The Associated Press has changed the AP Stylebook, tossing out a commonly used set of terms in favor of an entirely inappropriate word, for describing those who incorrectly and without foundation claim that climate change science is a hoax, or wrong, or misguided, or otherwise bogus.
The term “skeptic” has a long history, but has come to refer to those who regard claims, usually about nature, health, or anything where science may inform, with studied incredulity. The skeptic wants evidence, and they are organized. The Skeptics Society has a magazine, and the magazine has a podcast. The Center for Inquiry has multiple skeptical programs. The Amazing Meeting gathers skeptics from around the world in a Las Vegas hotel where everybody gets all skeptical. Science based medicine is a practice as well as a blog (and is linked to the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast). Skepchick: chicks that are skeptical. There are about fifty skeptical podcasts, with Science for the People best representing the skepticism-science link.
Then there are some other people who are called skeptics, and this pertains to global warming. The science is clear. Anthropogenic pollution is causing global warming and other changes in the climate. There is no legitimate contrary scientific position, though there is plenty of work within the science as yet undone. People who deny the scientific reality of global warming are wrong, and are probably motivated by a number of different forces. And they like to call themselves skeptics.
It has been convenient for deniers of global warming to be called “skeptics” because it makes denial of science sound like something it isn’t, like it is a good thing. Every single good scientist is a skeptic. So being called a “global warming skeptic” gives some cover. Actual scientists generally prefer to call deniers deniers, though there are a few other terms in the mix (including the widely used “contrarian”).
But actual skeptics didn’t like the use of the term “skeptic” applied to science deniers. There is a small, historically interesting irony here, which I’ll mention then move beyond. It wasn’t that long ago that three of the most famous “skeptics” (none of whom are scientists), magician James “The Amazing” Randi, and the two magicians known as Penn and Teller, espoused views of global warming that would put them squarely in the denier camp. So, among the leaders of the skeptic movement (movement is probably an OK word to use there) three were both skeptic and skeptic, in the two senses of the word. Perhaps because of this, a number of other skeptics, just regular people who participate in Internet discussions and so on, also denied the global warming science, so this incorrect perspective was part of the skeptic movement. Eventually, after a conversation or two with some actual scientists, Randi changed his mind, to his credit, and did so publicly. I’m not so sure about Penn and Teller.
Recently, the Committee for Skepticsl (CSI) called upon Associated Press (AP), and the world in general, to stop using the word “skeptic” to describe climate change science deniers. They wanted the word back, to not have it sullied by association. That was a reasonable thing to ask for, and the request was supported by many scientist who are not necessarily active in the skeptic movement. There was a letter, a petition, all that.
But the AP went further. They also said that the term “denier” should not be used, and in supporting text, indicated that this was in part because of the association of the word “denier” with “holocaust denier.” AP’s new guideline specifies, instead, that the term “doubter” instead of “skeptic” or “denier.”
This is wrong. This places contrarians who actively attempt to damage and derail the conversation about one of the most important existential issues of the day in a relatively good, and undeserved, light.
Climate change deniers are not “doubting” climate change, or any particular aspect of climate change science. A single denier might be seen on one day claiming that adding CO2 to the atmosphere does not increase global surface temperatures (it does). In another conversation a day later, the same individual can be seen arguing that yes, it does do that, but not much. Next day, OK, it does do that but it will stop doing it and the temperature will go down. Or the warming is good. Or the warming is real, and will have effects, but we can fix that. Or we can’t really fix it, but since the Chinese are not on board with changing things, what we do does not matter. And so on and so on.
And, no, that is not the rapid evolution of thinking of a denier. The same denier will go right back to the “CO2 does not cause warming” argument the moment they find a sufficiently uninformed audience.
This is not doubting. It is not being skeptical. It is denying, and it is denying pretty much the same way that Holocaust deniers are denying, in an irrational, politically motivated, goal-post moving, dishonest, and damaging way.
Denial expert John Cook, who was the lead developer of the above mentioned MOOC, pointed out to me that the term “denial” is already part of the academic and scientific conversation. “There is a great deal of research by psychologists, political scientists and other social scientists into the many aspects of science denial. Understanding the why and how of denial – why people reject science and how the scientific evidence gets distorted by misinformation – is essential to formulating an effective response. It would be ironic in the extreme if our response to science denial involved denying the social science research into denial. ”
“Climate change doubters” is a poor euphemism. It doesn’t mean the same as a climate science denier. I sometimes refer to “those who reject mainstream climate science”, however it’s clunky and doesn’t lend itself to repeated usage. Why use five words when there’s a perfectly good single word that describes those people “deniers”? Or if there’s no other context that makes it clear who you’re talking about: “climate science deniers”.
“As they say, if the shoe fits, wear it. Those who are in denial of basic science, be it evolution or human-caused climate change, are in fact science deniers,” as leading climatologist Michael Mann emailed me. “To call them anything else, be it ‘skeptic’ or ‘doubter,’ is to grant an undeserved air of legitimacy to something that is simply not legitimate.”
Romm also notes, “Here’s another reason “doubter” makes no sense. The Senate’s leading climate science denier/denialist/disinformer James Inhofe (R-OK) still maintains “global warming is a hoax.” Is he expressing “doubt”? Is he expressing what Oxford Dictionaries calls “a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction.” No. He is denying the science.”
Climate scientist and communicator Things Break picked up on the “avoid Hitler reference” theme with this tweet:
The @AP will no longer call mustaches “mustaches” b/c Hitler had a mustache, & some might get offended by the term.
In retrospect (and I truly mean that, 20-20 hindsight and all, because I had a chance to suggest this before but did not think of it) the CSI should have given equal weight to the two arguments that a) skeptic is the wrong word and b) denier is the right word. And, for good measure, they should have thrown in c) some of the other words that are out there should not be used, such as “doubter,” while some other words might be OK in certain contexts, like “contrarian.” Perhaps the appeal to AP should have been written, or at least gone over, by lawyers who think of these kinds of things in advance! As it turned out, the organized skeptics may have been a bit too concerned about their brand and a bit under concerned about the big picture. Good lesson: If you want to effect change, be more clear about what you want the change to be to.
I’m not all that big on biblical references, but one comes to mind. When Peter denied Christ, Jesus got really pissed, and it was a big deal. But when Thomas doubted, not so much.
Hillary Clinton just came out with her climate change plan. Here it is.
