There is supposed to be a Presidential Candidate Science Debate 18 April 2008.

Everything is set up. All the candidates have to do it appear. Will they commit? Science deals with Truth. So I imagine only the ones like Ralph Nader or Ron Paul would show up and it does not look like they are invited.

This Presidential Candidate Science Debate is being sponsored by individuals and organizations whose members include some of the brightest minds on the planet.

A. The Environment	B. Health & Medicine	C. Science & Technology Policy
1. Climate Change	1. Global Diseases & Pandemics	1. Innovation and Growth
2. Conservation and Species Loss	2. Stem Cell Research	2. Science Education
3. Future of The Oceans	3. Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria	3. Space Exploration
4. Water: Drought, Pollution, Ownership	4. Drug Patents, Generic Drugs	4. Scientific Integrity in Government
5. Population Growth and the Environment	5. The Genome	5. Energy Policy
6. Renewable Energy Research	6. Bioethics	6. Civil Environmental Conspiracy Law

Table: Les Porter, Xomba.com

Note: When I built this table, I added one thing to it. Civil Environmental Conspiracy Law is my addition. There are many other things that are possible to add. My discussion of Civil Environmental Conspiracy Law will be brief, and way below. You are welcome to copy this table. Just go to view page source under view on your tool bar, and copy and paste. Credit: Table, Les Porter, Xomba.com

I'm not kidding -- some of the brightest people -- are scientists and they often head major endeavors and institutions. See them here:

http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=2

Now, realize, I support this debate. I visited and have utilized the links on the website, "sciencedebate2008.com" and read and posted to some of the blogs and statements various writers have written, and posted to a few commentaries, and other such things written that have contributed to the over all "background."

One of the most compelling requests for the candidates to participate comes from an older gentlemen who uses an "etcetera" in summarizing who he is and what he has done, but goes on to say something I know and he knows to be the most important thing our planetary-scale civilization must deal with and soon. With his "gut" estimation of what is happening, and how his scientific "gut" estimation of what is happening agrees with mine -- I post his video as an embedded object here.

Video: Science Debate 2008. An invitation to discussion in the interest of the Nation and The Species.

LEON LEDERMAN, 1988 Nobel Prize recognized physicist. Illinois Institute of Technology.

Neither Leon Lederman, nor I will live to see the final outcome -- the end result -- of the abuse we humans have allowed to be dealt to our home, nor to the institutions we have built.

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Nothing in the following graphic -- that portends to outline the future -- can be realized without solid science and the technological underpinnings. If any of you people saw the TV program about the instant vanishing of humanity, Aftermath: Population Zero and how the Earth would notice hardly at all the vanishing of Man. Well -- that was wrong. Think about our legacy. But that belongs in Part Two.

A Venn diagram of concepts related to what we can do.

Image:Wikipedia

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Consumption of renewable resources State of environment Sustainability

More than nature's ability to replenish	Environmental degradation	Not sustainable
Equal to nature's ability to replenish	Environmental equilibrium	Steady-state Sustainability
Less than nature's ability to replenish	Environmental renewal	Sustainable development

Table from Wikipedia -- Sustainable Development.

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The Congressional Quarterly article about the Obama and Clinton Science Surrogates appearing to "debate science" at the AAAS meeting in Boston in January was especially interesting.

http://cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002672884

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Now, however. In the light of day. . . and probably to a degree beyond where you want to go. . .

FLAWS

There are some substantial "flaws" in the blueprint for the Science Debate between candidates. It looks almost like the entire population of the U.S. is represented by the "National Committees" of the Republicans and the Democrats. That is too bad and it is wrong. The Science Debate sponsorship is broad enough to move the debate to a much larger arena, a much larger higher realm.

This desired and needed invitation to a Science Debate is NOT what it could have been. This is not an "open debate"; it is pretty much confined to a preselected group of contestants who have paid their fees and used their political proxies to enter the "Presidential Race." For example, under the posted debate framework, where only those people who poll at least 15% on a national scale are allowed or invited, the people, the scientists, and the dedicated and honest Americans who are supporting the debate effort -- are being deprived of possibly very useful and important kinds of perspectives that are not a part of the mainstream funding plan. The off-mainstream unfunded but maybe scientifically correct or accurate perspectives of other minds needs to be presented in a formal scientific debate forum. These other perspectives might outline and demonstrate recognition of national and planetary global problems that are being ignored by the mainstream preselected group.

Are there presidential candidates who should be invited to a science debate "despite" their poll numbers? I can think of four but I'll list five for obvious reasons, you will see: Kucinich, Paul, Edwards, Nader, Bloomberg. (You know, I know, Bloomberg took himself out.) But any that continue the "stay-the-course" rhetoric need to be bounced; and bounced very hard.

