January 31, 2011 - Columbia News - Columbia University

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6 january 31, 2011 New Mobile “App” Provides Earth Science Data new mobile application A created at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory provides users with simplified access to vast libraries of images and information that until now were tapped mainly by earth and environmental scientists. The EarthObserver App, for the iPhone, iPad or iPod University Launches Updated Website After months of public testing and user feedback, the revised and redesigned Columbia.edu home page was launched on Jan. 13. Designed by the Office of Communications and Public Affairs, in partnership with Columbia University Information Technology, it Touch, displays natural features and forces on land, undersea and in the air. The application draws on dozens of frequently updated databases from institutions throughout the world. For a slideshow of images available through the application, visit: news.columbia.edu/earthapp. contains a number of aesthetic, organizational and technological improvements, including simplified navigation; an enhanced search function that includes websites and contact information; and social media tools. To see more go to: news.columbia.edu/home/2266 eileen barroso TheRecord Four Professors Elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science By Record Staff Four Columbia University professors have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a prestigious scientific society established in 1848. The new fellows, selected from across a range of fields including political science, biology and epidemiology, are among 503 inductees from across the nation. Last year the AAAS recognized seven Columbia professors as new fellows. Here are this year’s fellows: Wallace S. Broecker Wallace S. Broecker, Newberry Professor of Geology in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science, for pioneering contributions to the fields of climate science and oceanography. Broecker, who is also a researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, was recognized for his understanding of glacial ages, circulation of the ocean and ocean biogeochemistry. Shih-Fu Chang Shih-Fu Chang, professor and department chair of Electrical Engineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), for distinguished contributions to multimedia content analysis and Bruce Gilbert Dr. Cheryl Hutt search. Since the early 1990s, his research group has developed numerous popular visual search engines and intelligent multimedia communication systems. Peter Schlosser, Vinton Professor of Earth and Environmental Engineering at SEAS, for his important scientific accomplishments in ocean and hydrological sciences. Schlosser, who is also the director of the Columbia Climate Center, was recognized for his contributions to sustainable development and his significant services to national and international scientific communities. Saul J. Silverstein, professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, for Saul J. Silverstein Peter Schlosser distinguished contributions to the field of biology and medical sciences. In particular, Silverstein was recognized for development of the process of cotransformation of mammalian cells, which allows foreign DNA to be inserted into a host cell to produce certain proteins. New fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Feb. 19 during the 2011 AAAS annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Bruce Gilbert Columbia Staffer and Veteran Invited to President’s DADT Signing eileen barroso Domi in her office in Low Library. By Melanie Farmer Former U. S. Army Captain Tanya Domi could not believe her good fortune when she was invited to attend President Barack Obama’s signing of legislation to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. For Domi, one of just 500 guests at the Dec. 22 ceremony in Washington, D.C., it struck very close to home. Domi, a senior public affairs officer in the Office of Communications and Public Affairs as well as an adjunct assistant professor of International and Public Affairs, had been investigated for her sexual orientation soon after enlisting in the Army. “It was surreal,” Domi says about the bill signing. “It’s amazing to go from being in the Army and being read my rights to standing in the Department of Interior listening to the president say, ‘We are not a don’t ask, don’t tell country.’” Domi, 56, enlisted in the Army in 1974, when she was 19. Six months after enlisting, she was accused of being a lesbian after going to a gay bar with other women from her company; all were privates stationed at Fort Devens, Mass. After an 18-month investigation, some women who had revealed they were gay were discharged from the Army. Domi retained counsel from the American Civil Liberties Union and refused to reveal her sexual orientation. She fought the charges, which were ultimately dropped, but the Army downgraded Domi’s top secret clearance and she was not permitted to participate in her graduation from military intelligence training. While she is now openly gay, she wasn’t at the time, and she was investigated twice more and, she says, sexually harassed by a colleague. Domi ultimately achieved the rank of captain before resigning her commission in 1990. “It was really dangerous for me to remain in the Army even though I loved the Army,” says Domi. When the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy became law in 1993, she worked to repeal it, testifying before Congress and speaking against it in 25 states. “The repeal legitimizes those who want to serve, who happen to be gay and lesbian, and want to be treated like everyone else in America. These values are quintessentially American,” Domi says. Born and raised in Indianapolis in a politically minded family, Domi was introduced to politics by her mother, who often volunteered as a judge at polling stations. At 13, she canvassed door-to-door for Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential bid. Following her military service, working in politics seemed like a natural move. She worked in a series of political public relations and communications jobs, including for the House Armed Services Committee, the Clinton-Gore 1996 re-election campaign and the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where she helped implement the Dayton Peace Accords. In 2000, after a decade of working on issues such as sex trafficking, human rights and media freedom, often in the international arena, she moved to New York City to get a master’s degree in human rights at Columbia. Eventually she joined the public affairs office. After earning her degree in 2007, she also began teaching human rights as an adjunct professor of international affairs. Domi’s job includes promoting Columbia’s expertise in international affairs, politics and economics, including the School of International and Public Affairs and the University’s six regional institutes. She also serves as the primary press contact for all World Leaders Forum events, which have brought prominent political and global figures to campus. Domi says she never imagined a career in education but now she’s hooked. “I enjoy the intellectual stimulus of talking to all these brilliant people and listening to how they view the world,” she says. “I absolutely love it. I’m always learning something new.” Col. Harold Floody nominated Domi, then 35, for the Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award in 1989 as the top junior officer in the U.S. Army Support Command, Hawaii.
