Budget priorities…

‘Tis the season that parents and prospective students descend on college campuses across the country.  During April Visit Days at Colgate, we see a steady flow of wide-eyed high school seniors with proud, pensive, and inquisitive parents in tow.  I always enjoy speaking to prospectives and their parents even when the parents are a little over zealous.  Normally, I get to speak to the prospectives who are not only interested in physics, but are also interested in pursuing astronomy.  Parents always ask the question what kind of a job can my kid gets if they get a degree in astronomy.  My answer is pretty standard.  For professional astronomers, there are two main career paths: academia or research scientist.  For those just wanting an undergraduate degree, I let them know that their child will be a problem solver with sophisticated math and computational skills.  Since our economy is based on workers with these types of skills, I imagine they will do just fine in the workplace.  As much a I try not to, I also find myself at some point in the conversation mentioning the status of funding for basic science research.  After discussing the status of NSF funding with a prospective student’s parents the other day, I decided to do a little poking around to see how the US is currently spending its money and compare how research funding compares with other areas of spending.  Here’s what I was able to find quickly (mostly from government websites), with my hopefully pragmatic take on the numbers.

$65.9 billion is the amount allocated for basic civilian science research in President Obama’s 2015 budget.  Nearly half of that, $30.2 billion is designated for the National Institute of Health (NIH).  Nearly half of the other 50% goes to NASA with $5 billion for science research and the other $12.46 billion going for space exploration (loosely defined).  The National Science Foundation (NSF) is requesting $7.255 billion for 2015.  I’m not sure how this differs from what is in Pres. Obama’s budget.  The total science research budget request of $65.9B is 1.69% of the total $3.901 trillion dollar budget.  In other words, that’s less than 1/50th of the budget.

If we estimate the current population of the US at 317 million people, the total budget breaks down to $12,305 per person with $207 going toward basic scientific research.  For $200 per person, we get all of our advances in the sciences with nearly $100 of that going into health-related research via the NIH.  If you compare that with what a visit to the doctor costs, it should sound like a small price to pay to cure cancer, fight Alzheimer’s disease, fix spinal chord injuries, and any of the other numerous illnesses and diseases our researchers are trying to understand and treat.

Let’s now compare the basic research spending to the Department of Defense (DoD) budget request of $495.6 billion dollars.  If it weren’t for the sequester, this number would likely be well over $500B.  That’s 12.7% (roughly 1/8th) of the budget or $1563 per person to maintain the most technologically advanced army in the world.  However, I’ve seen other estimates that include defense-related spending that increases the fraction closer to 20% of the overall budget ($780.2B or nearly $2500 per person)  For comparison, France, Germany, and UK combined are expected to spend $149B on defense in 2015.  That’s less than a third of the US DoD budget and less than 1/5th of the overall US spending on defense.  How does that work out per person for these three less populated countries?  $720 per person.

For a second, let’s look at the money budgeted for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).  The NEH’s budget request for 2015 is $0.146B.  That’s right, there is a zero before the decimal point.  And for some folks, that’s still too much.  In fact, if you are Paul Ryan, the conservative appointed guru of the US budget, you want to eliminate the NEH completely.  As you can see, it would be a huge cost savings!!!  As a self-proclaimed pragmatist, I actually fail to see the logic in cutting a program such as the NEH.  The budget for the NEH represents, get this, 0.003% of the US budget.  Instead of completely cutting a 100% of a program that does a lot of good with very little.  Why not cut 1% from a program that probably can save that much by spending their money a little more wisely, like the DoD.  A 1% cut in the DoD budget would fund the entire NEH for almost 34 years.  Yeah!  Big numbers can be surprising.  Given the return to human development and the importance of creativity in all forms to advances in science and technology and, by extension, emerging economic markets, the negligible budget of the NEH should never be threatened.  But, who takes the time to really dive into these numbers on their own to see just how ridiculous the budget saving measure proposed by our elected officials actually are?  In fact, Paul Ryan and other partisan hacks are just taking aim at programs they don’t understand nor lack the insight/good sense to see the value of.

Returning to the big dollar items, what if we spent money on defense like our European counterparts?  The DoD’s budget would be $228.2B, which would translate into a savings of roughly $260B dollars in 2015.  Would we have better roads?  Or better yet, would we have a better public transportation system?  Would we have better schools?  After all, the 2015 budget for education is $69 billion, or only a little over a fourth of what we would save.  Would we have found a cure for many cancers?  Would we have solved our energy problems with research and development into sustainable energy production?  Would we have rebuilt our agricultural industry to produce food in a more sustainable manner, while appreciating the need for biodiversity among the edible plants we grow?  Would we have been back to the moon or even have sent people to Mars?  Would we have cleaned up the environmental disasters like the Exxon Valdez and the BP oil spill in the gulf?  Would we have made our underground mines safer for our coal miners?  Would we have done a better job of protecting our water sheds?  Would we enforce regulations protecting our oceans and fisheries?  Would we have refurbished our aging infrastructure?  Are these not our priorities?  If not, what are our priorities?

