[Sosfbay-discuss] Latest column - with Final apologies to The Who.

[Wes Rolley]

My most recent column (slated for 9/17) has been submitted to the Morgan 
Hill Times.

   

Recent stories in the Times indicated that our schools have made 
progress in teaching basic science. I called the school district and 
validated that it was real. That is great. Being knowledgeable about 
science is becoming increasingly important in our ever more complex 
world. It is unfortunate that too many schools have taken too long to 
achieve any sort of proficiency and we pay for this as a society, often 
being taken in by political slogans supporting solutions that will never 
be.


Science provides a factual description of how the world works. Nearly 
everyone understands the simple concept of a lever. Given a strong stick 
and a small rock, I can move a much larger rock. Science would tell you 
exactly how long the stick needs to be and how big of a rock you can move.


I rather wish that more of our legislators, both locally and nationally, 
had gotten past this basic level. If they had, we might not be in the 
predicaments that we are in today.


Watching the Republican National Convention, I was appalled by the 
fervor with which the words “Drill, baby, drill” were chanted. There 
seems to be an overall feeling that drilling for more oil, either on the 
Outer Continental Shelf or in Alaska will alleviate our addiction to 
petroleum or the need to import it in large quantities from countries 
that are not necessarily our friends. Neither could be further from the 
truth.


Peak production from new offshore drilling is forecast to reach 200,000 
barrels per day by 2030. That is a long way off and will provide for 
only 4 days of our requirement. This should not become the basis of our 
energy policy and those who would make it so may be delusional, ignorant 
or lying through their teeth. Or, it may be that they just don't 
understand basic science.


We know that the world is warming. That fact can not be denied. Some 
would deny that the burning of fossil fuels has anything to do with it. 
Those who do are also deficient in their understanding of science. If 
any reader wants to challenge me on this, I would ask them to read The 
Carbon Age by Eric Roston. Buy it from Book Smart, check it out from the 
library, but read it. The science is not that difficult.


I read it recently and became even more convinced that climate change, a 
major disruption in what Roston calls the Carbon Cycle, is the single 
biggest threat to civilization as we know it... perhaps to much of the 
life on this planet.


Most scientists who have focused on the manner in which greenhouse gases 
are changing our climate indicate that our atmosphere will continue to 
warm when the amount of carbon di-oxide in the atmosphere exceeds 350 
parts per million (ppm). It is now 385. Even if we were to stop all 
burning of fossil fuels today, the earth will continue to warm.


Both the Obama and McCain campaigns use the term “clean coal” to 
describe a solution to our need for electricity in which the carbon in 
the emissions of new power plants will be capture and returned to the 
earth in some manner. The problem with that hope is that there are 
absolutely no clean coal plants in operation. There is talk, there are 
plans, but there is nothing working and the earliest that any can be 
expected is 2015.


This says nothing about what we do with the large number of coal fired 
power plants that are already in existence, or those that will come on 
line in other countries over the intervening years. It says nothing 
about the level of environmental destruction that arises from the mining 
process. In West Virginia, it is called Mountain Top Removal. Just think 
of taking the top off of El Toro, using the material to fill in Uvas 
Canyon and then trying to find another source of fresh water to replace 
Uvas Reservoir. That is happening every day in Appalachia


You do not have to earn a PhD in physics, or biology to understand that 
much of what you hear does not make sense. All it takes is some 
curiosity and the time to do a little reading.


Yes, it is encouraging that the MHUSD is improving science education. It 
is encouraging that we have a Congressman with a degree in mathematics. 
But when I listen to so much of the populist political pandering that 
passes for fresh ideas, those who would be the new boss sounding like 
the old boss, I just hope that we have enough time to educate a new 
generation of young people who will not be fooled again.



-- 
"Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente

Wes Rolley
17211 Quail Court, Morgan Hill, CA 95037
http://www.refpub.com/ -- Tel: 408.778.3024