environment

This is a guest post by MA Rodger

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is a UK-based climate-sceptic think-tank founded in November 2009 by Lord Lawson. Within two years of its launch, a survey of scepticism in the global media by Oxford University's RISJ had added a final chapter showing the GWPF had gained success in 'inserting itself into the (UK) national discourse' and that its founder and its director had become 'the two most quoted sceptics by far' within the UK national press.

The GWPF believes it has made a difference, saying of itself 'The key to the success of the GWPF is the trust and credibility that we have earned in the eyes of a growing number of policy makers, journalists and the interested public.' Yet the GWPF has also been criticised for being secretive, misinformed, wrong and perverse.

Here a series of posts will examine the GWPF and some of its publications to discover what GWPF really stands for. Are they a company of virtuous paragons? Are they a pack of unprincipled scoundrels? In this first post, we’ll explore the background of this climate denial “think” tank.

WHAT IS THE GWPF?

The GWPF is a UK-registered charity and as such its work is defined as 'an all party and non-party think tank and educational charity. Its main purpose is to advance the public understanding of global warming and of its possible consequences, and also of the measures taken in response to such warming.'

Nigel_Lawson (Baron Lawson of Blaby) was encouraged to found the GWPF through the 'surprising' success of his book in which he espoused global warming scepticism. Lawson takes the role of Chairman of the Board of Trustees, a body comprising six members of the British peerage, a knight of the realm, an anti-gay bishop and a French economist. The GWPF's Director, Dr Benny_Peiser, was a lecturer (Sport and Exercise Sciences) with interests in Near-Earth Objects and the founder of CCNet, (which the GWPF calls the 'worlds leading climate policy network') concerned with NEOs and the doomsday scaremongering about climate change.

To assist the GWPF in its work, it has recruited a 26-strong Academic Advisory Council. Chaired by Prof David Henderson, a 'prominent global warming sceptic,' this Council included Professors Robert Carter, Richard Linzden & Ross McKitrick and many other lesser known sceptics.

With a roll-call such as this, anybody would be forgiven for dismissing the GWPF as an organisation unabashed in its mission to spread sceptical disinformation. But anybody would be wrong!

NOT UNABASHED SCEPTICS

The GWPF describes itself as 'unique'. It is funded solely by individuals and charitable trusts. To emphasise its 'complete independence', it refuses money from those with significant interests in energy companies. It also has a set of principles that GWPF says 'set us apart from most other stakeholders in the climate debates.'

[Ed. Note: See DeSmogBlog’s coverage of the appeal by UK journalist Brendan Montague to compel the release of information about the GWPF’s seed funder.] 

These principles tell us that the GWPF does not have an official view on the science of global warming (except that 'this issue is not settled yet'). Its members and supporters 'cover a broad range of different views, from the IPCC position through agnosticism to outright scepticism' and that the GWPF's 'main focus is to analyse global warming policies and their economic and other implications.'

Their fourth principle is a rather strange piece of philosophy for a body that holds no official view on the science - 'We regard observational evidence and understanding the present as more important and more reliable than computer modelling or predicting the distant future.'

In a final addition, they emphasise their role as informing the media, politicians and public 'on the subject in general and on the misinformation to which they are all too frequently being subjected at the present time.'

This then is what the GWPF purports to be about. And don't worry if you think this appears all a bit too complicated. It is.

SECRET DONORS, FEW MEMBERS

The GWPF accounts to July 2010 show donations of £494,625 and membership fees of £8,186. GWPF has been asked to name its 'secret' donors. No information has been forthcoming despite Lawson suggesting to a parliamentary inquiry that some donors may be willing to forego their anonymity and would be asked to do so.

This absence was perhaps explained by Lawson in the Chairman's 2010 statement, saying that in the GWPF's area of operation ‘anyone who puts their head above the parapet has to be prepared to endure a degree of public vilification.'

Public vilification? This seems an extremely odd statement to make if GWPF does truly encompass that broad range of views on climate, as their very principles dictate they should, or indeed an organisation that considers it has earned 'trust and credibility.'

The accounts presented at that meeting also demonstrate that GWPF has little direct public support. With a minimum fee of £100, £8,186 in membership fees must represent less than 82 members. For a high-profile organisation with Directors, Treasurer, Trustees, Advisers and employees numbering 41, many of whom may be themselves members, such a minuscule membership makes clear that GWPF is but a clique comprising many prominent sceptics and octogenarians. But surely, they will conduct themselves in a true and noble fashion, won't they?

