NORTHPORT, Maine — Precise data, gathered meticulously and tested rigorously, must drive the efforts to reverse environmental problems, former Sen. George Mitchell told the 200 scientists, students and teachers attending the BIOGEOMON Conference at the Point Lookout center.
Mitchell delivered the closing keynote address on Thursday afternoon at the weeklong conference, which drew participants from around the U.S. and 20 other nations.
The research presented at the conference will help solve problems such as lakes, streams and soils tainted by pollution, Mitchell said. Those solutions “must be based on scientific data and unbiased interpretation of that data,” he said.
That research is of a highly technical nature.
Some of the topics presented at the conference included a study of an ice storm manipulation in a northern hardwood forest, the implication of removing harvest residue on nitrogen availability in Irish forests, and greenhouse gas emissions with nongaseous losses of carbon from peatlands.
Mitchell was invited in part because of his role in enacting the amended Clean Air Act of 1990, which he called “one of the most difficult and gratifying accomplishments of my time in the Senate.”
He credited a core group that included Republican and Democratic senators and President George H.W. Bush with passing the law.
“Then, as now, there were those who sought to deny science,” Mitchell said. Those critics said the acid rain threat was a hoax being perpetrated by a conspiracy, he recalled.
The current “distrust of science,” seen in political discourse and even in public education, is equally distressing, he said. Science should inform environmental policy, not “ideology or wishful thinking,” Mitchell said.
“We’re now at a time when many environmental problems have become highly charged politically,” Mitchell said, which means those advocating for change have to work harder and be sure their proposals rely on sound science.
And long-term monitoring projects, such as those conducted by the University of Maine, which co-hosted the conference, are critical to policy development, he said. Without such monitoring, “We would have no way of knowing if our environmental laws were working.”
The BIOGEOMON Conference, which has been hosted at different sites around the world, has its roots in a response to the “ Black Triangle ” in Central Europe, a highly polluted region which rallied scientists and others to work for fixes.
The question that should drive environmental policy, Mitchell said, is: “How can we ensure that future generations have the same number of opportunities we have, not fewer?”
In introducing Mitchell, UMaine’s Ivan Fernandez said, “Many of us in this room have spent our careers studying the benefits of the Clean Air Act.”
The former senator, federal judge and U.S. emissary for peace efforts in Northern Ireland and the Middle East also offered some life advice for the many college and graduate students attending the conference.
“Real fulfillment in your life will come not from status or possessions,” he said, but in working for “causes larger than yourself.”
Glad to see that this event is being brought to the attention of the public. This conference was organized largely by faculty of the Earth Sciences Department of UMaine – a group of brilliant and dedicated scientists. This is important work in the limelight – good to see!
Senator Mitchell is right about the priority of science. But science will never answer every question we have about the moving target of human interaction with the environment. What is most lacking is a willingness to price externalities into the cost models that drive energy production and consumption. This is a political problem as Senator Mitchell well understands.
As an environmentalist who also happens to be victimized by noise of a nearby wind turbine installation in Maine, I can attest how best intentions can inflict great damage. The problem with so-called “sustainable” sources of energy is that they are driven by popular enthusiasms and not sound, rational economics combined with science. My experience with the “externalities” of wind power and industrial noise pollution in a formerly quiet part of Maine led me to learn how government subsidies — the result of political decisions — are supporting a technology, wind power, that is consuming a huge percentage of bandwidth on energy discussions in the public market place but practically can have no effect on either reducing carbon emissions or altering energy production.
We have enough science on climate change. What we lack is the wisdom to insist that rigorous thought be applied to energy policies that can practically address our transformation away from the hydrocarbon economy.
We need a top to bottom review and changes: from energy production, to utilities, to consumer behavior. The place to start would be to convene the nation’s most capable venture capitalists with energy economists. Task them with coming up with a blueprint that reforms the energy sector of the economy, using realistic and currently available technologies. It is time to sort out the real from fiction. Unfortunately — and tragically — what we have today are special interests each clawing for their own shareholder profits while claiming either the moral high ground or the lack of science to prove global warming is a real threat.