Carrying Capacity and Serious Questions

Last Tuesday Tom Daschle wrote an article in Politico titled "We Shouldn't Forget the World's Food Gap." Should we not? Carrying capacity in it's simplest form is defined as the ability of a population to be sustained given a certain limitation of resources. It has long been a struggle for the world to keep up with exponential population growth. In fact, this effort has plagued man since the beginning of time.

Daschle states, "In order to feed a global population boom of 9 billion people by 2050, we will need to more than double our current levels of food production." He suggests that in order to do this "innovation will lie at the heart of the agricultural revolution" and that "scientific and technological innovation in agriculture" must be supported. While this makes people warm and fuzzy at the thought of saving millions from starvation, we should take a step back and look at the ramifications of doing so in an ill-advised or radical way.

The negative externalities that result from intensive agriculture have been well documented, the impact on the environment and those receiving "cheap" food is not favorable. "Food dumping" has also been blamed for an increase in poverty, i.e. "give a man a fish...." In addition, on the other side of the equation, to keep supporting exponential population growth the strain on the environment will also need to grow exponentially. Think about it, in order to clothe, shelter, feed and educate the population boom valuable resources will need to be pillaged.

This problem has already been dealt with in many developing countries e.g. China and their one child per family policy. The Chinese didn't do this because they are barbarians, they did so because it was necessary policy in order to keep population growth in line with the resources the country is able to provide. And take a guess as to where they are economically these days. I certainly don't want to see millions of people starve to death. But as the Glenn Fellows have learned on many occasions this quarter, forcing immediate, large changes can lead to costlier results than if they are allowed to occur incrementally.

I close with this question: In regards to carrying capacity and population growth, can the dog catch it's tail and still be able to stand? (Yes, feel free to refer to this as I do: the dog-tail paradigm.) Daschle closes by saying: "The challenges we face are daunting. But I remain confident that harnessing the innovation of our policymakers, scientists and farmers around the world will put us on track to feed the world and preserve its resources. Indeed, we have no other choice." And I agree. Will someone give me the opportunity to help solve this problem so that I don't starve? Seriously, I need a job.

To donate to world hunger relief efforts go here: http://www.wfp.org/

--Mike

Festering Query

Henry Precht told us Glenn Fellows his single word to describe the Middle East is distrust. His book cover even depicts it.

Diane Auer Jones presented us with an interesting salon on the current healthcare debate.

Can America's high percentages of specialist care (compared to other OECD countries) be partly attributed to patients' distrust of doctors? With our plethora of online self-diagnoses and over-medicated hypochondriacs, do patients' disbelief of doctors' diagnoses indicate distrust? Does finding a more favorable diagnosis from a Facebook advertisement render a reasonable cause to refute a medical opinion?

Have savvy, yet sometimes careless tv sitcom doctors wittled away at the trust patients invest in their doctors?

All too often we hear of friends anxious to investigate into second, third, even fourth opinions. If we truly trusted our physicians and their recommendations, would these healthcare steps be necessary?

-AB

The District of Columbia: A Cultural Melting Pot

Columbus and Cleveland, the only two metropolitan areas I have lived in before coming to intern in Washington, D.C., have their fair share of Chinese restaurants, Irish bars, and general cultural diversity, but Washington is a truly cosmopolitan city. People from all over the world come here to work and live, because, in the words of my good friend Mike McCandlish, it is "the capitol of the free world!"

As many of my fellow Glenn Fellows have blogged, a group of us went to the parade in Chinatown celebrating the Chinese New Year. (2010 is the year of the Tiger!) The costumes and dances were beautiful. It was great to the see all of Chinese language schools and traditional dancing clubs represented in the parade. One of the things I love most about our country is that one can adopt American customs, yet still keep his or her ethnic heritage alive. My family loves to do just that and is very proud to be of Irish descent, so you can imagine how excited I was when Andrea and I went with our housemate Aislinn to an Irish bar in the Woodley Park area. Ireland's Four Provinces was a great place to hang out and listen to traditional Irish music (and the occasional Paul McCartney and U2 cover.) We loved the music so much that we asked the lead singer of the Sean Fleming Band to take a picture with us. The Dubliner, very close to our residence, is another great place to listen to traditional Irish music.