TRUE & NOBLE CONDUCT?

Given its guiding principles, we would expect the GWPF to be:-

(1) Mainly focused on 'global warming policies and their economic and other implications.'

(2) Nurturing support from a broad range of viewpoints.

(3) Nailing all that horrid misinformation which we are 'all too frequently' subjected to.

(4) Also we may see pronouncements on the differing climate outcomes that are forecast within the science as such outcomes would drive policy decision-making.

All this, of course, would also involve communicating 'to advance the public understanding of global warming.' Prominent among the means of achieving this is the GWPF website that they say 'is subjecting climate policies and claims by governments and campaigners to dispassionate analysis based on hard evidence and economic rigour.' Sounds good. But let us dig a little deeper than the GWPF statement of its History & Mission.

With all these assertions the GWPF makes about itself, one area of concern must be how it handles that broad range of views on climate change, so as to conform to its guiding principles. What of those supporters who hold the IPCC's views on global warming? Is there evidence for such supporters?

It is plain IPCC supporters need thick skins at the GWPF website. The site does feature an IPCC Corner but this is not for them. It is for items on what's wrong with the IPCC and IPCC blunders.

Searching the GWPF website for the term 'IPCC' (& ignoring the content of IPCC Corner) returns 49 items. They are an interesting collection. 39 items involve criticism of the IPCC, 25 of them strongly enough to constitute an attack. The remaining 10 items make simple reference to or mention of the IPCC without criticism or praise.

These 49 items also overwhelmingly present an outright sceptical viewpoint with no item overtly accepting the need to tackle human emissions of greenhouse gases as the IPCC demonstrate is necessary. There is no evidence here that the GWPF pays the slightest heed to the merits of the IPCC or those who agree with it.

There is also very little climate change policy discussed in these items. They are more concerned with that climate science which the GWPF holds no view on (24 items) or with the criticism of scientists and the scientific process (23 items). The coverage is too general in nature to be considered as work identifying that horrid misinformation. Indeed, it is all very difficult to square the GWPF website content with even just a single one of those guiding principles that the GWPF has set itself.

What is perhaps most difficult to accept is that the vast majority of these 49 items (42 items) are re-posted from elsewhere. They thus represent not the output of GWPF researchers but a simple trawl of the internet. Why then is the outcome of such a trawl so skewed towards a sceptical viewpoint when the GWPF supporters allegedly hold a broad set of viewpoints, including that of the IPCC? The fine principles with which the GWPF tries to dress itself appear here to count for naught.

BLIND CLIMATE SCIENCE

The prominence of the GWPF has resulted in Lawson often featuring in the UK media. One instance of this was a head-to-head BBC Radio debate between Lawson and Prof Kevin Anderson of the University of Manchester. The BBC's Radio 2 (originally called the Light Programme) is a reasonably low-brow forum for debate. (Listeners to the 23-minute recording linked above will note there was originally a musical interlude – appropriately Mad World by Tears For Fears.)

Even so, Lawson makes pronouncements on climate science and not once is it mentioned that these are his personal views and not the views of the GWPF. For all intent and purpose Lawson, twice described as the Chairman of the GWPF, is blindly presenting the GWPF view on climate science, something that the GWPF says does not exist!

What Lawson says in this interview is also riven with inaccuracy. Even by the standards of a low-brow forum like Radio 2, Lawson was given a very easy time by Anderson who is probably not that used to confronting such foolishness.

IMPENDING 'BANKRUPTCY'?

It is not just with his contributions on BBC Radio that Lawson has been criticised for misinformation. Even a UK government minister has berated GWPF and Lawson's inaccurate messages, calling them misinformed, wrong and the GWPF's policy advice 'perverse.'

Such is the level of misinformation emanating from the GWPF that it has been suggested they are in breach of the Charity Commission guidance on campaigning and political activity. Charities may peddle controversial and 'emotive material' but crucially 'Such material must be factually accurate and have a well-founded evidence base.' This requirement appears to be something the GWPF seem to ignore while they continue to enjoy the tax exemptions afforded to true charities.

When concluding their statement of History & Mission, the GWPF say 'For us, public trust is our most important asset.'

In such terms, the cost of their website and media behaviour must be excessive and could soon render the GWPF bankrupt of public trust. Yet this may be a premature conclusion as our examination of the GWPF has yet to run its course. In the next post we will turn to a different outlet for GWPF messages and examine one of their Briefing Papers.