Hillary Clinton’s Vision for Modernizing North American Energy Infrastructure
Flipping a light switch, adjusting the thermostat, or turning a car key in the ignition brings predictable results—the light goes on, the temperature changes, the car starts. But where the energy for those everyday tasks comes from has changed dramatically in recent years, due to massive gains in renewable energy and a boom in domestic oil and gas production. And the amount of energy required to perform those tasks has fallen thanks to historic advances in efficiency.
Our policies and infrastructure have not kept pace with recent changes to the American energy system. American communities have endured toxic pipeline spills and deadly rail explosions as the amount of oil produced and transported across the country has expanded. Our existing natural gas distribution network is increasingly antiquated and in need of repair, while new networks must be built to serve parts of the country still dependent on more polluting propane and fuel oil for heating and cooking.
Our electrical grid needs upgrading to harness new technology that reduces energy costs and increases consumer choice, and to address the growing threat of cyberattack. And we must invest in the new infrastructure that will make the transition to a clean energy economy possible, keep energy affordable and reliable, meet both base load and peak demand, protect the health of our families and our climate, and drive job creation and innovation.
This work starts at home, but we can’t do it alone. The United States is part of a deeply integrated North American energy market, with interconnected pipeline and electricity systems and a shared market for vehicles and clean energy technologies. We trade as much energy with Canada and Mexico each year as with the rest of the world combined. As we invest in modernizing the United States’ energy infrastructure, we need to do so as part of a continent-wide strategy that ensures safe, reliable and affordable energy delivery, unlocks economic opportunity for American businesses and workers, and accelerates the transition to a clean energy economy across the North American continent.
Hillary Clinton’s North American energy infrastructure plan will do this in several key ways.
MAKE EXISTING ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE SAFER AND CLEANER
The United States has more than two million miles of oil and gas pipelines, many of which are outdated and in need of repair or replacement. This increases the risk of oil spills, methane leaks that help drive climate change, and dangerous explosions. A 20-fold increase in the amount of oil shipped by rail over the past five years has led to devastating accidents. Our electric grid too often fails during extreme weather events – and is increasingly vulnerable to cyberattack. These challenges extend beyond our borders to Canada and Mexico, and will be most effectively tackled if all three countries work together.
To address these issues Hillary Clinton will:
Modernize our Pipeline System
Repair or replace thousands of miles of outdated pipelines to improve safety and reduce methane leaks by the end of her first term in office.
Improve pipeline regulations, including instituting automatic or remote-controlled shut-off valves and leak detection standards that have been recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Work to close the loophole that allows companies to ship oil sands crude without paying into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.
Increase Rail Safety
Accelerate the phase-out of outdated tank cars that create the greatest safety risk and make information on companies’ progress available to the general public. Ensure rail regulations are strengthened and enforced within the United States and across the U.S.-Canada border.
Instruct the Department of Transportation to guarantee that first responders and the public have better information on oil and hazardous materials passing through their communities.
Partner with rail companies in aggressively repairing track defects that cause derailments and evaluate whether shale oil presents unique explosion risks.
Enhance Grid Security
Create a Presidential Threat Assessment and Response Team to improve coordination across federal agencies and strengthen collaboration with state and local officials and the electric power industry in assessing and addressing cybersecurity threats.
Implement a cybersecurity strategy that integrates and protects the expanded use of distributed energy resources and other cutting-edge clean energy technologies.
Provide new tools and resources to states, cities and rural communities to make the investments necessary to improve grid resilience to both cyber-attack and extreme weather events.
UNLOCK NEW INVESTMENT RESOURCES
From the Tennessee Valley Authority to the Hoover Dam to the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, when the United States invests in building, upgrading, and improving our national infrastructure, we create good jobs and careers, boost economic competitiveness, and give rise to entirely new industries. Clinton will galvanize the investment needed to help cities, states, and rural communities upgrade and repair existing energy infrastructure and build the new infrastructure we will need for a clean energy future through:
A National Infrastructure Bank: Establish a National Infrastructure Bank to leverage public and private capital to invest in critically important infrastructure projects, including energy infrastructure projects.
Challenge Grants: Award competitive grants through Clinton’s Clean Energy Challenge to states, cities and rural communities that take the lead in reducing carbon pollution by investing in renewable energy, nuclear power and carbon capture and sequestration, and reducing energy costs by investing in efficiency in both new and existing buildings.
Accelerating Investment: Ensure the federal government is a partner in getting clean and affordable energy to market by making the infrastructure review and permitting process more efficient and effective.
Expanding Consumer Choice: Offer financing tools for grid investments that support the integration of distributed energy resources and for gas pipeline investments that enable households and businesses to switch away from heating oil and other petroleum products.
A New “Pipeline Partnership”: Help cities, states, and rural communities repair and replace thousands of miles of pipelines by leveraging big data, predictive analytics and innovative testing procedures to more quickly and effectively find and fix pipeline leaks through a public-private partnership between federal regulators, pipeline companies, local utility commissions and leading technology providers and research institutions.
Transportation Funding: Work with Congress to close corporate tax loopholes and increase investment in transportation solutions that expand transit access and reduce commute times, oil consumption, and pollution.
Innovation: Increase public investment in clean energy R&D, including in storage technology, designed materials, advanced nuclear, and carbon capture and sequestration. Expand successful innovation initiatives, like ARPA-e, and cut those that fail to deliver results.
FORGE A NORTH AMERICAN CLIMATE COMPACT
The United States isn’t in this alone. The entire North American continent must accelerate the clean energy transition and develop more comprehensive approaches to cutting carbon pollution. As President, Clinton will immediately launch negotiations with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to secure a North American Climate Compact that includes ambitious national targets, coordinated policy approaches, and strong accountability measures to catalyze clean energy deployment, reduce energy costs, cut greenhouse gas emissions, guide infrastructure investment, and make our integrated energy and vehicle markets cleaner and more efficient. This will include:
Ambitious Targets: Drive greater ambition in the global fight against climate change through coordinated targets for clean energy and cutting carbon pollution, internationally recognized reporting mechanisms, and a binding review process.
Clean Power Markets: Build on the momentum created by the Clean Power Plan, which sets the first national limits on carbon pollution from the energy sector, and regional emissions trading schemes in Canada, Mexico, and the United States to drive low carbon power generation across the continent, modernize our interconnected electrical grid, and ensure that national carbon policies take advantage of integrated markets.