Learning about Finnish culture at the Embassy of Finland was a very enlightening experience as well. The Finnish people seem very peaceful, friendly and they are extremely intelligent (The Program for International Student Assessment found Finnish students to be the smartest in the world.) They also love to sauna, as do I. Another admirable characteristic of the Finnish people is their stewardship of the environment. The Finnish Embassy is a green building and the Finish government is committed to reducing carbon emissions to combat Global Climate Change, as evidenced by their ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and their leadership at the IPCC Copenhagen Climate Conference.

From the friendly Somalian taxi cab driver I had the other week to the Israeli student at the Policy Salon with Henry Precht, D.C. is full of people from each of the 50 states and all over the globe. Each have a great story to tell and can teach us a great deal about different cultures.

-Clare

Yesterday Paul Krugman blogged about how either success or failure will occur in the economic recovery that is sluggishly taking place. He had this to offer:

"What we really need now is (a) higher spending and lower trade surpluses in surplus nations, China especially but also Germany (b) some big driver of investment, such as green technology. Absent those things, it’s hard to see how we get a durable recovery."

I think these suggestions were made a couple of days ago on this very blog. (see "America Needs Some Work.....") Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize winning economist specializing in international trade who teaches at Princeton and writes (and blogs) for the New York Times.

--Mike

Supreme Court Hearing, Uganda, and Italy

If you worried about having to stand outside in a long line for hours in the fridgid cold for the chance to glimpse a supreme court hearing, fear not....there is a 5 minute rotation that will let you see the hearing for 5 minutes after the courtroom is full! After losing the feeling in my toes waiting to get into the hearing, I was fially allowed inside to hear the arguments. What struck me most was how little the attorney spoke before being interrupted by one of the justices. It was unlike any court proceeding I have ever witnessed. To me it seemed as though it was just a heated debate between two people instead of a court hearing. The inside of the room was beautiful though! The ceiling has red and blue squares with sculptures of white flowers hanging from the middle. There were benches facing the judges, like in all courtrooms, with red velvet drapes behind the benches to seperate those of us who were only allowed to be in the room for 5 minutes at a time. I found it ironci that the security guard told us not to be loud because we were in a courtroom, not a museum. Somehow our voices would be disruting but the shuffling of people in and out of a courtroom every 3-5 minutes is not. It was a great experience, if only for a few minutes.

Right after I got back from the hearing, I immediately began preparing the conference room in our building for a luncheon with Julius Kaggwa, a Ugandan speaking about the anti-homosexuality bill. Julius was one of the international leaders I heard speak last Thursday at the Summit and I learned a great deal more from him today. Like everyone else I am sure, it is outragous that some Ugandans support this bill, but now I understand why. Uganda is not a "reading culture," as Julius explained. Even the educated only read to prepare for exams but then stop reading once they pass. So the people who live in Uganda only see what the government shows them since they are unable to understand the information and language that is floating around the country. LGBTs have a high rate of alcoholism due to the fact that many have lost their jobs and their homes and have nothing else to turn to. When shown on tv, it is hard to refute that these are the individuals who may endanger children and this is one reason why many are supporting this bill. There are also visions being shown on news stations and voiced on radio networks about adult males having sex with and abusing young boys. This is the only aspect of homosexual behavior being portratyed; the emotional relationship is not even being acknowledged. There is already a bill in place that makes adult same sex relationships illegal and this proposed legislation only gives police and authorities more of a mandate to investigate and torture people for information about LGBTs. Julius stated that there is a great need for education of the "people on the ground, in the villages" through alliances with the US government, civil society, and the translation of the current language floating around so villagers can understand the current issue. It will be interesting to see what developments come from this proposed legislation. In theory, Uganda is a democracy, but in practice it is a dictatorship. This will make it even harder to keep this piece of legislation from passing.

VIVA L'ITALIA!! I also got to meet with Professor Luigi De Santics, professor at the education department at the Italian Embassy today! The embassy was so pretty and they were very excited to have visitors interested in the country. They were even more excited when they learned I'm full blooded Italian and I can speak the language, most of my visit was in Italian which was great seeing as how I can't really speak to anyone here in Italian. I laughed at first when I walked in because there was a cafe right across from the entrance and an art theater across from the cafe. But then again, this is Italian property, I have no idea why I was so surprised!

