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Friday, March 5, 2010
COMMENT OF THE DAY »
Max Avery, opinion editor dailyopinion@ou.edu • phone: 325-7630 • fax: 325-6051
“I have never seen a body so incompetent as this one. - soonerboomers
In response to Thursday’s article “Congress violates Open The body is not incompetent. The leadership, Matthew Meetings Act, experts say.” Gress and John Jennings, just think that they are above the law. - Shanaynay
STAFF CARTOON
OUR VIEW
USE OUR ARCHIVES MORALLY A letter from the great philosopher René Descartes recently turned up in Haverford College’s archives. This letter had been lost for 170 years and explained Descartes’ view of his major work, “Meditations on First Philosophy.” This letter was found because a Dutch researcher was e-mailed a scan of it and realized how important it is to understanding Descartes. Haverford had so much in its archives no one even knew the letter was there. No one knew enough about Descartes to realize the importance of the letter. Too many documents and not enough people to look at them is a problem — just ask the National Security Agency. Universities need to use what they have or they need to loan it or give it to a university that will. We have a great archive of many historical documents in our Western History Collection, located on the fifth floor of the Bizzell Memorial Library. We need go up there and use it, then do our best to share what we aren’t using or likely to use with those who will. If we’re just hoarding historical documents, it may make OU look more prestigious, but it’s also disingenuous. The discovery of the letter came with its costs. Descartes’ letter was stolen from Paris’
Institut de France 170 years ago. This is a great example to the world and all the institutions based on theft; showing an American University on high moral ground. We would like to see all institutions return their stolen goods, no matter how long they’ve had them. The British Museum with so many goods that were originally stolen from the colonies could follow this call. The Louvre could give back its goods, many of which were stolen during Napoleon’s travels. There are many famous museums based on theft. They could follow Haverford’s example and give illegitimately obtained goods back to their homelands. We also should look into our Western History collection to see if anything was stolen, probably from the American Indians. Haverford is standing up as a great university. It may not be using its archives as much as it should, but it’s obviously getting better at sharing with those who will. The university also is giving back stolen property, even though it was stolen generations ago. Let’s all make better use of our collections, and when the time comes, follow Haverford’s fine example. Sam Scharff is a zoology, biomedical sciences and letters junior.
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POINT
COUNTER POINT
Don’t make claims before Global warming is too checking the facts big and real to ignore “A hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment.” This is the definition the Oxford English dictionary gives for “theory” and the one most of the scientific community uses to govern its research and findings. Gather data, formulate a theory and test that theory until all inconsistencies and questions have been eliminated. If the research to do that is tainted in any way, you have to do it all again. It’s a time-consuming process, but one that ensures that scientists and scientific conclusions are as accurate as possible. BECCA One thing a good scienSKUPIN tist does not do is, say, lose the data that made his theory credible. For example, if this scientist was the climatologist responsible for the “hockey stick graph” that was the basis for the theory of human-caused global warming, he would not lose the data for that graph in the disorganized stacks of paper in his office. Yet, this is exactly what Phil Jones, former director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, claims happened. This after the latest scandal that Jones and his gang fudged their data, allowing them to conclude the Earth has warmed significantly over 15 years. The problem is you have to use good data if you’re going to be making apocalyptic claims and expect to be taken seriously. Jones apparently missed that memo. Jones manipulated data and quit his job because of it. Yet, almost no one in the scientific community is even considering the possibility of re-evaluating the information that is so clearly flawed. Instead, this country spends billions of dollars per year and countless man-hours reducing carbon emissions, calculating carbon footprints and enacting policies designed to combat a global threat that may or may not even exist. If global warming is real, then of course we should make every effort to lessen humanity’s negative impact on the planet. But until other, more reliable research is done to confirm that climate shift is indeed humancaused and not just a natural cycle of the planet, this money, time and publicity need to go to other environmental concerns that are being severely neglected.
Last time I checked, the rainforests are still being destroyed, species are still going extinct and there is a mass of trash and plastic in the Pacific Ocean about the size of Texas. These are tangible issues, but you almost never hear about them from the media. Many supporters of the climate shift movement will say that it doesn’t matter if the crisis is proven or not; any publicity for any environmental issue is better than no publicity. I’ve heard it argued that any argument or cause encouraging people to become more environmentally aware is worth it. That’s not true. If all aspects of the green movement are connected, not addressing legitimate concerns over the credibility of environmental research undermines all research. If people realize they are worrying about a “proven” theory that has serious flaws — if they realize that organizations, the media and even the government are willingly using bad science — they are likely to view all environmental issues as equally questionable. They may decide there is no reason to be green at all; instead of realizing we should recycle so we don’t deplete the planet of resources, we should conserve water because it saves energy and money and drive lowemission cars because pollution is disgusting and a danger to the health of animals and humans alike. All of the secrecy and false information surrounding the climate debate undermines these causes. Instead of letting a biased and shoddy researcher like Jones get away with “losing” data in his office and making up information to line his pockets and gain a little publicity, we should insist that the research involved in an issue as important as climate shift be flawless. If the whole planet is in danger, there is no room for mistakes. Start over, be as careful, accurate and meticulous as possible, then move forward to solve the problem. We’ll help the Earth and be positive our efforts are actually accomplishing something and not diverting attention away from where they would be more useful and desperately needed. Becca Skupin is an English sophomore.
