Michael Eisen on Energy & Oil

Base climate change policy on science, not politics

Eisen: There has been a growing sense of frustration among scientists about the way decisions are made in politics--in particular, the way science is integrated into decision-making. I mean "science" in the grand sense--the process of making observations, characterizing reality and then using that characterization to make judgments about the best course of action. Politics should function similar to science. We should try to figure out what's going on in the world and then debate the best way to do it, to make the world better.

Q: Why the US Senate?

Eisen: The immediate motivation was watching a Senate hearing where they were discussing a scientific issue, like climate change. I thought: "It would be really nice to have scientists ask the questions of the Cabinet appointees, because the senators don't seem to understand the issue and aren't asking the right questions."