-Joanna

General McChrystal Update

In Afghanistan, an airstrike on Sunday was targeted for Taliban operatives along the border of the Daykundi and Uruzgan Provinces. This mission killed twenty-seven civilians. General McChrystal has apologized for the civilian deaths, but Afghan outrage over civilian deaths in the past year has risen.
"It's very difficult for us, for the people of Afghanistan to find answer: why civilian people are dying. We don't have any answer for them."-Shukria Barakzai, Member of Afghanistan Parliament
This diffcult scenario seems to minimize General McChrystal's true intentions: to get closer to the people, help protect them from insurgent forces, and train their troops in the difficult defense tactics of the desert terrain.
"General McChrystal is doing everything humanly possible to avoid civilian casualties. But it is also a fact that the Taliban mingle with civilians, they use them for cover, which obviously complicates any decision process by a commander on the ground, in knowing whether he's dealing with the Taliban, or innocent civilians, or a combination of the two. I'm not defending it at all, I'm just saying these kinds of things are inherent in a war, it's what makes war so ugly."-Defense Secretary Robert Gates

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june10/afghanistan1_02-22.html

-AB

America Needs Some Work...........

As Joanna previously mentioned, nearly the whole WAIP crew made our way to Chinatown Sunday to celebrate communism.......I mean the Chinese New Year! Even given the tension the Dalia Lama's recent visit to the White House stirred, many parade goers were upbeat. Many thanks to Andrea for purchasing snap pops so that I could join the kids in some revelry.

I come now to mention, as I have before with my infamous "mug post" one of the simplest concepts in economics: comparative advantage. Yes, this is the concept that made you tear your hair out in ECON 101. To be put simply many Americans are not willing to work for $1 an hour, even if their skill set warrants it. And thus as a country full of greedy corporations (thank you Supreme Court for your recent brilliant decision extending their power in government, idiots) jobs, mainly manufacturing of course, have moved overseas to places such as China and India where a pair of Nike sneakers can be made for one dollar and then sold back to consumers in the U.S. for $100. Countries like China thus have a comparative advantage in the supply of labor. The fact is there is absolutely no way to save most manufacturing jobs here unless Americans are willing to work for $1 an hour, the manufacturing jobs problem is literally that simple, seriously it is that simple.

My suggestion is as follows. Why doesn't the United States move vertically and become a leader in up-and-coming industries? This is how this great country has become a world leader thus far. Why don't we, as a service-based economy, serve ourselves and shift resources into EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES and not stay heavily reliant on old ones? I am referring here to the renewable energies sector. I am by no means a tree hugger, just someone with common sense sometimes. The only way to create jobs here that can't move overseas is to be better at what we do than anybody else is because the labor will always be available elsewhere. But the fact is that even in the renewable energies sector we are far behind, we have been set in our ways. But perhaps there is time, I certainly hope so. As John Glenn and our friends at the embassy of Finland suggest it all starts with education which by the way we are way behind in also. Move vertically so your job doesn't move horizontally.


--Mike

Botanical Gardens and Chinese New Year

I was able to visit the Botanical Gardens with Mike, Susan and Clare on Saturday afternoon. It was so nice and warm in there. It smelled pretty good too with all of those orchids. I didn't know anything about the gardens priorto going there so I was surprised to see everything split up into sections like the desert, the jungle, and medicinal plants. We also saw huge palm tress in the jungle that made everyone wish for spring break!! The orchids were beautiful and the set up was really cool too. I liked the dragon in the main entrance the most. It has flowers all through it;s body with a very colorful head. And ironically, my Coach purse blended in with a lot of the flowers!

Then on Sunday afternoon we all went to the Chinese new year parade in Chinatown. The dragon dancers were by far the best sight of the parade. Jalpa and I were both jealous we weren't younger and had no little kids with us because they got handed the best toys from the people in the parade! By luck, Mike, Jalpa and I were standing at the right place at the "right time" and had fron row seats for the firework display and dragon dancing. We finally got feeling back in our toes after waiting in the cold for an hour but it was worth it to see smething many of us may never see again. I was interested to learn that the Chinese new year is celebrated for 15 days, from full moon-new moon, and it actually began on Valentine's Day this year! All in all, the snow is melting and we're able to do more outdoor activities without freezing on weekends!

-Joanna

Adventures in the melting snow.

It was a decently productive weekend for me. Saturday, I went with Lydia and Jeff to the zoo! We briefly saw a panda walking away from us and then watched another one sleep for a while. My favorite part was when the girl behind us got excited to see it stick it's tongue out and her friend responded with "Yeah, pandas have tongues..." Instead of posting lame pictures of sleeping pandas, I would like to share these wonderful pictures from the gift shop with you all. They had an insane amount of panda merchandise.

