Away gathering data on carbon people

Went to the Oregon Forest Resource Institute forestry carbon conference held at Oregon State University the past two days. I heard a lot of agreement between government sponsored people and economists about how the carbon structure is supposed to support an 'environmentally favorable' style of living, by rearranging taxing structure and enbcouraging more university research. I talked again with George Taylor, the state , er former stats, climatologist whi was fired by governor ted last week for not being on board with the scientific consensus. And he showed the overlap plot of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and global mean temperature - which map much better than the comparison plot betwee carbon dioxide concentration and g.m. temperature. And he wanted more university research money too.

I had the opportunity to walk over to the Linus Pauling Institute and talk with some of the scientists and look into an affiliations program with outside scientists. The eleven staff scientists all bring in their own research money from NIH or NSF and work both at LPI and in another university department - thus improving the biodiversity of science throughout the university system. As a micro-nutrient chemist and an alumni who met Dr. Pauling on afternoon for a research discussion, i figure partnership with the outside world would be a jump off point, but no, there was no current mechanism for affiliation. The message i got is we are perfectly pleased with inbred university science, even though we strive for diversity through science culture, we remain steadfastly monoculture in the over approach. But they do good work in an area that Linus was passionate about and i will continue with my generous support, when i have the funds.

But the conference demonstrates that soft scientists can't conceptualize the process of science as an absolute and have to accept 30 million different opinions to get to a common truth. History tells stories that are commonly accepted to prove points, but each episode has only one truth in the way it actually came down when it happened and, all embellishment aside, the participants know the truth of the situation that they observed and were part of. Inconsistencies develop in the stories over time, but the essence remains for quite a while, until we start believing things that our minds use to fill in the blanks.

I took 20 pages of notes - and made and renewed lots of contacts. It will take me all day to start the synthesis of materials to see if what i learned was consistent with what i know. Surfing the net for the first time in two days last night, led me to a ryan article on the status of education which to an eye opener on cosmic rays . I have to go now, but i have much to think about.