A few years ago, bees suddenly had a sharp decline in numbers. This "Colony Collapse Disorder" as it is called, is a disorder in the sense that it is a recurring phenomenon, detailed for the last 1,000 years even when record-keeping just consisted of sporadic anecdotes. It was noted more frequently as record-keeping became more thorough. so it appeared far more often by the 1800s. By the 1900s, record-keeping had improved enough that there were seven recorded instances of this CCD phenomenon just in the United States.

Overpopulation, greenhouse gases, climate disruption - it's a doomsday prophet's Nirvana.

You, dear reader, are basically a blight on the pristine goodness of nature, but even being told that you stink has not led most of you to demand policy action. Why not? And will a Nobel laureate telling you to get off your butt help?(1) 

Dr. Paul Cruzten, a 1995 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, the fellow who popularized the term "anthropocene epoch", hopes his latest editorial, with Stanislaw Waclawek, on the subject creates a tipping point for change.

"A personal redemption narrative sustains motivation to engage in prosocial behavior," write psychologists at Northwestern University. Since it is St. Patrick's Day, that is a fancy social science way of saying that is why some people "do good works", while "redemptive stories sustain hope that sacrifices today may produce future dividends" is Catholic guilt for secular middle-aged people who don't like religion but do feel like they perhaps haven't earned what they got.

We sometimes have to wonder about the decision-making of government agencies. Senator Tom Coburn produced an annual list of waste and duplication that included science and it made sense to address those flaws, unless you actually favor National Science Foundation money being used so someone could play Everquest instead of doing actual science. Likewise, energy researchers were not thrilled that the Department of Energy funded the Human Genome Project.

But sometimes it makes total sense. Case in point: Dr. Ernest M. Allen, Chief, Division of Research Grants at the NIH, who once agreed to fund a rocket. For a 10-year-old.

Sometimes popular concepts catch fire with the public for no reason, even when they are shown to be incorrect - virtual water, a gallon of gas to create a pound of beef, you didn't build that - but usually those fade with time.

Not the Drake Equation, which sought to parameterize what other life may be out there.