Week 4: The Climategate Controversy

Distribution Source: iTunesU
Content Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT World: Distributed Intelligence)
Format: Video
Length: 1 hour, 58 minutes, 31 seconds

This week's topic is the Climategate Controversy. "Climategate" refers to the November 2009 hacking of a University of East Anglia server and subsequent release of over 1,000 emails between climate scientists. Many of these emails appear to reveal scientists from the Climate Research Unit (University of East Anglia) and Penn State University behaving unethically - from suggesting data be altered to strategizing over how to keep the work of scientists who are skeptical of anthropogenic (i.e., man-made) global warming out of certain peer reviewed journals.

But if this were just an issue of two or three scientists behaving immorally for their own selfish purposes, it would not be worthy of the international attention it has received. Rather, this represents an important inflection between science and politics, on a global scale. It also represents an issue - global warming (or, the more politically correct name: climate change) - in which many different, often combative sides have entrenched interests (think developing vs. developed world, Democrats vs. Republicans, industrialists vs. environmentalists, just to name a few...).

This post is not about the science behind global warming - I'd embarrass myself even attempting to frame the debate properly. What I do know is that I've tried many times in good faith to understand the issue, and what the science says about the issue. In most cases, with nothing more than an internet connection, some critical thinking and a free afternoon, this is not exceedingly difficult. But with global warming, I've found the task tedious, in large part due the blatant propaganda from all sides. This fact alone is instructive as to the political backdrop of the issue. As I've researched this week's topic, it has become clear to me that science has to some degree taken a back seat to strong efforts on both sides to manipulate the climate change issue for political gain. Indeed, the fact that we discuss this in terms of "sides" shows how polarizing this has become (what with believers, nonbelievers, and the future of the earth in play), and how far we've gotten from rational, intelligent debate on what I think is the important, underlying question: is the world screwed and if so what can we do about it?

In the United States, it seems that the climate change debate has roughly fallen along partisan lines, with each side giving its followers an easy story. Democrats play the oh-so-certain side, safely dismissing any doubter of the veracity of anthropogenic climate change as an idiot (at the dinner party: "oh yes, dear, the poor thing, he doesn't even believe in global warming"). Meanwhile Republicans have embraced the "skeptic" terminology to represent their supposed healthy scientific questioning of the issue (on a freezing cold day: "it's -25 degrees today, yep, must be global warming!"). In other words, just like the health care debate quickly fell to an argument over death panels, the climate change debate has also regressed to lowest common denominator, politically expedient discourse.

But let's bring it back to Climategate. Why should we care? Some scientists wrote some nasty things about each other, maybe tried to change a temperature database, and discussed keeping contradictory work from being published. My first question was: what were the actual effects of this scandal? I particularly liked the approach of Ron Prinn (Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT) - he posed six questions to himself about Climategate:

1) Are some of these emails unprofessional? His answer: Yes.

2) Were the scientists involved successful in preventing journal publications? His answer: No. Not successful.

3) Was the research done by scientists in question critical for the case for anthropogenic climate changes? (my note: the way I understand it, the integrity of one of the major client science databases is now tainted, and the question becomes: is the scientific consensus in tact ex-this database and its associated work) His answer: There are many different data sets and analyses; in short, these scientists aren't the only group doing this. The body of evidence supporting that climate change is anthropogenic is robust, and the risk is, in his mind, high (there is no other planet to retreat to).

4) Has the integrity of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change been compromised? His answer: No. Yes, these scientists were involved with the IPCC, and the IPCC is the most important single input to international climate policy. However, in his experience publishing through the IPCC, it was a thorough, honest process, and he thinks hijacking the IPCC by a small group is simply not possible.

5) Is public perception of climate science affected? His answer: Yes. Media's ability to analyze hard science is diminishing, particularly as news sources continue cutting science writers. Moreover, the emails contained juicy soundbites for story writers and therefore gained a larger audience.

6) Can we do better as client scientists? His answer: We need to step back and move away from a knee-jerk tendency for polarization. The almost religious "Believers vs. Nonbelievers" framework needs to be moved away from. We need mutual respect and communication tools, not just on our conclusions but on our process as well.

Through this lense, it seems to me that the actual results of the Climategate scandal - from a climate science perspective - are not nearly as damaging as they have been made out to be. This is not to say they haven't had a meaningful impact on public discourse - the headlines surely provided fodder for those on one side of the political war. And let's be clear, this is a political war; the event was no accident - someone with a vested interest in the outcome hacked into a server, stole information, and released it to coincide with the largest international climate summit (December 2009, Copenhagen) since Kyoto.