Clean Transportation: Work to harmonize vehicle efficiency, emissions and fuel standards, strategies for electric vehicle deployment, clean freight and logistics, and other low-carbon transportation solutions.
Methane Management: Establish continent-wide methane emissions reduction targets and coordinated strategies for reducing leaks from both new and existing sources.
Infrastructure Standards: Develop common, world-class standards for North American infrastructure that create good jobs and careers, support prevailing wage and project labor agreements, and ensure energy transportation across the continent is clean, safe, reliable and affordable.
Clinton’s vision for modernizing North American energy infrastructure is one pillar of her comprehensive energy and climate agenda, which includes major initiatives in the following areas:
Clean Energy Challenge: Develop, defend and implement smart federal energy and climate standards. Provide states, cities and rural communities ready to lead on clean energy and exceed these standards with the flexibility, tools and resources they need to succeed.
Energy and Climate Security: Reduce the amount of oil consumed in the United States and around the world, guard against energy supply disruptions, and make our communities, our infrastructure, and our financial markets more resilient to risks posed by climate change.
Safe and Responsible Production: Ensure that fossil fuel production taking place today is safe and responsible, that taxpayers get a fair deal for development on public lands, and that areas that are too sensitive for energy production are taken off the table.
Revitalizing Coal Communities: Protect the health and retirement security of coalfield workers and their families and provide economic opportunities for those that kept the lights on and factories running for more than a century.
Collaborative Stewardship: Renew our shared commitment to the conservation of our disappearing lands, waters, and wildlife, to the preservation of our history and culture, and to expanding access to the outdoors for all Americans.
By “they” I mean AP. But, really, CSI kinda messed this up too.
Put this one on your list of examples of effective activism that backfired.
AP is throwing out the correct term, ‘denier’ in favor of a bogus term, to describe climate science deniers. CSI wanted them to stop using ‘skeptic’. But the baby got thrown out with the bathwater.
From the CSI:
A small but important victory for science was scored in the public debate over climate change Tuesday, as the Associated Press announced that it would no longer refer to those who deny the reality of climate change as “skeptics” — a change that the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry has been urging the entire journalistic establishment to make. However, the AP will begin to refer to science-deniers as “doubters,” which CSI believes remains problematic and confusing.
Last year, over 50 prominent scientists, scholars, and communicators associated with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) wrote a joint letter to the news media urging them to refrain from labeling those who deny the scientific consensus behind climate change as “skeptics.” As they stated in the letter, “Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims.” Those criteria do not apply to those who reject reality in favor of misinformation or half-baked conspiracies about climate “hoaxes.”
Signatories to the CSI statement included “science guy” Bill Nye, physicist Mark Boslough, Cosmos co-creator Ann Druyan, science advocate Eugenie Scott, Nobel laureate Sir Harold Kroto, David Morrison of the SETI Institue, and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, among many others. …
In new guidelines for its journalists announced today, the Associated Press instructed its writers to refrain from referring to those to refuse to accept the reality of climate change as “skeptics” or “deniers,” but rather to use the term “doubter,” or else refer to them as “those who reject mainstream climate science.”
“We’re very glad that the word ‘skeptic’ will no longer be used to describe deniers of climate science, such as Sen. James Inhofe, who claims to believe that global warming is a hoax,” said Ronald A. Lindsay, president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry. “Skeptics use reason and evidence to reach conclusions, and that simply doesn’t apply to those who reject the scientific consensus on our warming planet.”
However, Lindsay cautioned that replacing “skeptic” with the term “doubter” remains problematic. “The AP’s journalism is read throughout the world, and heavily influences the public’s understanding of crucial issues such as climate change. Referring to deniers as ‘doubters’ still imbues those who reject scientific fact with an intellectual legitimacy they have not earned. The general public, we fear, will still not get a clear picture of which public figures are basing their positions on reality, and which are not.”
Despite problems with the term “doubters,” CSI expressed that the longer classification of “those who reject mainstream climate science” was acceptably clarifying.
I think somebody forgot to suggest to AP what they should do if they stop using the word “skeptic.”
Someone just asked on Facebook if humans are naturally carnivores. My response: What is a carnivore? Taxon? A certain percentage of meat in the diet? Some, even if just a few, humans living mostly off meat? What? Then, what is “naturally”? Genetically determined and unavoidable? Required because of our gut, or some nutritional thing? What if we were like cats, genetically driven to be effective hunters but seeming in need of some training from mom. Does that make it not natural? And, finally, of course, define the verb “to be” here. Thank you.
So, with that in mind, what about the sentence…
“Rupert Murdoch Bought National Geographic.”
I’m seeing this all over the place, along with much consternation and the occasional meme (I’ve included a couple of the memes here). Few people articulate their reasons for consternation, probably because it is so obvious. We don’t want a truth-hating right wing anti-environment jerk running a major Earth-loving institution, with a great magazine and TV specials and everything. It would destroy a long tradition, all that. The truth is too precious, especially the truth about the earth and the environment.
And I would agree with that more or less if it turns out to be true. People should be concerned about the recent thing that happened. But, if you are concerned about that because the truth matters, then please, don’t produce or repeat so much unmitigated bullshit.
Again, I reiterate my concern, because if I don’t I’ll be accused of thinking FOX news is great or for being a Rupert Murdoch Fan or something, because, after all, the truth really matters little even to those who claim it (care about the truth) is central to their very being. So if you were going to do that, just don’t. But let us please look at what is really happening here so you know exactly what to watch for, and to help guide your thinking as things unfold.
First, “National Geographic” is not a thing. It might be a short hand for the magazine, or the web site, or various TV specials, or “The National Geographic Society” which is involved in all those things. I would say that the shorthand “National Geographic” best applies to the society. If it does, then the phrase “Rupert Murdoch bought National Geographic” is simply not true because that simply did not happen.
Second, “bought” is not an appropriate word here. What did happen is that the National Geographic Society (NGS) and a commercial media company have partnered to run the National Geographic Magazine. The news agency has bought into the is partnership at just over 70%, NGS with the remainder. That is not buying the magazine, it is restructuring who is financially running it, though yes, the media company is in control with a major share of the partnership. You might thing that is the same thing as buying something, but if you do, you’d have a dangerously oversimplistic view of these things. So don’t.