At the same time, I wonder who is getting rich off of the $500B we spend on defense?  What role are they playing in convincing us to accept the status quo of spending 20% of our budget per year to defend ourselves from the boogey man.  Perhaps, I don’t get it because I don’t fear for my safety as much as the next person.  I’m also not one of these people who feel that I should have the right to carry a weapon everywhere I go because I need to defend myself “everywhere I go.”  Perhaps, we wouldn’t feel the need to defend ourselves from mentally disturbed people if we committed resources to caring for them.  In the long run,  I would rather see society work better for everyone than feel like we could repel a simultaneous attack from the Russians, the Chinese, and ET.

In the end, our spending should reflect our priorities.  Instead, our spending now reflects the priorities of a country I don’t recognize.

 

Climate Change Deniers

Last Saturday night I was invited to give a talk to the local amateur astronomy club.  I really enjoy speaking to amateur groups because they are completely engaged and so happy to have the opportunity to speak with professional astronomers.  The banquet was held at the Club Monarch in Yorkville.  The outside of the building was not much to look at, but the inside was well-preserved and felt like stepping back into time 30 or 40 years ago during a slightly more prosperous era when semi-formal working/middle-class social gatherings must have occurred with more frequency.

At the beginning of dinner, one of the gentleman sitting at my table claimed that he doesn’t “believe” in global warming or climate change.  He initially said that there are too many natural explanations for warming such a sunspots or variations in the radiation coming from the Sun.  Both plausible suggestions that have been studied and deemed highly unlikely to explain the recent warming trend.  He then mentioned that the globe has been cooling over the last sixteen years and global warming has effectively stopped, which is why people call it climate change instead of global warming.  The truth is that the warming of the globe has slowed considerably over the last sixteen years.  And yes, it was a bit of a surprise to most climate scientists.  However, there is a known effect called the pacific decadal oscillation, which appears to explain the recent pause (not cooling) in the warming trend.  The scary thing about this and the lack of recognition from the denial community is that it is an oscillation.  This means that if the waters in the Pacific absorb more energy than expected during one half of the period then it may absorb less or release more energy during the other half of its cycle.  So, when the pattern shifts back to heating, it may be at a greater rate than previously predicted.  Of course, this will be observable over the coming years.

The gentleman also claimed that the government was behind the science of global warming.  This is a highly problematic viewpoint that I am sure is shared by many climate change deniers.  However, it represents a fundamental lack of understanding of how we conduct basic science research in the US and across the world.  This viewpoint is the result of the constant barrage of misinformation and propaganda that constantly flows across the airwaves and in print media thanks to political pundits, elected officials, and news outlets that must receive generous support from those with a vested interest in seeing climate scientists discredited.  The willingness to blame the government obviously shows a conservative ideology that seeks to blame government for all our problems.  This statement by the gentleman along with a belief that equal numbers of scientists (he didn’t specify whether they were climate scientists or scientists like myself) don’t “believe” in global warming were the most troubling and problematic for me.  It reflects how successful the campaign being waged by the fossil fuel industry and the Republican party has been in reaching people in the general public.  It also demonstrates the lack of clarity with which the science is presented in the popular media.  For instance, I recall seeing a “scientist” on CNN being interviewed by Piers Morgan who didn’t “believe” in global warming along side a science journalist as if both of their views carried equal weight, the journalist representing the consensus of the scientific community and the scientist representing the fringe opinion that the globe is not warming as if there is a legitimate debate to be had between the two communities.  The interview ended with the science journalist telling Piers that this was irresponsible to place the fringe opinion on “equal footing” with the consensus view.  However, this happens all of the time when issues of science are debated in the public sphere and it contributes to the general public’s assertion that there really is a debate going on in the scientific community.  So, I understand why the gentleman may have this idea that there are equal numbers of scientists that do not believe in global warming.  However, this is far from the truth.  We wouldn’t be calling this consensus science if that were the case.

This leads me to the use of the word “believe,” when people talk about scientific knowledge.  I find this term problematic when someone uses it in regards to scientific knowledge such as the theory of evolution, the big bang theory, or gravity.  In science, the data and the uncertainties attached to it tell you exactly how strongly you should “believe” it.  It is not a gut reaction or choice.  The scientific community universally accepts evolution based on the theory’s ability to explain so much of what we find in nature.  The data that this theory is built on leaves no room for you choose to “believe it or not.”  As we say, “It is what it is.”  With regards to global warming, the data demonstrating the rise in global temperatures and its correlation with increases in CO2 is solid.  The globe is obviously warming!!!  There is no room for interpretation.  It is an OBSERVATIONAL fact.  And, the nature of the warming, how severely it has spiked over such a short time period has no precedent (as best we can tell) in the last few hundred thousand years.  Climatologists have spent a great deal of effort searching for explanations to the warming and find the strongest anthropogenic (human-made) cause for the warming to be radiative forcing by the introduction of CO2 into the atmosphere.  Check out the most recent IPCC Summary for Policymakers here and here.

