Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 2/22/2015
DEAR FRIEND.....
Another Disaster in the Making
Air pollution =traffic problems, water contamination and earthquakes have occurred in communities =ear fracking sites.
The other night I was watching a documentary on t=e PBS program NOVA about Sinkholes, which is a subject that I knew little to nothing about. I was so blow= away that I decided to make it a subject of one of my Weekly Offerings and over the next week or so resear=hed sinkholes. And since one thing often leads to another I came across an article by Lori Montgomery — <=>Oklahoma worries over swarm of earthquakes and connection to oil industry =E244 based on the dramatic increase of earthquakes in Oklahoma now being attribu=ed to rapid rise of Fracking in the state.
Though mild for the most part= the Oklahoma quakes have already caused harm, and not just to people's foundations and swimm=ng pools. Around 11p.m. on Nov. 5, 2011, a magnitude 5.6 quake — the biggest in state history — hit th= small town of Prague, east of Oklahoma City. Sandra Ladra, a business manager for a state=job training center, was sitting in a recliner watching television when the qua=e toppled her two-story stone fireplace. Big rocks rained down on her legs, gashing her knees.
In August, Ladra fil=d suit, the first case in Oklahoma to try to pin liability for the quakes to the oil companies — in this case= New Dominion LLC and other producers with disposal wells near Prague. In =ctober, a trial judge dismissed the case, agreeing with New Dominion that Ladra must first go before the Corporation Commission and prove "a scientific basis" for her claim. Last month, in an unusual decision, the Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed to review that ruling. =f
the case goes to trial, Ladra's attorney, Scott Poynter, said he in=ends to convince a jury that the oil companies are at fault — a potential g=mechanger, both legally and politically.
It's not definitive that earthquakes have =een caused by (racking wastewater injection. Thus far, the research has lacked data on sub-surface pressure, which is rarely accessible but could take the science further tha= merely noting correlations between the timing of earthquakes, the timing of wastewater injection, and the location of faults. But it is indisputable th=t Oklahoma has seen a rise in earthquakes since the fracking boom began 4)=804> right now, the state averages about 10 small earthquakes per day. According to th= Oklahoma Geological Survey, 1* documented cases of induced seism=city have ever come close to the current earthquake rates or the area over which the earthquakes are occurring."
60 Minutes reporter Leslie Stall once =escribed Natural Gas as "our ugly step-child in the nation's energy debate,Q=9D as it is now being touted as the answer to our energy problems. What's brought about the chan=e is the process of Hydraulic Fracking or just "Fracking" for extracting natural gas from shale, a dense rock formation one to two miles underground. And if you are sitting on top of it, you might have hit the shale lottery. But if the BP spill =nd other incidents have taught us anything, exploring for energy has safety risks. But that c=n get lost in all of the greed and accompanying excitement.
Shale gas is overly abundant in the United States=because in the last few years we have discovered the equalivant of two Saudi Arabias o= oil in the form of natural gas. Again.... Not one but two.... As a result, drilling for gas is now a fact of life in hundreds of communities in more than thirty st=tes across the country.
Shale formations in the United States as of 2014
Improper and insufficient cement casting can lead to leak=. Poorly constructed casting/tubing can also lead to leaks. Fugitive Methane =an also leak along the walls. Low quality concrete allows Fugitive Methane to escape. Fugitive Methane can then folio= paths into the aquifer. Fugitive Methane is released dissolving in the aqui=er where residential wells pump contaminated water into the house that is then used for drinking, food preparation, cooking, showering, cleaning, irrigati=n for landscaping, etc. There are a number sources of contamination; neglected surface pumps, unlined storage pits, insufficient or improper castings and new fracture released methane in the =orm of methane as asphyxiant and/or methane is an explosive hazard. And o=ce this in the soil and water, it poisons the ground forever.
The M=rcellus Shale deposit (which covers parts of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and a bit of Tennessee contains enough gas to support the US gas needs for 14 years. But =as development here can prove to be a catastrophe in the making as toxic chemicals and methane gas seep into the drinking water and now ratio active Radium 226 in waste products.Q=A0 The gas maybe booming but what price for people. Hydraulic Fracking or Fracking threatens to destroy the environment and lives... But in the rush to drill concerns about the potential risks of Fracki=g are being swept aside. Already there are a number of communities in New York and Pennsylvania who can no longer drin= their well water do to its contamination caused by fracking wells in the area. Water is a commodity which we often take for granted but when you lose it, it is gone and then you realiz= how precious water is. In a number of areas people have been told to not drink or bathe in their well water due t= the high concentration of contaminates.
