Top 5 Signs It's Time to Stand Up for Science

Kepler 100 Billion Alien Planets — Data from NASA's Kepler mission finds evidence for at least 100 billion planets in our galaxy. Image released January 3, 2013.

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Seth Shulman is a senior staff writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a veteran science journalist and author of six books. This op-ed, and Shulman's other Got Science? Columns, can be found on the UCS website. Shulman contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Polls consistently show that strong majorities of Americans trust independent scientists and believe in the importance of using the best available science to help guide decision making. But you wouldn't know it from some of the recent developments around the country. On too many occasions, politics and vested interests have trumped the solid scientific evidence people need to help make decisions at the state and federal level. Here, from the Got Science desk, is a roundup of the month's top five reasons it's high time to stand up for science.

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You read that right. National Journal documented recently that, since 2013, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee in the U.S. Congress, led by Texas's Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, actually has held more hearings on the search for extraterrestrial life than it has devoted to climate change . In fact, the three hearings it held on extraterrestrial life were part of some 15 separate hearings related to space exploration, while the committee has held just two hearings addressing global warming.

Of course, space exploration, and even extraterrestrial life, are bona fide science topics, but by almost any measure, climate change is the most consequential science issue of our time. With two preeminent reports — the U.S. National Climate Assessment and the latest update from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—highlighting the urgent need for action in the most dire terms yet, it's past time for the House Science Committee to phone home.

Taking on Rep. Smith's comments directly, Dr. Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, noted that the National Climate Assessment, mandated by Congress and developed by a broad, non-partisan group of scientists from across the country, "is exactly the type of independent advice we need in major policy debates." Rosenberg, who himself served as an author and scientific advisor on the National Climate Assessment, publicly called upon Smith to read the report before issuing any more unsubstantiated assertions to try to discredit it.

The Ohio state legislature approved a bill recently that will make it the first state in the nation to halt its renewable energy standard. Sadly, the legislature made the choice to stop the standard for at least the next two years despite overwhelming evidence that, since it came into effect, Ohio's electricity rates have dropped by almost a percent and a half, saving ratepayers roughly $230 million according to the nonprofit American Council on Renewable Energy. During this same period, research by Ohio State University has shown that Ohio's clean energy sector has provided some 25,000 jobs, and a collection of business leaders operating in the state claim the sector has attracted more than $1 billion in private-sector investment.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), charged with regulating the safety of U.S. nuclear power plants, voted recently to end all consideration of a plan to accelerate the transfer of the growing stocks of nuclear waste at U.S. nuclear plants from spent fuel pools to safer dry casks. The NRC's decision overlooks a wealth of scientific data and ignores a key 2006 study by the National Academy of Sciences that discusses the vulnerability of spent fuel pools to potential terrorist attack. (For a simple explanation of how dry casks can make nuclear power safer and help avoid the possibility of a Fukushima-like accident, see this infographic.)

As David Wright, director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists noted, the NRC's anti-science position on this issue is hard to fathom. As Wright puts it: "Given the potential consequences of an accident or terrorist attack on a spent fuel pool, the body responsible for ensuring public safety should want to know all it could about the issue, and use that information to reduce nuclear risks."

Bucking such sensible right-to-know momentum, however, North Carolina governor Pat McCrory recently signed a bill that makes it a crime to publicly disclose information about fracking chemicals in the state. While the proposed bill does establish procedures for fire chiefs and health care providers to obtain the chemical information during emergencies, it requires even these emergency responders to sign a confidentiality agreement if so desired by fracking companies.