We learned that a cheetah can run 23 feet in one second.. which is also only ONE STRIDE. We were a little freaked out about it. However, I was much more intimidated by the evil looking emu that was trying to eat its way out of its pen.

Next, we learned A LOT about sloths. We saw a few sleeping in boxes that seemed much too small for them but a zoo worker informed us that they are related to armadillos and can curl up into tight little balls. They spend all day sleeping in the boxes until the annoying little monkeys they share a cage with come into the box with them. The sloths then get really annoyed and sloooowly move to somewhere else to sleep. THEY MOVE 15 FEET IN ONE MINUTE. Quite different from cheetahs.. Also, they move so slowly that moss grows on/bugs live in their fur... it's helpful because the bacteria that this produces can be used as a defense mechanism. Basically, they can scratch predators and the cut will get really gross and infected. No animal tries to attack a sloth twice. Also, they only poop once a week because of their digestive systems and 30% of their weight is usually made up of undigested food sitting in their stomachs. ALSO if they get injured, they can redirect their energy to healing!! SERIOUSLY. Final fact: They are much more agile when swimming because their claws get in the way of their walking. Basically, sloths are about 93485 times cooler than I thought.

See hilarious swimming sloth video below:

Aaaand I'm done with my sloth tangent. Moving on..

We went to the National Cathedral after the zoo. I really liked the stained glass and the strange gargoyles. Jeff informed me that one of them looks like Darth Vader. I highly recommend going there if you haven't yet!

Today, everyone went to Chinatown to see the celebrations for the Chinese New Year (which was a week ago). It was crowded and gross.. all of the melting snow had created streams of muddy water for me to jump across in my new, light pink shoes (Poor planning, Lilly. Poor planning.). Afterwards, some of us (me, Lydia,

and Jeff) decided to go see a few more monuments. It may have been cloudy and wet all day.. but it was semi-warm! We visited the TJ (Thomas Jefferson) and FDR monuments/memorials/whatever. I couldn't help but wonder why TJ looked so much like the Crypt Keeper in his statue. Here's the deal: TJ was born in 1743. The statues was added in 1947. I have decided that the statue's appearance was based off of what TJ would have looked like at the time.. Approximately 200 years old.. Seriously. Just look at him! Couldn't we make a statue of TJ that looks dashing and not like John McCain's wrinkled old mug?

Peace and Love,

Lilly

Human Rights First Summit

This year was the first year Human Rights First put together an international summit with prominent leaders from the Human Rights World. Some of the discussants included, His Holiness the Dalai Lama; Sharon Hom; HRF Executive Director, China; Carlos Ponce- founder of "Development and Justice Consortium" of Venezuela, adviser of more than 47 NGOs in Latin America, the U.S. and the Caribbean; Maziar Bahair- an Iranian-Canadian playwright, film-maker and reporter for newsweek who was arrested in 2009 during the Iranian elections protest with no charges, destained and interrogated for 118 days; and many more. This was a day filled with three amazing sessions talking about human rights and how human rights defenders across the globe are being totured, imprisoned, and disappearing by the hands of their own government. Dr. Hamidah Marican, founder of the Sister of Islam, was extremely insightful about what is happening in the muslim culture. She is personally being investigated under the Sadition Act and if convited could be detained indefinitely without trial! The book that her organization wrote was also banned under that same act due to acusations that it would confuse the Muslim people and they would question their religion. She and the Sisters of Islam fought this and had the ruling overturned, however, that decision was then appealed by the government. Sharon Hom spoke of an attorney who disappeared over one year ago. The man was tortured and once he published this event, "the axe really came down." When asked what happened to him, the government first responded by saying there are 4 billion people in China, they cannot be responsible for just one. They later stated that he was alive and working in another city and that he has been contacting his wife. Shortly after, his wife made a statement that if he is indeed alive, she has not heard from him in almost a year. Hom continued to say that almost any public action can earn a person the label of "critic" and also be punished for it. Even researching AIDS could endager a person and label them a "critic." Many people have been exiled, imprisoned, and tortured. Others have claimed that they are embarassed to be Chinese due to the actions of their government. The scary part is, countires such as Belarus are going to the Chinese government to learn how to control the internet in their own countries. Carlos Ponce of Venezuela told the story of a judge who was thrown in jail by the President merely by applying the law. The President threw a man in prison for 3 years without giving him a trial and in Venezuela, special priviledges are supposed to be given to individuals who are in this situation. A judge applied those priviledges and was imprisoned by the President of Egypt because he was unhappy about they law enacted. Julis Kaggwa, from the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, Uganda, spoke today urging that people begin to view sexual preference as a human right. People are being arrested and interrogated about homosexual information even before the Uganda Bill on Homosexuality is even inacted! I heard many other accounts all similiar to these; human rights defenders are being silenced internationally with no hope in the near future. It really made me appreciate being able to live in a country where we value freedom is speech. While we may not always agree, I do not have to fear for my safety or my future for voicing my opinion. This is something that needs to be adopted world wide and many have stated today that the first step is education. The youth is our new hope; they need to be engaged in and out of school learning what human rights are and why they need to be protected. The Summit continues tomorrow and I am so excited to hear from more of the prominent discussants from around the world!
-Joanna

