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United Nations Brings You ... A Telescope
StDave writes: "It looks like the United Nations is going to set up a SETI listening station of their own to find Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. Catch it here. " Says the article: "The £800m machine, called the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), will be the most
sensitive astronomical instrument yet built. ... An agreement to build the new telescope was signed last month at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Manchester. Scientists will spend the next few years designing the technology, with completion due in about 2015." I hope the aliens are at least amused.
Organizarion such as ESA (The European Space Agency) are also listed by the UN, and a UN treaty between the member countries does exists at the UN. The UN itself does not contribute to ESA. You can find more information about this sort of things, which happen often in astronomy were costs are high and international cooperations are mandatory, by looking up the internet registration of the .int domain name.
I too was surprised a while ago to find out that I needed a copy of a UN agreement in order to register a .int domain, and that places like www.esa.int HAD such a treaty. I had forgotten, as many seem to, that the UN is THE place where international agreements can be ironed out officially.
Don't knock the telescope. After all, what other useful thing do you know that the U.N. has spent money on?
The telescope will (at least theoretically) be looking for other planets, not just intelligent life. Finding other (possibly human-habitable) planets is a good long term goal. It should make the paranoid (who think that earth will not survive mankind) happy.
It's also supposed to be useful to seek the faint radiation emitted 10-12 billion years ago when the first stars and galaxies formed after the big bang. That should make scientist happy.
But I bet the telescope was sold to the UN by the theory that "it will also allow astronomers to plot in detail the courses of asteroids and comets that threaten to collide with the Earth. Professor Peter Wilkinson, a senior astronomer at Jodrell Bank, Britain's renowned radio telescope centre, said that the SKA could enable humanity to protect itself from their impact." That should make the common man (not to mention the politicos) happy.
So, everyone is happy...
Thalia
While they are arguably making an effort to deliver the goods on these needs, they can't address the political issues that keep food and medicine out of the areas needed (newsflash - most of the barriers to aid are political, not economic - see 80s Ethiopian famine for a case study).
They have problems addressing the political issues because their actions are done through consensus, which is very hard to get in the international community.
Why can't they address the political issues? The UN thinks it is above such things. This is why they are locked out of most of the useful change in developing nations.
The UN has trouble with the political issues because the member states want it that way.
I'm tempted to enter a "ROTFL", but seriosuly, the UN does little to keep or create peace - mostly it puts its own soldiers in harm's way with no mandate whatsoever. As a peacekeeper, the UN is a complete failure.
UN peacekeeping failures get a lot of press; successes don't. Check here for a listing of what they've accomplished. In my opinion, even if they don't succeed in a mission, I think it's important to have tried.
Sure - it creates elitist bodies that are answerable to no one, as they have no visible constituency. There is no real representation in any UN organization - its a loose thread of pseudo socialist ideals implemented by lifelong empolyees who respond to no one and have no notion of democratic accountability.
The UN's power rests partially with the general assembly, and mostly with the security council. Representatives are ambassadors; their job is to represent their own countries interests, and the bureacracies answer to them. Their budgets are at the mercy of the member states, and in general they're severely underfunded.
Its amazing that people think of this collection of appointed dupes as the ruling ideal - at the very best it stinks of a second-world planned-economy style operation that completely defies any efforts to further empower individuals over institutions.
The UN isn't meant to be a ruling body, and nobody, myself included, thinks it's any sort of ideal. What it is is simply two things; a forum for different nations to interact with each other, and a collection of what are essentially humanitarian agencies administered by it. The total amount of money spent by the UN to maintain itself and run it's operations is around 10 billion a year. This is less than half the budget of it's host city of New York. Last year a little over a dollar of your taxes (assuming you're an American) went to it. Money from the UN that enters the American economy (through expenditures, employees, etc) is more than what we spend on it. Personally, I think the work that the WHO and UNICEF does is worth that dollar a year by themselves.
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