The following is a request for support to attend an international standards meeting in England. Frequent Flier miles and financial support would be deeply appreciated!
OCR is a member of the International Standards Organization (ISO) and anAmerican National Standards Institute delegate to the ISO. This may seem an unusual angle to our work in “saving whales” and bringing noise pollution to the attention of the public and policy makers, but establishing standards for noise measurement lays the essential foundation for meaningful policy and future research. We have been working for years on crafting concise language and metrics to express how sound propagates in the ocean, and what impacts that sound has on marine life.
This is one of the more esoteric aspects of our work, but I started on this track in 1992 when in the course of public hearings about expansive use of sonar in the ocean I found that the conservation voices were being summarily dismissed because the they did not have a fluent command of scientific jargon or mathematical modeling. They did not have a clear way of expressing their concerns to the agencies (and the physical oceanographers) who were proposing potentially damaging actions in the ocean.
I did have some fluency which turned out to be the most useful thing I could bring to the table. But once I got into it I found that the scientific community also didn’t have a clear idea of what they were talking about. There was a disparity between the way physicists and biologists express their research. Many biologists have forgotten their physics and calculus, and many physicists look at animals as if they were “input devices” and get hives around the indeterminacy of statistics.
I also found that even in their respective fields physicists and biologists had an unconcise array of expressions used to quantify and qualify their work. How can clear exposure guidelines be set if the numbers and terminology are all willy-nilly? So working on concise definitions became one of the most important thrusts of our work – participating in standards committees and meetings to help us all clarify how we express the activities and machinations of our field.
I’ve shared some of this over the years in our blogs on metrics, attendance at ISO meetings. In the process I’ve had the honor of meeting with some really bright folks.
I now have the opportunity to complete a long arc of international standards development as the US “Head of Delegation” at an ISO meeting in London.
Unfortunately this was not in our budget so I’m reaching out to you to ask for support. Donations of Frequent Flyer miles for a round trip to London would be stunning. Additional funds to feed and house me while there would also be really useful. If you have frequent Flyer miles you can respond to me at info@OCR.org. For financial contributions just tap the button and follow the directions.
Thank you very much for your support!