Editorials in brief

In The Pitt News’ daily editorial meeting yesterday, we found that there were just too many… In The Pitt News’ daily editorial meeting yesterday, we found that there were just too many interesting things going on in the world to limit our discussion to one subject. So, we decided to break down three of the most interesting current events in our very own “Editorials in Brief.”

Science, law collide

Two men are pursuing a lawsuit in Hawaii that will challenge the legal use of a giant particle accelerator, which they claim could create a black hole that could consume planet Earth, according to The New York Times.

The particle accelerator in question is the Large Hadron Collider, which physicist group CERN, based in Europe, has spent $8 billion building over 14 years.

The accelerator works by colliding protons to create energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Information taken from this research will be used to search for clues about the nature of mass as well as information about new forces and the symmetries of nature.

While Walter Wagner’s and Luis Sancho’s claim in court – that the accelerator could either create a small black hole that could either eat the Earth or spit out something called a strangelet, which would convert the Earth to a lump of mass called strange matter – could be an overestimation, they do bring up a good point:

There is currently little environmental oversight of the group. The group has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act. CERN officials have not commented on the suit or whether they will attend the court proceedings, particularly because traveling to Hawaii would put them under the jurisdiction of the court.

Even if the chances of doomsday by particle accelerator are slim to none, governmental oversight is always beneficial, particularly when we are dealing with new forms of science on which there is not yet a consensus.

Lights out

Lights went out all over the world for an hour Saturday, from Rome’s Colosseum to the Sydney Opera House to the Google homepage, in observation of Earth Hour, a worldwide campaign to highlight the threat of global climate change, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

It’s always great to hear about people working together for a good cause – especially when the cause is the prevention of impending global climate change. Props to Google, which switched it’s color scheme to a black background with white text to mimic a “lights out” aesthetic, for taking the lights out approach to cyber world. While Saturday’s efforts were certainly impressive, we’d like to see even more people turn out the lights next year. We only have one Earth, and we don’t want to lose it anytime soon.

Election overdrive?

The impending Pennsylvania primaries have brought Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama to Oakland this month, fueling voter interest and excitement on campus. Yet, with the battle between both candidates growing more heated than ever, media coverage has focused on the negative campaign tactics and misstatements from both candidates.

Six months ago, we would have never imagined that Pennsylvania’s primary elections would mean much in the presidential elections, but in the theme of this year’s elections, nothing has been predictable. But along with an unexpected focus on Pennsylvania, the drawn out Democratic primary presidential campaigns have also brought an increase in negative campaigning between the two candidates and their supporters. The amount of coverage in the media and the increased focus on negative campaigning can be overwhelming, but we encourage students on campus to look past the negative and vote in the April 22 primaries. When else can we say that we will be taking part in history?