Volcano monitoring row erupts - February 25, 2009
After John McCain’s planetarium gaffe you might have hoped that politicians would learn the following lesson: trying to score cheap points off your rivals by criticising science projects is not a good idea if you don’t understand the science.
You might have hoped, but here comes Bobby Jindal.
The Louisiana governor was giving the Republican party response to President Barack Obama’s latest speech when he criticised the stimulus package designed to get America’s economy going again. One of his gripes was that it includes “$140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.”
Would Bobby have criticised volcano monitoring if he was governor of Hawaii? Of course not.
Predictably, some scientists and bloggers are not happy about this. A few point out that the stimulus package actually earmarks $140 million for a number of things at the US Geological Survey including facility refurbishment, equipment upgrades and volcano monitoring.
“It’s very hard to read that statement and honestly conclude that the law is spending $140 million on volcano monitoring,” Dunford writes on the Questionable Authority blog. “They do mention volcano monitoring, but it's clearly not the only thing that's being funded.”
On the Green Gabro blog, Maria Brumm adds:
Ignoring for the sake of argument the value of the basic science that always results from the data collected during routine monitoring - ignoring the general function of increased spending as an economic stimulus to the nation's earth scientists, instrument manufacturers, etc., - even ignoring all that, volcano monitoring is still a very sensible investment in national security. A $1.5 million investment in monitoring at Pinatubo (near a U.S. air force base) earned a greater than 300-fold return when the volcano erupted explosively in 1991: hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property (mostly airplanes) was saved, as were thousands of lives. That 30,000% figure comes before you attempt to put a value on human life.
The FiveThirtyEight blog also brings up the Pinatubo incident.
If all this talk has got you itching to read more about why volanco monitoring is cool, here is just the thing:
Redoubt tracked from every angle - Seismograph and satellite advances give scientists a clearer picture of volcanic activity.
Comments
Volcano monitoring is also incredibly useful data that helps us better develop geothermal power. For all his party's talk of "Drill here, drill now", it's pretty neglectful to be so ignorant of a way to develop an enviromentally sound renewable source.
Posted by: Snig | February 25, 2009 03:48 PM
What on earth? Decrying $140 million for "something called volcano monitoring" (would he say "something called hurricane monitoring")?
First off, it's $140 million for the USGS, not specifically for monitoring volcanoes. Secondly, volcano monitoring is 10% of the USGS budget:
http://www.usgs.gov/budget/2009/docs/09JustificationTables_BaseOmnibus_02.xls
The rest goes to things like monitoring for earthquakes, landslides, mapping energy and natural resources, water monitoring, biological research, and so forth. So that's $14 million if distributed the same way. Out of nearly $800 billion. Money that'll go to scientists and domestic manufacturers of scientific equipment, who, by the way, are part of our economy, too. And lastly...
Is he out of his freaking gourd? Decrying *volcano monitoring*? Holy heck, of all the things to decry as wasteful, letting people on the west coast know that, hey, you know, a cloud of skin-melting pyroclastic gasses and a 1500-degree lava flow is about to pour into your house, might just be a little bit appreciated by them. Should we go back to a virgin-sacrifice method of dealing with volcanoes? Is this man from freaking outer space?
Posted by: Rei | February 25, 2009 05:34 PM
Wow!
Just imagine the power that could be harnessed with geothermal energy!
This type of research is priceless.
Posted by: ForestWander Nature Photography | February 26, 2009 10:03 PM