Editor and General Manager
Speaking with Allison Paradise, the executive director and cofounder of my green lab (www.mygreenlab.org), is a heady experience, with all the passion that led her to leave a research career and start the nonprofit organization readily apparent. Of immediate concern is the Laboratory Equipment and Facilities survey that the group is conducting, the results of which will be used to develop targeted financial assistance for the purchase of new energy-saving equipment.
“We hope to get surveys from about 4000 labs,” said Paradise. “That number will be sufficient to give us a clear picture regarding where energy usage is highest, what kind of information and support labs need and where to target incentives.”
The survey, which can be found at www.surveymonkey.com/s/CEEL, is open now and can be completed in about 10–15 minutes. It comes at a time of flux in the climate change debate.
In the national arena, it has been mainly conservative-leaning groups and politicians who were inclined to discredit research on the impact of greenhouse gases. However, many of these same people and groups now accept the overwhelming scientific consensus that the planet is indeed warming, and that human activity, mainly the burning of fossil fuels, is a primary contributor.
The discussion has turned to what global warming means—What are the threats? How great are they? and What should be done about them?
That may depend on how you define “threat.” Just about everywhere you look, reputable studies proliferate on the impact of global warming, from increased incidence of severe weather to changes in the range of flora and fauna. Human health, marine life, shorelines, agriculture and more will be hit hard. Social and cultural dislocation and a large economic burden are to be expected.
As in the early days of studying greenhouse gases, when the impact of human activity on climate change was more widely debated, there is less consensus about what harm will be done, if any, and what kind of mitigation needs to be implemented and how quickly. This gives some cover to those whose basic inclination is to protect current economic activity (over long-term economic concerns) and the interests of industry. The threat is being overstated, they will say, or the costs of action are prohibitive considering uncertainty in the predictive models.
If you understand the word “conservative” in its literal, not political, sense, the course is obvious. The chances of the threat being real and the consequences severe are more than enough to warrant action. That would be the prudent, cautious—the conservative—thing to do.
The debate will go on, and while there is cause for deep concern, there is also reason to find optimism even in some of the most pessimistic reports. There is still time to act, and doing so may mitigate the more extreme consequences of inaction. New technologies in energy generation, be it to power your house or propel your car, and in greenhouse gas remediation, are on the way. An international consensus is building and there is a growing sense of urgency.
Individually, the least that can be done is whatever can be done. One step would be to fill out the survey for my green lab. Do it today before going home. When you leave, please turn out the lights.
Steve Ernst is Editor and General Manager, American Laboratory/Labcompare; [email protected]