Greenpeace USA President Phil Radford sent a formal complaint this week to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) calling for an investigation into TransCanada’s use of wildly inflated jobs figures in promoting its application to build the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The letter asks the SEC to review the false and misleading claims made by TransCanada on a number of matters related to the pipeline.

Although President Obama rejected the company’s first proposal to build the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, industry-friendly Republicans continue to push for its construction, often citing vastly inflated jobs figures. The Perryman Report commissioned by TransCanada is the source of much of the bogus pipeline jobs information. 

Despite the fact that the State Department and independent reviews definitively debunked the claims to “20,000 jobs” and even “hundreds of thousands of jobs” tied to the Keystone XL project, the lie lives on like a zombie, parroted by the echo chamber led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, API’s Jack Gerard, and of course Mitt Romney and the GOP.

This lie must be stopped or it will continue to contaminate the public discourse.

The Greenpeace SEC letter [PDF] states:

Specifically, TRP has asserted that each mile of KXL pipeline constructed in the U.S. would create American jobs at a rate that is 67 times higher than job creation totals given by the company to Canadian officials for the Canadian portion of the pipeline.

These false and misleading job creation numbers are part of TRP’s lobbying and public relations campaign designed to create congressional pressure on the U.S. government to issue a Presidential Permit approving construction of KXL. Without government approval, TRP will not be able to build KXL, which will significantly impact the company’s future earnings and share price. That government approval was thrown into serious doubt last week when President Obama rejected the current KXL pipeline proposal at the State Department’s recommendation.

As Brad Johnson says over on ThinkProgress, “It may be legal to lie to the American public, but it is an actionable offense to deceive shareholders under U.S. securities disclosure laws.”

Media Matters has compiled excellent one-pagers to correct the misinformation on Keystone XL, including the jobs myths, KXL and Keystone: The Next Round.

Download the Greenpeace SEC complaint:

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350 Ohio Field Organizer, Danny Berchenko, had the following to say about their trip to the Speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner's district office Thursday afternoon.

It's become clear that Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is more interested in filling his pockets with dirty energy's money than in representing his constituents and ensuring ecological and economic security for Americans (and the rest of the planet). So yesterday morning, a group of twenty citizen referees braved the cold and rain to pay his district office in West Chester, Ohio a visit and call foul on his dirty dealings. The office, which is supposed to be open Monday-Friday during normal business hours, was mysteriously closed with no explanation on the door or their answering machine as to why. I guess the Speaker doesn't like being called out for blatant corruption.

Rep. Boehner has taken over 1.1 million dollars from the fossil fuel industry and in turn fights tooth and nail for their interests and against the interests of the American people and the planet. The Speaker invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Big Oil companies involved with dirty Tar Sands extraction. He then held the payroll tax extension hostage to expedition of the Keystone XL pipeline decision, and is threatening to hold it hostage again to the pipeline’s approval. Holding solutions to the climate crisis and relief for the struggling middle class hostage in order to advance his own financial interests is an egregious abuse of the Speaker’s power.

So climate and Occupy activists teamed up in West Chester yesterday to blow the whistle on the Speaker’s corruption. It’s a natural fit for our movements to work together. Occupy is out to end corporate domination of our public policy-making process and obstruction of our democratic rights; to create a level playing-field where we the people have a say in our economic, political, and cultural destiny. The climate movement has long had to deal with obstruction of solutions to one of the greatest threats humanity (and all other living species on the planet) has ever faced, by the wealthiest and most powerful industry on Earth. Our struggles are one: end the collusion and corruption that has essentially replaced American democracy with American oligarchy. Establish true democracy in which the voices of the 99% calling for economic justice are heard over the checks flying into representatives pockets from Goldman Sachs, and the voices of 99% of the world’s scientists calling for an emergency response to the climate crisis are heard over the bribes from fossil fuel industry lobbyists.

Dressed up in referee uniforms and literally blowing whistles and throwing penalty flags, we headed to Speaker Boehner’s district office in West Chester, but when we got there the door was locked. We looked inside and could see that no one was home. It was 11am on a Thursday and their morning paper was still on the ground in front of the door. The office is supposed to be open Monday through Friday, except on federal holidays; that’s why our tax dollars are paying for this office. This is supposed to be a representative democracy in which we the people are afforded our right to lobby our representatives without having to travel all the way to Washington D.C.; that’s the purpose of Rep. Boehner’s district office. It concerned us that the office was closed for no apparent reason. It was an insult to the whole of Boehner’s constituency.