Third, Rupert Murdoch did not buy anything. Well, he’s bought lots of stuff, of course, and a few years ago he bought and sold and restructured stuff so there cane to be a new version of 21st Century Fox and News Group. News Group was Murdoch’s old company, and 21st Century Fox comes down from the long time famous studio. News Group now owns or engages in print, 21st Century Fox now owns or engages in pixels, more or less, as far as I can tell. It is a publicly owned company, so if you have a mutual fund or something there is a chance that YOU BOUGHT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HA HA HA. Right?
Anyway, having said all that, one could argue that the Evil Entity Known as Fox-Murdoch has effectively taken over National Geographic Something Something (where Something Something is the magazine and the Cable network and stuff). Fine. Think that, be concerned, be mad, and complain about it. But don’t complain that “Rupert Murdoch Bought National Geographic” because it is not correct.
Pedantic? Yes, in part, but also important. For example, knowing so little about the situation to go all apoplectic and throw out your old National Geographic Magazines and cancel your subscription would be a sign of ignorance more than good activism. For at least two reasons.
First, did you know that FOX and NGS were already partners in a large amount of their prior activities, and this simply expands it? Where were you then, where were the memes then, were was the outrage?
And, second, did it make any difference? Did you see the Politics of Murdoch imprinted in the National Geographic Society ventures? Probably not. And this brings us to the more expanded second reason. 21st Century Fox is a huge company and has more interest in making profit than in imposiing its political will on all things it does. Hell, it has enough political will being imposed in a handful of its ventures, it hardly need to do something else.
Also, the Magazine part of this venture is being run by a Murdoch son, and the Murdoch son is famously different from dad politically. And, 21st Century Fox has promised to keep hands off.
Finally, what was so pure about National Geographic Magazine before? A great travel magazine, much less anthropological than people usually think. Did you really ever read it? Do you know what you are trying to save? I’m not saying there is anything wrong with NG Magazine, but it may not be what you were thinking. It really is a travel magazine for the 1% and those who wish to be them. The National Geographic Society, of course, is different. That is bigger, involved in all the other things mentioned, and provides grants for some pretty cool research.
Be outraged if you want, but please be outraged about the outrageous. We don’t know if this is outrageous, or even different. Having said that, watch closely. Very closely. And be triply outraged if the “hands off” policy turns out to be anything but hands off.
I’ve got a press release from the University of Southern California that seems important, but I don’t have time today to read the study. So, you can look at the press release and tell me what you think of it.
Climate Change Will Irreversibly Force Key Ocean Bacteria into Overdrive
Scientists demonstrate that a key organism in the ocean’s foodweb will start reproducing at high speed as carbon dioxide levels rise, with no way to stop when nutrients become scarce
Imagine being in a car with the gas pedal stuck to the floor, heading toward a cliff’s edge. Metaphorically speaking, that’s what climate change will do to the key group of ocean bacteria known as Trichodesmium, scientists have discovered.
Trichodesmium (called “Tricho” for short by researchers) is one of the few organisms in the ocean that can “fix” atmospheric nitrogen gas, making it available to other organisms. It is crucial because all life — from algae to whales — needs nitrogen to grow.
A new study from USC and the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) shows that changing conditions due to climate change could send Tricho into overdrive with no way to stop — reproducing faster and generating lots more nitrogen. Without the ability to slow down, however, Tricho has the potential to gobble up all its available resources, which could trigger die-offs of the microorganism and the higher organisms that depend on it.
By breeding hundreds of generations of the bacteria over the course of nearly five years in high-carbon dioxide ocean conditions predicted for the year 2100, researchers found that increased ocean acidification evolved Tricho to work harder, producing 50 percent more nitrogen, and grow faster.
The problem is that these amped-up bacteria can’t turn it off even when they are placed in conditions with less carbon dioxide. Further, the adaptation can’t be reversed over time — something not seen before by evolutionary biologists, and worrisome to marine biologists, according to David Hutchins, lead author of the study.
“Losing the ability to regulate your growth rate is not a healthy thing,” said Hutchins, professor at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “The last thing you want is to be stuck with these high growth rates when there aren’t enough nutrients to go around. It’s a losing strategy in the struggle to survive.”
Tricho needs phosphorous and iron, which also exist in the ocean in limited supply. With no way to regulate its growth, the turbo-boosted Tricho could burn through all of its available nutrients too quickly and abruptly die off, which would be catastrophic for all other life forms in the ocean that need the nitrogen it would have produced to survive.
Some models predict that increasing ocean acidification will exacerbate the problem of nutrient scarcity by increasing stratification of the ocean — locking key nutrients away from the organisms that need them to survive.
Hutchins is collaborating with Eric Webb of USC Dornsife and Mak Saito of WHOI to gain a better understanding of what the future ocean will look like, as it continues to be shaped by climate change. They were shocked by the discovery of an evolutionary change that appears to be permanent — something Hutchins described as “unprecedented.”
“Tricho has been studied for ages. Nobody expected that it could do something so bizarre,” he said. “The evolutionary biologists are interested in it just to study this as a basic evolutionary principle.”
The team is now studying the DNA of Tricho to try to find out how and why the irreversible evolution occurs. Earlier this year, research led by Webb found that Tricho’s DNA inexplicably contains elements that are usually only seen in higher life forms.
“Our results in this and the aforementioned study are truly surprising. Furthermore, they are giving us an improved, view of how global climate change will impact Trichodesmium and the vital supplies of new nitrogen it provides to the rest of the marine food web in the future.” Webb said.
The research appears in Nature Communications on September 1. It can be found online at: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150901/ncomms9155/full/ncomms9155.html
The abstract of the study is here:
Nitrogen fixation rates of the globally distributed, biogeochemically important marine cyanobacterium Trichodesmium increase under high carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in short-term studies due to physiological plasticity. However, its long-term adaptive responses to ongoing anthropogenic CO2 increases are unknown. Here we show that experimental evolution under extended selection at projected future elevated CO2 levels results in irreversible, large increases in nitrogen fixation and growth rates, even after being moved back to lower present day CO2 levels for hundreds of generations. This represents an unprecedented microbial evolutionary response, as reproductive fitness increases acquired in the selection environment are maintained after returning to the ancestral environment. Constitutive rate increases are accompanied by irreversible shifts in diel nitrogen fixation patterns, and increased activity of a potentially regulatory DNA methyltransferase enzyme. High CO2-selected cell lines also exhibit increased phosphorus-limited growth rates, suggesting a potential advantage for this keystone organism in a more nutrient-limited, acidified future ocean.