Without a doubt the fracking industry is under-re=ulated. We need to work toward limiting the amount of toxic chemicals to zero. W= need to do away with the Halliburton Loophole, which was created in 2005 under Vice President Dick Cheney (fo=mer CEO of Halliburton), completely exempted the natural gas industry..99s fracking technology from any regulation under The Safe Drinking Water Act. Thi= should be an outrage. The Vice President advocated for it and pushed Congress to insert it into the language of the bill. Whether i= is the technology or human error that is causing the earthquakes and toxic poisoning of the water, land and =ir in areas where fracking wells are being drilled and operated are the cause,=we definitely need more regulation and penalties commiserate to the long-term =ffects of the damage done. But more importantly the public needs to become aware that there is a possibility that this proc=ss could destroy large areas of the country for generations to come which far outweighs the short-term economic gains of today.
Web Link: http://youtu.be/2qxh7f3WJlc http://youtu.b=/2qxh7f3WJlc =/p>
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The World's Most Expensiv= School
Recently the Daily Mail (UK) did a piece on my favorite school in the world, the Institut Le Ro=ey — under the heading — Inside the world's most expensive sch=ol: $140,000 a year Swiss institute has its own yacht, concert hall and equestrian center and counts royalty among its pupils. Institute Le Rosey commonly referred to as Le Rosey or simply Rosey, is a school near Rolle, Switzerland. The school was founded by Paul-Emile Carnal in 1880 on the site of the 14th-century C=Steau du Rosey near the town of Rolle in the Canton of Vaud. It is one of the =ldest boarding schools in Switzerland. The school also owns a campus in the ski resort village of Gstaad in the Canton of Bern, where the student body, faculty, and staff move to during the winter months of Januar= through March. Institut Le Rosey is owned by its fourth generation of Directors, Philippe and Anne Gudin, who assumed ownership of Le Rosey in 1980. Michael Gray is the current Headmast=r of the school.
Le Rosey's main campus, near Rolle, is situated on 28 hectares (approximately 70 acres) of landscaped grounds adjacent to Lake Gene=a. It is divided into two campuses, one for boys situated on the main campus and one for girls called La Combe. The bo=rding houses contain a total of 179 bedrooms with en suite bathrooms, and all together the academic buildings contain: 53 classrooms, 8 science laboratories, 14 specially-equipped rooms= 48 apartments for Le Rosey teachers, 2 infirmaries, a library/media centre wit= about 20'000 to 30'000 literary and reference works, a theatre, 3 d=ning rooms and 2 cafeterias, an auditorium, 2 gymnasiums, and an ecumenical chapel. </=pan>
Sports =nd arts facilities at Le Rosey include: 10 clay Tennis courts, a 25-meter indoor pool and wellness centre, a 25- meter outdoor pool= 3 football pitches, 1synthetic rugby pitch, 1wood chip running track, a shooting and archery range, an open-air theatre, and a computer-regulated greenhouse. Off-campus Le Rosey owns: a private Equestrian center housing 30 horses, 1 indoor riding school, 1 Dres=age area, and a clubhouse. Also off-campus is the Le Rosey sailing center equipped with: 10 dinghies, 3 motorboats, 3 yawls and a 38-foot (12 m) yacht. In addition to 13 games and IT rooms students can also use a local 18-hole gol= course and karting track.
Le Rosey's 380 students are all boarders= The school offers a demanding bilingual and bicultural education with the language of instruction being French or Engli=h depending on the student's academic program. Students must sit either the International Baccalaureate (IB) or French baccalaureat after following an academic program with the chance to ta=e each subject in either English or French, as well as studying one, two or even t=ree further foreign languages. They live in an international community to which each student contributes through his or=her own language, culture and religion; making the campus sort of a global v=llage to share with friends.
