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Politics Is Poisoning NASA's Ability To Do Science
An anonymous reader writes: Phil Plait just published an article about how politics is interfering with NASA's ability to perform vital scientific experiments. As expected when we heard that Ted Cruz would be made head of the committee in charge of NASA's funding, the Texas senator is pushing hard for NASA to stop studying Earth itself. Plait writes, "Over the years, NASA has had to beg and scrape to get the relatively small amount of money it gets—less than half a percent of the national budget—and still manages to do great things with it. Cruz is worried NASA's focus needs to be more on space exploration. Fine. Then give them enough money to do everything in their charter: Explore space, send humans there, and study our planet. Whether you think climate change is real or not—and it is— telling NASA they should turn a blind eye to the environment of our own planet is insanity." He concludes, "[T]he politics of funding a government agency is tying NASA in knots and critically endangering its ability to explore."
If you care about our future, and especially if you live in a red state where these charlatans seem to originate, please stop voting for anti intellectual and anti science politicians. They are only doing what they perceive the electorate has sent them to Washington to do, which seems to be to put their heads in the sand and 'pray' for a 'savior'.
the EPA can worry about the environment, leave NASA to what NASA is supposed to do. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Not the climatechange administration. not the muslim outreach administration but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Please give NASA more money, but make sure it is used for space exploration as intended. I dont see why this is getting so much heat
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Neither side is pure here. I think NASA briefly said their mission was muslim outreach for example. Why would they do that? Does that have something to do with space?
Just politics.
And NASA has been staffed not just with scientists but wtih scientists that are big democrat supporters. So... guess what, the republicans are going to want to suppress them.
Same thing happened in NYC with tammany hall. Every time parties would switch, the new party would staff the city institutions with political appointees that supported that political party. Everything. Fire departments, police departments, park service, road workers, etc... just everything. Parties would switch and everyone in authority in the city would lose their job.
And that meant that in part the people that did things were often not competent because they weren't on the job that long. And also you'd get a lot of corruption because if lots of people lose their jobs when the parties switch everyone is more inclined to cheat or stuff ballot boxes.
This was ultimately dealt with to some extent by protecting certain institutions from being used that way.
But there is no such protection in Federal agencies. They get used all the time. You can't tell me that the EPA or the ATF or whatever are doing the same thing under a democrat that they'd be doing under a republican. You can't tell me that they're being run by the same sorts of people or under the same guidelines.
It swings back and forth because all these institutions are political footballs at this point.
So complain about it if you want but nothing is going to change unless that stops. And it needs to stop for BOTH sides. Not just the side you don't like. If one side can do it, then the other side can do it.
So think very carefully about what you're asking for and understand there are going to be consequences.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Geez ...
Don't you guys ever get tired of bashing Ted Cruz?
This is Slashdot, not some liberal media outlet specially set up to beat up people who do not agree with the liberal ideology
We are here to discuss science, not to bash up politicians just because they belong to so and so camp
C'mon folks, wake the fuck up!
We are beating each others to pulp on issues like abortions / police brutality / TSA at the airport while other countries are rapidly gaining grounds
Wasting webspace and valuable time in beating each others up don't get us forward, man! Grow the fuck up, please !
I don't think we can single out NASA. And it's been going on for a while, it's just the ideological agendas change over time.
At least in the 1950s-1970s, when the Interstate Commerce Commission destroyed the rail system, airlines, and road haulage industries, they were responding to politicians terrified that prices rises would upset their constituents. Now it's politicians terrified that facts might upset their constituents. Different agenda, same stupidity.
It's almost enough to make you a libertarian. Almost. Enough. But that's substituting one system that barely works for something even more stupid.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
To be fair, the EPA doesn't have the direct ability to launch cutting edge climate and atmosphere monitoring satellites. There's a lot of atmosphere science to do, and NASA is in a good position to have the (orbit based) tools and the know how to do that. The EPA is in a good position to review the science and enforce legalisation appropriately.
It's turtles all the way down.
telling NASA they should turn a blind eye to the environment of our own planet is insanity.
Why? That's what NOAA is supposed to be doing. If I were elected philosopher-king of NASA, I'd be more then happy to tell the climatologists to take their politics next door. We'll be more then happy to put a satellite up for you. But that's about the extent of it.
And then there's the USGS. And a bunch of other agencies all poking and prodding the planet. It's really starting to look like everyone is having their funding held up pending the publication of a pro-AGW study. And that's a part of what makes the associated politics stink like hell.
Have gnu, will travel.
Not only what you have said is baseless, it's utterly bullshit, and you can't even begin to proof what you said!