You do not get to believe in things such as gravity or the conservation of energy or the theory of evolution.  If there are no observations that disprove the theory (in its entirety) then you are left having to accept it as a scientific theory.  I’m afraid a lot of people still think that they have a choice.  I imagine that if a climate change denier were on trial for murder and there was clear forensic evidence exonerating them of the crime, they wouldn’t want the jury to question the scientific evidence on the basis that they simply don’t “believe” it.

This brings me to my final point, because this post is getting a little too long.  What does it mean that something is statistically likely.  In the case of climate change, scientists are using statistical significances to highlight the certainty of their findings and predictions for the future.  I seem to recall that the statistical likelihood that the burning of CO2 is causing the warming is over 90%.  As is common in cases like this, the industry folks like to focus on the uncertainty as a way of calling into question the scientific results, as if scientists have to be 100% certain (which by the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, they are not).  Let’s think of it in these terms.  As far as global warming is concerned, it threatens the livelihoods and lives of future generations.  By exacerbating the uncertainty and refusing to do things to mitigate the threat and effects of global warming, climate change deniers and industry types are in essence playing Russian roulette with the planet and the future of civilization.  Let’s assume that scientists are only 95% certain that we are to blame for global warming.  Assuming that the climate change deniers have a revolver that holds 100 bullets, this game of roulette would require them to put bullets in 95 of the 100 chambers.  Are these folks certain this is the game they want to play?  Perhaps, it’s an easy decision for them to make since the dire consequences of their current actions will not be felt until several generations to come.  So, it’s not their own head that they are putting a loaded gun to.  It’s heads of their grandchildren that they are putting the gun to.  Now, I would never suggest that grandparents do not care for their grandchildren.  In fact, I think most grandparents love their grandchildren more than anything in the world, which is why I think this analogy is so powerful.  Are they really so certain that the scientists are wrong that they do not want to err on the side of caution and choose not to play roulette in the first place?

As for my friend at the amateur astronomy group, he eventually admitted that he was a proud skeptic.  So I left him with this thought.  “As a scientist, I can only say that I appreciate skepticism.  However, a true skeptic has to be skeptical of their own position.”  Deniers are not “real” skeptics.

The First Amendment Puts Rich People First in Our “So-Called Democracy”

It is surprisingly refreshing to recognize that actions taken by Congress and the Supreme Court catch me off guard.  Perhaps, I am not as much a cynic as I sometimes think I am.  For instance, the recent decision by the Supreme Court to make money an even bigger part of the electoral process truly caught be by surprise.  After the asinine ruling on the Citizens United case a few years ago and the emergence of the super-PAC, I thought it was clear that the electoral process was becoming more and more broken as unlimited dollars from wealthy individuals and corporations flowed into the super-PACs, which flooded the airwaves with half-truths and outright fabrications all meant to deceive voters.  It makes it a full-time job to be an informed voter these days, wading through the endless attacks on candidates, most of which do not stand up to serious scrutiny.  Of course, that is not to say that some don’t.  Case in point, Virginia’s former governor and the “perks” of the job, most would consider bribes.

While we cannot say that the amount of money a candidate spends on a race ALWAYS correlates with success, it almost always does.  Have a look at the data compiled on https://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/elec_stats.php?cycle=2012 from the Center for Responsive Politics.

If money were not important to who gets elected, candidates and their fundraisers would not work as hard as they do to raise the ridiculous amount of money required to get elected.  The effect money has had on our electoral process is that our elected officials spend the overwhelming majority of their time fundraising and only a fraction of their time legislating or doing what they were actually elected to do.  If the supreme court ruling means that their will be added pressure for legislators to raise funds, then I can only imagine the time they commit to legislating and doing the people’s business, as they say, will shrink even more.  The current congress is already labeled the “do nothing” congress.  Can we really afford for their work habits to get any more abysmal?

Let’s ignore the productivity of legislators for a moment and think about the effect of money on our political system.  It is probably a fair statement to say that the majority of our legislation is not written by the elected officials, but is written predominantly by lobbyists who “buy access.”  Legislation is often written to benefit corporations and profit margins and not to benefit workers or the environment.  I recognize this as a generalization, and there is always a danger in generalizing, but I think there is a lot of truth in this statement.  This leaves me wondering where is the representation of the average voter in this system?

I’m afraid it is already hard to find.  We can see the lack of representation in the willingness of this congress to stymie every effort to move ahead with actions that would help the average worker and attempt to raise the standard of living in this country.  A standard of living, which for the middle class and working poor has taken an absolute beating over the last thirty years in spite of huge gains in productivity.  I’m confounded by the arguments against raising the minimum wage, spending money on a jobs program (at a time when the infrastructure is reaching an age when it badly needs replaced, refurbished, or expanded), and the need for universal health care.  If the average voter is already lacking any evident representation in our political system, how could the supreme court make a ruling that will clearly favor the wealthiest Americans?  Unfortunately, the data clearly demonstrates that money correlates with election victories.  While the justices who voted in favor of this ruling argue that they are strictly interpreting the first amendment, the reality is that they have chosen unequal representation that favors the wealthy.  Even if this is an unintended consequence, I do not think that is how they or we the people want to view our democracy.

Here we go: Ruling Spurs Rush for Cash in Both Parties