Alaska is being called the poster child (state?) for climate change because things have been so strange there lately. One reason for this is the extreme warm conditions in the North Pacific and associated (probably) changes in the jet stream, as well as overall warming, which has caused coastal Alaska to become a warm place, glaciers to melt, and (in the farther north) sea ice to be less. And now, President Obama has made a trip there and given a big speech.
The new study, published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, advances a growing body of science demonstrating that these record-breaking extremes have not been a pause in the advance of human-driven climate change but a result of it.
The newly published study, led by Jong-Seong Kug of South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology, used climate and weather observations as well as climate change modeling to investigate potential connections between these and other extreme cold winter weather systems over North America and South Asia last winter and historically low levels of summer sea ice in areas of the Arctic Ocean.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much. Thank you. (Applause.) It is wonderful to be here in the great state of Alaska. (Applause.)
I want to thank Secretary Kerry and members of my administration for your work here today. Thank you to the many Alaskans, Alaska Natives and other indigenous peoples of the Arctic who’ve traveled a long way, in many cases, to share your insights and your experiences. And to all the foreign ministers and delegations who’ve come here from around the world — welcome to the United States, and thank you all for attending this GLACIER Conference.
The actual name of the conference is much longer. It’s a mouthful, but the acronym works because it underscores the incredible changes that are taking place here in the Arctic that impact not just the nations that surround the Arctic, but have an impact for the entire world, as well.
I want to thank the people of Alaska for hosting this conference. I look forward to visiting more of Alaska over the next couple of days. The United States is, of course, an Arctic nation. And even if this isn’t an official gathering of the Arctic Council, the United States is proud to chair the Arctic Council for the next two years. And to all the foreign dignitaries who are here, I want to be very clear — we are eager to work with your nations on the unique opportunities that the Arctic presents and the unique challenges that it faces. We are not going to — any of us — be able to solve these challenges by ourselves. We can only solve them together.
Of course, we’re here today to discuss a challenge that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other — and that’s the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate.
Our understanding of climate change advances each day. Human activity is disrupting the climate, in many ways faster than we previously thought. The science is stark. It is sharpening. It proves that this once-distant threat is now very much in the present.
In fact, the Arctic is the leading edge of climate change — our leading indicator of what the entire planet faces. Arctic temperatures are rising about twice as fast as the global average. Over the past 60 years, Alaska has warmed about twice as fast as the rest of the United States. Last year was Alaska’s warmest year on record — just as it was for the rest of the world. And the impacts here are very real.
Thawing permafrost destabilizes the earth on which 100,000 Alaskans live, threatening homes, damaging transportation and energy infrastructure, which could cost billions of dollars to fix.
Warmer, more acidic oceans and rivers, and the migration of entire species, threatens the livelihoods of indigenous peoples, and local economies dependent on fishing and tourism. Reduced sea levels leaves villages unprotected from floods and storm surges. Some are in imminent danger; some will have to relocate entirely. In fact, Alaska has some of the swiftest shoreline erosion rates in the world.
I recall what one Alaska Native told me at the White House a few years ago. He said, “Many of our villages are ready to slide off into the waters of Alaska, and in some cases, there will be absolutely no hope -– we will need to move many villages.”
Alaska’s fire season is now more than a month longer than it was in 1950. At one point this summer, more than 300 wildfires were burning at once. Southeast of here, in our Pacific Northwest, even the rainforest is on fire. More than 5 million acres in Alaska have already been scorched by fire this year — that’s an area about the size of Massachusetts. If you add the fires across Canada and Siberia, we’re talking 300 [30] million acres -– an area about the size of New York.
This is a threat to many communities — but it’s also an immediate and ongoing threat to the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect ours. Less than two weeks ago, three highly trained firefighters lost their lives fighting a fire in Washington State. Another has been in critical condition. We are thankful to each and every firefighter for their heroism — including the Canadian firefighters who’ve helped fight the fires in this state.
But the point is that climate change is no longer some far-off problem. It is happening here. It is happening now. Climate change is already disrupting our agriculture and ecosystems, our water and food supplies, our energy, our infrastructure, human health, human safety — now. Today. And climate change is a trend that affects all trends — economic trends, security trends. Everything will be impacted. And it becomes more dramatic with each passing year.
Already it’s changing the way Alaskans live. And considering the Arctic’s unique role in influencing the global climate, it will accelerate changes to the way that we all live.
Since 1979, the summer sea ice in the Arctic has decreased by more than 40 percent — a decrease that has dramatically accelerated over the past two decades. One new study estimates that Alaska’s glaciers alone lose about 75 gigatons — that’s 75 billion tons — of ice each year.
To put that in perspective, one scientist described a gigaton of ice as a block the size of the National Mall in Washington — from Congress all the way to the Lincoln Memorial, four times as tall as the Washington Monument. Now imagine 75 of those ice blocks. That’s what Alaska’s glaciers alone lose each year. The pace of melting is only getting faster. It’s now twice what it was between 1950 and 2000 — twice as fast as it was just a little over a decade ago. And it’s one of the reasons why sea levels rose by about eight inches over the last century, and why they’re projected to rise another one to four feet this century.
Consider, as well, that many of the fires burning today are actually burning through the permafrost in the Arctic. So this permafrost stores massive amounts of carbon. When the permafrost is no longer permanent, when it thaws or burns, these gases are released into our atmosphere over time, and that could mean that the Arctic may become a new source of emissions that further accelerates global warming.
So if we do nothing, temperatures in Alaska are projected to rise between six and 12 degrees by the end of the century, triggering more melting, more fires, more thawing of the permafrost, a negative feedback loop, a cycle — warming leading to more warming — that we do not want to be a part of.
And the fact is that climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it. That, ladies and gentlemen, must change. We’re not acting fast enough.
I’ve come here today, as the leader of the world’s largest economy and its second largest emitter, to say that the United States recognizes our role in creating this problem, and we embrace our responsibility to help solve it. And I believe we can solve it. That’s the good news. Even if we cannot reverse the damage that we’ve already caused, we have the means — the scientific imagination and technological innovation — to avoid irreparable harm.
We know this because last year, for the first time in our history, the global economy grew and global carbon emissions stayed flat. So we’re making progress; we’re just not making it fast enough.