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After living in Sen. Jim Inhofe’s state for to deduce a broad or universal truth from it. It almost four years now, I have become accus- is the equivalent of “Yao Ming is 7 feet 6 inches tomed to tolerating some really ignorant crap. tall. Yao Ming is Chinese. All Chinese people However, my blood still continues to boil every are 7 feet 6 inches tall.” winter when I inevitably hear some variant of The fact is the average temperature of the “I am cold, so global warming doesn’t exist!” entire planet is rising. The global temperaThis type of pathetic rationalization makes ture average naturally rises and falls, but there me reconsider my stance on the limited use of is a significant increase in the upward trend eugenics. Perhaps we should start sterilizing that corresponds to the burning of fossil stupid people as well. fuels. Look up the 20 hottest years on record. For now, I’ll give people the benefit of the Almost all of them have occurred within our doubt. Maybe some people just need to be lifetimes. exposed to the truth. But what are the actual negative effects? We all know for every action, there is a Well, you can forget about heat waves, hurreaction. Since the Industrial Revolution, ricanes, disease, melting ice caps, rising sea human beings have been pumping signifi- levels, the extinction of species, the possible cant amounts of gases into the atmosphere. shutdown of thermohaline circulation in the Global climate initiatives focus on limiting Northern Atlantic (which could send us into a the amount of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) rapid ice age), and all of the catastrophic conand “other” greenhouse gases (carbon diox- sequences that those things entail. Just focus ide, methane and nitrous oxide). on one thing: Bees are dying. There is a basic chemical process that ocThe spread of fungi and viruses into newly curs when you pump massive amounts of heated areas has caused what is known as CFCs into the atmosphere. Colony Collapse Disorder and is The ozone layer is made up of significantly reducing the world’s O3 molecules. When UV light from bee population. And humans can’t the sun passes through them, those exist without bees. molecules are broken down into O2 Bees pollinate plants. Humans (regular oxygen) and a free radical O. have never been able to do this efNormally, the free radical is so unstafectively. Without pollination, plants ble by itself, that it immediately bonds die off, CO2 increases, more plants back with the O2 to form O3 (ozone) die off, animals die off, humans die once again. off. Get it? TRAVIS CFCs that contain chlorine, fluo- GROGAN There is no conspiracy. This scirine and carbon are broken down ence isn’t based on one person’s in the atmosphere by radiation. In data. It is based on the scientific the process, radical molecules are formed, method being performed by tens of thouand these particles end up binding with that sands of scientists worldwide. Do you have radical O that is broken down when UV light any idea how hard it is to get 10,000 scientists passes through the ozone, thus depleting the to agree on anything? ozone layer. It is commonly accepted in the worldwide Now, to complicate matters, as the ozone scientific community that humans are affectlayer is broken down, less energy from the sun ing global climate change. The only thing that is reflected back into space and instead trav- is unclear is how much effect we are actually els all the way to Earth’s surface. The Earth’s having, and what we should do about it. surface absorbs the visible light, and re-emits Go read up. Not Glenn Beck’s new book, energy in the form of infrared radiation. That but something like the Intergovernmental infrared radiation, which would normally Panel on Climate Change’s international rereflect back into space, is absorbed by com- ports on climate change. If you still feel that pounds like CO2, methane and nitrogen. snow on the ground, or Sean Hannity’s smile, Those compounds then re-emit the infrared disproves climate change then please feel free radiation back toward the Earth, heating the to place your reproductive organs in a woodlower atmosphere. chipper. You are officially too stupid to use Now some people are still saying, “But I’m them. cold! If I’m cold, how can the earth be getting warmer?” The answer is simple. Climate is Travis Grogan is a political science and communications senior. not the same thing as weather. To equivocate the two, is to take a tiny sampling and attempt COMMENT ON THIS COLUMN AT
T=: O@A6=DB6 D6>AN Jamie Hughes Caitlin Harrison Ricky Maranon Lisa Phan Max Avery Michelle Gray Marcin Rutkowski
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