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Ex-NASA Employees Accuse Agency of 'Extreme Position' On Climate Change
grumpyman writes "A coalition of 49 ex-NASA employees, including seven Apollo astronauts, have accused the U.S. space agency of sullying its reputation by taking the 'extreme position' of concluding that carbon dioxide is a major cause of climate change. Is the claim in this letter opinion or fact?"
Yeah, it's great that this is somehow your big issue now. But would it pain you all too much to get together and maybe concentrate on making the U.S. a country capable of putting a man into space again? I mean, debate is great and all, but I'm getting a little creeped-out by the way the Chinese are laughing at us.
You know things are getting pretty bad when you start longing for the days when a former Nazi was giving NASA moral leadership.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Wow. Because when I want an opinion on climate change, I automatically turn to astronauts, shuttle leading edge system managers, and pogo prevention panel chairs.
Virgin birth, water into wine; it's like Harry Potter, but it causes genocide and bad folk music.
"Okay, if you want to complain about us doing science, then do it in the methods that science accepts complaints." A letter like this is the equivalent of a toddler stamping its foot because its mother told him that cookies will make him fat.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
but James Hansen, the Head of NASA's Goddard Institute coming out and saying that Oil CEOs should be tried for crimes against humanity for emitting CO2 very much hurts NASA's credibility on science.
Are any of the signatories to the letter actually climate scientists? I recognize that shuttle engineers and astronauts from 40 years ago are probably interesting people to hang out with, but do they have any personal expertise on which to base their argument? 'cause otherwise it sounds like a bunch of grumpy old dudes whingeing.
I take some relief in noting that these are "ex-NASA" employees.
Per the article, it seems that these guys mostly worked at the Texas-based Johnson space center:
"Keith Cowing, editor of the website NASA Watch, noted that the undersigners, most of whom have engineering backgrounds, worked almost exclusively at the Houston-based Johnson Space Centre, a facility almost entirely removed from NASA's climate change arm."
Figures.
Why is it that there are so many amateur climatologists in Texas who know so much, but publish so little? I wonder if these gentlemen even bothered to visit the site of the "Plants Need CO2" sponsor, Leighton Steward, to see who also agreed with their opinions. I'm not linking to that site, and I'd surely want to avoid association with anyone with ideas like that.
Maybe Steward just punked them. Yep, that's go to be it.
The Internet has no garbage collection
"Funny how the chicken little's so easily dismiss all the climate scientists that disagree with the claim that the sky is falling and demonize anyone who attempts to point them out."
What's funny how all those alleged "climate scientists" cited in this letter have yet to publish a single paper that contradicts the consensus view that global warming is real and man-made: "That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “climate change... Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position." -- http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
> What's funny how all those alleged "climate scientists" cited in this letter have yet to publish a
> single paper that contradicts the consensus view that global warming is real and man-made:
On NPR it was pointed out that when Einstein published his work on relativity, similar "Statement by X number of scientists" statements came out. His reply, which I think is an absolutely appropriate and correct application of "the stink test" was simply to point out that in the scientific realm, it only takes one person with a cogent argument to disprove something. Science is not an exercise in consensus.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"it only takes one person with a cogent argument to disprove something." -- Wrong. It takes empirical evidence, not a cogent argument. The consensus view that the earth is getting warmer is backed by literally hundreds of published papers each of which cite physical evidence, measurement, models, etc. If there was a case to be made that the consensus view is wrong, there would have to be *some* evidence out there somewhere that contradicts the consensus view. There is not, and that' is why there are no papers describing it.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
On the other hand, the seminal works on the principles of the greenhouse effect and global warming are out for about 130 years now and no one has offered the slightest bit of scientific evidence to the contrary.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
The first question I ask myself is to what extent it's proper for NASA to engage with public politics. (Of course survival requires it to play politics all the time, but my question is about influencing public debate.)
If NASA's function is to study climate change, then of course it has a duty to report its findings. The ethics are straightforward, but they don't apply here. However, NASA does have scientific and technical expertise which may qualify it, or even oblige it, to share its knowledge with the public, especially as NASA receives substantial public funding.
Also, NASA's prominence in the aerospace industry should make it especially conscientious concerning adverse effects of that industry. And aerospace is a significant contributor to greenhouse emissions. So again, it has an ethical obligation to inform itself about the effect of such emissions on climate change, and to share its findings.
