Report Points To New Mechanism That Sequesters CO2
Here’s an article that shows how volcanic action and uplift exposes CO2 to basalt, thus trapping it internally as
limestone nodules.
I republish it here not to suggest that everyone needs to understand the exact geo-chemistry, but to remind us that climate science is still advancing. Yes, the theory of anthropogenic global warming has been thoroughly validated, but many of the sub-issues that affect the rate at which the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are warming remain unknown. Yet disbelieving in science because it doesn’t have an airtight grip on the subject is foolish. We can’t cure most cancers, but cancer patients everywhere are very thankful that progress is being made that provides them with longer, high quality lives than ever before.
When a friend of mine heard that the Space-X people can bring missiles back down to Earth and land them with pinpoint accuracy, he wrote, “Hmm. Science seems pretty good at what it does. Know what? When it comes to the climate, I think I’m going to go with the scientists over the politicians and oil companies.”
Seems legit to me.
Craig,
Thank you for highlighting such an interesting article from Science mag.
Sadly, even in the world of science a certain amount of skullduggery goes on.
from the same publication;
“In 2017, Indonesia’s Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education introduced the Science and Technology Index (SINTA), which uses data from two publication and citation databases, Scopus and Google Scholar, to capture the individual research performance of Indonesian academics and rank them. But last year, scientists showed that some of the highest-ranking academics had inflated their SINTA scores by publishing large numbers of papers in low-quality journals, citing their own work excessively, or forming networks of scientists who cited each other. Some say SINTA should no longer be used to produce rankings, or should even be abandoned. But the government is sticking with the controversial metric; it recently announced the rollout later this year of an improved version of SINTA”
Reuters complained of this sort of phenomenon occurring as early as 1998, especially in the more “politicized” fields of scientific research, where scientific research and reports became distorted by advocates, ideologues and media pundits to advance careers, ideological/political became agenda, silence critic and skeptics, and defeat “enemies”.
This sort of “stacking” is hard to detect since the participants often do so for altruistic or even unconscious reasons, unaware of being parties to such manipulation.
The rise of social media, internet etc, has allowed such campaigns to flourish.
Just as quickly the world of on-line media saw the rise of “fact Checking” organizations, and marveled how much inaccurate information was being disseminated. However, we quickly discovered the the “fact checkers” also needed “fact checking”, as most of the “fact checkers” “facts” were simple opinions and inaccurate.
A recent study of the 10 largest and oldest “fact checking” sites, discovered 74% fell into the category of inaccuracy or just opinion ! That’s a pretty poor ratio, but it gets worse when you consider that since most media journalists use “fact checking sources” to verify or authenticate articles and reporting to mold public opinion, finding the “truth”requires more and more effort, and most information is just accepted on faith or prejudice.
Expanding on that theme is the rise of Scientific “chaperoning’ or “mentoring”. The growth of these practices may indeed have practical and real benefits, but they also possess the danger of “patrons”, building little empires and power structures to the detriment of independent research.
Such practices breed a requirement to “toe the party line” and promote orthodoxy.
An excellent example of negative effect of this culture is revealed in a new study about the political nature of highly reputed “peer reviewed” scientific journals
Take for instance, the difficulty of getting an article or study accepted by a publication like “Nature” if you haven’t already published in Nature.
Prestigious multidisciplinary journals such as Nature are getting harder to publish in due to the polices of not accepting articles of a scientific nature from those authors who have not previously published, or who are not “chaperoned” by accredited mentors.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences will not accept articles from those authors whom the policy board suspects of having “skeptic” tendencies.
Investigators discovered “chaperoned” researchers who first publish nearly all the main journals as nonsenior authors have a leg up when it comes to being accepted for publication .
The study found the trend increased over the last two decades.
The report which is quite lengthy and comprehensive, listing more than 6.1 million articles published of 40 years in 345 journals.
The report concluded;
Scientists have grown to be more like politicians: They develop a base, a group of other scientists that follow their work. When a junior author publishes in these prestigious journals, they probably expand their base. Once published as a “senior author”, a scientist has a great base from which to attract acolytes to enhance his reputation.
For a young scientist patronage and getting published in a prestige publication will assist in applying for jobs at the most prestigious places and have access to more resources—funding thus advancing their careers.
It’s a complicated world, and not easily understood through a prism of simplistic values. I don’t believe most of these scientists are consciously taking part in a massive deception of corruption, but the system that has developed certainly has a degree of most unscientific practices.