Books

The date April 22, 2017 may go down in history as a world first. Not only was it the first time that scientists took to the streets to march in defense of the most basic values — evidence and truth — but it was the first outing for what is fast becoming a new phenomenon: a global pro-science movement. At the final count, more than 600 March for Science events took place around the world.

The ambivalence that scientists feel about activism was clearly on display in the various Marches for Science. “I really should be writing!” apologized several placards seen in different cities. “You know things are serious when the introverts arrive,” read another. Some of the chants were similarly baffling to passers-by. London marchers chanted, “What do we want? Evidence-based policy. When do we want it? After peer review!” as they filed past 10 Downing Street.

As an official partner of the March for Science, the Alliance for Science at Cornell University assisted with the main march in Washington D.C., as its Global Leadership Fellows and country coordinators led or supported march events in Kenya, Uganda, Bangladesh, Hawaii, New Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, London, Ghana, South Africa, Chile, Madrid, San Francisco and Mexico City.

Read full article here –

http://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/launching-global-pro-science-movement

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Bad science costs lives

It’s late afternoon in Makutupora and technicians wearing blue overalls pour sacks of maize onto a bonfire. They exchange a few wistful looks as the flames consume the grain. After all, this is good food, and the country is hungry.

But government regulations are government regulations.

The Makutupora agricultural research station, located a few miles from Tanzania’s dust-blown interior capital of Dodoma, is surrounded by misery. Drought has stalked the land for over a year. Farmers watch helplessly as their wizened crops of maize — a staple food for the area — shrivel under the relentless sun. Skinny children sit listlessly in the shade.

Some local farmers are aware that the drought-tolerant crop that was just tested successfully in Makutupora could have helped feed their families. But it didn’t, because the maize carries the stigma of being a “GMO.” Although every scientific institution in the world agrees that genetically modified crops are as safe as any other crop, outdated “biosafety” regulations treat GMO crops as if they were little better than germ warfare.

Read full post here –

http://littleatoms.com/science-world/tanzania-burning-GM-corn-while-people-go-hungry

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Scientists and science supporters will take to the streets in a global March for Science on 22 April . What began as a small Facebook group in the US capital, Washington DC has spiralled into a global phenomenon that will now see marches and other events in more than 500 locations around the world, from Seattle to Seoul.

It is great news that so many people are prepared to stand up and defend the need for evidence-based thinking and the scientific method. But it is also a sad comment on our times that a March for Science is needed at all. Post-truth populism has infected democracies around the world, scientific objectivity is under threat from multiple sources and there seems a real danger of falling into a modern dystopian dark age.

It is clear that the old days of scientists staying in the lab, publishing papers in scholarly journals, and otherwise letting the facts speak for themselves are over. As the Harvard science historian Naomi Oreskes reminds us: “The facts don’t speak for themselves because we live in a world where so many people are trying to silence facts.” In her book, Merchants of Doubt, Oreskes wrote about these efforts from the tobacco industry onwards; science denialist attempts that are paralleled in today’s climate sceptic, anti-vaccine and anti-GMO movements.

These campaigners against truth take great pains to deny the existence of scientific consensus on their different issues. The fact that 97% of the peer-reviewed literature on climate change supports the consensus that most of global warming is human-induced is dismissed as mere elitism. But as Dr Sarah Evanega, director of the Alliance for Science at Cornell, writes: “The values we defend are those of the Enlightenment, not the establishment.” Expertise is real, and we reject it at our peril.

Perhaps the most inspiring aspect of the March for Science, and what may prove to be its most enduring legacy, is its truly global nature. Science is not western; it is everywhere and for everyone. I have worked with Alliance for Sciencecolleagues to help get marches off the ground in Bangladesh, Nigeria, Uganda, Venezuela, Chile and other places. In between long Skype calls about logistics, fundraising, and media outreach I watched the lights flash on as the number of marches on the global map kept on increasing. It was like watching the world light up with knowledge.

Bangladesh March for Science’s lead organiser Arif Hossain says: “I am marching to let the world know that we are united for science in Bangladesh. We have 160 million people to feed in the changed climate, and together we will make a better day with science and innovation.”

Although the issues of most concern vary in different locations, appreciation of the need for science is global. As Nkechi Isaac, an organiser of the March for Science in Abuja, Nigeria, says: “Science is revolutionary. It holds the key to constant development and improvement for addressing climate change, food shortage and challenges in medicine. Science holds the solution to our food security.”

Nigerians can testify to the tragic effects of anti-science activism. Efforts to eradicate polio in the country were held up for years because of conspiracy theories spread by those suspicious of modern medicine and vaccines. People die when science is denied.

So here’s what we will be marching for. It’s time to enter the post-post-truth era. And there is no time to lose.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/18/scientists-take-streets-global-march-truth

Books

In a rational world, people would take climate change more and more seriously as real-world evidence for its damaging effects mount.

