National Academy of Sciences

A new low for science and the NAS — the “Black List”

by Fran Smith on June 23, 2010 · 4 comments

in Environment, Global Warming

In what has to be one of the most disgraceful examples of political, unscientific attacks, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a report, “Expert credibility in climate change,” alleging to show that climate change “deniers” have less impressive credentials and haven’t published as much as those promoting anthropogenic climate change. With the billions in research money given to climate change advocates over the past 15 years, and the recent ClimateGate email disclosures about shutting skeptics out of key scientific journals, it’s no wonder there is a discrepancy. But, of course, neither of those issues is mentioned.

The article was researched and/or written by a biology professor, an engineer, a foundation executive, and the infamous Stephen H. Schneider, known for his advocacy of catastrophic global warming and his endorsement of duplicity and hyperbole in pushing the climate change agenda:

“. . . we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.”  (Discover magazine pp. 45-48, Oct. 1989)

What might be the purpose of this exercise?  One gets a clue in the conclusion of the article – that media coverage is contributing to public misunderstanding by giving an undeserved platform to climate skeptics:

“This extensive analysis of the mainstream versus skeptical/contrarian researchers suggests a strong role for considering expert credibility in the relative weight of and attention to these groups of researchers in future discussions in media, policy, and public forums regarding anthropogenic climate change.”

Dr. Roy Spencer has a good article discussing what’s now known among skeptics as the “Black List.”  The Examiner’s Thomas Fuller writes an open letter to Schneider deploring the article:

Is this science you are proud of? Does damaging the reputation of some scientists by mistakenly (or vindictively) including them on a blacklist serve science well? Does establishing a climate of fear that will dissuade scientists from expressing their true opinion?

Earth Day Agriculture and Sustainable Intensification

by Greg Conko on April 22, 2010

in Agriculture, Culture, Environment, Health and Illness, Nano & Biotech, Natural Resources, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Zeitgeist

What’s the most sustainable way to grow the food we eat? The answer environmentalists give is always “local and organic.”  But, increasingly, the answer from the scientists who’ve studied the question is the exact opposite.  A study from England’s Royal Society issued last October concluded that genuinely sustainable agriculture must embrace the use of science and technology for producing more food on less land.  It suggests that a healthy concern for protecting the environment necessitates the greater adoption of sophisticated agricultural technologies, including fertilizers, pesticides, and bioengineered (or GM) crops.  Why?  Because protecting the environment will require growing vastly more food without bringing new land into agriculture–what the report calls “sustainable intensification.”

And, just last week, the US National Academy of Sciences’s National Research Council issued an in-depth study on The Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States, concluding that, “when best management practices are implemented, GE crops have been effective at reducing pest problems with economic and environmental benefits”.

Among the reports more specific findings:

  • “Adoption of herbicide-resistant crops could help improve soil and water quality.”
  • “Targeting specific insect pests with Bt toxins in corn and cotton has been successful, and insecticide use has decreased with the adoption of insect-resistant crops.”
  • “Many adopters of GE crops have experienced either lower costs of production or higher yields, and sometimes both.”
  • “Farmers who previously faced high levels of insect pests that were difficult to treat before insect-resistant crops have particularly benefited from applying lower amounts of or less expensive insecticides.”
  • “More effective management of weeds and insects also means that farmers may not have to apply insecticides or till for weeds as often.”

An overwhelming amount of scientific evidence amassed during the past two decades suggests that genetically engineered foods have been a huge boon for American farmers, consumers, and the environment.

Ironically, claims that organic farming is a nearer and dearer friend to the environment are difficult to substantiate because organic practices merely trade some environmental threats for others. For example, organic farms do not generate the same sorts of synthetic chemical run-off as modern, industrialized farms. But organic farms do still need to control pests, weeds, and pathogens. They also need to replace soil nutrients drawn off by growing plants. Judged by the standards of those who criticize modern agricultural practices, the techniques that organic farmers use to accomplish these tasks are far from eco-friendly.

While organic farmers do not use synthetic pesticides, they do use chemicals to control insects and plant diseases – including such potentially dangerous chemicals as copper sulfate, rotenone, pyrethrum, ryania, and sabadilla. These “organic” pesticides are derived from minerals or plants, are lightly processed, and thus are considered to be “natural” for the purposes of organic agriculture. Yet, ounce for ounce, most are at least as toxic or carcinogenic as many of the newest synthetic chemical pesticides.

