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A sad commentary on our society by none2222 · 2002-06-01 20:56 · Score: 1, Interesting · on Project Eden

Why? What is the point?

Real rainforests are being decimated at an alarming rate, all in the name of corporate profits.

This 'Eden Project', designed to appeal to arm chair 'environmentalist' yuppies, can only harm the environment. The amount of resources it took to construct must be staggering. The cash (£86 billion, IIRC) should have been put towards conservation efforts. The steel never should have been mined. The petrochemicals for the should have been left in the ground. God knows how much habitat was destroyed to build this monstrosity.

If you want to see a rainforest, go to the real thing. Not if you're just a tourist, though; in that case you have no business disturbing nature. If however, you are an eco-warrior, by all means go to the rainforest and help derail logging efforts.

What is sad, is that within the next century, cheap imitations like this may be all we have left of nature. One hopes the government will soon develop bioweapons that let us wipe out the burgeoning population of ignorant, third-world slash-and-burn farmers, before it's too late.

Re:Shame on the US ! by Anonymous Coward · 2002-06-01 06:32 · Score: 0 · on EU Ratifies Kyoto Treaty

First Global Carbon Monoxide (Air Pollution) Measurements

Granted, its CO, not CO2, but I would expect strong correlation.

Notice that the vast majority of the CO is coming from China, India, Mexico, Central America, and parts of Africa. There are two big blips in the US, one in Florida, and one in Washington, that correspond to the major wild fires we had that year.

Something else to notice is how much crap from China crosses the Pacific and blankets the west coast.

Been there, done that by jaydho · 2002-05-31 07:24 · Score: 3, Informative · on Ornithopters on Mars

"until someone actually sends a mission with equipment on board, it's all speculation as to what designs might conceivably be used."

Been there, done that. You can too.

Re:Voluntarily? HAH! by letxa2000 · 2002-05-31 04:52 · Score: 2 · on Iceland to Voluntarily Go Oil Free in 30-40 Years

Uh, when were the two of these debunked?

Not so much debunked as it has never been proven by the environmentalists to start with. Nevertheless, read on (you asked the question, now I'm going to answer |grin|).

It's pretty much accepted by all scientists that WE are harming the environment and causing global warming with our use of fossil fuels.

It is often said that the "vast majority" of scientists belive in the greenhouse effect--this is often misunderstood by the public to mean that the vast majority of scientists believe that humans are causing global warming and that we should reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

The "greenhouse effect" refers to the theory that certain gases, such as CO2 and water vapor, form a kind of "blanket" around the earth that allows the sun's energy to get to Earth but doesn't allow it to escape back into space. This causes the Earth to be warmer than it would be without these greenhouse gases. This theory IS generally accepted by everyone.

However, not everyone that believes in the greenhouse effect believes in human-induced global warming.

Human-induced global warming is a theory that suggests that human production of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, are overwhelming the planet. Since so much CO2 is being produced, the theory states, we are essentially building a thicker blanket around the Earth which traps more heat on Earth--thereby raising temperatures.

These are two very different theories. Almost everyone believes in the first theory, but not nearly everyone believes in the second. That is not to say that the second theory is wrong--it makes sense, in theory, to believe that if we produce more greenhouse gases that the earth will tend to warm. However, we have virtually no information as to how much our CO2 production affects the earth's climate and most respected scientists recognize this. They don't discard it as a possibility, they don't reject that more study is needed--but no self-respecting scientist that follows the scientific method would be willing to make predictions or suggest solutions to a phenomenon that hasn't yet been proven, let alone understood.

That said, "global warming" itself hasn't even been proven.

Neither of the two most accurate methods of monitoring the atmosphere's temperature, climate satellites and traditional radiosondes (weather ballons), show any warming in the last 23 years. In fact, both satellites and radiosondes indicate a slight cooling trend since 1979. Radiosondes indicate a change of -0.07 deg. C per decade, satellites indicate a change of -0.01 deg. C per decade, neither indicate a warming trend--this while the surface record suggests a +0.15 deg. C per decade warming trend. Source: NASA, Greening Earth Society

Groups that suggest that global warming has been observed during this time inevitably use this "surface record" which consists of data obtained at small weather stations distributed throughout the inhabited world. Compared to satellite readings, the surface record is less consistent, subject to more human and machine errors, changes in recording procedures, and are in the vast majority of the cases located near large urban centers where the station temperature can and is affected by "heat islands" created by the nearby city. In many cases, stations that used to be located in open farmland far from human activities are now located within the limits of growing cities. A surface record only exists for land positions and doesn't contain any information about the 77% of the earth covered by the planet's oceans.