But in my view, one major positive of Climategate is the opportunity it has provided us laypeople to think about how science and politics are married on this important issue. On the video panel, Judy Layzer, a Professor of Political Sciences at MIT and Government at Harvard, walked us through this intersection of the vastly different worlds of science and politics. Most people have a rational view of policy making - that is, the more we know about a problem the more we should be able to solve it. But that is simply not how it works.

Science is about assessing theories and advancing our understanding of the world in which we live, a process that is never complete, never certain, and always skeptical. She contrasts this with science-based policy decisions, in which people have to act in the very near-term on imperfect information. She points out that what we are asking of scientists in this situation isn't science at all. It is regulatory science, and regulatory science is inherently uncertain. And so scientists are asked to make assumptions, and assumptions are based on their values. Once we have assumptions based on values, we have moved from pure science into some other realm.

And from the purely political side of the equation, she says policy making is not at all linear - in other words we are never choosing the "best" from an array of options. Rather, there are many advocates - each with its own ideology, interests, and funding source - competing for the right to define a problem and therefore be able to give the solution. She goes on to say that, unfortunately, in many cases the underlying science has no impact on policy - it has to be woven into a political story to make a difference.

In climate change, environmental skeptics have learned the political game and know that discrediting the science is very important. Spinning the issues is not at all difficult - whether creating and using words like "Climategate" that conjure up previous scandals or simply discrediting scientists' models. Professor Layzer notes that a major problem is that scientists are not equipped to deal with such political attacks. Scientists are traditionally reserved in their language and the way in which they present arguments and conclusions. But when faced with a politicized opposition, they want to react. Imagine being a climatologist who has studied meticulously the issue of global warming and come to the independent conclusion that it is a major problem for the planet, your children, and the human race. Now imagine your valid work being discredited by some partisan hack as nothing more than the ramblings of an idealogue - wouldn't you be more willing than usual to use stronger language to persuade the public of your case? It's hard to imagine scientists not having more of these types of problems following the Climategate emails, which show impropriety on the part of only a very few scientists. While unfortunate, it represents the arena in which climate scientists, willingly or not, have been thrust.

To summarize, politicians are being politicians, some interested party hacked into computers and stole information for its gain, and a few scientists succumbed to human temptations thereby discrediting their work... What is the takeaway? First, it's clear to me that with the stakes so high all around, we will only continue to see a politicized and contentious debate on the issue of global warming. Climategate has reminded me that powerful misinformation campaigns exist, and they exist at very high levels. The incentives for scientists on both sides to be discredited are high, and my sense is that sides will only become more entrenched as we move closer to global climate regulation. This week's research has reiterated the need to have a healthy skepticism for everything that we read or are told. But also, I think we should be looking for and advocating forums, publications, and platforms that are focused on giving people access to the best possible information.

Week 3: How to Live to be 100+ (just kidding)

Week 3 is going out a litte early given the upcoming ski weekend!

Distribution Source: TED.com
Content Source: Dan Buettner (National Geographic), Dean Ornish (USCF)
Format: Video
Length: 19 minutes, 39 seconds & 3 minutes, 14 seconds
Links:
Dan Buettner: How to Live to be 100+
Dean Ornish: Your Genes are not your Fate

The first two posts have stemmed from lectures and interviews posted to iTunesU. This week's source is TED.com; if you haven't visited TED I would highly recommend it. TED consists of a series of phenomenally interesting video lectures and in my opinion the tagline says it all - "TED: Ideas Worth Spreading." If I somehow manage to keep your attention for another few months I'm sure you will hear more from TED through this site.

When I hear titles similar to the one of this blog post, I think of either hokey "cure-all" pills for which you get weird email solicitations or crazy futurists like Ray Kurzweill who, while brilliant, don't exactly inspire me to take up their cause. So I was much more receptive to Dan Buettner's approach, who began his talk by telling us why you won't live to 100 and gave some common myths about aging. He basically said that we are not wired for aging, but rather for "procreative success." In other words, once you have children and your children have children, the effect of evolution dissipates and, well, we all know what happens next...

He counters this, however, by saying something that shocked me: his research suggests that 90% of longevity is not genetic! With the right approach and barring a freak accident, we could very much control our own longevity maximization. Of course this doesn't mean we all live to 100 (the overwhelming majority of us cannot), but it does mean that whatever our capacity is can be realized by the right choices - i.e., our fates are not written on the proverbial wall.

Here are two myths he gave on aging:

- If you try hard to live to 100, you can. He claims you have to live a very good lifestyle and hit the genetic lottery to accomplish this. But don't completely give up hope: he also notes that the 100 demographic is the fastest growing demographic in the US.

- Treatments exist to stop or slow aging. To this he says our bodies have 35 trillion cells (this is unfathomable to me), each of which turns itself over once every eight years. Every time there is a cell turnover degenaration occurs, and the rate of degeneration gets higher. In fact, someone who is 65 is aging at a rate that is 125 times faster than a 12 year old person! (apologies to the 60+ crowd; don't shoot the messenger...)