The dying of the Great Barrier Reef; the crippling, ongoing drought in East Africa; the thawing of Arctic ice. All of these should make us more determined to tackle the problem at the source by reducing our worldwide carbon emissions.

But we don’t live in a rational world. Tracking the rapid rise in global temperatures has been an equally fast increase in the politically motivated denial of the basic science of climate change. This process of anti-science posturing has now reached its nadir in the determined effort by the Trump administration to unravel former President Barack Obama’s efforts to tackle global warming.

The Trump administration’s war on science is fast becoming its most destructive attribute. We will never be able to tackle climate change if we continue to live in a post-truth age, where factual accuracy plays second fiddle to political ideology.

Read full article here –

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/28/opinions/trump-is-leaving-climate-change-all-to-china-opinion/index.html

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Tanzania’s first-ever genetically modified crop — a field trial of drought-tolerant maize intended to benefit small-scale farmers suffering the effects of climate change — is proceeding well and will be harvested imminently, according to scientists overseeing the trial for the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project.

“From the general appearance, we think the genetically modified drought-tolerant hybrids are going to do better than the non-genetically modified,” Kullaya said. “We can say for sure when we have harvested and the results are out. But it looks very convincing.”

WEMA researchers will measure the size and weight of maize cobs and kernels, and expect the overall yield to be higher from plants with the drought-tolerant gene than those without the added trait.

Dr. Alois Kullaya, technical advisor to the WEMA project in Tanzania, told the Alliance for Science during a recent field visit to the confined field trial (CFT) site near the capital, Dodoma, that he was confident the added drought gene will perform as intended. However, he cautioned that a definitive conclusion will need to await scientific data produced by the trial. “From the general appearance, we think the genetically modified drought-tolerant hybrids are going to do better than the non-genetically modified,” Kullaya said. “We can say for sure when we have harvested and the results are out. But it looks very convincing.” WEMA researchers will measure the size and weight of maize cobs and kernels, and expect the overall yield to be higher from plants with the drought-tolerant gene than those without the added trait.

See full article here –

http://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/drought-tolerant-maize-shows-promise-tanzania

Books

Hans Rosling had a way with numbers.

A health practitioner, teacher and statistician, he challenged millions of peoples’ preconceptions about basic issues like poverty and population growth. He did this not by giving standard power point lectures or showing endless graphs but by bringing the data to life with clever visualizations delivered with impeccable comic timing and an understated Swedish charm.

Rosling’s death from pancreatic cancer at the age of 68 is a sad loss to all of us who learned from him. No lesser figures than Bill and Melinda Gates have called him a hero of our time. He will be particularly missed given how strongly the current political zeitgeist seems to be moving away from everything Rosling stood for: factual accuracy and an evidence-based worldview.

See full article here —

http://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/tribute-hans-rosling

Books

Scientists from three different agencies have announced that 2016 was the hottest year ever recorded, setting an annual temperature record for the third year in a row.

It is now thought likely that 2016 was the warmest year since the end of the last ice age, more than 10,000 years ago. Indeed the current climate records are unlikely to have been equalled since the last interglacial, known as the Eemian, about 120,000 years ago. During this time, with temperatures equivalent to those of today, sea levels were between 6 and 9 meters (20-30 feet) higher. This suggests that over the long-term, multi-meter sea level rise is now inevitable, dooming small island nations and threatening coastal areas that are home to hundreds of millions of people.

Experts from NASA, NOAA and the UK Met Office were in agreement that last year’s recorded global average temperature was 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.98 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial baseline. The second and third-warmest years were 2015 and 2014, respectively.

This puts current global warming perilously close to the 1.5C target mentioned in the Paris agreement as a less dangerous alternative to the 2C existing international target to limit climate change. Although a strong El Nino event in the Pacific contributed to global warmth, scientists calculate its influence as limited to 0.2C.

Experts are in no doubt that the current record heat is a symptom of human-caused global warming.

Scientists from three different agencies have announced that 2016 was the hottest year ever recorded, setting an annual temperature record for the third year in a row. It is now thought likely that 2016 was the warmest year since the end of the last ice age, more than 10,000 years ago. Indeed the current climate records are unlikely to have been equalled since the last interglacial, known as the Eemian, about 120,000 years ago. During this time, with temperatures equivalent to those of today, sea levels were between 6 and 9 meters (20-30 feet) higher. This suggests that over the long-term, multi-meter sea level rise is now inevitable, dooming small island nations and threatening coastal areas that are home to hundreds of millions of people. Experts from NASA, NOAA and the UK Met Office were in agreement that last year’s recorded global average temperature was 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.98 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial baseline. The second and third-warmest years were 2015 and 2014, respectively. This puts current global warming perilously close to the 1.5C target mentioned in the Paris agreement as a less dangerous alternative to the 2C existing international target to limit climate change. Although a strong El Nino event in the Pacific contributed to global warmth, scientists calculate its influence as limited to 0.2C. Experts are in no doubt that the current record heat is a symptom of human-caused global warming.