You may have noticed over the past few months….the plethora of political debates, myriad of formats (sitting down, standing up, standing in reverse order, blatantly partisan liberal moderator, blatantly partisan conservative commentator). One thing I’ve noticed, the topics are always the same. Not that these are important issues, but how many times do we need to hear the same thing?

A grassroots movement has developed in order to have the candidates debate scientific issues. The folks over at Science Debate 2008 have created a tremendous movement, now with the support of 20 Nobel laureates & 10 members of Congress along with thousands of others.

Here’s a list of topics to be covered in the science debate:

The Environment
* » Climate Change
* » Conservation and Species Loss
* » The Future of The Oceans
* » Fresh Water: Drought, Pollution, Ownership
* » Population Growth and Its Effect on Environment
* » Renewable Energy Research

Health and Medicine
* » Global Diseases and Pandemics
* » Stem Cell Research
* » Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria
* » Drug Patents, Generic Drugs
* » The Genome
* » Bioethics

Science and Technology Policy
* » Scientific Innovation and Economic Growth
* » Improving Science Education
* » Space Exploration
* » Preserving Scientific Integrity in Government
* » Energy Policy

Do you know where the candidates stand on these issues? Take this quiz to find out.

More Info
Science Debate 2008
Science Friday discusses the science debate

My friend David just wrote a general story on science cafes for WIRED magazine. The piece outlines the science cafe movement, highlighting a few from around the country. However, our little science cafe takes the cake…the picture from the DtaS event on climate change. If you were at the event, you might be (more) famous now!

Check out the story on WIRED: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/12/science_cafe

Digg the article or post a comment…it’s a quick way to help publicize Down to a Science!

A very popular methodology for carbon reduction is forcing more into the ocean. Many scientists support the testing of algal bloom growth in the oceans. Other private companies are researching iron fertilization, a process used to promote plankton growth in the ocean. Yet other groups even look toward direct deep sea carbon injection, a process where CO2 is captured and then pushed (generally via big ass tube) into deep ocean or even ocean floor.

Rather than explore each individual idea in this post, I’ll address the overall movement.

According to estimates, the carbon load in the deep ocean is about 50 times of that in the atmosphere (38,100 vs 750 GigaTons of Carbon). The time it takes for changes in the atmosphere to equilibrate is estimated in the hundreds to thousands of year ranges. Many of the above methodologies use that estimation as a basis for the research.

The rub: ocean chemistry is widely misunderstood. Concerns range from development of toxic algal growths to harming deep sea marine level. In fact, many scientists including Dan Kammen (DtaS speaker on Biofuels) share that concern. Climos, a local San Francisco climate startup, has proposed a set of standards for private entities and researchers when it comes to any ocean fertilization project.

Over the next few days, I’ll be writing on the specifics of many of these issues.

Takeaway:
There is 38,100 gigatons of momentum for carbon sequestration in the ocean. There needs to be some significant oversight on any setup as mistakes could be costly. That being said, the numbers show promise here, with upwards of 50% of anthropogenic carbon being mitigated via these processes.

More Info:
Climos’ Standards
DOE Page explaining Carbon Sequestration
Carbon Cycle
James Lovelock on Science Friday

Joe Eskenazi of SF Weekly sat down with Melissa Capria, our August speaker, a couple weeks back to discuss local global warming issues. The article again mentions the 1 meter sea level rise by 2100 and the subsequent possible infrastructure damage estimated at $48 billion. The main areas of concern, the sewage treatment/drinking water infrastructure. The article also points out how the decrease in city population has contribute greatly to the reduction in GHGs (we’re at 9.2 now vs 9.7 in 2000).

Takeaway
The article is fun and witty, but doesn’t add much to the conversation. I’m mentioning it mainly since lots of people read SF weekly here locally. Just as at the cafe, there is strong concern in meeting the 2012 target. Without STRONG personal buy in, we ain’t getting there.

More Info
SF Weekly Article

Pics and Videos from the climate change event are up on the website. As always, you can watch snippets of the video on YouTube.