But then again, the Speaker has already shown us time and time again, most recently through his scheming to push through the Keystone XL pipeline against the will of a vast, diverse movement opposed to the destructive project, that he’s perfectly happy to ignore the interests of the American people and to shill for Big Oil and Big Money instead. So why would he want to keep his district office open if he has no respect for real democracy and isn’t going to work for his constituents anyway?

We call foul on Boehner and Big Oil for obstruction and corruption of our democracy and we’ll keep blowing the whistle on them and other members of congress who sell us out. We’ll keep growing this movement and organizing our communities and we won’t stop until we see an end to the corruption, an end to the billions in government handouts to the fossil fuel industry, an end to the selling out of our voices and our votes, an end to the destruction of our global climate system, an end to holding back our clean energy future, an end to the struggling of the many so that the few may prosper.

This is our democracy and our future, and we’re taking it back!

 

Who is funding the shadowy front groups that represent the interests of polluters by sowing doubt about climate change? One of the most aggressive climate denial “think” tanks spreading misinformation in Europe is the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), founded in 2009 by former British Conservative politician Lord Nigel Lawson, who chairs the organization.

British investigative journalist Brendan Montague argued today in a tribunal that the UK's Charity Commission should release documents regarding the GWPF’s early funding. Specifically, Montague seeks to persuade a judge to compel the release of a bank statement provided to the commission by Lord Lawson that would reveal the name of the "well known" secretive donor who furnished Lawson with the initial £50,000 seed donation to launch the GWPF.

In his appeal to the Information Rights Tribunal to fulfill his Freedom of Information (FOI) request for the financial document, Montague argued that the public has a right to know who has bankrolled the GWPF to assess possible conflict of interest. The GWPF has promoted doubt about manmade climate change ever since its founding in 2009. It is essential to the public interest because it will help to understand the foundation’s motivations for continuously promoting political inaction on climate change, Montague argues. He seeks to confirm whether this wealthy donor is connected to the oil or coal industry.

NASA’s James Hansen and other scientists have publicly endorsed Montague’s inquiry. Climate denial front groups have long hidden behind the lack of a legal requirement to reveal their donors, a level of secrecy that is increasingly under the spotlight around the world. Greenpeace has worked diligently for more than a decade to compile information about funding from ExxonMobil and, more recently, the funding from Koch Industries for U.S. climate denial groups through its ExxonSecrets.org site and its reports on the Kochtopus network. 

But little is known about other sources of funding, particularly support from other polluter interests.

"The public should know who is funding climate denial so they can properly judge the information put out by organizations like the Global Warming Policy Foundation,” Australian ethics professor Clive Hamilton told Graham Readfearn, writing for the Brisbane Times.**

DeSmogBlog and others have repeatedly pointed out that the GWPF plays fast and loose with facts, and the funding sources behind Lord Lawson's group are thought to be another area in which the GWPF may not be telling the whole truth. 

Lord Lawson has claimed in a GWPF annual report:

… “we offer all our donors the protection of anonymity. However, in order to reassure those who might otherwise doubt our complete independence, our Protocol for the Acceptance of Gifts lays down that we do not accept donations either from the energy industry or from anyone with a significant interest in the energy industry.”

Montague wants Lawson to come clean about this to see whether it's true or not. Montague is a seasoned journalist who previously worked for the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail in the UK, and now serves as director of the Request Initiative, which files Freedom of Information requests on behalf of non-profits.

Montague's lawyer Robin Hopkins appealed to the judge today:

“There is enormous public interest in transparency as to who that individual is. There is a pressing need to scrutinise whether or not that person has any ‘significant interest’ in the energy industry. It appears that the Charity Commission makes no attempt to address that issue – it is left entirely in the hands of the GWPF itself.

“Further, it is important that the public knows which high-profile figure has this degree of influence within GWPF. Parliament’s Science and Technology Select Committee has expressed this public interest and has pressed for transparency on the issue of GWPF’s donors. It has been stonewalled.”

Tribunal judge Alison McKenna is expected to reach a decision within four weeks. 

Read Montague’s witness statement to the UK Information Rights Tribunal [PDF].

