An Extremely Bold Op-Ed

Science the GOP can't wish away

By Sherwood Boehlert
The writer, a Republican, represented New York's 24th District in Congress from 1983 to 2007. He is a special adviser to the Project on Climate Science.

I thought the last two paragraphs of the article very significant and a poignant point:


What is happening to the party of Ronald Reagan? He embraced scientific understanding of the environment and pollution and was proud of his role in helping to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. That was smart policy and smart politics. Most important, unlike many who profess to be his followers, Reagan didn't deny the existence of global environmental problems but instead found ways to address them.

The National Academy reports concluded that "scientific evidence that the Earth is warming is now overwhelming." Party affiliation does not change that fact.

One of my engineering projects (from my resume) working in industry was: "The Elimination of Ozone Depleting Materials in Poly Silicon Etch Processes."

We switched from a chlorinated  fluorocarbon (CFC) to Sulfur Hexafluoride  (SF6) and inert Nitrogen (N2) to slow the aggressive SF6.  I was able to substitute a 50 second over etch per wafer to a 2 second over etch per wafer, thereby increasing input and higher yields for the product.  I used a screening experiment designed using the Taguchi Method of Quality Engineering.

The following figures are for 48 wafer lots comprised of 4 inch (~10 cm) diameter wafers:

50 seconds X 48 wafers = 2,400 seconds / 60 seconds/minute = 40 minutes over etch processing time
2 seconds X 48 wafers = 96 seconds / 60 seconds/minute = 1.6 minutes over etch processing time

Science does work in our best financial interests...when we let it!

Link: Washington Post Op-Ed