TheRecord January 31, 2011 7 FACULTY Q&A Gavin Schmidt Q. By Record Staff We’re at a moment where the politics of climate change have been changing in ways that are worrisome to those who value the role of science in public policy. Why do you think that is If you take any political issue where there is some scientific component, one often finds that the depth of A. feeling in the public doesn’t correlate with how well understood that topic is. We saw the same thing with health care, genetically modified foods, vaccines. Most people who have an opinion about these things actually haven’t looked into it and don’t have a deep understanding of what’s going on. So when it comes to climate science, it’s not surprising that most people don’t actually know the difference between the ozone hole and climate change, and don’t have good sources for getting comprehensive information. How harmful is it to the research mission when Q. you have people in a public role attacking climate science A. POSITION: Adjunct Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Climate Systems Research at the Earth Institute Climatologist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies JOINED FACULTY: 1996 HISTORY: Contributing Editor, RealClimate.org Co-Chair, the CLIVAR/PAGES (Past Global Changes) Intersection Panel Associate Research Scientist/Research Scientist with Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Columbia’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Center for Climate Systems Research, 1998-2004 Postdoctoral Fellow, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1996-1998 It’s dangerous when politicians start to use scientific themes to further their political goals. Real science takes the information that is out there and tries to come up with the best explanation for what’s going on. The politicized science that people like Cuccinelli in Virginia are engaging in is completely different; they’ve already made up their mind and they just look for things that support it. That kind of picking and choosing what science you want to believe, depending on what political goal you want to achieve, is the antithesis of what science really is. It sends a chilling effect across the whole of the academy. The University of Virginia is very aware of the ramifications of this and is fighting this all the way to the Supreme Court in Virginia, and I wish them all the luck. Does the current polarized debate, much of it “antielitist” in tone, make it harder for scientists to win Q. public arguments outside the academy It takes a long time to become a scientist, and one of A. the reasons is because it’s hard. It’s hard to set aside prejudice and wishful thinking in order to see the world as it really is and to examine that world more critically. Science is always about nuance, it’s always about trying to step forward in a provisional way, one step at a time. It’s the collective information that science has produced that allows us to improve technology, to understand environmental threats, to understand the universe. The debates within science are always about small issues revolving around stuff that’s really cutting-edge. So when there’s a new paper in Nature or Science that is deemed to be of public interest, the real issue is not the subject—it’s a subtle point that has been worked out in the literature for years and years, and this may not even be a final accounting. Can that kind of approach survive when thrown into a political mosh pit Of course not. You’re not going to educate the public in the middle of a highly partisan political dog fight. We saw that with health care. The amount of misinformation and deliberate disinformation about health care reform was stunning to behold, and people were getting very, very angry about things that they didn’t understand. Climate change is like that and worse, because it’s less immediate. Q. A. Do you see the current challenges to climate science as a temporary conflict or something more long lasting The day-to-day attacks on scientific integrity, the accusations of misconduct and malfeasance, these must be dealt with. People need access to real information. There needs to be pushback when people are abusing their authority, as in the Virginia case. Just because there’s a growing awareness of the problem doesn’t mean that you can expect everything to work out nicely in the end. It will work out, I hope, because lots of work has been done to combat misinformation and put good information out there and help educate the public. But I don’t think there’s any guarantee that society will do the right thing in the long term unless in the short term we keep pointing out exactly what can be done and how that might help. Q. Give us some examples of things that scientists believe might work to solve the problem of climate change that are both good policy and good politics. A lot of the problem we have in developing climate A. policy is that it’s perceived to be different from other kinds of policy. The key to moving forward is to actually focus on things that can be done and how they might be done. Science says, okay, let’s talk about carbon dioxide—what effect is carbon dioxide having on the atmosphere But that isn’t necessarily the science that’s very useful for policymakers. One of the things our group has been working on in the last couple of years is trying to assess the net impact of a policy—not just