The comments made by a local self proclaimed marine biologist, Dan Varoujean, in a locally produced public access program are so outrageous it reminded me of Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway’s book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming and David Michael’s Doubt is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. “The US scientific community has long led the world in research on public health and environmental science. Our scientists have produced landmark studies o dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subgroup of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers.” These words from the dustcover of Merchants of Doubt began rushing through my head as I listened to Varoujean make one unscientific claim after another.
Varoujean has represented himself as a marine biologist and in one instance a marine ecologist. “I am a marine ecologist by trade, and have spent the last 35 years conducting research on the population dynamics of endangered species, including salmon and seabirds, the restoration of coastal wetlands and the quantification of pollution in our coastal embayments and estuaries.” Ecology is, as everyone knows, the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings. Speaking at a 2006 meeting in Coos Bay regarding the closure of the salmon fishery this marine biologist was quoted in the Register Guard making this ecologically sound statement, “The first thing that can be done, said Dan Varoujean, a Coos Bay fish researcher, “is to shoot 300 sea lions at the mouth of the Klamath river.”
This “ecologist” appears to disregard the important relationship between a forest and fisheries remarking that his well has been much better off since Weyerhaeuser clear cut a big stand of trees near his water table and more water, of course, means better conditions for spawning fish. Varoujean casually remarks that environmental disruption necessary to support industry is not irreversible. Without local empirical evidence there is no way a blanket statement like this can be accurately applied to every situation.
The claims made by Varoujean display an absence of scientific objectivity and strong partisan perspective that would color any conclusions he derives on behalf of his clients. He appears to operate a consulting business called Marine and Estuarine Research Company in North Bend and admits to having worked for the insurer of the COSCO Busan, a ship that leaked oil into San Francisco Bay in 2007. Varoujean characterizes the spill as small and claims the insurer was extorted for millions of dollars by a marine reserve contaminated by the oil. According to Wikipedia, the 53,500 gallon heavy fuel oil spill caused a lot of damage.
Environmental
A Contra Costa county sign in Richmond Marina Bay warns of shoreline closure due to oil contamination.
According to the California Department of Fish and Game, the spill is estimated to have killed 6,688 birds. 2,519 were collected: 1,084 were collected alive (664 of which died; 421 of which were rehabilitated and released) and 1,856 were collected dead.[14] About 200 miles (320 km) of coastline, incorporating about 3,000 acres, was oiled. The eggs laid by herring, which typically enter the bay in December, were killed in areas affected by the spill.[15]Economic
Several fisheries in the Bay Area may have been affected by the spill and the crab and sport fishing seasons were postponed by several weeks.[16] As of November 30, State biologists had tested more than 1100 samples of fish, mussels and Dungeness crab in San Francisco Bay and coastal waters outside the Golden Gate. The tests found unsafe levels of contaminants in mussels from Rodeo Beach and the Berkeley pier.
Approximately one million recreational use days were also lost as a result of the spill. This includes general shoreline use as well as recreational fishing and boating.
Total monetary damages were estimated at $2.1 million for the ship, $1.5 million for the bridge’s fender, and more than $70 million for environmental cleanup. Environmental restoration costs are still being calculated.[4]
Scientists are often hired by big tobacco, big coal, the oil industry as well as the chemical industry and big pharma to help reduce their liability from acts of corporate negligence or outright fraud by offering pseudo-scientific reports without any regard for the victims. From Doubt is Their Product introduction “Sound Science or Sounds Like Science”
I need only cite a cynical memo that Republican political consultant Frank Luntz delivered to his clients in early 2003. In “Winning the Global Warming Debate,” Luntz wrote the following: “Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate… The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science”.
Sound familiar? In reality, there is a great deal of consensus among climate scientists about climate change, but Luntz understood that his clients can oppose (and delay) regulation without being branded as antienvironmental by simply manufacturing uncertainty.
One of the most outrageous statement made by marine ecologist Varoujean is that the Gulf oil spill will not cause irreparable damage. Even if one could travel thousands of years into the future, how would they measure the impact of that oil spill?
Another claim is that environmentalists suffer from “eco-guilt” and should just “hang themselves”. Would be interesting to see the impartial and objective scientific methods Varoujean used to reach his hypothesis. One thing is clear from a June, 2009 letter he wrote on behalf of the board of the Coos Soil and Water Conservation District to Senators Wyden and Merkley, complaining about environmental regulations, Varoujean is armed and dangerous.
If you decide to continue on course, then you should not be surprised or feign indignation before the TV cameras when a great number of us decide to protect our freedom, our property and our very lives at the point of a gun. We are no longer going to just sit in the darkness fearfully awaiting the rap on the door by some fascist regulator your actions have loosed upon us.
The funny thing about this series of programs, Build Docks and They Will Come, hosted by Frank Williams, is that no one I know of has objected to a container dock. The LNG terminal yes, there is strong science based opposition to the terminal and the pipeline but not to a container dock. Having said that there is a growing number who have zero confidence that the existing Port executive and the current commission possess either the integrity or the skills and sophistication to complete a complex project like a billion dollar container dock without screwing it up.
Isn’t a douche recommended after a coming?
Even if not done right?
Eauuuuuuuwwwww.
From the Union of Concerned Scientists 03/07/11
http://www.ucsusa.org/ssi/climate-change/scientific-consensus-on.html
Scientific Consensus on Global Warming
Scientific societies and scientists have released statements and studies showing the growing consensus on climate change science. A common objection to taking action to reduce our heat-trapping emissions has been uncertainty within the scientific community on whether or not global warming is happening and if it is caused by humans. However, there is now an overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is indeed happening and humans are contributing to it. Below are links to documents and statements attesting to this consensus.