One thing that is very wrong with the Democrats is that they think that everybody else who do not agree with them are idiots --- while some Republicans occasionally do the same thing, --- the way Democrats are portraying themselves --- from Hillary down to that motherfucker that uttered the above quote --- as though they have all the answers and their answers can not be challeged
Good article bro.
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Here's another clue: the ocean is going to consume the most off the backs of others.
Take a look at where NASA operates and why. Research divisions everywhere. Rocket design in Huntsville, launch from Florida, but mission control is in Houston. Why? Because politicians can get jobs and dollars in their districts. What Cruz is really saying is "spend more money in my state and not in anyone else's".
so what do you propose?? shut down the car washes, and put 10s of thousands on unemployment??
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
"Drive advances in science, technology, aeronautics, and space exploration to enhance knowledge, education, innovation, economic vitality, and stewardship of Earth." http://www.nasa.gov/sites/defa...
Source
It's a shame that politics is interfering with NASA's primary objectives from President Obama...
Ken
Have you tried reading National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which spells out the firs eight objectives of NASA? The first is "The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space".
Cruz is originally from Alberta so his interest in tar sands and polluting the world is pretty natural to him.
They can sell off their jet and get rid of the entourage of SUVs.
The cut off for the top 1% is an income of $34k.
Or did you mean the top 1% of just the rich people that live in the first world, because that conveniently excludes yourself from the definition?
The opening of that very Act:
To provide for research into problems of flight within and outside the earth's atmosphere, and for other purposes.
The organization is supposed to be primarily about flight, to the extent they study the atmosphere it is in relation as to the effect of flight on vehicles...
Climate change and studying the relations of the entire atmosphere is not "phenomena" (like auroras). It is not extra-ordinary; it is ordinary.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
current flagrant uses such as watering for ornamental plants or car-wash businesses.
An insignificant amount of water is used by car washes. 85% of water consumed in California is used for agriculture, where it is heavily subsidized, and the biggest use there is irrigation of pasture for cattle. If you want to conserve water, you don't ban car washes, you ban hamburgers.
Well, this is an American story about American politics, why should it not use an American point of view? After all, the 1% moniker is currently Amerislang for the rich, it has been used to describe truck drivers, the Hells Angels, and others in the past.
If this were about European politics, I would expect a European viewpoint.
If it were about World politics, then I could see this metric applied, maybe.
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
"An insignificant amount of water is used by car washes."
You're absolutely right. Even back in the 1970's when I worked for a carwash, we recycled something around 80% of our grey-water. And that was in Washington state with no water shortages (at that time....anyway). I would imagine it has improved significantly since that time.
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
The point of listing the statistic like that is to hopefully reveal that people who whine about 'inequality' are mainly just people who want more for themselves.
If they truly cared about inequality and suffering in the world, they would care about suffering and inequality in the world.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I agree, I see however, a very narrowly focused article, referencing an American political op-ed piece. And a reply utilizing a very American slang term, which seems reasonable to me.
An opinion laid upon an opinion piece, by an opinionated old dude....but, that's just my opinion.
If you're on my lawn, I hope you brought beer and fired up the bar-b-que!
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
Horseshit. Also irrelevant, if they're not climate scientists. This is a claim that makes sense only if you have no understanding of the underlying science. It's impossible for rising CO2 levels not to warm the planet, feedbacks aside, and the H2O feedback (the most important one) is almost certainly strongly positive. There is a little bit of wiggle room, but given that H2O is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2 and that there are huge reservoirs of it over 70% of the Earth's surface, and that air can hold exponentially more water as it warms, you have to invent an insanely strong negative feedback effect to counteract it if you want to disprove climate change. There is no such effect.
Your appeal to authority is wonderful but what you actually need are facts. Please try again.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Yes, you are most certainly correct. I merely addressed the use of the current slang meaning of 1% to be a proper response to an American op-ed piece.
As to the rich causing it, only to the extent of resisting efforts to clean sources of pollution would I lay a heavier burden on 'the rich,' due to their outsized effect on politics and ownership of the sources of (industrial, not individual) pollution.
It took force to remove lead from gasoline, but if you lived near Los Angeles in the 1960's, you know it helped a lot! It was never Beijing, but it was close. And it was opposed heavily at the time.
It took force to clean up industrial smokestacks, which at the time were seen as symbols of prosperity and success, while polluting the landscape.
On an individual basis, we now likely pollute more than our industries, and like our industries, it will take force to change.
And I am as bad as anyone. I extensively recycle, reuse and re-purpose, while viewing cars more as 'toys' than transportation. Therefore, I am a hypocrite, who will hold on to his 'Vette 'till they pry my cold, dead fingers from the wheel and shifter....