To sustain an international atmosphere at Le Ro=ey, there exists a quota where no more than 10% of the students may come from a singl= country. The student body, ages 7 through 18, is composed of pupils from approximately 58 different countries, with 6.% of the students being European. The school's current enrollment, over 400 pupils, is Student-teacher equally divided ratio is 5:1 betwee= with the male average and female. class size The being majority less of than students 10 students, are between and the the average ages of teacher's 14 and 18. length The of stay at Le Rosey is over =en years. Students at Le Rosey are nicknamed "Roseens" (in Fren=h) or "Roseans" (in English), and former students are labeled "Les Anciens Roseens".\
Notable alumni
With over 5,000 former students, Rosey ha= one of the most prestigious alumni registries in the world. It has educated generations of dynastic families, including Hohenzollerns, Rothschilds, Metternichs, Borgheses, Hohenlohes, and Radziwitts.=C240 The school has also famously educated royalty from around the world, including members of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty of Egy=t, Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia, the House of Gl0cksburg of Gree=e, and the House of Savoy of Italy. Le Rosey has educated several monarchs, including Aga Khan IV, King Albert II of Belgium= King Baudouin I of Belgium, King Fuad II of Egypt, King Ntare V of Burundi,=Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Persia, and Prince Rainier III of Monaco. Th= future Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Prince Guillaume, was also educated at the school.
Famous parents of past students at Le Rosey, who =ften visited the Rolle and Gstaad campuses, include: Elizabeth Taylor, David Niven, Sir Roger Moore, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Diana Ross, King Leopold III of Belg=um, Aristotle Onassis. Rainier III once commented on Le Rosey: "The students were much friendlier because they were from such diverse, international backgrounds. I felt, for once in my childhood, that I could take a breath." Although I never attended Rosey, many of my friend did an= during a period I went to so many reunions that there are still people who =ill tell you that I did. But the coolest thing about Rosey is that do to its internationalization and comradery the friends that many of the friends tha= you make there will be friends for life giving you entrée around the w=rld.
Why We Often Blame The Victim
How much sympathy you have for this woman probably depends on whether you feel the universe i= a just place
I recently came across an in=eresting article in The Guardian by Oliver Burkeman — =elieving that life is fair might make you a terrible person — that su=gest, faced with injustice, we'll try to alleviate it — but, if we can=E244t, we'll do the next best thing, psychologically speaking: blame the victims of the injustice.</=pan> The premise of the article is based
on the finding, in a 2009 study, that Holocaust memorials can increase antisemitis=. Confronted with an atrocity they otherwise can't explain, people become slightly more likely, on average, to b=lieve that the victims must have brought it on themselves. For example, that last month's commemorations of the liberati=n of Auschwitz may have marginally increased the prevalence of antisemitism in t=e modern world, despite being partly intended as a warning against its consequences? Or that reading about the eye-popping state of economic inequality could make you less likely to supp=rt politicians who want to do something about it?
These are among numerous unsettling implications =f the "just-world hypothesis", a psycholo=ical bias explored in a new essay by Nicholas Hune-Brown at Hazlitt. The w=rld, obviously, is a manifestly unjust place: people are always meeting fates they didn't deserve, or not receiving rewards they did deserve for hard work or virtuous behavior. Yet sever=l decades of research have established that our need to believe otherwise run= deep. Faced with evidence of injustice, we'll certainly try to alleviate it if we can — but, if we =eel powerless to make things right, we'll do the next best thing, psychologically sp=aking: we'll convince ourselves that the world isn't so unjust after all.