There are too many links to list here, but they include scientific societies, national scientific academies, research, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Come.on.now.lady, if you are not convinced by the decisive evidence presented here by the Union of Concerned Scientists, perhaps you should seek help with your reading comprehension problem.
I didn’t say that, of course there are sides to the debate.
Oh and ever take a second to analyze WHO will be profiting from green energy? Do you really think some small company, like your own, will have any chance against an energy giant like Haliburton? You need 100% of your resources to pursue a tiny faction of green, then been .1% of theirs to make that faction a reality.
Don’t make any mistake, our giants are here to stay no matter what tides may turn.
Holy cow! And you don’t think big oil and big coal and natural gas industries profit? You don’t think they stand to gain by sowing seeds of doubt?
Trace back who provides funding to Spencer – he is as bad as Varoujean, if not worse
of course there will be dissent from those that profit from “global warming”. Its a massive industry sector, why would something like this go unnoticed by them? They have to attack it. Dr. Roy Spencer is a well founded and respected researcher. Just because some liberals think they can gang up on him and his ideals with elitist approach, doesn’t mean that approach is correct. MGX, I know your kind. You think your right even when staring straight into discrediting evidence. The myth of an “intelligent independent” is really more like an “arrogant liberal”.
You can find anything to support your claims online no matter what you may be arguing for. It takes real intellect to actually analyze positions, not write them off because you disagree with them on the surface.
Read the study, it is clear you did not. Just like everything else on your website, you get your facts from elitist liberal cronies.
Here you go
““The study, published July 26 in the open-access online journal Remote Sensing, got public attention when a writer for The Heartland Institute, a libertarian think-tank that promotes climate change skepticism, wrote for Forbes magazine that the study disproved the global warming worries of climate change “alarmists.”
“However, mainstream climate scientists say that the argument advanced in the paper is neither new nor correct. The paper’s author, University of Alabama, Huntsville researcher Roy Spencer, is a climate change skeptic and controversial figure within the climate research community.
“He’s taken an incorrect model, he’s tweaked it to match observations, but the conclusions you get from that are not correct,” Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, said of Spencer’s new study.”
And again, NASA didn’t sign off on this guy
The only reference to NASA is to the CERES instrumentation. Plus, what peers reviewed the author’s claims? Look here for some peer analysis http://citizenschallenge.blogspot.com/2011/08/on-misdiagnosis-of-surface-temperature.html
Your hero has not thought things through which is sad because it is people like him and people like you who want to believe we are not harming the planet that make it bad for the rest of us.
in case you don’t feel motivated to expand your education on environmental fact, let me paraphrase the study for you.
A study conducted by Dr. Roy Spencer from UNiversity Alabama Huntsville, utilized NASA’s Aqua satelite to observe energy transfer into and out of earths atmosphere. The new study found that much more radiation was being emitted from Earth’s atmosphere than was utilized in the computer models of “climate change” or “global warming” advocates. These “alarmist” theories represent a distinct seperation from truth.
It goes on to say that ;eading scientists on both sides of the debate agree that “not much” heat is being trapped by CO2 emissions, but that the major debate at this time lies in changes to humidity and cirrus clouds. This new data, discredits this theory in particular.
There ya have it, come on now lady… what else ya got?
new information is always better than old
good science is always better than bad
and fact is always better than an “inconvenient truth”
uh oh, someone wants to seem smart
Tell me, what is more credible than a website? How about a scientific peer reviewed journal? Yup. Check the link and see what I’m smokin
http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/pdf
Boy, what have you been smoking come.on? http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
“The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years.1”
At least cite your reference before “coming on” here and making inaccurate claims so we can see where you get your data
whats all the hubub ladies and germs? do you find the title “environmentalist” dear to your sweet old hearts? Well lets analyze that for a minute. What is the biggest message “environmentalists” have pushed in recent decades? “Global Warming”. NASA has discredited all theories surrounding it, and even “climate change”. So you “environmentalists” fell for a scam. Thats right, an attempt to profit at the expense of others. Your core beliefs stem from nonsense, according to NASA, and your self importance stems from nothing. Arrogant, wrong, and distasteful. Yup, I’d be fine if you were hung. Not hung like me, but as in from a tree.
This guy is on a lot of boards and it is typical of the Port to be a part of a propaganda campaign that would include someone like this because no truly objective and professional ecologist would act this way.
SOMEONE needs to take their Depends and get back to the home.
Shut up, I’m their age, I have every right to say it. AND? These two Einsteins want to disallow US citizens from access to the courts.
Where’s Soylent Green when we need it?
Thank gawd for evolution, huh? Oh, I forget , these teabaggers don’t believe in evolution. Wonder if Dan thinks this ocean ends at the horizon too.
How about instead of stripping the standing from environmental groups, we strip all standing from those ‘marine ecologists’ who have a history of selling out to the highest corporate bidder? Makes more sense to me.
How much of our taxpayer money has gone to pay this buffoon for his “opinion”? He clearly missed the school day where they taught the definition of ‘ecology’. I think he deserves to have his opinions and his picture spread far and wide – let’s take him out of the ‘stealth’ mode and publicize him for the shill he obviously is.
What do you want to bet the port puts him on their technical advisory committee?
So he also works for the vessels’ “insurance company”? Now this guy loves it when some large vessel sheets oil accross SFrancisco Bay and he wants more of it, cause it’s just no big deal. I’ve watched this several times and his obvious anger at any and every impediment to corporate largess is unnacceptable. This guy is a time bomb, his anger is palpable. Why do guys like this one even bother to work ion the ocean, he has absolutely no respect for the natural world whatsoever. He may have done some adequate things in his lifetime, but man oh man, he ain’t a happy old man is he? Angry as hell, and the anger is misdirected from the git go. Frightening for the natural world isn’t it? But hey, even BP employs Faux Ecologists.