The Republican War on Science

Loss of the Senate to the Republicans will put both houses of Congress in the hands of a political party that prides itself on scientific ignorance.  What we may have to look forward to can be seen in the ongoing actions of the House's Science, Space and Technology Committee.  Look no further than the head of the committee, climate change skeptic Lamar Smith (R-TX).  "He voted to bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, voted no several times on tax credits for renewable energy and incentives for energy production and conservation, voted against raising fuel efficiency standards, and rejected implementation of the Kyoto Protocol." [Daily Kos, October 20]

Besides his climate change position, he's also known for introducing SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in 2011.  The bill was tabled after generating widespread condemnation for its radically harsh policy in dealing with copyright infringement and other issues.  SOPA would have allowed the Justice Department to "pull foreign sites 'dedicated' to copyright infringement out of the DNS system and search engine results — effectively altering the way the internet works. It's a hugely controversial bill that takes a scorched-earth approach to solving the thorny problem of copyright infringement on the web." [The Verge, Dec. 2011]

For the past 18 months, Congressman Smith has spear-headed a program more suited to a totalitarian state than to a democracy.  He has been waging an assault on the peer-review process for granting National Science Foundation grants.  "He’s issued a barrage of press releases that ridicule specific awards, championed legislation that would alter NSF’s peer-review system and slash funding for the social science programs that have supported much of the research he has questioned, and berated NSF officials for providing what he considers to be inadequate explanations of their funding decisions." [Daily Kos, October 20]  It's all part of the Republican attempt to slash non-military funding so they won't have to raise taxes on the wealthy, and Lamar is now applying the "national interest" criterion to his investigation of research grants - that is, national interest in his opinion.  He evidently thinks this is a better way to conduct scientific research than the long-established peer-review process so critical to scientific progress.  

Although Smith directs much of his wrath at research projects in the social sciences, Tim McDonnell points out in an October 17 Mother Jones post, "some of the biggest-ticket items up for public dissection focus on climate change. They include a $3 million grant awarded in 2008 to study how federal agencies can better communicate climate science to the public and a $5.6 million award to a Columbia University team to carry out public education work on the impacts of climate change at the poles. You know, totally frivolous questions that have nothing to do with the 'national interest' on things like rising sea levels, epic releases of methane, US military engagement in the Arctic, new areas for offshore oil drilling, and 35,000 stranded walruses."

What a surprise! Not only do they deny human-induced climate change, they want to make sure money is not "wasted" on giving people the facts.  In the US, climate change has not yet reached the stage where public indignation against a lack of action will decide elections.  For most, its effects are too far in the future - unlike in Brazil, where the record-breaking drought has caused some water reservoirs to drop to 4% of normal level and may decide the presidential election  The Financial Times analyzes the situation in an October 19 article.  São Paulo, Brazil's largest city, is experiencing water shortages, early closings of schools and health centers, and police escorts for emergency water trucks.  FT reports: "...bars and restaurants in tourist areas have been urging their customers not to use the toilets...While the drought has already ravaged Brazil’s coffee and sugar crops and hit local companies,...it could weaken the business-friendly PSDB party ahead of Brazil’s tightly fought presidential elections next week."

Ignorance and misinformation have long been arrows in the quiver of Republican political tools. How else do you explain their ability to have anyone but the very rich vote for them?  How else do you explain their ability to get poor and middle class whites to vote consistently against their own interests as well as the common good?  

While the Republicans were still in the process of selecting a candidate for the 2012 Presidential election, Paul Krugman led off an op-ed piece quoting John Huntsman, Jr., a Republican who was "willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the anti-science party." After Krugman discusses then-candidate Rick Perry's views on evolution and climate change and eventual-candidate Mitt Romney's backtracking on climate change, he concludes that while we don't know who will "win next year's presidential election,...the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect."  [NYTimes, August 28, 2011]

Related

For more on the confrontation between the NSF and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, see: Battle between NSF and House science committee escalates: How did it get this bad? [ScienceInsider, October 2]

For more on the political success of the Republicans' Southern Strategy in spite of the economic downside of their policies, see Where Are the Hardest Places to Live in the U.S.? [NYTimes, June 26]

Sunday Roundup - March 2, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at voter suppression, the plight of Palestinian refugees in Syria, climate change and coffee, Britain's diminished role in Europe, the protests in Venezuela, and the Carnival in Rio.

"The War Against Early Voting Heats Up"
Along with the voter id laws, the second prong in the Republican voter suppression effort is the reduction in early voting hours.  In a February 26 article in The American Prospect, Brent Mock writes: "The ink is barely dry on the report from President Obama’s election administration commission and states are already disregarding its blue-ribbon recommendations, namely around early voting."  The trigger for the article was Ohio's Secretary of State Jon Husted's release of a new voting schedule that deletes both of Ohio's pre-Election Day Sundays from the early voting formula.  "The Sunday erasures come in conflict with the 'souls to the polls' black church-led campaigns to take their congregants to vote after worship services....In 2008, over 77 percent of people who voted early in Ohio were African-American....The early voting cuts come on top of another controversial decision to move one of the state’s most heavily used early voting locations from downtown Cincinnati to a neighborhood that voting rights advocates say is far less accessible for those of low-income and the disabled."  Other red states are also working to reduce African-American turnout.  "In Georgia, legislators have introduced a bill that would reduce the early voting period from 21 days to six. When civil rights groups appeared at a hearing to voice their opposition to the bill, they were not allowed to speak, according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund."

