Promoting science isn't just about providing resources -- it's also about protecting free and open inquiry. It's about letting scientists like those who are here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient -- especially when it's inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda -- and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.

John McCain also denounces "self-indulgence" and insists that Americans serve "a national purpose that is greater than our individual interests." [...] to many of us, these gauzy phrases sound warm and comforting. But their purpose is to disparage and denigrate our own lives, to belittle our own pursuit of happiness. They're concepts better suited to a more collectivist country than to one founded in libertarian revolution – a revolution intended to defend our rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

There comes a point when the necessity of disaffiliation, to the point of outright rebellion, from a formerly treasured institution becomes inescapable. That point is reached when the institution turns against the goals which moved us to affiliate with it. Your Curmudgeon refers, of course, to the Republican Party.

the experts’ answer to the question of how to attain high growth was roughly: we do not know, but trust experts to figure it out.

The Growth Commission concluded that “answers” had to be country specific and even period specific. But if each moment in each country is unique, then experts cannot learn from any other experience – so on what basis do they become an “expert”?

- 8 millones: número de hombres, mujeres y niños obligados a trabajar para el gobierno, a menudo en el desarrollo de infraestructuras turísticas desde que la Junta llegó al poder en 1962. Forzados bajo la amenaza de malos tratos, tortura, violación o asesinato.

- 1 millón: número de persona desplazadas para hacer hueco a los desarrollos turísticos, a menudo con sólo una horas de aviso y con poca o ninguna compensación por la pérdida de sus casas o negocios.

Están ocurriendo cambios significativos en sistemas físicos y biológicos de todos los continentes y en la mayoría de océanos [...] La mayoría de estos cambios suceden en la dirección esperada con una mayor temperatura.

[habría] mucho interés entre los políticos en invertir los millones de dólares necesarios, si los científicos pudieran dar respuestas a preguntas fundamentales ... tales como el suministro futuro de alimentos.

It is quite possible that the biosphere (vegetation, sea life, etc.) has been starved for atmospheric CO2. Before humans started burning fossil fuels, vegetation and ocean plankton had been gobbling up as much CO2 out of the atmosphere as they could, but it was like a vacuum cleaner trying to suck through a stopped-up hose. Now, no matter how much CO2 we pump into the atmosphere each year, the biosphere takes out an average of 50 percent of that extra amount. Even after we triple the amount of CO2 we produce, nature still takes out 50 percent of the extra amount.

As a climate researcher, I am increasingly convinced that most of our recent global warming has been natural, not manmade. If true, this would mean that global temperatures can be expected to peak in the coming years (if they haven’t already), and global cooling will eventually ensue.

You would think that science is the last place you would find such religious opinions, yet they dominate the worldview of scientists. Natural scientists tend to worship nature, and they then teach others to worship nature, too . . . all under the guise of “science.” And to the extent that this view is religious, then making environmental laws based upon that view could be considered a violation of the establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

La sociedad española ha demostrado que pocas otras -quizás ninguna en el mundo desarrollado- la superan en tolerancia de la mentira. Nunca un Gobierno en democracia les había mentido tanto, de forma tan abierta, obscena, confirmada y hasta reconocida por los mentirosos. Pero el ambiente general de indolencia y resignación han llevado a la práctica abolición del reproche social de la mentira.