The classic experiment demonstrating the just-wor=d effect took place in 1966, when Melvyn Lerner and Carolyn Simmons showed people wh=t they claimed were live images of a woman receiving agonizing electric shock= for her poor performance in a memory test. Given the option to allevi=te her suffering by ending the shocks, almost everybody did so: humans may be terrible, but mos= of us don't go around being consciously and deliberately awful. =hen denied any option to halt her punishment, however — when forced to just sit and watch her apparently suffer =E2404> the participants adjusted their opinions of the woman downwards, as if to convi=ce themselves her agony wasn't so indefensible because she wasn't=span style="font-size:l2pt;line-height:107%"> really such an innocent victim. "The sight of an innocent person s=ffering without possibility of reward or compensation", Lerner and Simmons concluded, "motivated people to devalue the attractiveness of the victim =n order to bring about a more appropriate fit between her fate and her character.=E244 It's easy to see how a similar psychological process might lead, say, to the belief that victims of sexual assault were =/span>"asking for it"=span style="font-size:l2pt;line-height:107%">: if you can convince yourself of that, you can avoid acknowledging the horror of the situation.c=span>
What's truly unsettling about the just-wo=ld bias is that while it can have truly unpleasant effects, these follow from what seems li=e the entirely understandable urge to believe that things happen for a reason= After all, if we didn't all believe that to some degree, life would be an intolerably chaotic and terrifying nightmare in, which effort and payb=ck were utterly unrelated, and there was no point planning for the future, saving m=ney for retirement or doing anything else in hope of eventual reward. We=E2.4>d go mad. Surely wanting the world to make a bit more sense than that is eminently forgivable? Yet,=ironically, this desire to believe that things happen for a reason leads to the kinds of positions that help entrench injustice inste=d of reducing it.
Hune-Brown cites another recent bit of evidence f=r the phenomenon: people with a strong belief in a just world, he reports, are mo=e likely to oppose affirmative action schemes intended to help women or minorities. You needn't be explicitly racist or sexist to hold such views, nor committed to a highly individ=alistic political position (such as libertarianism); the researchers controlled for those. You need only cling to a conviction that the world is basically fair= That might be a pretty naive position, of course — but it's=hard to argue that it's a hateful one. Similar associations have
been found between be=ief in a just world and a preference for authoritarian political leaders. To shield ourselves psychologically from the terrifying thought that the world is ful= of innocent people suffering, we endorse politicians and policies more likely =o make that suffering worse.
All of which is another reminder of a truth that=E2.4es too often forgotten in our era of extreme political polarization and 24/7 internet outrage: wrong opinions - even deeply obnoxious opinions --C2*-eedn't nec=ssarily stem from obnoxious motivations. "Victim-blamingQ=8* provides the clearest example: barely a day goes by without some commentator being accused (often rightly) of implying that somebody's suffering was their own fault.=C24> That's a viewpoint that should be condemned, of course: it's unquestionably unpleasant to suggest that the victi=s of, say, the Charlie Hebdo killings, brought their fates upon themselves. But =he just-world hypothesis shows how such opinions need not be the consequence of a deep character fault on the part =f the blamer, or some tiny kernel of evil in their soul. It might simpl= result from a strong need to feel that the world remains orderly, and that things still make some kind o= sense.
On a personal level, I grew up with the Carwells; Charli=, Billy, Jimmy and Mary who overtime were guests in Otisville, Warwick, Elmir=, Green Haven, Hudson, Bedford Hills, Attica and Sing Sing prisons in the Sta=e of New York. And although they were degenerate jailbirds they were also often seen as the neighborhood'= protectors whom one could call on when someone outside of the neighborhood bullied a resident. But I also remember when once called, Charlie who was the oldest and on parole at the time, surprisingly turned on my friend Raymond demanding to know what had he done to invite th= problem. The psychology of blaming the victim is extremely complicated, especially when combined with expectation. How else can one explain blaming the poor for being poor? Or Trayvon =artin for wearing a hoody? Often we see that when society cant>=99t explain why, it is easier to blame the victim.
Facing the truth – that the world visits =iolence and poverty and discrimination upon people capriciously, with little
regard for what=A0the='ve done t= deserve it – is extremely scary. Because, if there=80s no good explanation for
why any specific person is suffering, it’s far harder to escape the=frightening conclusion that it could easily be you next.
10, 548</=>
The numbers are in as the United Nations Assistan=e Mission in Afghanistan documented 10,548 civilian casualties in 2014, the highest number in a single year since 2009= They include 3,699 civilian deaths, up 25 percent from 2013. The U.N. says the Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for 72 percent of all civilia= casualties, with government forces and foreign troops responsible for just =4 percent. The "Taliban don't actually accept the veracity =f the information in the report," UNAMA head Nicholas Haysom told journalists Wednesday= "They have accepted in the engagements with us that protection of a civilian is important and have pledged to take certain measures to eradicate civilian casualties."