**Graham Readfearn, a freelance journalist, is a DeSmogBlog contributor. The piece he wrote for the BrisbaneTimes.com.au describes in more depth how the UK inquiry has important ramifications in Australia and around the world. He notes that two prominent Australian climate change contrarians – Professor Bob Carter, of James Cook University, and Professor Ian Plimer, a mining company director and geologist at the University of Adelaide – are members of the GWPF's academic advisory committee. See Graham’s piece for more detail: Bid to out the money behind the voice against climate change.

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Over the past year or more, I’ve profited from a series of conversations and exchanges with Yale’s Dan Kahan, the NSF supported researcher who has made great waves studying how our cultural values predispose us to discount certain risks (like, say, climate change). Kahan’s schematic for approaching this question—dividing us up into hierarchs versus egalitarians, and individualists versus communitarians—is a very helpful one that gets to the root of all manner of dysfunctions and misadventures in the relationship between politics, the U.S. public, and science.

Kahan says that his goal is to create a “science of science communication”: In other words, understanding enough about what really makes people tick (including in politicized areas) so that we know how to present them with science in a way that does not lead to knee-jerk rejections of it. Thus, for instance, presenting conservatives with factual information about global warming packaged as evidence in favor of expanding nuclear power actually makes them less defensive, and more willing to accept what the science says—because now it has been framed in a way that fits their value systems.

This is a very worthy project—but it doesn’t only tell us how to communicate science to conservatives. It tells us something scientific about who conservatives are. They are people who are often motivated—instinctively, at a gut level—to support, default to, or justify hierarchical systems for organizing society: Systems in which people aren’t equal, whether along class, gender, or racial lines. And they are motivated to support or default to individualistic systems for organizing (or not organizing) society: People don’t get help from government. They’re on their own, to succeed or fail as they choose.

It is one thing to accurately and scientifically explain how these values motivate conservatives. And it is another to reflect on whether one considers these values to be the ones upon which a virtuous and just society really ought to be built.

Kahan’s way of explaining conservatives, based on their moral values, is closely related to other approaches, like the well known one of University of Virginia social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Haidt does it a little differently, talking about the different “moral foundations” of liberals and conservatives. But there’s a heck of a lot of overlap. For Haidt, liberals care about fairness or equality, and they care about protecting people from harm. This is roughly analogous to egalitarianism and communitarianism. Conservatives, however, have other “moral foundations”: They care about respect for authority (e.g., hierarchy). They care about loyalty to the group (or to put a more negative spin on it, tribalism). And they care about purity or sanctity and whether someone does something perceived to be, you know, disgusting (especially sexually).

 Again, when one reflects on whether these values are actually, you know, good ones, I would have to answer “no.” I don’t think respecting authority is so great—authorities are too often naked emperors—and this is of course why I am an anti-authoritarian liberal. I definitely don’t like tribalism, though I do appreciate the power of loyalty in a foxhole or on a football team. And I don’t think the “yuck factor,” or someone’s personal sense of what is disgusting, is a good basis (standing on its own, anyway) for deciding how we ought to be governed.

The point is that it is one thing to understand how to reach conservatives—e.g., frame information in the context of these sorts of values—and it is another thing to understand conservatives, and to really think about what it means that human beings divide up, politically, based upon these kinds of differences.

And of course, Kahan’s and Haidt’s approaches are just two out of many scientific approaches for understanding the differences between what makes liberals, versus conservatives, tick. Other approaches have focused on left-right personality differences, on different physiological responses to stimuli and patterns of attention, on some differences in brain structure and function, and even, believe it or not, on genes.

This stuff is, if anything, even more wildly controversial than Kahan’s or Haidt’s work. But it, too, is good science: peer reviewed, insightful, important.

I bring all of this up, by the way, because Kahan has just written me a “Hey, Chris Mooney” open letter. He knows I have a book coming out on the science of liberals and conservatives, a science to which he himself has contributed, even if this is not his primary goal. He says he welcomes my project, but asks me to imagine a different one—he calls it the “Liberal Republic of Science” project—and whether it is worthy:

Imagine someone (someone very different from you; very different from me)— a conservative Republican, as it turns out—who says: "Science is so cool — it shows us the amazing things God has constructed in his cosmic workshop!"

Forget what percentage of the people with his or her cultural outlooks (or ideology) feel the way that this particular individual does about science (likely it is not large; but likely the percentage of those with a very different outlook — more secular, egalitarian, liberal — who have this passionate curiosity to know how nature works is small too. Most of my friends don't—hey, to each his own, we Liberals say!).

