9486 in the collection  

UT scientist drops research that he says pollutes

Ohanian Comment: Now
where are the professors who pull out of
projects that harm children?
Note the official university copout here:
project's capabilities were substantial
enough to warrant. . . blah blah blah.
Isn't this what educationists say about
standardized testing and data collection?

The tragedy of the teaching profession today is
that so few teachers in public schools today
can honestly say they "go with their
conscience."

By Hudson Lockett

Going with his conscience, an astronomy
professor at the University of Texas has
decided to back out of a NASA project that he
spent about a decade working on because he
thinks it excessively harms the environment.

An instrument developed by John Lacy,
considered one of the top physicists in the
country, will be used along with a telescope in
the back of a modified Boeing 747 to determine
the chemical makeup of objects light-years
away. For the project, the jet will fly about
four times a week for up to 12 hours at a time.

Lacy said the flights will emit too much
fossil-fuel pollution in the name of science.

Paul Kalas, a professor at the University of
California at Berkeley who teaches ethics to
astronomers, said he has never heard of an
astronomer dropping out of a project because of
environmental concerns.

"That's probably unprecedented, actually," he
said, adding that Lacy's concern is
"important."

"I think astronomers have to be knowledgeable
and sensitive to environmental issues in all of
their activities," Kalas said.

Lacy's departure comes as the joint program
between NASA and its German counterpart nears
operational status. As part of the program,
which is called the Stratospheric Observatory
for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, the plane
will rise above 99 percent of the water vapor
in the atmosphere to make observations that are
impossible for ground-based telescopes,
according to the project's Web site.

Among the goals of the project is studying star
birth and death, the formation of new solar
systems and the planets and asteroids in our
own system.

SOFIA's chief scientist, Eric Becklin, said
Lacy's departure would be felt at the project
as the group seeks to fill the vacancy. "It's a
blow to SOFIA because he is so good," Becklin
said. Lacy's experience in building and
operating scientific equipment is exceptional,
he said.

"Lacy is one of the best experimentalists I've
ever known," Becklin said. "He's a top
physicist. Texas should be very proud to have
him."

Lacy first made his intentions known to his
colleagues at UT in the spring during a
presentation about the project. For Neal Evans,
chairman of the UT Astronomy Department, the
news came out of left field. "I was at least
somewhat taken aback by this," Evans said.

"Everybody here has to operate on their own
judgment about their science and any ethical
issues," Evans said, adding that he personally
doesn't have any ethical issues with the
project.

When Lacy's instrument is ready, Evans said he
will have no problems using it for his own
research in infrared astronomy.

Lacy started developing the specialized
spectrograph at UT for use aboard the aircraft
about 10 years ago. Two years ago, he began
teaching an introductory course on the solar
system for nonscience majors. "I chose to teach
it largely because I wanted to talk about the
greenhouse effect," he said.

As he taught students about the importance of
cutting down on the emissions that trap heat in
the planet's atmosphere , Lacy said, he became
increasingly uncomfortable with his own
research. "How can I tell these students that
it's a serious problem and we ought to do
something about it when I'm working on a
project that will have more impact than all of
them will have?"

During its 20-year lifespan, SOFIA will fly for
eight to 12 hours roughly four times a week,
said Nicholas Veronico, a spokesman for the
Universities Space Research Association SOFIA
Science Center in California. The association,
of which UT is a member, was chosen by NASA to
carry out scientific operations for the
project.

Veronico said that when SOFIA begins regular
flights with full crews next winter, the effect
will be minimal compared with the average
28,537 commercial flights handled daily by the
National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

"We're now going to add one more flight per day
three, maybe four, days a week," Veronico said.

As for Lacy's concerns: "I actually applaud him
for thinking about this, as do others at our
program," Veronico said. "It's just that we
believe SOFIA is one small fraction of the
number of airplanes in the air per day, but the
science we're going to get from this instrument
is going to be incredible."

Jets are the major source of emissions
deposited in the upper atmosphere, where the
warming effect of some pollutants is greater,
according to a 2006 article on aviation
pollution by USA Today. Scientists attribute up
to 3 percent of all carbon dioxide that
contributes to global warming to plane engines,
the article states.

A September article from The New York
Times estimated that a round-trip, coast-
to-coast flight in the United States creates
about three tons of carbon dioxide emissions,
roughly equivalent to driving a midsize car for
six months.

Dana Backman, associate director for education
and public outreach for the Universities Space
Research Association, said the project's
capabilities were substantial enough to warrant
its carbon footprint.

"SOFIA's virtues are far-infrared wavelength
ranges, a versatile set of spectrometers that
can be updated and its ability to go anywhere
on the Earth," Backman said.

Although the association disagreed with Lacy,
he said, it respected his decision.

"We completely support his right to make a
decision like this," Backman said. "If this is
where his conscience points him, then blessings
on it."

In recognition of his work building successive
spectrographs, Lacy was given the Maria and
Eric Muhlmann Award by the Astronomical Society
of the Pacific in 2004, according to the USRA
SOFIA Web site.

One source of encouragement for Lacy has been
Martin Gaskell, a resident fellow in the UT
Astronomy Department. Though not directly
involved with the project, he commended Lacy
for his commitment.

"What I really admire about what John has done
here is he's taken a stand on principle even
though it's not in his own self-interest,"
Gaskell said.

Dan Lester, an astronomy researcher at UT, said
he disagrees with Lacy's decision but shares
his concerns about global warming.

"John is, quite properly, worried about CO2 in
the atmosphere," Lester said.

For all projects with environmental impact,
"it's important to be able to answer questions
like these," he said.

Lacy said his departure doesn't lessen the
importance of science and technology research
on global warming solutions.

"I don't know that the research we would be
doing with this airplane is going to be the
solution," he said, "but that's usually true of
any science.

"You don't really know what the effects of your
research are going to be."

hlockett@statesman.com



— Hudson Lockett
Austin American-Statesman
2008-11-30


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