In addition, because organic farmers must control weeds by using frequent, mechanical tillage – or sacrifice yields – organic agriculture contributes to topsoil erosion and disturbs worms and other soil invertebrates. Compared with modern conservation tillage practices, organic weed control is much more environmentally damaging.  And, instead of soluble nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous fertilizers, organic farmers rely on animal manure and so-called “green manures,” such as legume nitrogen fixation or organic plant matter, to restore soil nutrients. However, plowing legume crops and animal wastes into the soil leads to nitrate leaching into groundwater and streams at rates similar to conventional agricultural practices, and the chemical properties of soluble mineral fertilizers that are prohibited in organic farming are identical to those of that are released in uncontrolled quantities by the mineralization of organic matter.

Ultimately, many Americans have come to believe the organic food industry’s marketing campaign that consuming its products is the environmental way to eat.  But, those claims just don’t stand up to rigorous scientific scrutiny.

Green Thumbs and GMOs

by Greg Conko on April 13, 2010 · 1 comment

in Agriculture, Environment, Nano & Biotech, Natural Resources, Precaution & Risk, Regulation

A friend just recommended this op-ed published in the Boston Globe on Sunday.  The title and subtitle say it all: “Green Thumbs: Genetically engineered crops are more environmentally friendly than organic ones.”  The author, Elliot Entis, argues that:

There is a green revolution going on, “doubly green’’ according to ecologist Gordon Conway, but it’s one the organic movement does not want to join. This revolution relies on modern biotechnology to create crop hybrids that can better utilize our scarce resources, and there’s the rub: the science is not trusted by organic farmers, and it plays against their economic interests.

and

The organic movement is largely a romantic ideal, far removed in many ways from science. It believes it is environmentally friendly, but it largely avoids science. True environmentalists look at the facts, and those facts do not support the growth of organic farming as a way to feed the world. However, with few exceptions, environmental organizations do not admit to this publicly. Why? Because they share a constituency: citizens who oppose certain elements of mass production farming, who yearn for a simpler time, when things were more natural. But this constituency is built on a shared belief system about the past, not the future.

At some point the contradiction between what organic farming leads to — more land devoted to farming, higher food prices, less biodiversity — and the goals of environmentalists — sustainability, more biodiversity – will fracture this alliance.

Skeptics, including many in the article’s comment thread, argue that a guy like Elliot Entis can’t be trusted, since he has a financial interest in the success of biotechnology and genetically engineered foods.  But those in the biotech industry aren’t the only ones saying these things.

As I wrote last October here on Open Market, environmental guru Stewart Brand has been saying the same thing for years.  And the UK’s Royal Society, one of the most highly respected scientific bodies in the world issued a report last fall calling for broader use of biotech crops and other technologies to bring about a “sustainable intensification” in global agriculture.

And just today, the US National Academy of Sciences’s National Research Council issued an in-depth study on The Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States.  The NRC study concluded that “when best management practices are implemented, GE crops have been effective at reducing pest problems with economic and environmental benefits”.  Among the reports more specific findings:

  • “Adoption of herbicide-resistant crops could help improve soil and water quality.”
  • “Targeting specific insect pests with Bt toxins in corn and cotton has been successful, and insecticide use has decreased with the adoption of insect-resistant crops.”
  • “Many adopters of GE crops have experienced either lower costs of production or higher yields, and sometimes both.”
  • “Farmers who previously faced high levels of insect pests that were difficult to treat before insect-resistant crops have particularly benefited from applying lower amounts of or less expensive insecticides.”
  • “More effective management of weeds and insects also means that farmers may not have to apply insecticides or till for weeds as often.”

An overwhelming amount of scientific evidence amassed during the past two decades suggests overwhelmingly that genetically engineered foods have been a huge boon for American farmers, consumers, and the environment.

PNAS: Peer Review or Old Boy Network?

by Marlo Lewis on September 23, 2009 · 1 comment

in Global Warming

On February 25, 2009, Dr. James Hansen of Columbia University’s Earth Institute and Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville testified on “Scientific Objectives for Climate Change Legislation,” before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Dr. Hansen is probably the world’s most influential scientist in the climate alarmist camp. His 1988 congressional testimony, which projected significant increases in global temperatures over the next two decades, gave birth to the warming movement.

At the Ways and Means hearing, Christy testified that datasets he and his colleagues have developed contradict the climate model hypotheses and surface temperature records on which alarmism rests. His leading example was the discrepancy between Hansen’s 1988 model forecasts and actual temperatures as measured by two independent satellite monitoring systems.

christy-observations-vs-hansen-1988-models1

“GISS” A, B, and C are Hansen’s 1988 global warming model projections. “A” and “B” are model projections assuming business-as-usual emission levels similar to what happened (actually a bit lower than what occurred). ”C” is a model projection assuming drastic CO2 cuts. ”UAH” and “RSS” are, respectively, the University of Alabama in Huntsville and Remote Sensing Systems satellite records.

