I've always joked that music inspires my science. Well I've written two blogs while waiting for this music video to be processed in various ways tonight. Here it is: Penguin Fight Song
willis is our rock band. Apparently, we write deep songs about penguins. Bono eat your heart out.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Open Access in Environmental and Earth Sciences
A simple question: If you wanted to see the scientific papers on the state of Global Warming, or the cutting-edge papers directly addressing how society should respond (note: I can't believe this paper isn't open access, try it, follow the link), couldn't you just google scholar them and read them? Without a University or individual subscription, the answer is shockingly: no.
There is a movement afoot called the "Open Access" movement to allow the scientific literature to be accessible to anyone without subscription fees. The notion is simple: research is most often typically paid for by the tax dollars of nations of the world. That research should be freely available to the citizens who paid for it. Instead, much of that research is written in scholarly manuscripts published by private publishers who own the copyright (Note: the publishers own the copyright, not the authors) and is sold on a subscription basis to scientific libraries and interested individuals.
All that seems fine at first glance, and has largely been the business model for many decades. However, what about the parents of a sick child who want to examine the research papers themselves? Should they have to pay $30 for every article to a private (for profit) publisher? You can see the problem. This has been exacerbated by the increasing availability of the internet: many journals are becoming electronic only, or combination electronic/paper delivery. The electronic component is leased annually as long as subscription dues are paid. Unsubscribe, and the library typically loses electronic access to all the years it was a subscriber.
There's been a real tussle over this, and the Open Access movement has risen similar to the open source movement in computing (e.g. Linux), but with differences too, in particular, real editorial costs associated with publishing a scientific journal that make up the fixed costs that need to be considered. Public Library of Science (PLOS.org) is the flagship of this movement.
Earth sciences has lagged behind considerably. Our most exciting papers most often come out in Nature or Science (both are not open access, the former is For-Profit), and most of our smaller specialized journals are either Elsevier (for profit company that owns much of the scientific literature), or by the American Geophysical Union that has not adopted open access. There is Biogeosciences that has real open access, and Limnology and Oceanography, my favorite journal by far, that has pay-extra open access as an option.
The debate is starting to come to Earth and Ocean sciences. Pete Jumars, former editor of Limnology and Oceanography, wrote a truly excellent Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin piece about this recently. And interestingly, he seemed to be interacting with bloggers about it in the years before likely while formulating ideas. He seems to have come around in the intervening years between writing bloggers and writing his article. But many of my colleagues express reservations about open access, arguing that if the costs are moved to the author (e.g. $2500 author charges to publish in PLOS) then only researchers at major Universities with research grants will be able to publish (and similarly creating a problem for colleagues in third world nations). It is true the economics of open access are fundamentally different and challenging.
Yet, no matter how you view it public access to tax-dollar funded scientific research is clearly the right thing to do. Do we avoid doing something that is right because it is different and challenging? No. It will be interesting to see how this evolves in the coming years.
There is a movement afoot called the "Open Access" movement to allow the scientific literature to be accessible to anyone without subscription fees. The notion is simple: research is most often typically paid for by the tax dollars of nations of the world. That research should be freely available to the citizens who paid for it. Instead, much of that research is written in scholarly manuscripts published by private publishers who own the copyright (Note: the publishers own the copyright, not the authors) and is sold on a subscription basis to scientific libraries and interested individuals.
All that seems fine at first glance, and has largely been the business model for many decades. However, what about the parents of a sick child who want to examine the research papers themselves? Should they have to pay $30 for every article to a private (for profit) publisher? You can see the problem. This has been exacerbated by the increasing availability of the internet: many journals are becoming electronic only, or combination electronic/paper delivery. The electronic component is leased annually as long as subscription dues are paid. Unsubscribe, and the library typically loses electronic access to all the years it was a subscriber.
There's been a real tussle over this, and the Open Access movement has risen similar to the open source movement in computing (e.g. Linux), but with differences too, in particular, real editorial costs associated with publishing a scientific journal that make up the fixed costs that need to be considered. Public Library of Science (PLOS.org) is the flagship of this movement.
Earth sciences has lagged behind considerably. Our most exciting papers most often come out in Nature or Science (both are not open access, the former is For-Profit), and most of our smaller specialized journals are either Elsevier (for profit company that owns much of the scientific literature), or by the American Geophysical Union that has not adopted open access. There is Biogeosciences that has real open access, and Limnology and Oceanography, my favorite journal by far, that has pay-extra open access as an option.
The debate is starting to come to Earth and Ocean sciences. Pete Jumars, former editor of Limnology and Oceanography, wrote a truly excellent Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin piece about this recently. And interestingly, he seemed to be interacting with bloggers about it in the years before likely while formulating ideas. He seems to have come around in the intervening years between writing bloggers and writing his article. But many of my colleagues express reservations about open access, arguing that if the costs are moved to the author (e.g. $2500 author charges to publish in PLOS) then only researchers at major Universities with research grants will be able to publish (and similarly creating a problem for colleagues in third world nations). It is true the economics of open access are fundamentally different and challenging.