As to whether or not NASA is taking the correct position, that's really a secondary question. Certainly NASA is saying nothing controversial in warning about climate change. It's an altruistic position, in line with most of the scientific community. Conversely, it would be at least moderately suspicious if NASA were to dismiss the issue as unimportant, given that this position is directly self-serving.
Now, a group of people want to disagree with NASA on this issue, that's fine. We can let their claims stand on their own merits, while noting what company they keep with what vested interests. But calling to silence NASA is just plain inappropriate.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
So where are the papers presenting these cogent arguments?
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
True. The point here is though that Einstein's work was quickly pored over and accepted first by theoretical physicists as at least mathematically correct, if odd, and then by experimental physicists as tests became possible.
Ten years after Einstein first published his papers on Special Relativity, the theory was basically accepted as sound. Even in the first few years, follow-up work done by others did a lot to solidify the math behind the theory. In short, there is always the goal in science of upending the consensus: it's the quickest way to immortality. However, scientific consensus quickly builds up around ground-breaking theories that are testable, have predictive value and that are mathematically sound.
Arguing that the scientific consensus might be wrong about AGW now is like arguing in 1925 that scientific consensus about Special Relativity might be wrong: you're welcome to try it, but it's going to take real work to be taken seriously.
While scientific discoveries are by definition going against current scientific consensus, science-based policy, engineering and decision-making by definition relies on the latest scientific consensus. To argue that going with scientific consensus when planning into the future is wrong is fundamentally misunderstanding how science works.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
mainstream scientists take money from government grants and related sources, meaning their very livelihood depends on the reverse
If you could produce data that disproved a major current theory, you'd be in line for a Nobel Prize. Not to mention, millions in funding from the oil industry, Fox TV, etc, etc. There are a lot more financial incentives in being a denialist than just producing boring data that supported the global warming hypothesis. .
A layer of paint is typically 1/8 of a millimeter thick, and is close to 100 opaque to visible light. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere amounts to 4 kg per square meter. If condensed, it would be a layer 2.6 millimeters thick, or 20 times thicker than a paint layer. It should not be hard to understand a layer that thick being able to absorb a significant amount of infrared light. The fact that it is distributed vertically does not change the absorbing power of the molecules, you still have the same number per unit area to run into.
Expressing the numbers as percentages is a way to make them seem small, and ignores the fact that the whole atmosphere has a mass of 10.3 tons per square meter, and would be about 9 meters thick if condensed. It's fairly amazing that thickness only absorbs about 27% of total incoming sunlight.
...Are you seriously arguing that the money's on renewable energy's side?
Please seek medical attention. In the meantime, go take a look at Exxon/Mobil's profits for the last 5 years.
That not really true yes. Although methane is about 37 times more potent a green house gas than carbon dioxide, the concentration in the atmosphere is still so very small that the effect of carbon dioxide predominates. However, as more clathrates sublime that probably won't be true in 100-200 years time given its ultimate effect on forcing.
If you look at the recent coring data its abundantly clear that carbon dioxide increases preceded both warming and methane ending the last ice age, which is what you would expect if carbon dioxide provides the trigger. This is precisely what is being seen now. Methane is only now starting to outgas excessively in the permafrost and under the Arctic ocean as the temperatures have warmed sufficiently enough to start the sublimation process of existing methane clathrates. The problem now is that as carbon dioxide continues to climb there is no way to reverse the cocking the trigger on the clathrate gun. By letting carbon dioxide rise, we are effectively pulling the trigger.
The really scary thing is that from the onset of the height of the last ice age to its end carbon dioxide only increased carbon dioxide concentrations went from about 220-300. Whereas, within only the past 100 years we have gone from about 320-almost 400 and are on track to reach 500 by the end of this decade at current rates of accumulation. This is about 1000 times faster than the spike seen in the Middle Eocene Thermal Maximum, the most rapid rise in temperatures recorded in prehistoric times. This means that we are already experiencing the warmest climate in recorded history and we have problem even though we have not yet begun to feel the full effects of the amount of carbon dioxide that has recently accumulated. If you think it got hot in West Texas last year. Just wait a few years and it will be that way in Kansas City far to the north.
When one realizes that the past 15 years have produced all the top 10 warmest years and now the first quarter of 2012 is the hottest on record once again (by >5F), there's little or no point at further debating if there is global warming, only the question now is what are we going to do about it, other than face almost certain extinction within 200-300 years time?