My question is do you (& not just you, Chris Mooney; we—people who share our cultural outlooks, worldview, "ideology") know how to talk to this person? Talk to him or her about climate change, or about whether his daughter should get the HPV vaccine? Or even about, say, how chlorophyll makes use of quantum mechanical dynamics to convert sunlight into energy? I think what "God did in his/her workshop" there would blow this person's mind (blows mine).

I actually do know how to talk to this person about climate change—though I wouldn’t be the best person to do it, since I can’t walk the walk and wouldn’t sound at all authentic. But the answer is to talk about the biblical mandate to serve as stewards of the creation. And research like Kahan’s has been critical in helping us generally understand how to frame science for different audiences—for people like this hypothetical conservative.

Kahan goes on to ask:

I look forward to reading The Republican Brain. But there's another project out there — let's call it the Liberal Republic of Science Project — that is concerned to figure out how to make both the wisdom and the wonder of science as available, understandable, and simply enjoyable to citizens of all cultural outlooks (or ideological "brain types") as possible.

The project isn't doing so well. It desperately needs the assistance of people who are really talented in communicating science to the public.

I think it deserves that assistance.  

Wouldn't you agree?

Yes, I agree very strongly, though I don’t think the project is ailing as badly as Kahan suggests. If  you look at now, versus five years ago, there is much more openness to the project than there was before. Approaches that I got virulently attacked for advocating in 2007 and 2009—like “framing” scientific information and pushing scientists to engage in outreach, as I did in the book Unscientific America—now scarcely meet with a peep of protest within the scientific community.

So I actually think that ball—call it the “science communication” ball—has left the pitcher’s hand. People are out there trying to communicate science in all manner of sophisticated and increasingly audience sensitive ways (including conservative audience-sensitive ways). Kahan’s research is, I’d wager, having a profound influence on that enterprise.

I’m part of that enterprise, I devote myself to it every month, and I believe in it deeply.

But here’s the thing: I’ve also read my history of science. And it tells me that sometimes, when science comes along, it is fundamentally challenging to the most firmly held worldviews, and meets with adamant rejection—because people just can’t face the music.

This certainly describes global warming science today. It describes the science of evolution. And although we don’t really know yet, it may well describe the science of liberals and conservatives.

In other words, while you may well be able to use research like Kahan’s to make conservatives receptive to certain types of science, there may also be some aspects science that they are just bound to reject. And ultimately, there may be only so much you can do to blunt the force of such science through some type of frame game.

Science is, let us remember, one of the most destabilizing forces on the planet. It is relentless in its constant driving of change—change not only in how we live, but how we think. In this, it is a liberal force—always searching after the new and different. So sometimes, it can’t help but clash with conservative forces—striving to preserve and avert change.

So Hey Dan Kahan, here’s what I’ll say: Without your project we’d be much, much poorer.

But the fact is that when it comes to understanding our politics, and our politics of science, and our science of politics, we live in really….interesting times. Too interesting, I predict, for some people to handle—and too interesting for other people, including scientists, to resist.

Novel molecules with as much surface area per volume as a football field could be used to store more hydrogen than compressed gas, extending the range of fuel-cell electric vehicles.

Originally posted at News - Cutting Edge

According to a report released by the National Research Council (NRC), human and environmental safeties of nanomaterials remain uncertain despite the spending of billions of dollars in nanotechnology research and development over the past ten years.

Fast before surgery. That's a common recommendation doctors give patients to ensure a safe procedure. Now a new study in mice suggests that the advice may have benefits beyond the operation itself: Extensive presurgical fasting appears to protect organs from postsurgical damage. Although preliminary, the finding builds on evidence that short-term starvation helps the body guard against stress and may be a useful medical tool.

Scientists have discovered that all sorts of females – from birds to reptiles to insects – have a nifty trick to prolong the lifespan of sperm, letting them store it for weeks, months or even years on end. They found that females do this by lowering the metabolic rate of sperm, so it can survive in their bodies almost indefinitely.

