"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas."
An Apple Per Day... said...
it was blunt of me to make such a claim, but I was referring to the bigger picture. Let me explain what I meant by 'the study being a "waste of time, money and research..."'
the fossil fuel corporate mentality is motivated by maximizing profit...
at whatever the cost...
The oil companies represent one of the corporate juggernauts that is very powerful in a global system... where money is power, and they have a lot of it... and they use their power to exploit and evade any attempts that would limit profit(like labour and environmental laws)... they get their massive amounts of money from recklessly exploiting governments, ecosystems, communities, and 'natural resources'... they will work together to overcome any barriers to profit... they are accountable only to those elite who can afford to be major shareholders...
When an individual amasses a lot of power, s/he will eventually die, and the power will be fractured amongst her/his descendants... when a corporation gets power, THEY NEVER DIE... so they keep gaining more power and growing... corporate juggernauts are the result of a frontier mentality that believes in constant and unrestrained growth... WE LIVE IN A FINITE WORLD... there is always a limit to how much we can consume... resources consumed unsustainably will run out...
[a cool sci-fi example of this...]
Corporations are the cancer cells of our planet's biosphere.
A good example of the mindset of the aformentioned oil juggernauts is the who-killed-the-electric-car scenario;
when the automobile industry was beginning to release low/no-emmissions cars, it was pressure from the fossil fuel industry that caused them to reclaim and destroy all prototypes... protestors attempting to stop this destruction were forcibly removed by police...
[who killed the electric car?]
... ok... so my main point from all of this, is that the corporation who funded this study on 'ancient climate change patterns' did so to slow down action on global warming... Talisman oil would love for the academic community to continue debating what will happen instead of acting to prevent it from happening... The largest (in terms of profits) corporation in the world, Exxon-Mobil, has been credited with slowing action on anthropocentric climate change by at least 10 years... they have funded millions of dollars for advocacy groups that deny human-caused climate change... and they fund university research that does not focus on solving the problems...
This issue highlights the often understated issue of the corpratization of university campuses....
Keeping in mind that the corporate juggernauts (like nuclear, auto-mobile, pharmaceutical, tobacco, forestry...) all share the same systematic economic-progress cost-benifit ideologies...
I will end with an example of how corporate-funded research (which is prevalent in universities) is a detriment to the public good...
[There is an arthritis drug
FACTS:
New England Journal of Medicine reaffirms that Merck lied about Vioxx safety
Three top scientists in the world Gregory D. Curfman, M.D., Stephen Morrissey, Ph.D., and Jeffrey M. Drazen, M.D. are taking on Merck that has the reputation of destroying the career of anyone who has ever questioned the safety of Vioxx - a drug that has killed as many as 60,000 Americans, according to the FDA.
FACTS:
Dr. Eric Topol, chairman of the cardiovascular medicine department at the Cleveland Clinic, is one of the top heart doctors in the world. He also happens to be the one of those rare American doctors who is not in bed with the pharmaceutical companies.
Dr. Topol also made another important point that shows how Merck is not disclosing the facts. According to him, Vioxx can be lethal any time after a patient starts to take the drug.
He also blasted Merck’s argument that the company knew about the risks of the drug only in September 2004 when it decided to recall it. Dr. Topol thinks that the risks were known as early as 1999.
FACT:
Merck relentlessly continued its ongoing attack on Vioxx victims. In a series of statements released by the firm, Merck is treating Vioxx victims as if they are the ones who have done something wrong. Forget about even a word of apology for the deaths and injuries or even a mention of the pain caused to those who consumed its product. On the other hand, the management team of Merck went on an all-out attack against Vioxx lawyers and victims and proclaimed that it was ready to fight anyone who ends up in court with a Vioxx lawsuit.
Fact
Lot of documents have emerged that show that not only did Merck knew about the dangerous side effects of Vioxx as early as 2000, the company also hid these from the public and the FDA
[source]
Fact: most of the research that Merck helped fund that claimed Vioxx was safe was done in universities (of which 90% of the studies concluded the benefirts outwayed the harm)
Fact: independent research done on the drug concluded (in 60% of the indy studies) that Vioxx was too dangerous to be prescribed to the public...
... according to the wikipedia article on Vioxx, Merck made 2.5 billion in profit from Vioxx... they have also set aside $970 million to pay for lawsuits... that leaves a rather "healthy" profit...
here is a statement from Merck on the Vioxx 'incidents'...
"Merck does not intend to address specific cases or comment about ongoing litigation on this site. As a Company, we continue to believe that we acted responsibly – from researching VIOXX prior to approval in studies involving almost 10,000 patients – to monitoring the medicine while it was on the market – to voluntarily withdrawing the medicine when we did. We based our decisions on the data from well-controlled clinical trials.
We do believe we have strong and meritorious defenses and we intend to vigorously defend these cases on an individual basis. Each one has a different set of facts, which is why we expect to be trying them for many years.
We are confident in our financial strength, in the excellence of our people and Merck science, and in the promise of our pipeline. Our business is fundamentally sound."
===
therein lies the real danger of corporate-interest research grants...
supporting research is good, but look at how well predicting climate change patterns has gone in the past... even with modern technology, we have trouble predicting what the weather will be more than a week in advance... the intricate and fragile balance of systems and ecosystems that coexist in this planet can't be shoehorned into the corporate agenda...
the time for cost-benefit analysis and risk-management ways of thinking and operating
MUST come to an end...
it's time to follow the examples of other progressive nations... and think preventatively, rather than simply acting reactionarily...
Although there is widespread agreement in the scientific community that global warming is primarily caused by human activities (i.e. burning fossil fuels), there is much that is unknown about the true effect this warming will have on regional climate systems. Sea levels will undoubtedly rise, extreme weather events will become more frequent, but how will precipitation patterns in Saskatchewan change, and what kind of timeline are we looking at? My impression of the U of S news release is that the study is genuinely trying to help answer important question such as these, and not trying to re-asses the claim that humans are causing global warming. Given the current level of greenhouse gas emissions, even if we stopped emitting today, we would likely see effects extending years into the future (global warming positive feedback effects), so why not study the nature of these effects (particularly in terms of regional climate systems). I can’t say what the motives of Talisman Energy were, but the study was going on long before their generous contribution. I agree it is problematic that short term corporate interests are almost never related to sustainability, or anything besides profit margins for that matter, I simply disagree with your opinion that the study is a waste of time, money and research.