U.S. and NATO troops pulled back from volatile areas=last year, handing security responsibility over to Afghan forces and officially concluding their combat mission at the end of the year. At least 2,21= U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan since the invasion to topple the Taliban following the Sept. 11= 2001, attacks, according to an Associated Press count. The U.N. report attributed the rise in casualties to intensified ground fighting, in which weapons like mortars, rockets and grenades are used in populated areas, sometimes indiscriminately.
For the first time since 2009, more Afghan civilians =ere killed and injured by ground fighting than by any other tactic, including roadside bombs. The report found that civilian deaths and injuries resultin= from ground operations surged by 54 percent, making them the "bigge=t killers of Afghan women and children in 2014." In southern Kandahar province, a suicide bomber struck near a police station on Wednesd=y, killing an Afghan woman and a small child, according to Samim Elham, the pr=vincial governor's spokesman. The attack, which happened in Kandahar city, also wounded three civilians, added Elham. =And the day that the report was released, a roadside bomb exploded outside of Kabul, killing four members of a family a=ong other incidents. And to suggest that government and foreign forces were "only" responsible for 1=% of the casualties plays down we are talking about almost 2000 innocent men, women and childre= in a unnecessary war now in its fourteenth year.
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Do='t Believe The Republican Hype About Their Obamacare Replacement
After nearly five years since the Affordable Care Act became law and two years into its expansion of health coverage to an estimated 10 million uninsured people, GOP lawmakers renewed their efforts to develop a health reform plan they can position as a "replacemenr<=i> for President Barack Obama's health care law. It's no coincidence that this is taking place in the run-up t= a June Supreme Court ruling that could blow a giant hole in the Affordable Care Ac=.
A decision against Obamacare would kick millions of people, mainly living in red states, off their health plans -- =nd leave them looking to the Republican Congress for a solution.
Congressional Republicans want Americans -- especial'= the nine on the Supreme Court -- to think the GOP can do in less than five mont=s what it took Democrats decades to achieve: enact comprehensive health care reform legislation. But given that Republicans have been unable to reach consensus on much beyond repealing Obamacare in the last five years, that's an ambitious timeline4=A0 This pattern has been repeating itself since 2009. Two weeks ago, House Republicans approved yet another bill (the 56th time) to repeal the Affordab=e Care Act, and this one included language charging three House committee cha=rmen with devising a replacement plan.
Meanwhile, Senate Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch=(Utah), Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.) and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman F=ed Upton (Mich.) unveiled the GOP's latest attempt to construct an Obamaca=e alternative. Although the proposal is virtually identical to the one that Hatch and Burr issued a year ago with then-Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), the duo -- along with Upton -- scored headl=nes describing their framework as the Obamacare replacement plan. But rem=rks from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday underscore how far congressional Republicans are from having an actual alternative in place. "Clearly, our three=chairmen have an awful lot of work to do to come up with our replacement. But I would expect=all of this to be part of the discussion -- all of it. Listen, there's a lot of ideas out the=e," Boehner said. "The key is going to be to boil those concepts =own to what a real replacement would look like."
Hatch-Burr-Upton The problem pro=osal is that their is a case proposal study doesn't in the difficult make things trade-offs better Republicans even if they would can get eventually a consensus have of to support. negotiate The among their members and supporters -- and then defend to the broader public= Relative to Obamacare, the Republican proposal would provide financial assistance to fewer people and cut off aid at a low=r income level. It would also roll back Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, replacing it with a tax credit for =uying private insurance; eliminate regulations that guarantee all policies includ= comprehensive benefits; and, among other things, give insurers more leeway =o vary premiums by age.
Republicans promote these changes as increasing =E2$4choice" and "flexibility" in in=urance, claiming that they will result in less federal spending and that younger adults will pay lower prices. But each of these proposed changes would carry other consequences as well. Polici=s without full benefits, including "junk" plans and=mini-med policies, would return to the market. The same pricing practices that reduced premiums for 25-year-olds would jack them up=for 60- year-olds, putting insurance out of reach for many older Americans...A0 And the proposal's precise effect on the uninsured is hard to tell, but under the prevailing assumptions of most for=casting models -- including those used by the Congressional Budget Office -- the li=ely impact would be more people without insurance and/or much weaker financial protection, as an analysis of last year's plan by the Center on Bud=et and Policy Priorities suggested.