Warning

Even accidentally, never, NEVER travel to the Botanical Gardens on Valentine's Day. (I suppose Sweetest Day may be just as unbearable). The flowers were beautiful; the orchid exhibit is honestly breathtaking. However, the dreamy couples and rampant cuddling was agonizing. Another trip sans an American Hallmark holiday is on my agenda.

-Allison

Rawr

The Snowmaggedeon has not stopped the animals from frolicking at the National Zoo. Being raised on the Cleveland and Columbus Zoos is actually somewhat of a spoiler. The orangutan and panda exhibits at the National Zoo are phenomenal, but many of the other buildings were a bit lack luster. The path to the Amazon was obstructed, so another visit, in warmer temperatures, is definitely in order. Hopefully it warms up enough that we can watch the orangutans use their "O Line," their connecting cables above zoo-goers heads that permit transportation between buildings.

-AB & AJ

Visit to my Congressman's Office

Today I was able to pick up the flag that I bought from my Congressman's office. Last month I had a flag flown over the Capitol and was able to keep the flag once they took it down!! It's actually pretty cheap and really cool to keep as a souvenir from DC. As I walked through the halls I was amazed the by small spaces in between each of the offices as I passed the many flags outside of the doors. When I finally got to Tim Ryan's office, I was even more shocked about how small it was! There was a girl at the front desk, two smaller desks with guys working at them behind her and then two cubicals where people worked at computers behind that! Maybe it's because I'm one a the only non congressional interns this quarter but I was shocked at the size of the office. I did love all of the YSU, Jim Tressel, OSU, and Mahoning Valley items in his office. I got so excited to see items from my home town I almost for that he is from my home town too and that's why those things were there!! I realized this morning that I had planned a trip to my Congressmen's office and he wouldn't be there but I figured with my work schedule and his it would be hard for meet him anyway. It was nice to meet and talk with Charlie Wilson because his district is right next to mine. That is enough for me =)
Joanna

"We hold these truths to be self evident..." The Jefferson Monument

This past weekend my family was in town my dad dragged us in the freezing cold to see the Jefferson monument, which he always proclaims is his favorite. I have not been to the monument in many years and wanted to go, just not when it was below 30! As cold as I was the monument looked even more beautiful than I had remembered since I had been there as a kid. The statue of Thomas Jefferson was just as imposing as it was when I was in eighth grade.

The monument has four panels of excerpts of Jefferson's writing. The most recognizable is from the Declaration of Independence, which he wrote at the young age of 33, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."

Another panel highlights how involved Jefferson was in the creation of the separation of Church and State in our government. His idea of a secular society was very novel at the time. This panel, a picture of which is attached, is compiled from many letters and writings of Jefferson's.

I noticed quite a few signs of construction surrounding the monument. The monument is actually sinking into the ground and efforts are currently being made to prevent this. Washington, D.C. was built on a swamp and this is apparent in the structural and engineering problems that have been going on with the monument since the early 1940's, only years after it was built. Here is a Washington Post article from 2007 which outlines the problem in more depth.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061502436.html