Yet, no matter how you view it public access to tax-dollar funded scientific research is clearly the right thing to do. Do we avoid doing something that is right because it is different and challenging? No. It will be interesting to see how this evolves in the coming years.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
"Gas Tax Holiday": Clinton is going backwards on Climate Change Policy
Note: this was cross posted at Bluemassgroup and had a lively discussion (60+ comments). Also various news stories and editorials came out in the following days agreeing that the Gas Tax Holiday is a bad idea. Friedman's is great.
Original Post:
Hillary Clinton recently argued for the suspension of the federal gasoline tax. A Clinton ad airing in Indiana says the following:
Putting aside any kneejerk response to parroting the McCain campaign, this is bad climate change policy to the core. It is true gasoline costs are rising due to a variety of reasons including (continuing) Middle East regional instability, increased demand from China and India, and of course pathetic US efforts to conserve gasoline usage. Yet no candidate who wants to honestly claim to be a future leader in turning back the tides of climate change could offer a "Gas Tax Holiday".
Regardless of which candidate one supports, if we earnestly want to stave off climate change, then Clinton needs to be called out on being on the wrong side of this issue. In contrast, Obama has come out against the "Gas Tax Holiday", and stated:
What is going on? It feels like Clinton is giving in to the notion that in order to win the midwest we have to ease their pocketbooks. That's a perfectly respectable goal. But in economics you want to tax things that you want to discourage. We desperately need to discourage fossil fuel consumption.
A much more effective way to accomplish both goals (easing pocketbooks and reducing carbon emissions) is to decrease federal income taxes by what the average household pays in gasoline taxes: basically redistribute the revenue from gasoline taxes back to the taxpayers as income tax decreases (or rebates, after all they are in vogue these days: call it the Thoreau Rebate or something catchy). And then let the people know: if you drive less than the average person, you'll get more money back. If you want to drive a Hummer, that's fine, you'll just pay more for your gas. Don't own a car? You'd make out quite well. And then this could lead to a five year program of gradual gasoline tax increases (with matching income tax rebates). If people knew gas taxes were going to steadily rise for five years, people would have a significant long-term incentive to choose more efficient vehicles whenever the need for purchasing a car came up. An issue is that current gas tax revenues are often assigned to road improvements etc. Of course the "Gas Tax Holiday" has the exact same problem.
Back to the kneejerk reaction of Clinton parroting McCain: Clinton is giving into the notion that to win as a Democrat, one needs to be more Republican-like. Didn't the Globe run a front page story today about how Republicans in Indiana are defecting from the Republican party?
Actually making a dent in climate change is going to take vision and leadership on a truly unprecedented scale. I've written previously here and here how Gore understands the magnitude of this issue and how the issue transcends politics. Obama recently confirmed that Gore would be part of his administration. To my great sadness, this primary campaign season has successfully vilified "hope". Yet, considering that we are already doing worse than the worst-case scenarios of just a few years ago for carbon dioxide emissions, I am cynical enough to wonder: are Obama and Gore our only hope?
Original Post:
Hillary Clinton recently argued for the suspension of the federal gasoline tax. A Clinton ad airing in Indiana says the following:
Hillary Clinton knows it's time to act, take some of the windfall profits of big oil to pay to suspend the gas tax this summer, investigate the oil giants for price gouging and collusionThis is basically agreeing with McCain's similar plan just a few weeks ago, calling for a gas tax holiday from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
Putting aside any kneejerk response to parroting the McCain campaign, this is bad climate change policy to the core. It is true gasoline costs are rising due to a variety of reasons including (continuing) Middle East regional instability, increased demand from China and India, and of course pathetic US efforts to conserve gasoline usage. Yet no candidate who wants to honestly claim to be a future leader in turning back the tides of climate change could offer a "Gas Tax Holiday".
Regardless of which candidate one supports, if we earnestly want to stave off climate change, then Clinton needs to be called out on being on the wrong side of this issue. In contrast, Obama has come out against the "Gas Tax Holiday", and stated:
The only way we're going to lower gas prices over the long term is if we start using less oil.
What is going on? It feels like Clinton is giving in to the notion that in order to win the midwest we have to ease their pocketbooks. That's a perfectly respectable goal. But in economics you want to tax things that you want to discourage. We desperately need to discourage fossil fuel consumption.
A much more effective way to accomplish both goals (easing pocketbooks and reducing carbon emissions) is to decrease federal income taxes by what the average household pays in gasoline taxes: basically redistribute the revenue from gasoline taxes back to the taxpayers as income tax decreases (or rebates, after all they are in vogue these days: call it the Thoreau Rebate or something catchy). And then let the people know: if you drive less than the average person, you'll get more money back. If you want to drive a Hummer, that's fine, you'll just pay more for your gas. Don't own a car? You'd make out quite well. And then this could lead to a five year program of gradual gasoline tax increases (with matching income tax rebates). If people knew gas taxes were going to steadily rise for five years, people would have a significant long-term incentive to choose more efficient vehicles whenever the need for purchasing a car came up. An issue is that current gas tax revenues are often assigned to road improvements etc. Of course the "Gas Tax Holiday" has the exact same problem.
