Russ Steele
Update:(01-11-11, 08:40) BOS Chariman Nate Beason will pull this item from the agenda, according to another Supervisor. Stay Tuned.
Update:(01-08-11,13:45) George Rebane at Ruminations has some thoughts on the this issue here.
There is a group in the community including the Mayor of Nevada City, Robert Bergman, who wish to re-educate the citizens of Western Nevada County with a lecture series called What’s Next in Science.
The prime sponsor of this science re-education series is Judith Kildow. You may remember that Judith Kildow was the one who brought CARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols to lectures us on Ozone and the great benefits of AB32 to prevent Ozone. Yet, ozone is not mentioned anywhere in AB32. So much for what is next is science.
It was at the CARB Lecture when Kildow introduced Mary Nichols we first learned about the proposed Whats Next in Science Series, and that we should consider Mary Nichols Lecture that night as an introduction to her planned series on how humans impact our planet.
According to a sketchy plan submitted to the Board of Supervisors asking for their endorsement of the What’s Next in Science Series, the first year of lectures will include:
- Watersheds to the Oceans - What we can do with our rivers affects the ocean
- Ocean Pollution - What are it’s sources, its impacts and how we can clean up our mess.
- The Spill - What we know about the gulf Oil Spill and it’s impact on marine life, and how we know it and what we can do to prevent another one.
- Trouble in Paradise - We are losing our coral reefs and marine creatures from greenhouse gases and ocean acidification. Why the oceans are becoming so acidic and how this will affect our lives.
- Exploring the Oceans - robotic underwater monitors and HD photography.
Judith Kildow is a hard core liberal that once told NU High School students that all the marine life in the ocean would be dead in 5 years due to global warming if something was not done to stop CO2 pollution now. Well I have a question from Judith. How is it that the sea life survived for millions of year when the CO2 levels were hundreds of times higher than they are today?
What about that nasty Ocean pollution? Oceanic “garbage patch” not nearly as big as portrayed in media accoring to a recent study.
There is a lot of plastic trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, but claims that the “Great Garbage Patch” between California and Japan is twice the size of Texas are grossly exaggerated, according to an analysis by an Oregon State University scientist.
Further claims that the oceans are filled with more plastic than plankton, and that the patch has been growing tenfold each decade since the 1950s are equally misleading, pointed out Angelicque “Angel” White, an assistant professor of oceanography at Oregon State. More details here.
But, here are some of the Professor Whites findings:
- Calculations show that the amount of energy it would take to remove plastics from the ocean is roughly 250 times the mass of the plastic itself;
- Plastic also covers the ocean floor, particularly offshore of large population centers. A recent survey from the state of California found that 3 percent of the southern California Bight’s ocean floor was covered with plastic – roughly half the amount of ocean floor covered by lost fishing gear in the same location. But little, overall, is known about how much plastic has accumulated at the bottom of the ocean, and how far offshore this debris field extends;
- It is a common misperception that you can see or quantify plastic from space. There are no tropical plastic islands out there and, in fact, most of the plastic isn’t even visible from the deck of a boat;
- There are areas of the ocean largely unpolluted by plastic. A recent trawl White conducted in a remote section of water between Easter Island and Chile pulled in no plastic at all.
The part about his series that troubles me the most is that it is a one side lecture series that does not present alternative factual views like those of Professor White. Or, who would present this paper refuting the claims of ocean acidification?
Modern-age buildup of CO2 and its effects on seawater acidity and salinity
Hugo A. Loáiciga
Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA
The impacts of increases in atmospheric CO2 since the midst of the 18th century on average seawater salinity and acidity are evaluated. Assuming that the rise in the planetary mean surface temperature continues unabated, and that it eventually causes the melting of terrestrial ice and permanent snow, it is calculated that the average seawater salinity would be lowered not more than 0.61‰ from its current 35‰. It is also calculated –using an equilibrium model of aqueous carbonate species in seawater open to the atmosphere- that the increase in atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppmv (representative of 18th-century conditions) to 380 ppmv (representative of current conditions) raises the average seawater acidity approximately 0.09 pH units across the range of seawater temperature considered (0 to 30°C). A doubling of CO2 from 380 ppmv to 760 ppmv (the 2 × CO2 scenario) increases the seawater acidity approximately 0.19 pH units across the same range of seawater temperature. In the latter case, the predicted increase in acidity results in a pH within the water-quality limits for seawater of 6.5 and 8.5 and a change in pH less than 0.20 pH units. This paper's results concerning average seawater salinity and acidity show that, on a global scale and over the time scales considered (hundreds of years), there would not be accentuated changes in either seawater salinity or acidity from the observed or hypothesized rises in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
If we are going to have scientific lecture series that will be feed to the public, and our impressionable high schools students if the series is taken into the schools, let us make sure that we get both sides of the story, not just what Robert Bergman and a hard core left winger like Judith Kildow wants them the hear.
Please send an e-mail to your your Supervisor requesting that the BOS does NOT support this one sided propaganda series of re-education lectures.
- Ed Scofield: ed.scofield@co.nevada.ca.us
- Hank Weston: hank.weston@co.nevada.ca.us
- Nate Beason: nate.beason@co.nevada.ca.us
- Ted Owens: ted.owens@co.nevada.ca.us
- Terry Lampheir: terry.lamphier@co.nevada.ca.us
