Daily Archives: 19 June 2017

Pseudo-Science

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I got an email ad over the weekend, inviting me to join the American Association for the Advancement of Science—AAAS, which used to be a respectable organization.  The ad said in part,

Organizations that have propelled us forward—NIH, NOAA, and the EPA, just to name a few—are facing major funding cuts.

Because fraud, waste, and abuse are important only when it’s the other guy’s FWA.  We wouldn’t been involved with any of that.  Not us.

No, even were these organizations sound, their spending can be tightened, and they can absorb budget cuts.  They can do the same amount of work, or more, did they only spend with efficiency rather than profligacy.

On the other hand, not all of these organizations are sound.  NOAA, for instance, has been caught more than once falsifying climate data and altering its climate data bases.  NOAA does not even follow its own protocols, as one ex-NOAA scientist put it, in the way its data are handled, documented, and stored.  EPA’s abuse of its authority and its dependence on false science (plant food is atmospheric pollution?  Ignoring the fact that atmospheric CO2 lags planetary warming by 800-1,800 years?  Really?) are widely documented.

Of course the men and women managing the AAAS know this.  And their knowledge makes their claims all the more disingenuous.

And this in that ad:

President Trump has begun the process of pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, putting us in the company of only two other nations to reject this planet-saving agreement.

Science by political consensus.  Sure.

Too, the men and women minding the AAAS store know full well that the “Accord” bound no one to any performance whatsoever.  Further, the non-binding “bindings” left the People’s Republic of China free to continue to expand its emissions into the 2030s, and only from that peak to start reducing.  If it felt like it.  In addition, the Accord’s non-binding “binding” left India free to refuse to do anything at all until it was paid the $3 trillion or more vig that it is demanding.

Such pseudo-science is most assuredly to be done away with.

It’s About Time, Ollie

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In a move met by applause from at least one congressman, the Energy Department announced a pilot program for research into domestic mining of rare earth elements.

Rare earths are minerals critical to computing technologies and to various military and civilian sensor technologies.  China currently dominates the production and market for these elements, with about 85% of the world’s production from its domestic mines.

Another major source for rare earths, not yet exploited, is the South China Sea floor.  Part of the purpose of the PRC’s seizure of the South China Sea and of its island-building and militarization of those constructs is to control access to those rare earths and to reserve them for itself.

The US has about 13% of the world’s total reserves, but very little of this is in production: mining efforts aren’t extensive because it hasn’t been economically feasible (or yet politically necessary) to mine seriously.  Instead, we’ve been buying our rare earths almost exclusively from the PRC.

We’re very late to this production party, but with Secretary Rick Perry’s announcement, we need to jump in with both feet.  This is another area where we have to cease our dependence on our enemies for our own prosperity.