SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
According to The Missoulian (archive):
Several of Missoula's top federal fire scientists have been denied permission to attend the International Fire Congress later this month, leading conference organizers to suspect censorship of climate-related research.
"Anyone who has anything related to climate-change research — right away was rejected," said Timothy Ingalsbee of the Association for Fire Ecology, a nonprofit group putting on the gathering. Ingalsbee noted that was his personal opinion, and that the AFE [Association for Fire Ecology] is concerned that a federal travel restriction policy may be more to blame.
The Missoulian also said (archive):
The scientists no longer attending include Matt Jolly, who was to present new work on "Climate-induced variations in global severe weather fire conditions," Karin Riley on "Fuel treatment effects at the landscape level: burn probabilities, flame lengths and fire suppression costs," Mike Battaglia on "Adaptive silviculture for climate change: Preparing dry mixed conifer forests for a more frequent fire regime," and Dave Calkin, who was working on ways to manage the human response to wildfire.
takyon: Also at Scientific American (thanks to another Anonymous Coward).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @02:41AM (13 children)
Twitter let's Trump account go down for 11 minutes everyone loses their mind and cries censorship. Actual censorship of important science? That's just fine...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Monday November 13 2017, @03:26AM (10 children)
Here's an idea, why not hold the International Fire Congress someone international rather than in a country where science is subject to politically-motivated censorship? Or is the International Fire Congress like the World Series where "World" = "USA only"?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @04:22AM (5 children)
Keep whining, scientists, as if the work you do at taxpayer expense should not be directed by policymakers. That attitude will surely help keep the Rs in charge.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @08:23AM (2 children)
Actually no, the science done by various departments should not be very beholden to the whims of some politician. The EPA, FDA, FCC, and etc. should be held to their actual founding charters. They should not be responsible to whatever jerkoff politician gets a hardon for some lobbying group. We are seeing right now what happens when the top of the pyramid feels justified in dictating down to the bottom.
You may applaud Trump's actions thinking it is the draining of the swamp, and so I guess the ignorant must learn the truth by bringing the shit down upon us all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @01:56PM
Leader A is in charge and encourages research to whip up fear that benefits him politically. Then leader B gets elected, and his political allies don't want to hear about the topic. So B shuts down the research. Big whoop.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Monday November 13 2017, @03:46PM
You may applaud Trump's actions thinking it is the draining of the swamp, and so I guess the ignorant must learn the truth by bringing the shit down upon us all.
I honestly don't see the problem here, or why they need to have this conference at all. What use is it? To prevent forest fires, or lessen their impact? Why is that important or useful?
Just let the forests burn, along with whatever homes happen to be nearby. Remember, the people who live in rural areas who will be affected more by this are generally conservative and voted for the guy who doesn't believe in climate change. They're getting exactly what they voted for.
Remember, as I've said here over and over, "every nation gets the government it deserves".
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @08:43AM (1 child)
Actually it's the people who pay for this knowledge in order to get advantageous policy decisions.
What is the knowledge and who gets the advantages, that's the question?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @02:00PM
I thought the taxpayers paid for this knowledge. Silly me.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @04:56AM
Pretty much. The first was held in London in 1903. The second was in Orlando in 2004. This will be the seventh and will also be in Orlando. It's also been held in other places in the USA: Portland, Oregon; San Diego; San Antonio and in Savannah, Georgia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @05:11AM (2 children)
If a conference doesn't stay in one spot, you should suspect that most participants treat it as an excuse to see the world with their employers paying.
Heck, that is true of conferences in general. The actual research is available on the internet, either fully free or as pre-publication "draft" copies that are essentially complete.
I'm sure we can research fire forever, continuing to find ever more detailed nuances, but I have a feeling we've got enough to work with now in 2017. We have this pretty much figured out.
Jetting around the world is a fine way to show that the scientists are not actually concerned about carbon emissions.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @08:46AM
Can we apply this standard to everyone or just scientists? No work travel unless you are LITERALLY saving the planet RIGHT NOW.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday November 14 2017, @04:30PM
Or it means the organizers want to make sure people who might not have a huge travel budget can attend at least occasionally. It's not like these are in friggin' Tijuana. If they're held at a popular resort/vacation spot -- as many "conferences" are -- then you might be right...but ones like this that are just moving between major cities in different parts of the country are probably just trying to ensure they aren't getting the same group of people every single time. Not everyone has an unlimited budget for flights for their entire staff. Some people are only going to be going if they can pile into a car and drive there in an afternoon.
Not everyone is as comfortable with the internet and absorbing information through text as we are. And there's value to collaboration that you don't get just by publishing a paper online. Conferences certainly aren't perfect, and might not be the ideal way to do that either...but I think they do still have some value.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Monday November 13 2017, @06:18AM (1 child)
No, a Twitter employee maliciously vandalizes Trump's profile for political purposes. This is a form of extremism, even it is the very definition of petty.
Nobody, except for perhaps global warming denying morons think this is fine. And yes, people are more concerned about matters more immediately related to their lives, this isn't exactly rocket science.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @09:02AM
Actually much of it depends on rocket science since we use satellites for a lot of our global studies. Climate science is still an evolving field, so one might say it is even more complicated than rocket science.
As for twitter, it was just a reference to how wildly out of proportion people reacted to what amounted to vandalism. It didn't even really count as censorship as you point out, but we've had scientists complaining since pretty much day one of Trump's presidency. The lack of outrage can only be explained by climate denying morons and other such idiots who think those elitist / corrupt scientists are just getting the house cleaning they deserve. The anti-intellectual movement in the US should concern everyone.