Now -- of the people listed above, are there any people credible as debaters?

Yes. Nader is one of them.

Nader might provide the most useful means to gage other candidates depth and grasp of the issues.

Edwards is another great debater. He seems to me weak on the sciences, but that is something he can change easily with a little help.

In fact, all of these are people with absolutely valid positions -- positions that ought to be heard, or at least presented as parts of the answer. Instead we here the pre-selected Democrats arguing the health care issue. Not touching any of the real issues. And we hear a few squeaks from the McCain group trying to patch over statements the RNC didn't get to examine before they were said.

Yeah. The real issues that are important aren't touched. And the single most important issue is not hinted as important beyond all the others. Yeah. A science debate? Seriously. Most of the readers of the information and the blogs posted think this is about scientists being disappointed about funding and science jobs. That could be true among the upcoming generation. And that could be true of the scientifically ignorant, or myopically focused, or narrow in the scientific mind.

But it is not true at all, if you listen to the bright people who are asking you to rationally open your mind and see this is a desperate time for which tiny errors our species makes -- close the options.

I am going to seem to be single minded and narrow too. But you have been seriously fogged and may not clearly see through the haze. It is like trying to see down a winding highway through a mist -- knowing there are such things as infrared vision tools -- but not using them.

I do not mind making pronouncements:

The American initiated planetary business experiment has created this failure. This approach, this model of "corporate embodiment" coupled to its treatment in our social system, expands its influence like a clearly malignant metastasis which, when it is finally diagnosed, is too late. This time no one will do a postmortem. The extent of this planetary malady is based on a series of faulty simplistic premises having to do with unlimited "growth" and "sustainability" and with an illusion of value present and value future -- all scaled in the wrong fundamental terms, and all with the measures of success taking the species in the wrong direction for survival. Banks and Corporations do not work for the "good" of the species.

This malady, this faulty cancerous philosophy and mechanisms created to serve it, endangers everything upon Earth, and continues to expand this danger with the specter of now visible impending extinction over every living thing on the planet. What is coming is as just as certain as the vast angular momentum of the Earth's spin bringing the sunrise and the sunset. I am concerned about the sunset; not mine, so much, as the one ahead for the rest of you.

Civil Environmental Conspiracy Law

The framework, if not the social and species justifications exist in RICO. That is what we are facing. Republicans and Democrats at the highest party levels (the National Committees are somewhat engaged, depending on their status -- whether they know it or not. And they likely need to be investigated under both RICO and what will be Civil Environmental Conspiracy Law (CECL). In fact, the GOP is deeply involved in the environmental conspiracy, and the leadership, with the President's entourage as participant are the primary directors of the US contingent. Because of their performance for the last 14 years and the last 7 years, ample evidence for prosecution and conviction exists. It is time to initiate proceedings under RICO, and work on overall environmental criminal and civil laws under a newly redirected, reorganized and reinvigorated EPA. This agency should be a bonanza of records for prosecutors.

Scientists have been gentle in dealing with the issue, but that may soon change. It should, the truth has been presented, and the denial yet persists. Those should be the obvious initial targets, but the current administration's linkages all lead to members of the conspiracy.

This is probably the most important part of the "Science Debate 2008" possible agendas. Lawyers should be thinking about this, and so should Lawmakers. (Congressional Leaders. Bad Joke, leaders?) Lawmakers should be thinking about this for "two" reasons. One is because as inevitable as the damage to our environment is, so is the retribution that needs to be taken to prevent it from ever happening again. And Two, Congressional Lawmakers need to be aware of this because they will be among those prosecuted under the environment conspiracy laws.

I removed the list of names I had here. But you already know them.

What is sadly worse, the most disheartening -- is that there are ways to prevent the otherwise inevitable outcome. But the ways must be employed rather quickly and globally. Although Leon Lederman thinks we still have ten years of slope left, I do not think we have that much time. I think it is in this next administration. But I know it could have been employed during the last 14 years and wasn't. From that, I also think criminal charges need to be proferred for those who have long played along in this AGW for profit venture, and reduced the time we have to combat what is inevitable.

Environmental Conspiracy Law would take care of this -- from deforestation to the blockage of viable extant technologies to alleviate continued emission of CO2.

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Intelligent use of Science and Technology is the only hope for our species and all other species, and our planet, now that we have "civilized" it.

Support the Science Debate. Think about the imminent “issues.”

Even though I do not give much hope to our species -- considering the preselected group you have to choose from for leadership -- that is what is playing on stage right now.

End Part One.

Don't ask. I am framing and completing Part Two. You probably won't like it. But come back to be sure.

The Devil's Brimstone is briefly discussed.