-Clare

Hearing Brief

Last week on Feb 4th I was able to attend a breifing about Haiti and what the U.S. should be doing about this situation. It was very intersting to hear what has been happening lately concerning those who were not injured during the quake but have lost almost everthing. I learned that over 1 million people have been displaced and that 55,000 Haitians have approved family relations in the U.S. but are not being allowed to enter the states to live with those family members. Many who have been working on gaining U.S. citizenship before the earthquake, have been given a Temporarty Protection Status (TPS), however, this has not been extended to their families. Others who have been waiting to be able to migrate their families here for a months and years, now have to even longer because the U.S. has stopped all migration of Haitians to the U.S. At the briefing, there were many policies discussed that the U.S. should impliment that would not require legislative action. A few of these being extending humanitarian parole to legal temporary visa holders and releasing Haitians with a TPS from detention. There has also been talk about using GTMO as a place to hold Haitians until an answer can be established. By doing this, the U.S. needs to create a lottery system similar to the '95 lottery for Cubans. This would limit the amount of unsafe Haitian attemps to cross the U.S. borders. The main purpose of this hearing was to draw more focus on those who have survived the earthquake and familes that have been displaced. Those who spoke highighted preventing the seperation of children from their families and preventing child traffiking.
About the logistics of the hearing, everyone who entered the room was given a packet of information with bios of each presenter, talking points, vocabualary, and recent articles relating to this issue. The packet was very beneficial thoughout the entire hearing when it came to understanding acroynms and what the laws that are currents in place state. I also noticed a girl sitting in the front row before the panel holding papers with big numbers written on them; 10, 5, and 3. I realized she was holding them up so that the speaker knew how much time they had left to talk before the next speaker would give their presentation. The whole hearing was fun flawlessly and almost perfectly to the time that they said it would. It was very interesting to sit in on this briefing and I look forward to following these events more closely in the news.
-Joanna

Holocaust Museum

This weekend I was able to make it out to a couple of museums. The one I was most excited to check out was the Holocaust museum. This museum has powerful displays that depict the horror and tragedies that so many Jewish and Polish people faced during the reign of Nazi Germany. It was eerie to see the large display of shoes worn by Jews as they traveled to the concentration camps. They also had a large display of personal items such as hair brushes, toothbrushes, and scissors. Many of these objects were brought to the camps because the Jews thought they would be working and that these items would be essential to their everyday hygenie.

While many aspects of the museum were moving, I found the overall exhibit to be overwhelming because of the sheer amount of content. It would take the average person months to read all of the information posted. Much of the exhibit is dedicated to the general history of the world wars and the uprising of the Nazi party. While it is necessary for this information to be provided to understand the overall struggle, I felt that it took away from the main objective of the museum. Despite this, it is definitely a must see museum in the D.C. area.

SM

Taking advantage of our set of wheels, Jeff, Lilly and I headed to the Lincoln Memorial to celebrate freedom and DC's inability to clear the streets.

My most interesting fact (for brevity's sake): The murals on either side of the monument - above both the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln's Second Inaugural - are meant to be muted in color so as not to overshadow the messages of aforementioned speeches.

DC graciously cleared two paths up to the inner sanctum of the monument. To ensure all visitors knew exactly where these paths were, signs were erected to remind us that stairs covered with snow are not safe. We've all seen pictures of the monument. Have you seen pictures of the city covered in the remnants of the snowstorm of the century? I thought not. Speaking of which... http://dcist.com/2010/02/snowmaggedon_10_in_time_lapse.php
LJH

This post is one I have, along with many others, saved up for awhile after a weekend of museum touring. This is of course, one of the first planes flown by the Wright Brothers displayed at the National Air and Space Museum. Because there are more pictures of Friendship 7 on this blog than NASA has, I decided to post this. Ohio is after all "the birthplace of aviation." This particular Smithsonian museum is one of the most popular, especially with kids. I found this display along with others chronicling fighter planes used in the two world wars to be the best.

--Mike

The Correct Answers

I thought that in the wake of the recent climate change posts it would be a good idea to post a preview of my current event article for this upcoming week. On Monday, February 8, Roll Call published a poll conducted by Frank Luntz, "provocateur and Republican pollster" and one of the architects of the Contract With America. The poll asks the simple question: "Which of the following paragraphs about energy costs gives you the most favorable impression?" The paragraph that was most chosen (57%) is this:

"It doesn't matter if there is or isn't climate change. It is still in America's best interests to develop new sources of energy that are clean, reliable, efficient and safe."

Why don't we start from there?

Also, chosen third out of possible paragraphs is this: "Slightly higher energy costs today are worth the investment if they lead to more affordable, more efficient and cleaner energy down the road."


