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NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory Set For Launch Tomorrow
bughunter writes "The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is slated for launch tomorrow, February 24, 2009. OCO is the first earth science observatory that will create a detailed map of atmospheric carbon dioxide sources and sinks around the globe. And not a moment too soon. Popular Mechanics has a concise article on the science that this mission will perform, and how it fits in with the existing 'A-train' of polar-orbiting earth observatories. JPL's page goes into more detail. And NASA's OCO Launch Blog will have continuous updates as liftoff approaches and the spacecraft reports in and checks out from 700km up."
I dunno. What will the climate change critics do when it shows that the theories are spot on?
Not a typewriter
the creationists who believe that man cannot corrupt the Earth since it was created by a loving God
Automatic -5 Flamebait (or something) for me, but being a creationist, I can say that I have never heard of the position you just laid out. Incidentally, as a creationist, I think I actually have more of a reason to care about the earth, as most Christians that believe the book of Genesis will also believe that man was put on the earth as a caretaker of it. That definitely implies using it wisely and not destroying it.
On the other hand, I don't exactly know what obligation I have to do anything for the earth if there is no God and I'm a product of evolution.
This is a partial indictment against Christians, by the way, for not developing a better (for lack of a better phrase) environmental worldview. But I haven't actually heard of the position you mentioned. :)
If there is any discrepancy between data sets, those folks are going to use it as proof that Global Warming is a hoax. Like this businessman, well he is in the business of climate, I guess that makes him an "expert" to some people and qualifying him to call Global Warming a hoax.
Its interesting that no matter how much knowledge, data, statistics, etc, are gathered, there will always be those that are never convinced. Be the subject, evolution, global warming, or that the earth is round.
I can find people that will vehemently deny the validity of all three of the above. Sometimes you just want to throw your hands up in the air and quit trying.
My favorite one in the right here and now is "Clean Coal" - Well, if you want to convince us that coal is clean energy, then why don't you build a clean coal plant, and let people come in and measure and analyze your work? If they can demonstrate just one "Clean Coal" plant, then that would be worth more than the tens of millions of dollars put into advertising for clean coal. Sorry, but when this OCO gets running its going to be interesting to see the patterns and observations received on the coal plants spewing CO2, NOx, trace Mercury, Sulfur, and other goodies into the air.
But that doesn't mean it will convince some people...
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
presume by "they", you mean atmospheric scientists? Presumably, they'd follow the scientific method and adjust their theories to fit the new data.
Or, they would have just been wrong. Hansen, Gore, etc, wrong. Just like everyone else who gets up on the soap box, makes a statement about the universe, and comes back down smacked down by reality. Wrong.
If you fall into the latter camp, I wouldn't get your hopes up.
Hey, I'm hanging onto my lack of sunspots. 2008 came in cooler, and we'll see how 2009 does.
This is my sig.
"But why do I care if my genes are evolutionarily successful?"
As a farther of tow adult childeren and soon to be one grandkid I say you won't know the answer to that until your genes ARE evolutionarily successful.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
That is presuming a fundamental and rather unfounded proposition: that I have a [moral?] obligation to do my best to let my descendants live. Why should I personally care if "evolutionary failure" occurs? I live, I die, and I'm gone from the world. If my descendants die and evolutionary failure occurs... well, that would imply a few things, at least to my mind/amount of education in evolutionary thinking. (1) I and my descendants were not fit to survive, and thus evolution didn't "fail" but rather succeeded in letting other humans, who were fit, survive. (2) If the entire human race, or even the entire planet has an evolutionary failure (I'm not entirely sure what that "really" means, as evolution is presumably a natural force/process and thus can't "fail," right?), what difference does it make? In the course of the X billion of years, it seems that many planets should have come and gone. So what if earth goes?
My obligation is to not screw it up - obligation to whom? My not-yet-born descendants? Their not-yet-born descendants? Well, not being born, and presuming there is no God and no overarching plan of some sort, they don't care and it doesn't matter if they aren't ever born. Obligation to humanity in general? Well, I don't see why I should worry myself about humanity, unless they're going to kill me if I don't (and that seems to be a rather akin to forcing morality, or ethics, or standards, or whatever, on individuals..)
Here's my bottom line again. I actually don't see any real obligation, if I were an atheistic evolutionist, to do anything about the earth. Or, for that matter, to do anything for humanity. Unless I see a distinct benefit in it for me AND I have a desire to reap said benefit. On the other hand, as a Theistic (not Deistic) Creationist, I would argue that I have actually more of an obligation to the earth/world, because I claim to serve its Creator.
(this is weird, I'm arguing for higher responsibility/obligation on slashdot. what am I thinking?!)
Meanwhile, you can browse interactive maps of US antropogenic fossil fuel CO2 emissions based on the data produced by Project Vulcan at Purdue. Google Earth browser plugin is needed, or you can load all data in a KML file in Google Earth directly. There is also a flythrough video explaining the different data views. Full disclosure - I'm the programmer who created the maps. Yes, the page is slow to load, but once a layer is accessed, it'll stay cached.