Food Queue in Syria's Yarmouk Refugee Camp
"It is a vision of unimaginable desolation: a crowd of men, women and children stretching as far as the eye can see into the war-devastated landscape of Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus. A photograph released on Wednesday by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, shows the scene when thousands of desperate Palestinians trapped inside the camp on the edge of the Syrian capital emerged to besiege aid workers attempting to distribute food parcels." 18,000 people have been trapped in the camp since last July and many are now weak, malnourished and prone to disease. "Yarmouk camp, about five miles from the centre of Damascus, was home to more than 100,000 registered Palestinian refugees before the war. Many have fled to other areas of Syria, or abroad. Some have made their way to Gaza."  [The Guardian, February 26]

Climate Change and Your Morning Joe
An avid coffee drinker, I was not at all happy to read this in a Mother Jones/Slate/Climate Desk article:  "Climate change has already taken the Winter Olympics, your Eggos, and the McDonald's dollar menu, and now it's coming for your coffee, too.  An epic drought—Brazil's worst in decades—is threatening exports from the world's largest coffee exporter and driving up wholesale prices worldwide...Arabica coffee futures are up more than 50 percent in just the last two months in response. The current run on coffee is an example of the kinds of follow-on effects to be expected as the climate warms and rainfall patterns become more erratic. The ongoing lack of rainfall, coupled with record high temperatures across the whole of southeast South America during the current Southern Hemisphere summer, is just the kind of extreme weather event that's been becoming more common over recent years."   [Mother Jones, Feb 27]  Okay, it's admittedly not the worst thing that will happen as climate change kicks in over the coming years - but it is a reminder of how everyday life is going to change.  (As if this winter hasn't been enough!)

Britain's Role in the Europe Union
In an article adapted from his new book for Der Spiegel Online, Labour Party member Will Straw writes that, given its phenomenal success "in shaping [European Union] institutions to British strategic goals,...Britain might have been expected to play a constructive role in helping the EU deal with the two most fundamental challenges of the current crisis: [economic] growth and democracy."  Instead the current Tory government "has created a degree of instability for the British business community by calling for a repatriation of powers [that is to return powers that Tories believe should reside with the UK to the UK]  and a referendum on the continued membership of the EU."  On the whole, the EU austerity policies have so far failed to achieve either economic growth or a reduction in public debt while inflicting "painful cuts to public spending". Straw notes several ways that the UK could have helped in the Euro-zone economic crisis.  Among the measures advanced by Mr. Straw, the EU should have encouraged "greater flexibility on fiscal targets so that countries suffering rapid increases in employment could ease off spending cuts (a policy belatedly adopted by the Commission) , developed a more stringent and symmetrical monitoring of current account imbalances to prevent core countries like Germany building up massive surpluses at the expense of deficits on the periphery [Spain, Greece, etc.]", and "looking forward, the UK should encourage the appointment of a new growth commissioner within the next European Commission."

Venezuelan Protests
What started as student protests demanding greater security after an allegation of attempted rape in early February escalated when hard-liners in Venezuela's opposition movement joined the demonstrations to protest the government's leftist policies.  Anti-government factions took to the streets to protest the high inflation rate (~52%), the shortage of basic items and the high crime rate - all problems that have been endemic to Venezuela for decades.  More than a dozen people have been killed in the ensuing violence.  Pro-government demonstrations and marches have also been held.  In an attempt to balance its coverage, The Guardian also presented some of "the other side" of the story which has gotten scant attention in the Western press.  On February 24, The Guardian published a letter signed by a range of figures "including former London Mayor Ken Livingstone and the filmmaker John Pilger denouncing the violence, and pointing to the links between prominent opposition leaders and the attempted coup of 2002."  On February 27, The Guardian's "guardianwitness" blog presented views of people who did not take part in the protests.  Here are brief extracts from a couple of them:

"As a student in the nineties I participated in several demos. We used to fight for free access to education, healthcare and such. Under Chávez’s government we improved as a society in many of these aspects." - blogger Coromoto Jaraba Pineda

"Doing all this for the ideal that everything is going to be perfect if Maduro goes is stupid: corruption, economic situation and insecurity are deep problems that comes from Venezuelan culture, including the economical situation, because inflation and shortages are a result of speculation and corruption." - Ana Maria Castro via GuardianWitness, 22 February 2014


Carnival in Rio

 (Brazilian Tourist Board image is of the samba competition that traditionally kicks off the long weekend and appeared in The Independent.)

The Venezuelan protests may have throttled the Carnival celebrations there, but Rio's Carnival is getting into full swing.  The festivities began Friday night and before they end on Tuesday, Brazil will play host to millions of visitors coming to enjoy the parades and costumes.  "In defiance of the economic turmoil and political unrest that has marred the country’s image on the international stage in recent months, some regions are [expecting] visitor numbers to “more than double” this year, in a much-needed boost to the nation’s tourism industry.  The biggest party will centre on Rio de Janeiro, and the city expects to welcome 920,000 tourists over the course of the long weekend."  [The Independent, Feb 27]