for climate but also for air pollution, public health, water resources. We’re not talking about pie-in-the-sky targets; we’re talking about policy options that are on the table now, like increasing the CAFE standards for mileage [federal regulations to improve fuel efficiency]. They decrease carbon dioxide, but they also decrease nitrous oxides and black carbon. And what’s the net effect on the climate going to be once you take into account all those other things What you find is that there are a lot of policy options that are positive across a number of different criteria that policymakers care about. Policymakers don’t only care about the climate; they care about the health of the population, congestion, clean water and clean air. And so often times I think that the climate sciences have been perceived to be saying, “CO2, CO2, CO2, CO2,” which is right, but lacks nuance. Does a long-term problem like climate change—where Q. both the risks and the benefits may appear distant in time—present a special risk to a society that tends to address issues in response to an immediate crisis A. Historically we’ve dealt with environmental issues on a piecemeal basis. We’ve dealt with acid rain, dirty rivers, oil spills, but we haven’t really thought about it in a holistic way. It’s only been in the last five years that the big modeling groups have started to put these things together coherently so that you can ask good questions like, “If I change this, what impact is it going to have on climate, air pollution, public health, ecosystems and water” Since the science has moved forward, we can ask more interesting questions. And it turns out that those questions are the questions that policymakers have probably been asking all along, and we’ve been only giving them partial answers. I’d like to think that if we can give them more complete answers, then the people who actually have to make decisions are going to pay more attention. When you look at the overall climate change Q. debate in 2011—the long-term scientific consensus on one side, the skeptics and the politics of the moment on the other—where do you see it going A. It’s tempting to just focus on the loudest voices but it’s fundamentally distorting. There is real information that we can supply as an academic institution, and we should be doing that. We can’t cut ourselves off from that to pursue our academic pursuits. Wherever I go, whether I’m on a bus or at a party or just walking down the street, and people find out that I study climate change, they have questions. They’re not getting the answers from TV, from talk radio or any of the other mainstream ways that information is being transmitted in this society. How should academic researchers get the facts out Q. A. We have to find new ways to get information out there. That involves writing books, blogging, trying to be on TV, talking to local high schools, making yourself available for interviews and panels. The number of people who are trying to muddy the waters is actually very small. The number of scientists and people who know much better is very large. And if every one of those people went and did one public thing, we’d completely swamp the forces of confusion. Q. A. Do we have some successful models of collective action on environmental issues I see very positive lessons for the climate change issue in the international agreement to ban ozone-depleting substances [the 1987 Montreal Protocol]. Science noticed a problem, saw that CFCs [chlorofluorocarbons] were building up in the atmosphere, were going to get into the stratosphere and were going to start to deplete the ozone when certain chemical reactions started to happen, and the scientists mobilized. The first approaches were pretty ineffectual—let’s stop using spray cans. That was great but it didn’t really change very much. I think it took them five go’s at it to get to the point where they said, “Oh, you know what We can actually ban these chemicals and move forward in reducing the number of ozone-depleting substances.” Climate change is more complicated. There are many more emitters, there are many more causes, but then there are a lot of things that we can do including energy efficiency and improved mileage standards. Q. Does it worry you that it has become impossible to enact a clean energy bill or agree on an international climate treaty A. I think there are grounds for optimism because the governments of every major country in the world are talking about this as if it’s a serious problem. If I go to brief [Congressional] staffers, people who work for the state or the city, people at the EPA, I don’t need to explain to them why carbon dioxide is a problem. Nobody calls me up anymore and says, “Hey, is that global warming thing a real problem or not” They’re asking me questions like, “If we’re going to incorporate black carbon into a regulatory mechanism associated with carbon dioxide, how might we do that” And that’s where the science that brings all these things together can actually be useful to policymakers. People are asking us much, much more nuanced questions than they were five years ago. To see more of the Gavin Schmidt interview, go to news.columbia.edu/schmidt office of public affairs video production still
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January 31, 2011 - Columbia News - Columbia University

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