Here in the United States, we’re trying to do our part. Since I took office six and a half years ago, the United States has made ambitious investments in clean energy, and ambitious reductions in our carbon emissions. We now harness three times as much electricity from wind and 20 times as much from the sun. Alaskans now lead the world in the development of hybrid wind energy systems from remote grids, and it’s expanding its solar and biomass resources.
We’ve invested in energy efficiency in every imaginable way — in our buildings, our cars, our trucks, our homes, even the appliances inside them. We’re saving consumers billions of dollars along the way. Here in Alaska, more than 15,000 homeowners have cut their energy bills by 30 percent on average. That collectively saves Alaskans more than $50 million each year. We’ve helped communities build climate-resilient infrastructure to prepare for the impacts of climate change that we can no longer prevent.
Earlier this month, I announced the first set of nationwide standards to end the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants. It’s the single most important step America has ever taken on climate change. And over the course of the coming days, I intend to speak more about the particular challenges facing Alaska and the United States as an Arctic power, and I intend to announce new measures to address them.
So we are working hard to do our part to meet this challenge. And in doing so, we’re proving that there doesn’t have to be a conflict between a sound environment and strong economic growth. But we’re not moving fast enough. None of the nations represented here are moving fast enough.
And let’s be honest — there’s always been an argument against taking action. The notion is somehow this will curb our economic growth. And at a time when people are anxious about the economy, that’s an argument oftentimes for inaction. We don’t want our lifestyles disrupted. In countries where there remains significant poverty, including here in the United States, the notion is, can we really afford to prioritize this issue. The irony, of course, is, is that few things will disrupt our lives as profoundly as climate change. Few things can have as negative an impact on our economy as climate change.
On the other hand, technology has now advanced to the point where any economic disruption from transitioning to a cleaner, more efficient economy is shrinking by the day. Clean energy and energy efficiency aren’t just proving cost-effective, but also cost-saving. The unit costs of things like solar are coming down rapidly. But we’re still underinvesting in it.
Many of America’s biggest businesses recognize the opportunities and are seizing them. They’re choosing a new route. And a growing number of American homeowners are choosing to go solar every day. It works. All told, America’s economy has grown more than 60 percent over the last 20 years, but our carbon emissions are roughly back to where they were 20 years ago. So we know how to use less dirty fuel and grow our economy at the same time. But we’re not moving fast enough.
More Americans every day are doing their part, though. Thanks to their efforts, America will reach the emission target that I set six years ago. We’re going to reduce our carbon emissions in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. And that’s why, last year, I set a new target: America is going to reduce our emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 10 years from now.
And that was part of a historic joint announcement we made last year in Beijing. The United States will double the pace at which we cut our emissions, and China committed, for the first time, to limiting its emissions. Because the world’s two largest economies and two largest emitters came together, we’re now seeing other nations stepping up aggressively as well. And I’m determined to make sure American leadership continues to drive international action — because we can’t do this alone. Even America and China together cannot do this alone. Even all the countries represented around here cannot do this alone. We have to do it together.
This year, in Paris, has to be the year that the world finally reaches an agreement to protect the one planet that we’ve got while we still can.
So let me sum up. We know that human activity is changing the climate. That is beyond dispute. Everything else is politics if people are denying the facts of climate change. We can have a legitimate debate about how we are going to address this problem; we cannot deny the science. We also know the devastating consequences if the current trend lines continue. That is not deniable. And we are going to have to do some adaptation, and we are going to have to help communities be resilient, because of these trend lines we are not going to be able to stop on a dime. We’re not going to be able to stop tomorrow.
But if those trend lines continue the way they are, there’s not going to be a nation on this Earth that’s not impacted negatively. People will suffer. Economies will suffer. Entire nations will find themselves under severe, severe problems. More drought; more floods; rising sea levels; greater migration; more refugees; more scarcity; more conflict.
That’s one path we can take. The other path is to embrace the human ingenuity that can do something about it. This is within our power. This is a solvable problem if we start now.
And we’re starting to see that enough consensus is being built internationally and within each of our own body politics that we may have the political will — finally — to get moving.
So the time to heed the critics and the cynics and the deniers is past. The time to plead ignorance is surely past. Those who want to ignore the science, they are increasingly alone. They’re on their own shrinking island. (Applause.)
And let’s remember, even beyond the climate benefits of pursuing cleaner energy sources and more resilient, energy-efficient ways of living, the byproduct of it is, is that we also make our air cleaner and safer for our children to breathe. We’re also making our economies more resilient to energy shocks on global markets. We’re also making our countries less reliant on unstable parts of the world. We are gradually powering a planet on its way to 9 billion humans in a more sustainable way.
These are good things. This is not simply a danger to be avoided; this is an opportunity to be seized. But we have to keep going. We’re making a difference, but we have to keep going. We are not moving fast enough.
If we were to abandon our course of action, if we stop trying to build a clean-energy economy and reduce carbon pollution, if we do nothing to keep the glaciers from melting faster, and oceans from rising faster, and forests from burning faster, and storms from growing stronger, we will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair: Submerged countries. Abandoned cities. Fields no longer growing. Indigenous peoples who can’t carry out traditions that stretch back millennia. Entire industries of people who can’t practice their livelihoods. Desperate refugees seeking the sanctuary of nations not their own. Political disruptions that could trigger multiple conflicts around the globe.
That’s not a future of strong economic growth. That is not a future where freedom and human rights are on the move. Any leader willing to take a gamble on a future like that — any
so-called leader who does not take this issue seriously or treats it like a joke — is not fit to lead.
On this issue, of all issues, there is such a thing as being too late. That moment is almost upon us. That’s why we’re here today. That’s what we have to convey to our people — tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. And that’s what we have to do when we meet in Paris later this year. It will not be easy. There are hard questions to answer. I am not trying to suggest that there are not going to be difficult transitions that we all have to make. But if we unite our highest aspirations, if we make our best efforts to protect this planet for future generations, we can solve this problem.
And when you leave this conference center, I hope you look around. I hope you have the chance to visit a glacier. Or just look out your airplane window as you depart, and take in the God-given majesty of this place. For those of you flying to other parts of the world, do it again when you’re flying over your home countries. Remind yourself that there will come a time when your grandkids — and mine, if I’m lucky enough to have some — they’ll want to see this. They’ll want to experience it, just as we’ve gotten to do in our own lives. They deserve to live lives free from fear, and want, and peril. And ask yourself, are you doing everything you can to protect it. Are we doing everything we can to make their lives safer, and more secure, and more prosperous?
