Friday, Dec 11, 2015 06:57 PM MPST
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s shockingly reasonable climate-change plea
The former governor & movie star makes an emphatic call for climate action. Of course the GOP won't listen
Arnold Schwarzenegger posted an article on his Facebook page this week that could be one of the most salient arguments in support of fighting human-made global warming we’ve yet seen — especially from a Republican.
Never in a million years did I think Arnold Schwarzenegger would be the guy who’d so clearly define the realities of the climate crisis. But there you go.In typical Arnold style, he took the fight directly to the people who need it the most. It’s too bad that the people who he tried most to convince will be the bubble-people who will plug their ears and shout, “Not listening!”
Arnold asked three questions. The first: “Do you believe it is acceptable that 7 million people die every year from pollution?”
He writes:
His second question is more specific to the climate crisis itself, but still exists on the periphery: “[D]o you believe coal and oil will be the fuels of the future?” Arnold’s answer here ought to be embraced from a purely capitalistic point of view:
Arnold continued by adding:
And finally, Arnold’s final question is possibly one of the best extended metaphor relating to the climate crisis.
Arnold asked three questions. The first: “Do you believe it is acceptable that 7 million people die every year from pollution?”
He writes:
That’s more than murders, suicides, and car accidents – combined. Every day, 19,000 people die from pollution from fossil fuels. Do you accept those deaths? Do you accept that children all over the world have to grow up breathing with inhalers?Of course this makes perfect sense to anyone who enjoys even the slightest grasp of logic and reality. Unfortunately, too many deniers either don’t believe there’s a problem in the first place, or the ones who accept the existence of pollution don’t think it’s connected to global warming. So, this first point is a relatively easy sell. Poison air is poisonous. Who can seriously argue with that?
His second question is more specific to the climate crisis itself, but still exists on the periphery: “[D]o you believe coal and oil will be the fuels of the future?” Arnold’s answer here ought to be embraced from a purely capitalistic point of view:
I, personally, want a plan. I don’t want to be like the last horse and buggy salesman who was holding out as cars took over the roads. I don’t want to be the last investor in Blockbuster as Netflix emerged. That’s exactly what is going to happen to fossil fuels.Outstanding point. Blockbuster was a particularly appropriate metaphor, but while it’s more recognizable as a defunct brand, I’d go further and suggest coal and oil is not unlike the big video rental retailer of the 1980s, Erol’s Video, which was eventually absorbed by Blockbuster. That’s old. And Erol’s betamax section makes it appropriately useless.
Arnold continued by adding:
Renewable energy is great for the economy, and you don’t have to take my word for it. California has some of the most revolutionary environmental laws in the United States, we get 40% of our power from renewables, and we are 40% more energy efficient than the rest of the country. We were an early-adopter of a clean energy future.The economic argument in support of mitigating the impact of global warming is a very strong one, but again, you have to accept that there’s a problem in the first place. Too many conservatives don’t. Why? Because smart people do.
Our economy has not suffered. In fact, our economy in California is growing faster than the U.S. economy. We lead the nation in manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, entertainment, high tech, biotech, and, of course, green tech.
And finally, Arnold’s final question is possibly one of the best extended metaphor relating to the climate crisis.
There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an identical, completely sealed room, with an electric car. Both engines are running full blast.
I want you to pick a door to open, and enter the room and shut the door behind you. You have to stay in the room you choose for one hour. You cannot turn off the engine. You do not get a gas mask.
I’m guessing you chose the Door Number Two, with the electric car, right? Door number one is a fatal choice – who would ever want to breathe those fumes?
This is the choice the world is making right now.
Knowledge discovery NOT = product/application development NOT = adoption NOT = successful deployment NOT = social impact/progress
The argument for basic science is that it's generally difficult to direct knowledge discovery to those with actual impact in the long run. If Singapore is shifting the $$$ down one stage, then they might as well spend it on the other stages also, or end up with lots of applied research results +/- proof-of-concept showcases sitting on shelves. Good ideas don't sell itself, but neither do potentially good applications.
Government should seriously consider the Editorial suggestion of
'' phasing in the funding changes, over the next few years, rather than introducing them all at once.'' As rightly pointed out by the
Editorial, '' while the move to realign scientific objectives with economic reality is understandable, it would be a huge waste if doing so with undue haste and insufficient planning were to
destroy Singapore's impressive experiment", the city – state government should very seriously consider these words of wisdom. Singapore should be an example to other countries
and retain its scientific community in their own city – state at all costs.