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
First, it is a question of what the right thing to do is for the planet. It's not a question of doing the opposite of what the rich say. Second, all the rich are not for carbon taxes. Like everyone else, some are for it, some are against it.
Fine, bow to no man, I'm with that (and I get the carbon comedy of the recent climate conference). But do you bow to rationality?... given that the current scientific consensus is that we ought to be burning less carbon? Also, the rich will be the last to be effected by global warming. The poorest of the poor will be first effected, you and I will be next, the uber rich will be the last effected.
Indeed. Going by cumulative CO2 emissions since industrialization, US + EU contributed the bulk of the load (US + EU - 51%, China - 9%, India – 3%). So, by the logic of DigiShaman logic, and I fully agree with it when taken in a nation-state sense, the bulk of the burden must be borne by wealthy elite: Citizens of US and EU.
Only if you pretend that the cost of living is the same everywhere.
First, you cannot tell me that NASA shouldn't study the Earth. The Earth is part of the cosmos, ignoring it does no one any good. Second, while I am an anarchist, I have to agree with the POTUS on this one... it's time for NASA to step aside and start getting private industry into space. This is happening to some degree already, but allowing the market to control development and having NASA along for the ride is far more economical and the pace of change is faster. When the government signs contracts, those contracts are very long term and usually benefit someone in office financially. This is bad for a group that aims to be scientific in nature. Having outside companies directly court NASA on short term contract bases just seems a far better way to do things. Third, NASA is one of the only organizations on Earth with a very good ability to analyze Earth and compare their findings to those of studies done on the atmospheres/climates of other planets. To do a good study, you need things like controls, comparisons, and experiments. Those are hard to do with systems as large and complex as planetary climates. I would argue that the study of Earth and other planets is really the only way to get an accurate understanding of climate change and the Earth's climate more generally.
"In short, nothing in science proves the earth is older than 10,000 year old". Only if you posit miracle or posit fundemmental principle of physic are wrong/changed. Firstly proof is for math. In science we speak of evidence. For example Car start is seen at point A , car is seen at point B. both point at 60 mph. Accelerometer on board show zero deceleration and zero acceleration. What speed was the car between point A and B ? If you answer 60 mph, congratulation you used science and you showed earth billion year old. Why is that ? Well see, we have this things called radioactive elements, like uranium , thorium, etc.... And for those the isotopes decay at a certain statistical rate. And thus by seeing the quantity of such element left, the quantity of daughter element, we can estim ate how long it was there. The only way out of that conundrum is : 1) posit miracle 2) state that physic changed in the mean time 3) a cosmic joke by all gods human worshipped making a new earth looking like an old one. It is quite clear for anybody reading this, that all those 3 answers are belief answers, and none of them are scientific or even rational. It is like positing that the car was at 80 mph between point A and B despite no acceleration, because gods, whichever let us say Baast, made it so. Irrational.
The only valid conclusion with all the FUNDEMMENTAL premises we have now, is that the earth is far far older than 10K. Billion of year old.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The "top 1%" is referring to people who are millionaires. In the US this is roughly 1% of the population.
Politics was once a major instigator of NASA having more funding than national health back in the cold war moon race. Who gives two flying if now other matters take priority. It's not like space, physics or science in general are going to stop. Researchers have material to study for centuries, and all they have to do is look up (or even down). If anything, they can rely on new findings from other space agencies. The US is mostly worrying with a matter of honor and space-faring tradition rather than the greater good.
s/them/then
For the edification of the rest of Slashdot, backtracking the link that Khayman80 provides, goes through several irrelevant threads until it finally, after around 20 or 30 disgression/regressions/parent posts gets to this post made in September 2014. I side with Jane Q. Public fully (once I saw that he/she explicitly stated an assumption I had concerns about). Fuck you, khayman80.
What I find particular mendacious about this whole idiocy is not the bone-headed, ridiculously long, linked list of zero information, "nuh uh" responses from khayman80, but the innocent-sounding "I just reposted" remark above which dumps you at the head of a very long linked list of bullshit rather than linking you to the meat of the disagreement - like I did above. It's quite clearly harassment from a fool.
khayman80, next time you want to dredge up an old argument, link to the argument directly. It shouldn't take me an hour to figure out what the argument is even about. I wondered for about ten minutes or so, if even the eventual source post would be from last year! It just kept going on and on. I still haven't found out where the quoted comments in Jane Q. Public's source post came from. I guess it was email or perhaps another endless argument elsewhere which didn't show up in my Google search.
Phil Plait is a very, very smart man. In fact I agree with misty of his positions on the space program, etc.