I close with my own question: Who has the larger incentive to lie about climate change, academic scientists? Or companies such as AEP or PEPCO?


--Mike

Climategate?

Lately, I've been hearing a lot about this whole "global warming" thing. Partially from class, partially because of this insane weather. To be honest, I don't really get into it either way.. but I just found an interesting article (see it here).

Basically, it's about Phil Jones, the man behind "climategate." He admits that some of the data was poorly organized and that a lot of it was missing. However, he still stands behind the fact that the world is getting warmer (according to University of Alabama Hunstville, this is the warmest January in 40 years...). Most importantly, he defends the fact that he does not have a political agenda and is doing all of this as a scientist.

The whole issue is so muddled because Al Gore tries to pretend that he understands science and, if global warming is a product of humans, there will definitely be political implications. Plus, there are politicians who do things like pay for commercials with sad polar bears in order to get people's sympathies.

In the end, this has to come down to hard facts. I find it a little ridiculous that it's all still a question. In a country that prides itself so much on freedom of information, it disappoints me that we still don't know FOR SURE if we have an effect on climate. Assuming that we some day have reliable science on the subject, the question of what we'll actually do will remain incredibly political and the policy that we adopt will surely incorporate several factors.. but this kind of reminded me of our discussions in class the other day. This is definitely a situation where the legislation is going to come down to the facts. I'm going to be optimistic and say that once we have the facts straight, we can get some decisions made. Or start to. Or something.

Peace and love-

Lilly

D.C.'s Blizzard of 2010... Part of the Climate Change Debate?

For the past week and a half, all of the Glenn Fellows have dealt with mounds of snow along with the rest of the D.C. metro area. We are lucky to have power and have a small grocery store down the street while many in the area are without power and unable to get out to buy the essentials such as food. We've had a lot fun playing in the snow near the Capitol building and all of us got at least one snow day (some got two!).

During all the winter fun, I noticed in the news that many have taken this storm, which is pretty out of the ordinary for D.C., and made it apart of the debate over climate change. I saw on MSNBC that the show Fox and Friends mentioned that this storm seems to disprove the global warming theory, because more snow and cold temperatures must mean no warming, right? Its not quite that simple.

This was just one storm in the entire weather and climate record. As we learned from one our readings, The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate by Andrew Dessler and Edward Parson, the weather and the climate are not the same. Scientists agree that increased temperatures allow the air to hold more moisture, which would result in more precipitation in the form of either rain or snow, depending on the season. So taken with increased snow in the area, this storm could be further evidence for global warming.

Only in Washington, D.C. could the weather be turned into a political debate!

~Clare

"It's Winter Time in the City" AGAIN

My post from last weekend describing the winter "storm" that dumped ten inches of snow on the D.C. area can now be described as, at best, feeble in comparison to the twenty inches of snow that has fallen over the past twenty four hours as a result of a massive blizzard, bringing the east coast to a standstill. The result of one to two inches per hour snowfall rates, the blizzard has been described by the Washington Post as "snowmageddon" and "snowpocalypse" both good descriptors of how people here act when faced with the news of an imminent threat of snow, in any amount. The picture on the bottom is a view from the front steps of our house on Constitution, the one on the top is looking back at the house from the other side of the street. More posts to come I just had to get these pictures up, can you find the cars in the picture on the top?

--Mike

Keep on the sunny side of life.

Today was thrilling. I stayed home from work sick and felt brain dead all day so got very, very little accomplished. Then, my dad called and I was so dead that I forgot that he talks for hours and hours without any response from me. Well, besides his panic attack at the thought of me being sick (which almost always means I'm dying) and the stellar career advice he gave me (you know it's good when coming from a community college dropout), he also brought up Iran, since I told him I'd been researching it lately. Apparently, Ahmadinejad, their always hilarious president, made some comments about destroying Israel.. again.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because I think he's a fascinating person, in the same was as a car accident, you know? He has a website, http://www.president.ir/en/, where you can see the government's twist on the news. Why should you guys care about this, you ask? Well, I know we're all struggling through this book on corruption in Congress, and I wanted to make sure that things were kept in perspective. No government is perfect and the US is no exception. However, if you compare what we have to a country like Iran, I think you'll feel a lot better about things. Whether Congress is "broken" or not, whether you like Obama or not, our situation is approximately 503458 times better than Iran's.

Seriously, though, check out Ahmadinejad's website sometime. It's a hoot.

Peace and love,

Lilly