While the satellite and radiosonde record doesn't span as many years as the surface record, they are invariably much more accurate than the surface record. Satellites are our most accurate method of measuring worldwide temperature without any bias from local heat islands, inconsistent temperature readings, and which also covers almost all of the planet. While the surface record only records the temperature at the surface where the weather station is located, satellites take the temperature of all the atmosphere in the column below the satellite providing a more complete temperature of the atmosphere.

Interestingly, most environmental groups and the IPCC ignore the technically superior satellite record and prefer to use the surface record despites its many potential and obvious errors.

The ONLY people who say and think otherwise are on the payroll of those whose interests lie in with the Big Oil companies.

Prove that. That's your perception based on what the environmentalist and the media have been feeding you. I have absolutely nothing to gain from not believing in global warming. I have no stocks, interests, etc. in anyone or anything that stands to gain or lose from any of this. But I call bunk when I see it.

And fossil fuels ARE a finite resource... we may not know when we are going to run out but we WILL DEFINITELY run out.

Prove it.

The fact is, it sounds logical. But many others have already posted messages in this thread citing references such as the Washington Post that report that previously "empty" oil sources are "mysteriously" filling up again. We're not just talking about better technology getting at more oil--we're talking about oil returning to where it had been previously depleted.

I will agree that your belief that we would one day run out of oil sounds logical. But the facts of the matter, given reports of oil wells "refilling," is that it's far from proven that we will run out of oil--and certainly doubtful that we will run out of it so quickly so as to justify abandoning it before we have a viable alternative.

And people like yourself who are just so poorly educated, it's frightening.

Well, I've answered your questions. I've provided links to NASA and other big oil companies.

So, now, you prove to me that global warming is happening and that we are the cause. Don't point me to some IPCC or other politcal report that uses flawed data to come up with flawed conclusions that suggest political solutions. Point we to real, SCIENTIFIC, proof that proves that global warming is happening and that we are the cause.

I'll be checking for your reply. Most environmnetalists tend to shut up at about this point, so I'll be pleased if you actually come back with something we can debate.

Re:how do antennas break? by teridon · 2002-05-30 11:01 · Score: 2 · on Busy Signals for Deep Space Experiments

The article is about antennas on the ground, but I'll give one example. You're right, the antenna is not likely to break. However, most antennas are dishes, pointed mechannically. It is certainly possible for the pointing mechanism to seize due to lubrication issues.

Spacecraft have multiple antennas -- usually a high or medium gain antenna, and at least one low gain antenna, used when the spacecraft is in a "safe" mode. There are switches to control which antenna to use; these can break or fuse, especially if they are switched while in a high-current state.

The electronics that 1)control the antenna or 2) receive/transmit the signal might break. For example, on SOHO, the phase-lock-loop (PLL) component of one of our receivers malfunctioned somehow (possibly due to tin whiskers), causing the uplink frequency (the frequency received by the spacecraft) to shift 400 kHz.

The antenna on Galileo failed to deploy properly, and could not be used. Galileo now has to use their low gain antenna and some compression techniques to downlink its images and data.

Returning to the article, the DSN antennas (or their ground systems) break frequently. In 2001, SOHO recorded about 500 ground anomalies. Fully half of them were due to some problem at the antenna site. (yes, boys and girls, that means almost one problem per day, and that's just SOHO) Most of the other half were network problems between the DSN site and the mission control center at GSFC.

To give specific examples of stuff that has broken (or had a glitch that caused a problem): hydraulics (failure), pointing motors, brakes (when the brake is on, the antenna stops moving and you very quickly are not pointing at the spacecraft), power amplifiers (transmitter), low-noise amplifiers (receive), telemetry systems (usually software crashes, have to reboot the system), ground receivers, exciters ... too many to list here.