Let’s prove that we care about them and their long-term futures, not just short-term political expediency.
I had a chance to meet with some Native peoples before I came in here, and they described for me villages that are slipping into the sea, and the changes that are taking place — changing migratory patterns; the changing fauna so that what used to feed the animals that they, in turn, would hunt or fish beginning to vanish. It’s urgent for them today. But that is the future for all of us if we don’t take care.
Your presence here today indicates your recognition of that. But it’s not enough just to have conferences. It’s not enough just to talk the talk. We’ve got to walk the walk. We’ve got work to do, and we’ve got to do it together.
So, thank you. And may God bless all of you, and your countries. And thank you, Alaska, for your wonderful hospitality. Thank you. (Applause.)
Did you now that September is, in the US, National Preparedness Month? The idea is to pay attention to natural threats and how to deal with them. This is a project of the USGS. Good idea to give it some thought on this tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
The USGS recommends a scientific approach, and talks about hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, sinkholes, geomagnetic storms, drought, floods, wildfire, and more. For information on all of this, including info on The Great Shakout event coming in October (where we all pretend there is an earthquake) click here.
We’re gonna run out of food. When, why (not what you think), can we put it off, and if so, how? And GMOs, what about them?
I interviewed food supply expert Emily Cassidy on Atheist Talk Radio, Mike Huabrich hosting. You can CLICK HERE and listen to the interview. Additional background and some more links, including Emily’s Ted Talk, here.
This Sunday, August 30th, at 9:00 AM, I’ll be on the radio with John Abraham, climate scientist. This will be an edition of Minnesota Atheist Talk Radio hosted by Mike Haubrich.
The discussion of climate change will be interesting and important and you should listen live or listen to the podcast.
But this is a special week for another reason. Mike Haubrich, host of this Sunday’s show (and many other shows on Minnesota Atheist Talk) will be leaving the Twin Cities in just a few days, to live in a different part of the country. It is up to him to tell you his story if he wants to. I’ll just say that Mike is a good friend and I’ll miss his presence, as will many others.
It is often the case that those doing the show gather at Q. Cumbers restaurant at around 10:30. This will be a week we will do that. Details are here. Please join us!
I don’t know at this time if John is going, but Mike and I surely are, and this is a good chance to catch up with Mike and get that five dollars he owes you before he gets out of town. And to say so long, of course.
Also, I pretty much only do science interviews with Mike as the host. Lynn Fellman and Mike Haubrich started this tradition years ago, and brought me into the picture some time after that. There have been a couple of other hosts who have done science interviews on Atheist Talk Radio, and I’m sure there will be more science, but since I was mostly working with Mike my interviewing days at that station are probably over or at least will be rare.
Both Mike and I have in the past mused about setting up a science podcast of some kind. Maybe this is the time to do it! Assuming they have The Internet where Mike is going, we could do that…
The terrorists have defeated the railroads, and by extension, the people. Well, not totally defeated, but they won a small but important battle.
We have a problem with the wholesale removal of petroleum from the Bakken oil fields, and the shipping of that relatively dangerous liquid mainly to the east coast on trains, with hundreds of tanker cars rolling down a small selection of tracks every day. I see them all the time as they go through my neighborhood. These trains derail now and then, and sometimes those derailments are pretty messy, life threatening, and even fatal.
There has been some effort in Minnesota to get the train companies to upgrade their disaster plans, which is important because about 300,000 Minnesotans live in the larger (one half mile) disaster zone that flanks these track. A smaller number, but not insignificant, live int he blast zone, the place where if a couple of train cars actually exploded you would be within the blast area. For the last couple of years, my son was at a daycare right in that blast zone. I quickly add that the chance of being blasted by an oil train is very small, because the tracks are in total thousands of miles long, derailments are rare(ish), and the affected areas can be measured in city blocks. So a blast from a Bakken oil train may be thought of as roughly like a large air liner crash, or may be two or three times larger than that, in terms of damage on the ground.
But yes, the trains derail at a seemingly large rate.
Now, here is where the terrorists come in. And by terrorists I specifically mean Osama bin (no relation) Laden, or his ghost, and that gang of crazies that took down the world trade center in New York. When that happened, we became afraid of terrorism, and everyone who could use that fear for personal gain has since exploited it. I’m pretty sure that the rise of the police state in America has been because of, facilitated by, and hastened due to this event. For years the American people let the security forces and related government agencies do pretty much whatever they wanted. The Patriot Act, you may or may not know, is a version of a law that conservatives have been pushing in the US for decades, a draconian law that gives great power to investigative and police agencies. That law never got very far in Congress until 9/11. Then, thanks to Osama bin Laden, it seemed like everyone wanted it. Only now, years later, are we seriously considering rolling it back (and to some extent acting on that consideration).
So now, the railroads have been forced to come up with a disaster plan related to the oil shipments. And they did. But for the most part they won’t let anyone see it. Why? Because, according to one railroad official, “… to put it out in the public domain is like giving terrorists a road map on how to do something bad.”
What does he mean exactly? As far as I can tell, the disaster plan pinpoints specific scenarios that would be especially bad. These scenarios, if they fell into the hands of terrorists, would allow said terrorists to terrorize more effectively.
I’m sure this is true. But I’m also sure this is not a reason to keep the plans secret. There are three reasons, in my view, that the plans should be totally available for public review.
1) If you want to know what the worst case scenarios for a rail tanker disaster are, don’t read this report. It is easier to get out a map, maybe use some GIS software if you have it, and correlate localities where the train tracks cross over bridges, cross major water sources, and go through dense population areas. A high bridge through an urban area over an important river, for instance. This is not hard. Indeed, I call on all social studies teachers with an attitude (and most of the good ones have an attitude) to make this a regular project in one of your classes. Have the students try to think like terrorists and identify the best way to terrorize using oil trains. The reason to do this is to point out how dumb the railroads are being.
2) Secret plans are plans that can be exploited or misused by those who make them. We will see security measures taken that, for example, limit public access to information unrelated to oil trains, with the terroristic threat used as an excuse. I’m sure this has already happened. It will continue to happen. It is how the police state works.
3) The plans can be better. How do I know this? Because all plans can be better. That’s how plans work. How can you make the plans better? Scrutiny. How do you get scrutiny? Don’t make the plans secret.
