Of the twenty-odd separate appointments in my diary for this past week, the Earth Institute External Advisory Board Meeting and the second meeting of the Columbia Climate Center Steering Committee are probably the most worthy of note. And tonight I am attending a celebration hosted by the Consul General of Norway to mark the New York City International Polar Weekend at the American Museum of Natural History. Two full afternoons of activities and presentations on Saturday and Sunday at AMNH feature many (in fact mostly) Lamont and Columbia folks - stop by - it will be worth it.
I enjoyed the Frank Press essay (along with several other articles) in Nature's January 17th 'Year of Planet Earth' feature. The opening sentence made me think about the ongoing US President selection process. Frank quoted a well-known phrase from a speech by Margaret Thatcher to the Royal Society in 1988: "the value of Faraday's work
today must be higher than the capitalization of all the shares on the stock exchange". It would be nice to know that our Presidential candidates had similarly lucid insight into the fundamental and practical importance of basic research. But this is coming dangerously close to political commentary, so I shall stop.
Being unable to think right now because of the noise of the torrential rain on Monell's resonant roof, I shall depart for the city and consume polar delicacies at the Norwegian Consulate, and host several valuable friends from Lamont's Advisory Board.
Hope it stops raining, have a great weekend.
- Mike