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Ted Cruz To Oversee NASA and US Science Programs
romanval sends word that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) will become the new chairman of the subcommittee that oversees NASA and government scientific research. Cruz has both spoken in favor of NASA and attempted to cut its budget, but he's most notable for his opposition to the science supporting climate change. From the article:
His vociferous opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and his support of extreme budget cuts could spell trouble for NASA's less prominent programs, such as its own climate research and sophisticated supercomputers. His role on the front lines of the 2013 government shutdown, which critics say had lasting negative effects on public safety, NASA research and EPA scientists' ability to visit contaminated sites, also suggests at best a narrow focus on NASA's largest projects and at worst a disregard for agencies that require science funding.
Also, explain to this Canadian why NASA is researching climate. Isn't NOAA supposed to be the agency for that?
When I worked at a US Geological Survey office that also archives all the US Govt satellite and aerial imagery, there was a memo that was sent out around 1993 or so. All research projects had to show how they were helping the study of global climate change. If they didn't, they were candidates for having their funding cut. The only exceptions were the ones that were being paid by external agencies or governments. So NASA is researching it for the same reason other agencies are: they have some expertise that can be useful and the funding keeps other projects alive.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
They are the same idiots who cheered on Nero as the greatest of Caesars, roared at the deaths of humans in the Coliseum and pontificated on the greatness of Rome as it fell into disarray
I can see Cruz trumpeting how he is reshaping NASA, and then leaving a smoking hole in the ground
The reason that NASA and just about every other scientific organization in the world is now focusing on climate change results from the fact that the rate at which the Earth is now heating is 36 times faster than it was during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, some 55 million years ago, when in just a mere 10-30,000 years, Wyoming went from having redwood forests to having palm forests and nearly entire mammalian fauna in the Northern Hemisphere died out and was replaced by other species. Keep in mind that the current 36 times rate is just the current rate, which is increasing exponentially. Based on simple extrapolation, by the end of the century with just an increase of 1.5 deg C, some 1 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide will be released by melting permafrost and another trillion tons will be released as a result of increasing peat and coal seam fires more than tripling the annual production of human generated greenhouse gas, which is now about 33.5 Gt/yr. In some areas such as Indonesia, where slash and burn agricultural practices have caused peat deposits to combust spontaneously, such fires already account for about 7-10% of greenhouse gas production.
The good news is that this won't raise the global mean temperature much beyond 4-7 deg C in the next fifty to hundred years, but it will increase the temperature beyond that by about 7-15 deg C in the second hundred. If this news wasn't bad enough, with most molecules of carbon dioxide going into the oceans, the pH of the oceans will likely become about 30% more acidic than they are now, having increased hydronium ion concentrations about this much over the past 150 years. This rate of change should worry everyone, since humans derive about 50% of their protein from the world oceans. As if this weren't bad enough news, in 200 years temperatures of the relatively shallow arctic sea will begin to reach the point at which the 10-11,000 Gt of methane will be released from marine clathrates, where it is presently stored in cold sediments, so that in as little as 300-500 years, global mean temperatures will accelerate towards those seen on Venus if present trends continue unabated.
At least all those biologists wandering around will have something to study, the greatest extinction on planet Earth since the Permian. So no, it isn't just you, there are plenty of uneducated people out there. The good or bad news, depending on how you look at it, is that there will be plenty of seats at the School of Hard Knocks.
Your bullshit. The imperial budget is as fake as the unemployment rate, because spending that is obviously military in nature - like the VA or the Department of Energy managing America's nuclear weapons - isn't counted as military spending.
"Funding for science under Republic administration's has been historically higher than other Democrats."
Perhaps you don't understand that the Administrations do not set the budget and that Congress controls the purse strings. While the White House can ask for whatever it wants in a budget, Congress gets to do whatever they want and then send it back to the president to sign or veto.
You giving credit to President Bush for things he didn't do while slamming Clinton for things he had almost no say in.
If you wish to educate us all, the least you could do is have a passing knowledge in the subject.