So given the morbid realization that we age at an increasingly faster rate and that most of us can't live to be 100, why should you keep reading? Because we can do much better than we currently are! According to Buettner, the average capacity of a human body is 90 years. But we all know that life expectancy is only 78 years... Why are we leaving 12 good years on the table? One approach is to look at areas around the world where people are living to be 100 years and older at up to a 20x greater rate than we are and where life expectancy is up to 12 years higher. Buettner calls these "Blue Zones" and identifies three of them:

The highlands of the Italian island of Sardinia has 10x more centurians than America. (sidebar: the video opens to an AWESOME clip in which one of the super old Italian guys crushes one of the camera staff in arm wrestling!) In general the residents of this area live on a plant-based diet. A key point seems to be how they treat their elders. Unlike in America, where finding a nursing home for your parents is treated the same as choosing your child's grade school (or if you live in Manhattan, pre-school), in Sardinia the older you are, the more respect you engender.

The Japanese island of Okinawa, 800 miles south of Tokyo is what Buettner calls the "ground zero" for longevity. This represents the longest disability-free lifestyle on the planet - on average seven years longer than Americans, with five times as many centurians. They also follow a mostly plant-based diet, and eat eight times as much tofu as Americans. Interestingly, he cites their strategic anti-binge eating culture as a major reason for longevity. Not only do they have smaller plates than Americans, they say our equivalent of a blessing before each meal which urges them to stop eating when they are 80% full. It is laughable to even consider this - or anything close to it - happening in my hometown of Houston, Texas. The culture also dictates a group of close, lifelong friends called a "moi." Some mois have average ages of 102, and have been together for decades. Another key difference from Americans relates to our focus on working incredibly hard and then retiring. In Okinawa there is literally no word for retirement. The Japanese culture also dictates that everyone has a "ikigai," translated as "something important one lives for." Of the centurians Buettner interviewed, one woman's ikigai was her great, great, great granddaughter. Another caught fish for his family each day.

Buettner's team also found an American blue zone, which, surprisngly to me was a large, 70,000 person Seventh Day Adventist congregation in southern California. The average age of women in the congregation is 89 (vs. 80 in the general US population), while the average age of males was 87 (vs. 76 in the general US population). The congregation is heterogeneous, so what they share is not genetic, but rather their process and lifestyle. The Church recognizes Friday night to Saturday night as the Sabbath, giving the congregation 24 hours of sanctuary time per week. They look to the Bible for their diet, take many nature walks, and do not use any drugs or drink alcohol.

So what were the similarities between the three Blue Zones? Buettner's team found a few:

- They all move naturally - none of them "exercise" the way we think of exercising (going to the gym, buying a treadmill, etc.), but all have activities in their regular lives that involve movement. Most do not have many conveniences and choose to do their own chores; many also keep their own gardens.

- Each group has a positive outlook - all have a method for down-shifting thir lives or "de-stressing." Slowing down for even 15 minutes per day can apparently turn back inflammatory responses induced by stress.

- All have and use language related to a purpose-driven life.

- All eat wisely, but have no real diet. Many drink wine, most have a plant-based slant, and most prevent overeating.

- Each values meaningful, regular connection with others. Family and friends come first; these are faith based communities where people belong to a tribe of similar people.

After watching this video, I was fascinated but wanted to learn more, particularly about the impact of your genetics vs. your choices in life. I came upon Dean Ornish's video, which in fact claims that your genes are not your fate. His message was simple: when you eat healthier, manage stress, exercise and love more, your brain gets more blood flow and oxygen. This is not particularly new or interesting. What is incredible to me is his claim that your brain also gets measurably bigger! His studies found that walking for three hours per week for only three months caused so many new neurons go grow it actually increased the size of people's brains! He then put a list of those inputs that increase - and decrease - brain cell count.

Those that increase include, fortunately, things I like (with the exception of the last one, of course... hey, it's a family blog):

- chocolate
- tea
- blueberries
- alcohol (moderate)
- stress management
- cannabinoids

Those that decrease brain cells include:

- saturated fat
- sugar
- nicotine
- opiates
- cocaine
- alcohol (excess)
- chronic stress

Dean Ornish concludes by saying that when you are healthier it isn't just your brain that benefits, your skin gets more blood flow (causing less aging), your heart gets more blood flow (actually reversing heart disease) and tumor growth is inhibited.

It's clear to me after watching these videos and writing this summary that I don't live as healthy a lifestyle as I can and should. Incidentally, my other new year's resolution (the first being the writing of this blog) is to on the margin pick the healthier option on the menu in 2010. Maybe I'll also work up the guts to send my boss a link to this post the next time I want to go to the gym but have too much work...