MPR news has a pretty good writeup on this situation here. MPR is fairly annoyed at the secrecy, as they should be, but frankly I’d like to seem this and other news agencies, as well as the state legislators involved, and everyone else, more fired up. We should all be working harder against the police state.
I want to end with this: I like trains, and you should too. Trains are among the most efficient ways to move stuff across the landscape. Those of us concerned with things like climate change should be all for trains. Ultimately, I think we can increase the use of trains to move goods and people, and at the same time take the trains off fossil carbon. They are already mostly electric, using liquid fuel to run generators. That liquid fuel could be made, largely, from renewable biodiesel and a bit of grown biodiesel, and more of the trains can probably go all electric. But this secrecy thing is not OK.
This is a repost from here. John is a friend and a great guy and I hope you can do as he asks. Thanks.
Please help Tessa and Marlowe
This is a plea to save my ex from a financial death spiral. The short, short, short version is that she needs about $3500 by the end of next week or she loses both her car and her apartment.
Tessa lost her job soon after the crash in 2008 and hasn’t had a permanent job since then. For a while, we tried to build a home business around soaps, lotions, and scents that she made, but that never did more than break even. She’s an experienced technical writer and has been able to get short contract gigs from time to time, bur no where close to enough to live on. When we split up, we divided what equity were able to get from the house, but that didn’t last very long. By last year, she was pretty much completely broke. The one bright spot was that she was enrolled in a computer programming course under a state program that came with a modest living stipend. She was doing very well in the courses and it looked things were finally bottoming out for her. Then WellsFargo seized her stipend.
Like many people in her position, she had been juggling her bills, sometimes having to choose which bills would be paid that month and which would be skipped. She closed the bank account from her business so that the card wouldn’t be a temptation. And she talked to their support people and thought she had a verbal agreement to pay what she could, when she could. They didn’t remember it that way. After a few late and missed payments, they called the whole amount due. A few months ago, when her quarterly living stipend was deposited, they simply drained her personal account. This is completely legal in the state of Washington. Her rent check bounced and she didn’t have any money for groceries. This is why people hate banks.
When I found out about it, I set up a GoFundMe account for her. Thanks to some very kind people, we were able to cover about half of what she lost, the rent was paid, and she was able to finish out the quarter. She graduated with flying colors flying colors and glowing recommendations. But, that means the stipends have stopped. She’s had some short contract jobs and unrelated office temp jobs, but not enough to keep her from falling further behind. Her roommate doesn’t make enough to cover both of their bills. Last week, her car was repossessed and her current temp job is in another town.
The world is full of these stories. There’s nothing that makes hers stand out from the crowd. She’s not a veteran. No one is forcing her to bake a cake. She’s not a cute kid with a horrible disease. Its not tied to popular culture like a Tesla museum or new card game. I can’t offer clever tee shirts or fun prizes for donations. She’s just another person who made some mistakes and had far too many bad breaks. If it helps to make her story more personal, here’s picture of her cat.
I restarted the GoFundMe account. There are more details of her fight with the bank there if you’re interested. We’ve made a couple hundred dollars this week. If she already wasn’t so far behind, that much each week would be enough to get her by. But now her bills are being called due again. I would completely cover her bills if I could, but I’m already homeless. At this point in her life, she should be looking forward to retirement, instead, she’s staring into the void.
If you can, please donate. If you can’t, please share her story. Thanks.
The academic world and its detractors are all a-tizzy about this recent news reported here:
Springer, a major science and medical publisher, recently announced the retraction of 64 articles from 10 of its journals. The articles were retracted after editors found the authors had faked the peer-review process using phony e-mail addresses.
The article goes on to say that science has been truly sullied by this event, and anti-science voices are claiming that this is the end of the peer reviewed system, proving it is corrupt. The original Springer statement is here.
Personally, I think that anyone who circumvents the process like this should be tossed out of academia. Academics toss each other out of their respective fields for much much less, and often seem to enjoy doing it. Cheating like this (faking peer review as well as making up data) is the sort of thing that needs to end a career, and a publishing company that allows this to happen has to examine its procedures.n This is probably worse than Pal Review, but Pal Review is probably more widespread and harder to detect because it does not use blatantly obvious fake people. (See this for more on Pal Review.)
But, there is an utter, anti-scientific and rather embarrassing lack of perspective and context here. Let us fix it.
Ten of Springer’s journals are sullied by this process. Is that most of Springer’s journals? All of then? Half of them? Well, Springer produces 2,900 journals, so it is less than a percent of the journals. I’m not sure how many papers Springer produces in a year, but about 1,400,000 peer reviewed papers are produced per year. So the total number of papers known to be affected by this nefarious behavior is a percentage that is too small to be meaningful. More papers were eaten by dogs before publication.
So there are two obvious facts here. One is that authors who faked their research or its qualities, including faking the peer reviewed process, need to be run out of town on a rail, drawn and quartered, and otherwise gone medieval on. The other is that the conversation we are going to have about this on social media and elsewhere is likely to be a useless pile of steaming bull dung if we can’t start the conversation with two feet planted firmly in reality, rather than context free scary looking numbers willfully (I assume, but maybe out of ignorance) presented scale free.
Springer’s full statement, which actually indicates that the process works rather than it does not work, is here:
Retraction of articles from Springer journals
London | Heidelberg, 18 August 2015
Springer confirms that 64 articles are being retracted from 10 Springer subscription journals, after editorial checks spotted fake email addresses, and subsequent internal investigations uncovered fabricated peer review reports. After a thorough investigation we have strong reason to believe that the peer review process on these 64 articles was compromised. We reported this to the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) immediately. Attempts to manipulate peer review have affected journals across a number of publishers as detailed by COPE in their December 2014 statement. Springer has made COPE aware of the findings of its own internal investigations and has followed COPE’s recommendations, as outlined in their statement, for dealing with this issue. Springer will continue to participate and do whatever we can to support COPE’s efforts in this matter.
The peer-review process is one of the cornerstones of quality, integrity and reproducibility in research, and we take our responsibilities as its guardians seriously. We are now reviewing our editorial processes across Springer to guard against this kind of manipulation of the peer review process in future.
In all of this, our primary concern is for the research community. A research paper is the result of funding investment, institutional commitment and months of work by the authors, and publishing outputs affect careers, funding applications and institutional reputations.
We have been in contact with the corresponding authors and institutions concerned, and will continue to work with them.