However, I don't recall him issuing a 1000 word screed about how "politics is hurting NASA" when Bolden announced that NASA's foremost mission was Muslim outreach? And unfortunately that's where Mr Plait apparently decides to trade his science credibility (which is very high) to make overly political points. He's certainly entitled to do so, but when people maunder about how science skepticism is born, there's your example.
-Styopa
Well, you scientists are poisoning our ability to do politics! With your studies and your so-called "facts"...
Smite them, God! ...
He's-a cookin' something up.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Oh, I was thinking it referred to the top 1% wealthiest.
A bunch of people marked this down as Troll. Not certain how this post qualifies, other than it goes against the grain of Slashdot's predominant stance that global warming is real. The main idea of the post is true. Carbon credits is a construct created for taking money from the middle class. Rich people spend a much smaller portion of their income on energy so the carbon taxes have minimal impact. They will just absorb the higher costs of energy and go on with their lives. Middle class workers will bear the brunt of the taxes. In California, gas is $1 more then in other states and moving higher. All it does is reduce the discretionary income of that single mom working two jobs to feed her children.
Whether climate change is real or not, the politicians are using both sides to strike fear and uncertainty into the masses. Instead of coming up with solutions to the problem,, they are finding ways to increase tax revenue. The carbon will continue to pour into our atmosphere and all that will have been accomplished is that Al Gore will now have more jets to pollute our world. The seas are still going to rise, the weather extremes will get worse and people are going to die off.
There are many more millionaires in the U.S. than that. Excluding home equity, approximately 6.5% of households are millionaires, as of last June. If you include home equity in the net worth calculation, somewhere between 10% and 15% of the U.S. qualifies, although it's frustratingly difficult to find exact numbers.
This is completely ignoring things such as purchasing power parity. $1 in India is not the same as $1 in US.
Then again, it's Daily Mail. You might as well reference Conservapedia while you're at it.
Check out the Fight For Space. It should be released shortly.
http://www.fightforspace.com/
It will go in depth with all the politics involved according to the leaders in space technology and exploration.
What feasible solutions would YOU suggest? I'm really curious..... Let's take the politics out of it... What !@#$ing feasible solutions would be good enough for you? Climate Change is real, and we need to do something about it, so what would you do that would actually fix the problem? Please, do enlighten us....
This is supposed to be News for Nerds. This is F!@#$ing NASA for crying out loud. Half the posts here are "Climate change isn't real!" and the other half are a call for some libertarian BS about small government and how NASA shouldn't do basic reasearch into our planet.
What happened?
I'm !@#$ing disgusted by the anti science rhetoric here. Here! On a News for Nerds site!?
This is !@#$ing NASA. Should they launch satellites? Yes! Should they point them inwards AND outwards? Yes! Should Congress stop F!@#$ing with their funding?
That so many supposed Nerds can just ignore basic science is a testiment to the power of the rhetoric used against us, not to mention the sheer lack of critical thinking that is clearly displayed here. I am disgusted by how low we've sunk. No. YOU'VE sunk.
Turn in your !@#$ing Nerd badges. You don't deserve them.
Ted Cruz is not anti-science.... he is simply questioning the mission of NASA vs NOAA. I am so tired of the association of Republicans with anti-science... its not true and it is bias at its purest form.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
politics is treachery
religion is brainwashing
they both have been controlling the population for millennia for selfish and divisive reasons which is usually profits and territory and resources, and both have been guilty of genocide or mass murder many many times
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
True, I was recently dismayed when I added up my assets, subtracted my debts and found out I was a millionaire. I still have to get up and go to work in the morning.
This doesn't match my childhood dreams of being a millionaire!
I don't care if they're richer than me, but if they've used their wealth to tilt the playing field in their favor? THEN I have a problem.
Would you play poker with someone who changed the rules so they got to make two sets of discards on every turn? Why then should we be expected to meekly play "economy" with capitalists who have stacked the rules in their favor? For just one example - why are capital gains taxed at a much lower rate than wages? The "upper crust" makes the vast majority of their income on capital gains, not wages, and yet the maximum capital gains tax rate is only 15%, less than someone making only $37k/year!
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Space exploration embodies its charter, per the 1958 Space Act: "To develop the arts and sciences of flight in the atmosphere and in space and to go where those technologies will allow us to go". Climate change research just doesn't fit. Ted Cruz in his chairmanship wants to re-align the agency with the purpose assigned to it upon its creation. These actions do not politicize NASA, but rather center it on non-political matters. Similarly, the Center of Disease Control now studies gun homicides, which does nothing to further our knowledge of disease. And only to reveal a bias in such research, those studies do not include lives saved by defensive gun use. The community most insistent that manmade CO2 causes climate change hasn't convinced much of the American population. In fact, they have lost ground in the space of public opinion due to a lack of transparency in their research as well as outright hostility towards other credible research that may challenge theirs. If you look at the re-tasking of NASA or other administrations seemingly out-of-scope re-tasking, it should raise your suspicions. Politicians haven't gotten the traction they've wanted promoting a narrative, and they seek to hijack the good name of something unrelated to lend credit to what hasn't earned credit on its own merit.