Fructose, or fruit sugar, is a simple monosaccharide found in many plants. It is one of the three dietary monosaccharides, along with glucose and galactose, that are absorbed directly into the bloodstream during digestion. Fructose is generally regarded as being 1.73 times as sweet as sucrose. Fructose is a common sweetener used in many products such as soda as a result. There is now some new research evidence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk is present in the blood of adolescents who consume a lot of fructose, a scenario that worsens in the face of excess belly fat.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL) today launched the Water Tight 2012 report, which explores the future of the global water sector in the year ahead. The report examines how major global trends such as population growth, increasing economic development, and urbanization, coupled with the changes in climate patterns, underscore the importance of effective public policy and private sector water stewardship in managing this finite and shared resource. The growing demand for water is making conservation and efficient use central issues, particularly as governments, utilities, and the private sector come under increasing pressure to be stewards of this precious and shared resource. The report states that a clearer water pricing will play an important role in how customers better manage their water usage. "There is a compelling case for utilities either to increase water prices or create a better pricing system that addresses scarcity issues, allows them to invest in the replacement of ageing infrastructure, and provides them with a satisfactory financial return," says James Leigh, Global Leader for Water, DTTL. "Increasing water prices, however, is a difficult political decision, as domestic water usage is considered a basic human right. As such, raising awareness of water related issues and educating the public about the necessity of more effective water pricing is crucial."

Another company that received backing from the U.S. Department of Energy files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Originally posted at Nanotech - The Circuits Blog

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life give you a global economic crisis, a gloomy real estate market, and an uncertain currency future, make a house out of shredded-up money.

The Florida Legislature has dropped a controversial provision that would have made it a crime to photograph or videotape on agricultural facilities without consent.

Even after 100 years have passed a restored wetland may not reach the state of its former glory. A new study in the open access journal PLoS Biology finds that restored wetlands may take centuries to recover the biodiversity and carbon sequestration of original wetlands, if they ever do. The study questions laws, such as in the U.S., which allow the destruction of an original wetland so long as a similar wetland is restored elsewhere.

A public school in New York City is doing amazing things to promote a love for gardening and local food, and is working with Columbia students to build a garden on its roof.

Ever since Belgium chemist Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite in 1905, plastic has been the “the material of a thousand uses” for humans.

Plastic has been used from plane cockpits in World War II  to prosthetic implants and even life saving medical devices. One can see the usefulness of plastics all around in almost every aspect of modern daily life. However, despite  the many positive and useful products plastics have provided the world it has also brought with it some controversy. If we look at the  plastic bag for example which often ends up in our streams, rivers, and our food supply as we consume marine animals that have ingested plastics floating in the oceans it’s easy to see the growing problem we face.

With these kinds of dilemmas in mind, the search for the perfect plastic – a product that has all of plastic’s benefits, but none of its downsides – has scientists, companies, and governments scrambling to present to the world what may be one of the most important inventions in our century. So far, here are the contenders for the title:

Bioplastic. Thousands of acres of farms and fields are now growing biofuels and bioplastic instead of grain. Corn starch, soy, and potatoes are used as “kinder” source materials for manufacture of plastics. One example is PLA bio plastic. Dextrose is extracted from milled corn and fermented to turn into lactic acid. The lactic acid is then converted into lactide, which is polymerized to produce polyactide acid (PLA). The molecules of cornstarch in the bioplastic product absorb water and breaks up into smaller fragments, an easier fare for bacteria.

Biodegradable Plastic. These are designed to decay much faster than their regular counterparts. The most common types are photodegradable plastic (decays in presence of light) and oxydegradable/oxodegradable plastic (decays in presence of oxygen). Thermal based biodegradable plastic (breaks down in high temperatures) is also another type of biodegradable plastic. Though they break down much faster, they are not made of kinder materials as bioplastics. Biodegradable plastics are made of the same petrochemicals that ‘normal’ plastics area made of. This fact raises concerns about toxic chemicals they may leak in landfills and composts.

Recycled Plastic. Also known as eco-plastic, recycled plastics are reused as new items. They may be downcycled or upcycled according to function and quality. It can be as simple as reusing a plastic cup as a vase, or as complicated as turning milk jugs into faux wooden benches. Ultimately though, recycling plastics is just delaying the inevitable arrival of plastics to landfills (or worse, rivers and oceans). There’s also the added question of whether these plastics have been recycled efficiently, using less water and energy in the process.

 

There is yet no clear winner among the contestants for the perfect plastic. The scientific community is still at work in determining and developing the perfect product with all of plastic’s blessings and none of its burdens. In the end, it is still up to us how to use “miracle products” like plastic wisely and in moderation.

 

Photo Credit: Some rights reserved by  Majiscup – Gotta Take The Cup Tonight on Flickr.

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