Last month, climate scientists, media and 'green' tourists, ironically, were lodged in an ice jam in Antarctica while hoping to observe the effects of global warming on the South Pole. Meanwhile up north in the Arctic Circle, military scientists view the diminishing ice pack as fact. But the Navy in a soon-to-be-published Strategy Paper makes no public comment as to why climate change is happening. It don't appear to be wringing its hands in doom and angst, either, or laying blame on industrial development by humans. Instead the Navy and Coast Guard seems to be rolling up their sleeves to deal with the situation.

Climate change has had a visible and direct impact on the Arctic region, the Navy concludes in the paper, as noted in a  Wall Street Journal report (January 13, 2014).  "The inevitable opening of the Arctic will essentially create a new coast on America's north," says Admiral Jonathan Greenert.

The expanding navigable area of the Arctic Ocean will open up shipping lanes for faster transport of goods and commodities between China and Europe. More open seas will also give energy companies greater access to offshore oil and gas in regions controlled by the U.S., reports the WSJ. Military officials estimate the value of these activities to be $1 trillion.

When the Navy's Strategy Paper is released (in the next couple of weeks), it will be nice to read a report about global warming that doesn't lead with a homage to the modeling efforts of scientists and to the consensus of environmentalists and politicians that humans are responsible for the situation. It looks like this paper will provide a strategy for doing something, rather than to stop doing something. Subliminally the message might be about opportunity versus liability. Ironically, the easier availability of additional fossil fuels in the Artic may make coping with  problems said to be caused by fossil fuels easier.  

At last November's National Institute of Animal Agriculture's Antibiotics Symposium in Kansas City, the co-chair of the biannual event, Dr. Nevil Speer, a professor at Western Kentucky University, described antibiotic resistance as the single most complex problem in public health. The common thread running through the program's presentations was that the science behind the emergence, amplification, persistence and transfer of antibiotic resistance is highly complex and open to misinterpretation and misuse.

One speaker described the study of antibiotic resistance as trying "to know the unknowable." Another researcher in the use of antibiotics in food animal production said, "If you think you understand antimicrobial resistance, it hasn't been properly explained."

Apparently many journalists, consumer watchdogs, anti-agriculture activists and beltway wonks haven't had the situation explained to them properly. In early December the Los Angeles Times noted its support for the FDA ruling to limit the use of antibiotics in food animal production. But it made a gross implication (in one sentence) that the two million Americans infected with antibiotic resistant bacteria and the resulting 23,000 deaths (according to the CDC) are linked to the antibiotics fed to beef, swine and poultry. The question is whether the LA Times spun the connection innocently or lazily? Or was it sneaking an anti-agriculture agenda point across to its readers? 

The fact is those infections and deaths have been attributed to excessive use of antibiotics in hospitals and clinics, to over-prescribing and the readily available over-the-counter antibiotic products. Not one case of human infection or death stemming from the use of antibiotics in food animals, either to treat sick animals or to promote growth, has been observed, reported or documented.

That's not to say it couldn't happen. Which is why the agriculture industry, animal health scientists and the veterinary profession are leading the way in assuring food safety and human health. Agriculture uses science-based information in drawing its conclusions and initiating courses of action. Anti-agriculture groups apply political science to initiate bans and limitations on use. While farmers and meat-industry executives immediately signaled their compliance with new FDA rules, activists continued to rail against......well, just about anything.

In the parlance of the boxing ring, it seemed that General Mills had instructed its iconic Cheerios brand to take a dive when it announced last week the cereal would no longer include genetically engineered ingredients. Was the breakfast maker capitulating to the ill-begotten arguments of food safety advocates that crops with seed DNA modification present a danger to consumers? The FDA and most scientists in the field (along with ballot results  in several states where legislation to label GMO foods has been voted down consistently) gave no cause for General Mills to take this step. But General Mills saw an opportunity. The food giant more or less said, paraphrasing an underworld crisis management term, "Don't take it scientifically, it's just business."

Indeed, it may be a stroke of marketing genius. Grocery outlets like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are promoting non-GE (or GMO) products. That will eventually create upscale demand. And higher prices.

But will consumer watchdogs interpret General Mills' move as a victory for their pro-labeling side? You bet. Does it imply maybe something is harmful in bioengineered foods after all? No, not even close. But it will open the discussion to further interpretation and manipulation, and once again traditional, natural and laboratory science will likely take a back seat to political science.

Recommend commentary on the subject: Karin Klein's excellent article, Los Angeles Times, January 6, 2014.

Climate change skeptics are entitled to a snicker and a grin in the wake (or non-wake) of the ice-stuck Akademik Shokalskiy in Antarctica last month. The vessel with scientists, journalists and tourists aboard had shipped off on a merry green tour to witness the inexorable ravages of global warming at the South Pole. Ironical as the situation turned out to be, the plight of the crew and passengers was not that funny when the risks and expense of the international effort to rescue them are taken into account.

But ..... well, yes, it was. Especially in light of the commentary from science journalists and politicians in the last year or so. In remarks to a Netroots Nation gathering in San Jose last June, California Representative Henry Waxman and Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz suggested making fun of climate change skeptics. "These people have to be ridiculed," said Sen. Schatz. What a solid strategy for mustering constructive  concern for global warming (dba climate change). Trouble is these congressmen are not alone. With a host of probably well-intentioned researchers, journalists and not well-intentioned environmental radicals, they are broadcasting  conclusions from modeling that has not been field tested in accordance with traditional Daubert rules for scientific evidence. (An Inconvenient  Burden of Proof?, Harlow, B.E. and R. W. Spencer, 2011.) Among other things to numerous to list right now.