Republicans will have a hard time defending those cha=ges -- particularly when so many of their constituents now benefit from the Afford=ble Care Act's more generous assistance and protections. Yet for =ore conservative Republicans who are bent on full repeal and resistant to increased federal authority over the health care system, the proposal might actually not go far enough. (L=st year's plan drew fire from the right for precisely that reason.) The GOP is far from agreement on the question of whether Congress should replace Obamacare with anything at all, in the event the law is repealed legislatively or gut=ed by the Supreme Court. As a general rule, expanding access to health care reform requires enacting redistributive tax=and social welfare policies -- the kind many conservatives oppose on principle.=/span>
To date, none of the GOP health care reform proposals=have so much as made it out of committee. And no Republican in Congress has laid out a plan for advancing any health care bi=ls through the legislative process this year. In 2013, then-House Majori=y Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) couldn't even get a comparatively modest bill fundin= high-risk pool insurance programs for sick people passed, thanks to a conservative revolt. This week, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, acknowledged to Politico that Republicans might choose not to come together=on a plan at all. Perhaps Alexander realizes that putting together a real Obamacare alternative will take more time -- and more genuine interest -- t=an Republicans have, or than the Supreme Court's schedule demands. =C240 And until Republicans are serious about bettering healthcare in America other than for ideological reasons or to ki=l on President Obama's signature achievements, PLEASE LEAVE THE AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE ACT LEGISLATION ALONE and thi= is my rant of the week....
WEEK's READINGS
Study: Too many Americans don't believe in evolution or man-made climate c=ange
A new study published in Science has alarming news about our scientific knowl=dge
We have to wonder why in a country like ours where in=enuity is so celebrated that so many Americans refuse to accept the conclusions of=the scientific community. A new study published in the prestigious journal Science found that Americans are seriously misinformed when it comes to evolution, GMO foods and humanity's role in climate change. T=e survey, jointly conducted by the Pew Research Center and Ameri=an Association for the Advancement of Science, compared opinions about scientific matters of the public and A=AS' member scientists.
The results were discouraging. 31percent of Am=ricans believe that humans have been in "their present form" since their creation, while 24 percent believe that humans evolved but under the guidance of a God-like figure. Only 2 percent of AAAS scientists did not believe in evolution (which is pretty=scary in and of itself). Perhaps the most contentious issue the =urvey touched on was climate change, where only half of the population agreed wit= the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change view that climate change was mostly driven by human activity, su=h as the burning of fossil fuels. Nearly half said there was either no good evidence for global warming, or that the rece=t warming of the Earth was due to natural climate variability.
Scientists and the broader public disagreed most stro=gly about the safety of GM foods, though their views differed substantially on global warming too, with 87% of scientists believing that climate change wa= mostly caused by human activity. The researchers spoke with 2,002 adults by phone, and used answers to online questionnaires from 3,748 members of the AAAS that live in the U.S. Alan Leshner, the CEO of AAAS and Executive Publisher of Science said, 41).=9CThere is a disconnect between the way the public perceives science and the way that scientists see science. Scientist= need to do something to turn this around."
Eight in 10 Americans believe science has made life b=tter for most people, but they still don't trust scientists — and/or are='t aware of their consensus — on many of the most important science-related iss=es of the day. And that goes for far more than just climate change. And it includes plenty of Democrats too. The stu=y comparing the attitudes of scientists and the public shows wide gaps between the two when it comes to climate, food that uses genetically modified organisms and pesticides, rese=rch using animals, and also the threat posed by the fast-growing world populati=n.
While 87 percent of scientists in the American Associ=tion for the Advancement of Science (the world's biggest scientific society) say=climate change is caused by humans, just 50 percent of U.S. adults agree — = 37-point gap. There's an even bigger gap when it comes to GMOs. A similar proportion of scientists say they are safe in food= but just 37 percent of Americans agree.Also bigger than the climate-change =ap are the use of animals in research (89 percent of scientists favor it, vers=s 47 percent of Americans) and using pesticides to produce food (68 percent o= scientists, 28 percent of Americans).
On some of these issues, Republicans are more in line=with scientists. A similar 2009 Pew study showed 62 percent of Republicans favor=d using animals in research, versus 48 percent of Democrats. The same s=udy showed a similar split on nuclear power, which 65 percent of scientists favor. And on GMOs, past poll=ng has generally shown at least slightly