Christy comments:

All model projections show a high sensitivity to CO2 while the actual atmosphere does not. It is noteworthy that the model projection for drastic CO2 cuts still overshot the observations. This would be considered a failed hypothesis test for the models from 1988.

 Ancient history, you say? Maybe, but Christy also compared the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report’s (AR4) climate model warming projections with actual temperature data.

christy-observations-vs-ipcc-models

The red and orange lines mark the upper and lower bounds of 95% of the global warming projections calculated by 21 IPCC AR4 models for multi-year segments ending in 2020. The blue and green lines show temperature trends calculated from the UAH satellite record and the U.K. Hadley Center surface temperature record, respectively.

Christy comments:

The two main points here are (1) the observations are much cooler than the mid-range of the model spread and are at the minimum of the model simulations and (2) the satellite adjustment for surface comparisons is exceptionally good. The implication of (1) is that the best estimates of the IPCC models are too warm, or that they are too sensitive to CO2 emissions.

By now you may be wondering what any of this has to do with peer review at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Patience, grasshopper.

At the hearing, Hansen declined to address Christy’s critique of model sensitivity assumptions on the merits. Rather, he asserted that climate sensitivity is “crystal clear,” and advised the Committee to ask the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to produce a report and accept its verdict as “authoritative.”

Now, if you’re like me, you probably assume that the National Academy insists on the most rigorous standards of peer review for PNAS, the organization’s flagship publication. But an article in the current (19 September 2009) issue of Science magazine (subscription required) suggests otherwise.

The article, “PNAS Nixes Special Privileges for (Most) Papers,” reports that:

National Academy members, as elite scientists, could shepherd their own work through peer review with less vetting than at other publications by “contributing” a paper. They could also “communicate” a paper on behalf of colleagues who had not been elected to the academy’s august ranks.

The article goes on to explain that:

In practice, “communicating” a colleague’s paper meant that a member lined up referees to review it before PNAS ever saw it. This increased the chance of a favorable reception — and looked suspiciously like cronyism to outsiders.

Because of that perception, PNAS announced last week that it will end the “communicated” option for submitting papers by July 2010. However, Science reports, “The move will not affect the privileges of academy members to line up reviews before they submit their own papers to PNAS …”

I don’t know about you, but my college GPA would have been higher had I been allowed to ”line up” friends to grade my term papers and tests. And wouldn’t it be nice if, during job performance reviews at work, we could “line up” allies to decide whether we deserve a raise and a bonus?

Science further reports that the “rejection rate for communicated or contributed papers that reach the PNAS is a few percent, whereas the rejection rate for standard submissions is 80%.” Membership doth seem to have its privileges at the National Academy.

Having spent a few years in institutions of higher learning, both as a student and a teacher, I have seen how our alleged bastions of academic freedom breed conformity and group-think. 

First, there’s the quest for tenure. A young professor serious about his career dare not challenge the methodological or ideological pieties of his colleagues, lest they deny him the coveted job security he seeks. And if the acolyte makes it into the ranks of the tenured, he will think twice about offending colleagues with whom he may be stuck for decades, and he’ll take care not to jeopardize his department’s research contracts and grants by offending the political pieties of grantmakers in Washington, D.C.

Most people admitted into the august ranks of the National Academy will have been shaped by the conformity mills that our institutions of higher learning have become. Moreover, once ensconced in the club, they will be loathe to offend other members, many of whom may have voted to admit them in the first place.

So it should come as no surprise that “the rejection rate for communicated or contributed papers that reach the PNAS is a few percent, whereas the rejection rate for standard submissions is 80%.” 

Even apart from these considerations, cronyism seems to be a significant problem in climate-related research. The IPCC reports are collections of literature reviews in which the lead authors often review their own work. Statistician Edward Wegman noted in his assessment of the infamous “hockey stick“ reconstruction of global temperatures (which allegedly proved that 1998 was the warmest year of the past 1,000 years) that “authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus ‘independent studies’ may not be as independent as they seem on the surface.” 

So when National Academy member James Hansen declines to debate John Christy on the merits, and instead advises Congress to let the NAS decide the scientific basis of climate legislation, he is actually asking Congress to let the old-boy network to which he belongs call the shots.

That Hansen would proffer such self-serving advice rather than debate the core issue on the merits is reason enough to be skeptical of the science he espouses.