NYT: Scientists Begin a Campaign to Oppose President's Policies

While Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews and other rock stars sing on a "Vote for Change" concert tour, another disgruntled group - this one of scientists - will crisscross the well-worn landscape of battleground states over the next month, giving lectures that will argue that the Bush administration has ignored and misused science.

The group, Scientists and Engineers for Change, another addition to the flood of so-called 527 advocacy groups that have filled this year's election discourse, announced its existence and plans yesterday in a telephone news conference. At least 25 scientists will give talks in 10 contested states: Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Among the headlining lecturers are 10 Nobel Prize winners, including Dr. Douglas D. Osheroff, a professor of physics at Stanford; Dr. Peter C. Agre, a professor of biological chemistry at Johns Hopkins; and Dr. Harold Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health.

Compared with more prominent 527's, like MoveOn PAC and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the scientists' group will operate on a modest budget of $100,000, which will mainly pay for lecturers' travel expenses.

more…
http://nytimes.com/2004/09/28/politics/campaign/28policy.html

in the world when it comes to global warming and climate change.

I'll have to ask Grammy next time I call.

You can google grandpa, lot of stuff comes up, I am so proud.

His name is Wallace S. Broecker, if he's not I'll call and ask if he'll get invovled. He is not really big in to politics, science is all Grandpa cares about. However he did say that if Bush steals another election we'd all have to kill ourselves.

He is pretty funny, my post may not allude that side of him though.

I worked for a while at the National Center for Atnospheric Research in Colorado some years back--odd that I never heard of him. But the Lamont-Doherty Institute's well known for crucial climate studies, and the description of his work puts your granddad in the forefront of his field!

Hope he's involved; I can't imagine that he wouldn't be!

:toast: to your grandpa!

Isn't that the sandstone-looing place that IMPei designed? Been by there, years ago.

It's one of the most interesting works I.M. Pei ever created. He got his inspiration from medieval monasteries and the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings. BTW, Woody Allen shot a few scenes for "Sleepers" there as well.

Wonderful place to work--brilliant people, neat technology, enlightened administration (everybody from the janitors to the senior scientists got generous TIAA-CREF pension benefits). Kind of a like a really great university with no students! :D

Small wonder ChimpCo has been slicing their budget...
:grr:

I read some of his stuff in college -- back When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth -- and found his work convincing.

Today, it's difficult to find any scientific literature on climate change and oceanography without some reference to "Broecker, W.S."

Funny, and sad, that two-and-a-half decades later, his ideas about oceanic heat dynamics could be pointing the way to an immanent and drastic change in our world.

--bkl

get a load of the heavyweight credentials of the speakers for "Scientist and Engineers for Change". Nearly all are Nobel prize winners in their respective fields.

http://www.scientistsandengineersforchange.org/speakerbios.php

I cite his work in my environmental science classes all the time (that "conveyor belt" diagram and abrupt climate change). I'd heard through other scientists that his talks are pretty entertaining, though that's coming from folks whose idea of comedic stylings is entitling a presentation on plant macrofossils in continental shelf sediments "20,000 Leaves under the Sea". Glad to hear that he really IS funny!

Georgie will do it for us.

I know Bush* made his fundies happy, but they were already going to vote for him anyway.

However, lots of scientists (practicing or just educated) got pissed by that action, and it is a perfect example of Bush*s nutty anti-science right-wing policies.

These folks are generally "not political" but are really pissed this time, and are sure to vote.

they're feeling the harness of fascism. I never thought I see the day that scientists would protest a president!

I just hope people are smart enough to listen to them.

none of the more vocal ones can be bought off with research money for their pet projects. Sorry to be so cynical, I bet these folks are killing eachother over research money just like every other academic.

yet were previously apolitical, are solidly lining up against *.

Can we all get together and try to help broadcast where they'll be? Those Military Moms were in 30 cities and I didn't hear a peep out of the media. It doesn't do alot of good if nobody knows what they're doing.

They are doing a panel discussion at one of my alma maters, Case Western Reserve U. on Oct. 15.

http://scientistsandengineersforchange.org/index.php

http://www.scientistsandengineersforchange.org/speakers.php

It makes it sounds like these guys would oppose any president's policies, even though they are specifically opposed to Bush's.

m2·kg
s3

Har, har, har. Nerd humor.

Power = Energy/Time, Energy = Force x Distance, Force = mass x acceleration. Yup, right you are. :-)

the slug (one foot per second second), one of my favorite units. But a few slugs would be good for Bu$h, oops, I think he already takes the liquid kind.

:kick: