Something Called Volcano Monitoring": Bobby Jindal Needs a Geology Lesson

[Joanne98]

I turned on Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal's campaign speech pre-campaign campaign insinuation pre-campaign dogwhistle fundraiser rebuttal to Obama's speech while cooking my pancakes this evening.

I have two questions.

Do Republicans (or moderates who don't have a kneejerk anti-Republican reflex) also feel like he's talking to the nation as though we were all kindergarteners? I was flabbergasted, but I don't know how to properly account for my rather strong political biases here.
DID HE SERIOUSLY JUST SAY THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT BE MONITORING VOLCANOES??!?!!!????@#$@!
Ignoring for the sake of argument the value of the basic science that always results from the data collected during routine monitoring - ignoring the general function of increased spending as an economic stimulus to the nation's earth scientists, instrument manufacturers, etc., - even ignoring all that, volcano monitoring is still a very sensible investment in national security. A $1.5 million investment in monitoring at Pinatubo (near a U.S. air force base) earned a greater than 300-fold return when the volcano erupted explosively in 1991: hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property (mostly airplanes) was saved, as were thousands of lives. That 30,000% figure comes before you attempt to put a value on human life.

Sure, not all investments will have such a payoff - or at least, we really hope that not all of the volcanoes we monitor will erupt explosively and damagingly on us. But even smaller puffs pose a considerable risk. For example, volcano monitoring is vital to aviation safety (you can think of an ash cloud as a swarm of tiny shards of glass out to ruin any jet engines it finds).

In other words: If the USGS didn't monitor volcanoes, the Defense Department would have to. And we all know that would cost eleventy-squillion times more than the current shoestring budget.

http://scienceblogs.com/greengabbro/2009/02/something_called_volcano_monit.php

Bobby Jindal has to potential to be a male version of Sarah Palin. Keep talking Bobby!

[ananda]

1. It's hard to believe that a Rhodes scholar..

.. could dumb down that far.

It makes you wonder about the Rhodes
criteria, eh?

[crimsonblue]

5. plus, he was a biology major

and had offers to attend Harvard and Yale Medical schools. How the hell can somebody (apparently) smart become a creationist, pro-life extreme, christian fundamentalist. From what my dad tells me, there has been a horrific surge in fundamentalist doctors in the past 5-6 years.

[Common Sense Party]

2. Don't we already monitor volcanoes?

Since highly-trained scientists are already watching them, the argument is that spending $140 million more to watch volcanoes isn't really stimulative--won't improve employment.

"While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a 'magnetic levitation' line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.' Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, DC."

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Only a fraction of the volcanoes in this country are being actively

monitored. Most monitoring is reactive - when one starts acting up they send people in to plant the sensors and start surveillance. That misses much of the very early activity, for one thing, and if there are several potential problems they have to 'best guess' which would be the biggest problem.

As with any scientific endeavor the geologists need to have the most current computers and software - what was state of the art 5 years ago is hopelessly obsolete today. The amount in the stimulus would allow (for hypothetical example) ten field teams instead of six, each feeding their data back for analysis, which would employ more analysts needing more equipment, etc. etc. There is a lot involved in monitoring volcanoes, involving a log of people and requiring a lot of equipment. It's not like having one person watch just one additional computer screen.

And those highly trained scientists? Probably half are unpaid grad student interns. Every one of them hoping there will be money for them to get a REAL job in the field after school - which there generally isn't.

[neverforget]

4. Don't take Jindal's word for it. It's not all for "volcano monitoring" but

for other things that have been put off by 8 years of neglect.

http://www.propublica.org/special/the-stimulus-plan-a-detailed-list-of-spending

U.S. Geological Survey facilities and equipment, including stream gages, seismic and volcano monitoring systems and national map activities $140,000,000

[Grinchie]

7. You're right -- Stream Guages have been removed during the past 10 years

I read about this a few years ago and was amazed.

The republicans were probably concerned that the field crew was getting too much exposure to the riparian enviroment and would get lazy, so they automated the gauges with "State of the Art" auotmatic guages that lasted a few years, but then failed and were never replaced.

By that time, they had 40 years of data and started depending on Computer models that we supposed to be the cats meow. Unfortunately, I First Person Shooter is no substute for Real War, and neither is a Computer Model suitable to see damage casued by uncontrolled growath and forestry. The computer model just gives the politicians excuse to not see the problem.

[Grinchie]

6. He's never heard of Mount Rainier, Mauna Loa, Mount Saint Helens

Mount Lassen, Mammoth Lakes, Mount Shasta, Lake Crowley Caldera, Crater Lake, Yellowstone National Park. Hawaii Volcaoes National Park, Mount Hood, or the state of Alaska.

I sure he thinks that a phone call to the local police department now and then would serve as adequate.

He looks pretty young, so I thend to think that he was never taught about geologly or the cause of many of these formations that millions of people worldwide live next to.

Personally, I think the amount he mentioned is just barely to handle Mt. Rainier, becuase when that one goes, it will be a Castastrophe of a lifetime.

At least in Hawaii, it is sedate enough that you can resonable outwalk a lava flow most of the time. You cannot however, outwalk a sudden subsidence of the coastline, and it's difficult to outrun a Tsunami at three AM in the morning without adequate warning.

They've cut the funds to Volcano Observatories for years. As Joanne98 mentioned above, Keep on talking Bobby!