Back to the kneejerk reaction of Clinton parroting McCain: Clinton is giving into the notion that to win as a Democrat, one needs to be more Republican-like. Didn't the Globe run a front page story today about how Republicans in Indiana are defecting from the Republican party?
Actually making a dent in climate change is going to take vision and leadership on a truly unprecedented scale. I've written previously here and here how Gore understands the magnitude of this issue and how the issue transcends politics. Obama recently confirmed that Gore would be part of his administration. To my great sadness, this primary campaign season has successfully vilified "hope". Yet, considering that we are already doing worse than the worst-case scenarios of just a few years ago for carbon dioxide emissions, I am cynical enough to wonder: are Obama and Gore our only hope?
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Climate change: Massachusetts sues EPA (again)
Massachusetts lead a group of 18 states in an "unusual legal petition" against the EPA on the one year anniversary of last year's Mass vs EPA Supreme Court hearing.
I'm proud to live in a state where we're fighting the good fight. But, while this is so important, we just haven't begun to turn the tide on climate change. I heard a colleague speak this week and learned that humans are currently exceeding predicted worse case scenarios for carbon emissions from just a few years ago. This is with the Kyoto protocol in effect. That is certainly not progress.
There's also "the other CO2 problem" that scientists are just starting to realize the importance of: Ocean acidification (More here.) Carbon dioxide is acidic, and humans have put so much up in the atmosphere that the surface oceans are becoming more acidic. Scientists beginning to learn are learning that that has profound implications for marine life and fisheries.
Thank you Massachusetts for leading the way. It's only the beginning of a long series of significant and urgent changes though. Is there a plan for how (Massachusetts) will transition its climate change policy in the soon arriving post-Bush era?
cross-post: bluemassgroup
"Once again the EPA has forced our hand, which has resulted in our taking this extraordinary measure to fight the dangers of climate change," Attorney General Martha Coakley of Massachusetts, which is leading the petition, said in a statement. "The EPA's failure to act in the face of these incontestable dangers is a shameful dereliction of duty."
I'm proud to live in a state where we're fighting the good fight. But, while this is so important, we just haven't begun to turn the tide on climate change. I heard a colleague speak this week and learned that humans are currently exceeding predicted worse case scenarios for carbon emissions from just a few years ago. This is with the Kyoto protocol in effect. That is certainly not progress.
There's also "the other CO2 problem" that scientists are just starting to realize the importance of: Ocean acidification (More here.) Carbon dioxide is acidic, and humans have put so much up in the atmosphere that the surface oceans are becoming more acidic. Scientists beginning to learn are learning that that has profound implications for marine life and fisheries.
Thank you Massachusetts for leading the way. It's only the beginning of a long series of significant and urgent changes though. Is there a plan for how (Massachusetts) will transition its climate change policy in the soon arriving post-Bush era?
cross-post: bluemassgroup
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The mainstreaming of mixed race - and parallels to interdisciplinary science
The New York Times has an article on individuals of mixed race heritage in the US. The video is particularly fun to watch, seeing how these Rutgers students identified themselves. I had a real flashback to a similar group I participated in one meeting in college about mixed race. Notably, census data from 2000 showed 6% of married couples are interracial, and 3% of Americans are mixed race. And it is disproportionately higher among younger people (under 40). Obama is making mixed race mainstream (along with Tiger Woods, J-Lo, Karen-O etc...).
Being Japanese-Scottish, this has always been an issue for me, even when I didn't know it was (the Japanese family picnics, where I really didn't fit in...). But like many in the article, I find being mixed race much more of a strength than a weakness. I actually think it also really lends itself to interdisciplinary science, having a firm (racial) identity was just never an option. Having a flexible identity becomes the norm. Choosing what parts of different things you want to be your identity becomes subconscious. And, probably most importantly you get used to being uncomfortable, being in the spaces in between, and that's when you learn the most.
I wrote a lot more about this theme, early on in Obama's presidential campaign, at Bluemass group (link here). I got some really nice feedback for writing that (more articulate and passionate) essay.
Being Japanese-Scottish, this has always been an issue for me, even when I didn't know it was (the Japanese family picnics, where I really didn't fit in...). But like many in the article, I find being mixed race much more of a strength than a weakness. I actually think it also really lends itself to interdisciplinary science, having a firm (racial) identity was just never an option. Having a flexible identity becomes the norm. Choosing what parts of different things you want to be your identity becomes subconscious. And, probably most importantly you get used to being uncomfortable, being in the spaces in between, and that's when you learn the most.
I wrote a lot more about this theme, early on in Obama's presidential campaign, at Bluemass group (link here). I got some really nice feedback for writing that (more articulate and passionate) essay.
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