocean Health Should Focus on the 
>>>> "Here-and-Now" Threats
>>>> See also CO2 Science website for reviewed papers on the topic
>>>> 
>>>> ***************************
>>>> WSJ text beings here:
>>>> Coral reefs around the world are suffering badly from overfishing 
>>>> and various forms of pollution. Yet many experts argue that the 
>>>> greatest threat to them is the acidification of the oceans from the 
>>>> dissolving of man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
>>>> 
>>>> The effect of acidification, according to J.E.N. Veron, an 
>>>> Australian coral scientist, will be "nothing less than 
>>>> catastrophic.... What were once thriving coral gardens that 
>>>> supported the greatest biodiversity of the marine realm will become 
>>>> red-black bacterial slime, and they will stay that way."
>>>> Humans have placed marine life under pressure, but the chief 
>>>> culprits are overfishing and pollution.
>>>> 
>>>> This is a common view. The Natural Resources Defense Council has 
>>>> called ocean acidification "the scariest environmental problem 
>>>> you've never heard of." Sigourney Weaver, who narrated a film about 
>>>> the issue, said that "the scientists are freaked out." The head of 
>>>> the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls it global 
>>>> warming's "equally evil twin."
>>>> 
>>>> But do the scientific data support such alarm? Last month 
>>>> scientists at San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography and 
>>>> other authors published a study showing how much the pH level 
>>>> (measuring alkalinity versus acidity) varies naturally between 
>>>> parts of the ocean and at different times of the day, month and 
>>>> year.
>>>> 
>>>> "On both a monthly and annual scale, even the most stable open 
>>>> ocean sites see pH changes many times larger than the annual rate 
>>>> of acidification," say the authors of the study, adding that 
>>>> because good instruments to measure ocean pH have only recently 
>>>> been deployed, "this variation has been under-appreciated." Over 
>>>> coral reefs, the pH decline between dusk and dawn is almost half as 
>>>> much as the decrease in average pH expected over the next 100 
>>>> years. The noise is greater than the signal.
>>>> 
>>>> Another recent study, by scientists from the U.K., Hawaii and 
>>>> Massachusetts, concluded that "marine and freshwater assemblages 
>>>> have always experienced variable pH conditions," and that "in many 
>>>> freshwater lakes, pH changes that are orders of magnitude greater 
>>>> than those projected for the 22nd-century oceans can occur over 
>>>> periods of hours."
>>>> 
>>>> This adds to other hints that the ocean-acidification problem may 
>>>> have been exaggerated. For a start, the ocean is alkaline and in no 
>>>> danger of becoming acid (despite headlines like that from Reuters 
>>>> in 2009: "Climate Change Turning Seas Acid"). If the average pH of 
>>>> the ocean drops to 7.8 from 8.1 by 2100 as predicted, it will still 
>>>> be well above seven, the neutral point where alkalinity becomes 
>>>> acidity.
>>>> 
>>>> The central concern is that lower pH will make it harder for 
>>>> corals, clams and other "calcifier" creatures to make calcium 
>>>> carbonate skeletons and shells. Yet this concern also may be 
>>>> overstated. Off Papua New Guinea and the Italian island of Ischia, 
>>>> where natural carbon-dioxide bubbles from volcanic vents make the 
>>>> sea less alkaline, and off the Yucatan, where underwater springs 
>>>> make seawater actually acidic, studies have shown that at least 
>>>> some kinds of calcifiers still thrive-at least as far down as pH 
>>>> 7.8.
>>>> 
>>>> In a recent experiment in the Mediterranean, reported in Nature 
>>>> Climate Change, corals and mollusks were transplanted to lower pH 
>>>> sites, where they proved "able to calcify and grow at even faster 
>>>> than normal rates when exposed to the high [carbon-dioxide] levels 
>>>> projected for the next 300 years." In any case, freshwater mussels 
>>>> thrive in Scottish rivers, where the pH is as low as five.
>>>> 
>>>> Laboratory experiments find that more marine creatures thrive than 
>>>> suffer when carbon dioxide lowers the pH level to 7.8. This is 
>>>> because the carbon dioxide dissolves mainly as bicarbonate, which 
>>>> many calcifiers use as raw material for carbonate.
>>>> 
>>>> Human beings have indeed placed marine ecosystems under terrible 
>>>> pressure, but the chief culprits are overfishing and pollution. By 
>>>> comparison, a very slow reduction in the alkalinity of the oceans, 
>>>> well within the range of natural variation, is a modest threat, and 
>>>> it certainly does not merit apocalyptic headlines.
>>>> 
>>>> ******************************
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> 
>> 
>> No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
>> ------------------------------------ -----------------------------------
>> E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
>> University of South Florida
>> College of Marine Science Room 221A
>> 140 Seventh Avenue South
>> St. Petersburg, FL 33701
>> <eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
>> Tel 727 553-1158---------------------------------- 
>> -----------------------------------
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