This coming Friday (28/4 at 10:00 a.m. at the corner of Ben Zion and King George streets, the Israeli climate march will take place in Tel Aviv. Along with environmental organizations and just people who care, it is fitting that the members of the scientific community march there with their heads held high
24 hours - that's the period of time it took for the first controversy to break out between the new American President Donald Trump and the scientists and the media. Just one day after Trump's inauguration in January, Trump and his spokesman Sean Spicer insisted that the media deliberately distorted the coverage of the inauguration ceremony to make it appear as though it was not attended by such a large audience. The issue was quickly resolved: aerial photographs analyzed by scientists showed that the media was right and indeed, Trump's inauguration was not attended by the millions who attended the inauguration of his predecessor, Barack Obama.
The correct way to determine how many people attended Trump's inauguration may not be the biggest scientific issue at hand. But it is possible that something can be learned from this story: in an age where the truth is so fluid, there is a need to return to the only agreed upon tools for determining the validity of facts, and these are the scientific tools.
It is said of scientists that they are jealous of their research, that they shut themselves up in the ivory tower and that they are wary of overexposure. But the new reality in the United States pushed the scientific community - which consists of a collection of universities, research institutes and organizations of scientists whose revisions do not necessarily cooperate with each other - to wash en masse last Saturday the streets of Washington, D.C. and other cities around the world and march from Nablus to Nablus in protest of the policy measures of The new White House.
One can of course be cynical about the call of the Gewald of the scientific community, which remembered to take to the streets only when the sword of cuts threatens to cut its research budgets. But I believe that until now the scientists were really sure that it was enough to present the graphs and their findings, preferably with a red line and another black one above it that shows it has been crossed, to explain, for example, that we are facing a very serious climate crisis; that we should rely less on private cars and switch to renewable energies; that we should think again about the protection of the coastal cities; and so on and so on.
The problem is that the scientific community - perhaps arrogantly, perhaps naively, perhaps falling asleep on guard and perhaps just because it does not have the proper tools - simply failed to convey its message to the public.
The data, which scientists have collected painstakingly and painstakingly for years, presents us with an unequivocal picture: our world is warming, and the greenhouse gases, the emissions of which man is largely responsible for, play a central part in this process. Moreover: science today is able to attribute specific environmental phenomena, such as particularly strong storms, to global climate change. Although this process is irreversible, it can be moderated and we can begin to prepare for its political, environmental, health and security consequences. The global mobilization in this direction, of which the Paris Agreement on climate change is an important landmark, may be damaged by the anti-scientific spirit that is currently blowing in the United States and that brought scientists to the streets of major cities around the world last weekend.
I propose an alternative, perhaps more optimistic, way of looking at the new state of affairs. The approach of the current American administration requires all of us, and the scientific community in particular, to get out of the traditional research framework and the sterile approach of the scientists. If you will, reality issued order 8 to scientists. Not only for those who sit in laboratories in the United States, but also for those who work on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Climate change does not have a passport and it does not recognize political maps.
It will be held next Friday The Israeli climate march in Tel Aviv. Along with the people of the environmental organizations and just people who care, it is appropriate that the people of the scientific community march with their heads held high at the head of the convoy - also so that their research budgets don't dry up, but mainly because they should be the flag bearers of the fight for the use of scientific knowledge to make informed decisions in the State of Israel .
I will also march with you.
Dr. Neta Lipman is the CEO of the Israeli Association for Ecology and Environmental Sciences
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I don't know who is right about man's influence on warming. But for anyone who thinks there is an impact there is one thing anyone can do and that is grow plants. Grow plants Plant trees Grow pots Water them while the plant will already do its thing. The more plants, the more CO2 will be absorbed from the air. If everyone does their best then we have done a little and together it is a lot. If we also as a society and country do this then we have done even more and if we also convince other countries to multiply plant crops then it is a net gain for all of us and future generations. The simplest and easiest way to lower the amount of CO2 in the air. Anyone can contribute
Avi Blizovsky
He thinks about his own good and not about the good of his children.
shocking to me...
Here is an ad I saw in Australia 10 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOi5FclEh_Q
He makes the erroneous but common claim among capitalists, that there is nothing to do anyway, therefore nothing needs to be done. When we become Venus and all life - including humans - will disappear, will they say sorry, were we wrong?
my father
Are you claiming that there is a debate as to whether or not the PAH emitted by humans has or does not have an effect on warming?
To my father Blizovsky - as far as I know there is no debate about the very fact of global warming.
There is a debate about the extent of man's influence on this process which, according to the claim of scientists outside the consensus, claims that it is a process that happens naturally in regular cycles once every few million years and that man's influence is marginal.
I don't think they are right - but their opinion and findings should also be published.
In addition, there is a debate about the feasibility of how much it is necessary to invest in preventing 2CO emissions when there are so many more serious infections for the environment and humanity.
I think that the American president's decision stems from the recent debate about the viability and the order of priorities (the American economy in the United States), I don't think that in Israel there is a place to challenge the decisions of an American president and there is no place to hold demonstrations against him here.
In addition to what I wrote before and for some reason does not appear (censorship?)
Except for my reservations about mixing politics and science.
The preoccupation with global and American problems incites the discourse on the very serious environmental problems we have in Israel.
Again and again and again it turns out that there is a regular reader (my father) who is also a multidisciplinary expert.
Global warming is re-examined in every study on the subject, dozens of times a day. If a fundamental error had been discovered, it would have been brought up a long time ago.
Consensus and mental fixations bother me.
In my opinion, science should remain pure and objective, open to all opinions, and not involve politics.
The problem is that when politics and money and power interfere in science, they also bias the results of research and the scientific truth.
Just as a Galilean was not allowed to say that the sun revolves around the earth or Dan Shechtman was not allowed to say that a pentagonal crystal exists, so today no one is allowed to say anything that does not fit the consensus of global warming. and on other topics that have consensuses and conflicts.
I am disturbed by the flow of brainwashing in all the popular science magazines in all the science and journalism channels, and the videos produced by Schwarzenegger and so on.
It bothers me that the website called the Israeli Society for Science and Environment, instead of engaging in science, engages in political propaganda. And on Friday there is going to be a political demonstration in Tel Aviv against the President of the United States, it really bothers me that there is a demonstration in Israel against the decisions of an American President, especially that it comes under the guise of a so-called scientific excuse.
Although I would not choose such a president if I were an American.
In Israel we have problems of environmental infections, and risks of environmental infections, extremely severe, much more severe and more permanent endangering our lives and our quality of life, than the concentration of CO2 in the world's air or from global warming, or from any other global problem.
The preoccupation with global warming and all this wrong politics around it, diverts the agenda from our real problems.
To my father
Please allow me to disclaim your response, twice:
First time - from the disparaging and mocking style. This is an inappropriate and disrespectful style, even if you disagree with the author's claim.
A second time - to the point. Are you sure that various actions of PR and advertising, to spread and introduce the idea of protecting our living environment, into the consciousness of the public and politicians, are useless and futile?
What, then, is the alternative you offer?
Popo-liti-poo in a scientific guise.
I suggest to anyone who is thinking of going to Tel Aviv to participate in the futile and futile demonstration of the Don Quixotes, to stay at home and save the air pollution from the exhaust of their car.