Coupled with local labour laws heavily tilted in favour of the employer, so that even a tenured professor can be fired at a short notice without much pretext, and the constant itch of bureaucrats to micromanage most everything (e.g. few months into your grant you can easily get an order to cut spending on a specific line of important items, for no given reason), in it's only fair that the pay is good.
When the massive biomedical funding came in a decade ago especially for basic research, many in the community were skeptical how long this would last (the motivation for eventual economic returns was very clear to everyone from the very beginning). The heavy funding for basic research is actually strengthened with the National Research Foundation and Education Ministry funding support for the coming years; it is understandable that A*STAR is clarifying its goal of translational research (A*STAR is part of Trade and Industry Ministry). In the local biomedical community, very few people would have the illusion that Singapore will continue to devote most funds to support blue sky type of basic research.
The biggest psychological impact of the recent realignment to local biomedical researchers probably is the end of extramural grants from biomedical research council (BMRC). Even though this was remedied with the increase in extramural funding from other funding agencies, many individual PI felt the psychological shock because BMRC has already built the reputation as a large funding source supporting individual PI driven research. The overall landscape for research funding in Singapore is still way better than most other developed countries.
Over the past decade when I talked to business people, many were surprised about the scale of the Singapore experiment for so much basic research. For these people and the commoners at large, the recent realignment is not too drastic or sudden. Some even told me that these are long overdue. Singapore has been pushing for translational biomedical research especially for the past 5 years mainly from science to medicine but translation is also important from science to industry via biomedical technology innovations. Basic biomedical researchers in many countries sometimes look down on translational research; claiming that these have no science, little innovations and low impact or too technical. Interestingly, many technology journals' impact factors (IF) have skyrocketed over the past few years (just look at the Nature series on technologies; and the dwindling IF on many pure biology journals). A recent discussion with some publishers suggests that many basic researchers turned away from pure biology research partially because of the nick-picking behaviors of many reviewers in these fields. Many groups spent bulk of resources revising papers to satisfy tiny concerns (end up as many figures in supplementary information) of reviewers to get into these journals (some even with mediocre IF). The rate of diminishing returns in perfecting a figure or two have driven many researchers into technology areas where the reviewers are still fair and reasonably rigorous (just like the basic research publishing 20 or 30 years ago). As more basic researchers migrate into translational research worldwide, the scientific rigor has improved. Biomedical people start realizing that there are also scientific principles to be discovered and significant innovations in even the so called technical areas. Studying or developing an engineered system can be as valid scientifically as those focusing on the natural or pathological systems. Moving a basic science discovery into something useful for industry or healthcare requires more than just a technician's contribution or pairs of hands. If Singapore as a city-state's primary motivation for research is to build up competitiveness for a knowledge economy, then the current realignment to really focus on translational research is timely. Being a culturally and geographically located interface between the east and west, Singapore can source for bulk of the basic research discoveries elsewhere and translate them in Singapore into useful technologies for the society or the world. The strong and efficient team-based working style and a large technical/engineering community is ideally suitable for translational research that often require integrative cross-disciplinary efforts and collaborations. Basic research still has values in Singapore for many obvious reasons in education, in maintaining scientific reputation as a credible place for R&D etc. As Singapore builds a reputation as a translational research hub, some values of the basic research will be substituted over time by high quality translational research; and it will be great if Singapore maintains a smaller but higher quality basic researchers community mostly in academia while national research institutions or industry R&D centers focus on translational research that yield more direct impact to society.
B.t.w. fish con: thanks for the insightful official Singapore view about the pityful state of sciences and publication system as a whole ... lol
The fact is, Singapore is always fast in implementing changes in its research goal since I joined IMRE in 1998. The country is a population with 1/5 of the Netherlands, 1/15 of UK, and 1/20 of Germany, not to mention with the size of the country. I guess it is better for them not good to stay at the same position for 20 years in order to survive the competitiveness from other emerging and rising countries. Sound very official right? LOL.
"This significance of the proposed research is not strong because the proposal is diffuse and highly ambitious. The PI should focus more tightly on key components of the prior proposal that are viewed as strongest and best integrated.
Each of the aims and themes of this diffuse proposal could be a proposal in itself. The PI is urged to focus more on one of these aims and flesh out the mechanistic and translational strengths therein."
While this may be true, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that whoever wrote this read and understood the proposal
Do you apply for MOE grants in IMRE (strangely I can't seem to find someone with your initials on the IMRE website)? Also I don't understand the point you are trying to make when you divide the populations of various countries by the population of Singapore. How does this justify sketchy research funding allocation policy?