Why don't these guys and their climate change media boosters make an attempt at listening to the growing body of scientists questioning the rate of global warming, looking into the actual effects of greenhouse gases and trying to determine practical strategies to deal with it all. These researchers are not climate change deniers; they're scientists doing what scientists are supposed to do. Be skeptical. They are not looking for the last laugh. Although who would blame them for enjoying their just desserts? The passengers on the Akademik Shokalski were certainly enjoying their dessert after a hot meal in warm cabins with plenty of entertainment for ten days courtesy of the fossil fuel industry.

Maybe  green energy could have been further along in its commercial development, if wind, solar and biofuel et al had been promoted as supplemental rather than alternative energy sources. Environmentalists shouldn't have been so quick and strident to vilify fossil fuels, especially since oil and gas are almost soley responsible for the high standard of living Americans have enjoyed for more than a century. At this point in its development, alternative' energy (unless you're counting nuclear energy) can't come close to matching the efficiency and economy of fossil fuels. Oil produces 11 times more energy per dollar invested, say some in the oil patch. But that doesn't include the cost of  harm to the environment, argues the green lobby.

Bench technology in 'supplemental' energy generation has indeed advanced. But it is in no position yet to replace fossil fuels economically and practically. President Obama misspoke last March at a truck plant in Mount Holly, North Carolina, when he described oil as  "a fuel of the past." But he spoke for a lot of people who think wind, solar and bio energy can step right in and do what fossil fuels have done for the last 100 years. It's too early to write oil's obit, and I'm not keen on being regulated back to the stone ages. Or even back to the 1800s for that matter.

Oil as a fuel of the past? Not so fast. Mother earth has been turning matter into fossil fuel resources for 400 million years. But humans have only been using oil for 100.  There's plenty more where only a century's worth of it came from, though admittedly it's tougher and more expensive to produce.  In the last 40 years, we've become skilled at burning it efficiently, conserving it wisely and even cleaning it up better.

Green energy should play a backup role to fossil fuel until its ready to compete at the varsity level. At some point it will become a reliable alternative. If  green energy were regarded as the JV team instead of a rival, big oil would probably  train it, groom it and guarantee its eventual membership  in  the energy industry's Lettermen's club. Big oil has the capabiliity to put  green energy into the game before the  'greens' can.

The environmental movement got underway in earnest about 42 years ago when Los Angelenos, perpetually bogged down on congested freeways, finally got fed up with the blanket of pollution their automobile emissions cast over the City of Angeles. Not too long  afterwords (by the mid-1970s), but long before the EPA exploded into the nation's most powerful regulatory institution, engineers had implemented  techologies to deal with smog: catalytic converters, reformulated fuels and more efficient engines. They worked.

Earlier this year National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) presented research showing Los Angeles' smog is under control. Since the 1960s there has been a 98 percent decrease in air pollutants known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), even though more cars are venturing over the region's complex, serpentine freeway system. While ozone levels, however, do not meet EPA standards, the NOAA says they're trending downward.

Meanwhile when pressed, a majority of California Air Resoruces Board (CARB) members have admitted they want to get rid of internal combustion vehicles altogether. The sooner the better. But sooner might not be better because there's a big problem technology hasn't solved yet. For every five-percent-market share electric cars gain, one new power plant has to be constructed to meet battery recharging demand. Unless nuclear generation goes mainstream, those power plants would have to be coal, gas or oil-fired operations. And that will send more carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than all the old gasoline fueled cars ever did.

Today Mom would have been 96 years old. Well, she still will be; it's just she's not here anymore, and hasn't been for 30 years. It's a shame our sons had not been born when she passed away. It's a shame a lot of people missed out on her personality; and there's no telling how much wealthier the world would have been had she had these last three decades to let  her wisdom age into a fine vintage.

She was aunt to all of my sister's and my friends, and she was the best friend of those who were her friends. Her father immigrated from Ireland and owned a bar on Wall Street in the 1920s that gave him a  living good enough  to move his wife and  six children to a farm in New Jersey. Of all her brothers and sisters, Mom seemed to have best captured the sagacity, insight, sharp wit, gift of gab and story-telling skill that proves over and over again that the Irish really were responsible for the development of Western Civilization.

She lived in a time when women were said to be repressed whether they knew it or not. But I don't think that concept phased her. She had other concerns. Both of parents died within a year of each other before she graduated from high school in the 1930s. Her job at J.P. Morgan in New York required conformity to a fairly strict dress code, but she described it as more glamorous than confining.  Especially the white gloves. Like many other women of the time, she had to wait out the war to marry my Father. Then she experienced the unthinkable, being widowed with two young children when our Father died suddenly, tragically in a commuter train wreck.

My uncle, the black sheep in my Father's  family, warned Mom at the funeral if she wanted any kind of life she needed to get away. My grandparents, he said, would come to Red Bank, New Jersey, for the funeral and never leave. Which is what happened. So Mom followed Uncle Mac's advice and decamped from New Jersey for Seattle where he and my aunt lived. In 1952 she bought a new Plymouth Suburban (the original Suburban)  station wagon and plopped my sister in the fold-down backseat so she could sleep most of the way while I rode shotgun with no seatbelts. Driving across the country back then was an adventure, to say the least, for anyone, let alone a widow with two children.

We set up shop in Seattle. A new life for Mom and the beginning of one for my sister and me. She married a wonderful man seven years later; intensified  her life of service to the community and the poor; practiced a devout, practical brand of Catholicism (even dragging our agnostic stepfather to many liturgical  events and ceremonies). While most people who knew her exclaimed how remarkable she was, she never made the claim herself. She never batted an eye at her accomplishments, and always looked forward to tomorrow. For a woman who reached her fullness in the 1950s and nutured it until her death in 1982 when a lot of women were letting loose their frustration and resentment at the inequality of the sexes, she seemed set apart. She already was her own person, and she was happy.