bananas, unite!

(i've been trying for a week to get back to this post - it's time to let it go. this is all public information, but transcripts aren't available yet. another summary here)

last wednesday i went to a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.  the hearing was to discuss the role of science in environmental policy making , and it was absolutely incredible - in the i-cannot-believe-this kind of way.  the star expert witness was Michael Crichton (nytimes article).   yup, Michael Crichton the science fiction author.  yup, he has a MEDICAL degree (never practiced), but he was called in for his VIEWS ON CLIMATE CHANGE that he wrote about in a recent novel, 'state of fear'.  Inhofe, the committee chairman, invited him (and the 4 other 'experts').  here are just a few of the things that happened that were completely amazing:

- in opening statements, all the republican senators talked about how much they enjoy Crichton's novels.  Inhofe said he's read all Crichton's books, and loved 'state of fear', which he called a very thoroughly researched work that "had a lot of footnotes".  the democrats thanked Crichton for his work, but all were clear to mention "FICTION" in regards to his work.  Clinton went so far as to remind Inhofe directly that having footnotes does not make a book nonfiction.

- then, Clinton got paybacks from Inhofe.  she used up her 5-minute opening statement time (she read parts of the UCS statement , and other things), so Inhofe interrupted her and said they had to move on.  she kept talking and asked for another minute, so Inhofe said she could have one of Boxer's five minutes (Boxer was not the next to speak, he was just giving away dems' minutes).  then Boxer looked even more irritated than she had before, and asked for "unanimous consent that the senator from new york be allowed 60 seconds", which Inhofe granted without protest......(for further illustration, when a republican senator, Murkowski, ran out of time for asking the panel questions later on, Inhofe granted her "a few more minutes" because Crichton had something to add).


panelists comments:
- Crichton: said that scientists regularly change data to get the results they want.  his one example was Mann's 'hockey stick'catastrophe of climate science.  sure, there are mistakes, but that doesn't mean all scientists are liars, cheats, and frauds.  his other comments were that "all data should be shared", "only government can protect the validity of information" (WHOA!), and "professional scientific organizations are self-serving".

- next was Richard Benedick, a major player in the Montreal Protocol (restricting CFCs).  "seems to me the world is not as simple as some of us would like it" - he had a lot of good points about consensus and extremes, and pointed out that Montreal was signed (and approved by our Senate with 100%) with unproven science - CFCs were suspected, but were not proven until later.  the agreement 'had short term costs for long term benefits' and was 'not prompted by catastrophic events'.  Benedick was pretty soft-spoken, though, and didn't cut in the way the crazy ones did.

- which brings me to William Gray.  this guy was a nut - i think Inhofe may even have been disappointed that he invited him, because he wouldn't shut up, wouldn't answer questions, and actually seemed crazy.  he's a hurricane forcaster, but he wanted to talk about climate change.  he said he "knows how the atmosphere ticks", but even he can only make predictions 5 days in advance, so how can anyone else claim to predict the 100-year time scale of climate change?  he said he's "been simmering on this issue for 25 years" (later, Sandalow said Gray might want to "simmer his way right into the peer-reviewed literature on the subject").  Boxer asked him if he had published any peer-reviewed papers on climate change, and he wouldn't answer directly - only rambled about how he was GOING to write one and yadda yadda.

- then there was the DDT guy, Donald Roberts. every time he spoke, some staffer on the republican side put up a poster just titled "consequences of the DDT ban" - with no information, just two pictures of people miserably sick with (presumably) malaria.  this guy eventually admitted that his views were definitely not in line with mainstream scientific opinion.  DDT, he said, was banned because of political reasons, although it was never proven to be a human carcinogen - and was in fact proved to be safe to humans.  no mention of ecosystem havoc.

- the fifth panelist was David Sandalow - who is a lawyer by training, but has worked on climate issues and other environmental issues a long time.  he was very reasonable and knowledgeable, and therefore Inhofe attempted to discredit him IMMEDIATELY after his opening statement by asking him about his scientific degrees, which he doesn't have, and them repeating all the degrees that Crichton has (without mentioning that they are totally unrelated to climate change).  Sandalow tried to stress, among other points, that we must work to improve scientific understanding, rather than just allow any dissent on an issue to derail policy.

overall - the big thrust on the republican side was that 'sometimes so-called expert witnesses only present half the story to get the results they want' (roughly, from Isaakson).  of course, the meaning of "sound science" here is that unless there is 100 percent consensus on a precise scientific result, the result is not "sound", and therefore no legislative action should be taken.

it was very exciting, and i have a lot more to say about it, but no more time.  when, in the past, i've ready press accounts of hearings, i have tended to think they were a bit skewed by the media.  but they aren't - it really operates like fourth grade.  good luck to all of us.