This is completely ignoring things such as purchasing power parity. $1 in India is not the same as $1 in US.
Given a median US income in US dollars. Would you rather live in India or in the US ?
In India. The overall quality of life for that $$$ would be much better.
No, you didn't read it correctly. Did you read the *article*?
Fine, I really do want NASA to look outwards... but I also want it to look down.
Excerpt:
Throughout the session, Cruz downplayed Earth science, claiming that NASA has lost focus on exploring space. It’s clear everything he was saying came from his stance of global warming denial.
And that is utter nonsense, to be incredibly polite. Pure and simple.
Bolden shot back, saying, “We can't go anywhere if the Kennedy Space Center goes underwater and we don't know it—and that's understanding our environment.” In other words, we must study the Earth and its changing climate. Studying our planet is at least as important as studying others.
--- end excerpt ---
In other words, Cruz, who has openly denied global warming (or "climate change", if warming gets your knickers in a twist), doesn't want NASA to even try to look for data.
The real answer, as the article notes, is GIVE NASA MORE MONEY. They've been cut over and over again, just like everything except the vastly bloated US military.
mark
while in reality making the rest of us having to cut back on our resource usage.
It's actually exactly the opposite. Given the virtually unlimited (and gratis) sunlight reserves, sooner or later, our resource usage will be able to scale our resource usage way beyond anything we've ever had. It's just a matter of time.
Ezekiel 23:20
s/scale our resource usage/scale/
Ezekiel 23:20
Lol.. you are not a good driver when you get in an accident. Almost all accidents can be avoided if you are driving. But that is not important.
What is important would be your anti explaination. It is flawed in more than one ways. First, no one needs to reject anything. A young earth is completely compatable if the creator card is played. It simply was created to look that way. Ok that error pointed out. The next would be you anti christian point. The only way it would make sense in comparison would be if you treat science like a religion. The term you were looking for is blasphemus. That is because the church does not allow changes. Science specifically does. Making a non scientific statement should not endanger your worldview unless it is your religion. It is not blaphemus to science. It is not anti science. And that is true no matter how much it hurts your feelings.
8th December 2010 13:24 GMT - A group of top NASA and NOAA scientists say that current climate models predicting global warming are far too gloomy, and have failed to properly account for an important cooling factor which will come into play as CO2 levels rise.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
Why did Earth’s surface temperature stop rising in the past decade?
"Since the turn of the century, however, the change in Earth’s global mean surface temperature has been close to zero."
"Since 2000, temperatures have been warmer than average, but they did not increase significantly." Data courtesy of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.
http://www.climate.gov/news-fe...
A hypothesis that the heat was sequestered in the ocean abyss was proven incorrect by NASA in October of 2014 - "the cold waters of Earth's deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005", according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have stopped in 1998. It started in 1978. But there really has been no warming this century.
http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014...
"97%+ of geologists agreed the continents were stable. It was Settled Science. Hundreds of research papers supported it. Overwhelming consensus. And wrong. And, oddly (not really, if you think about it a moment), it was not a geologist but a meteorologist, Alfred Wegener, who ultimately showed all the mutually agreeing geologists they had it all wrong; the continents move." - Dr. Michael K. Oliver
Global energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide stalled in 2014
http://www.iea.org/newsroomand...
Sea ice is increasing
http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...
http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...
http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...
OP is less aware of the science than Cruz is. How is that even possible?
Need Mercedes parts ?
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The car wash is actually more efficient since it recycles the water. That's way better than private citizens washing their cars.
The middle class aren't the hardest hit, it's the lower classes. I can afford an economical car, and if I need to pay $20/month more on gas I won't actually notice.
Since carbon taxes are regressive, we really do need to have something to balance it, such as having a bottom income limit for FICA contributions or something else. Imposing carbon taxes and doing nothing else is a bad idea.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
electrical heating power + radiative power in from the chamber walls = radiative power out from the heat source
In the link I provided, Jane Q. Public explained why he/she dropped the "radiative power in" term as being negligible. I found the argument sufficient.
Having read your blog a bit more, I think it's time you dial back on your obsessive stalking. Glancing over your Dumb Scientist link, I see that you linked to my Slashdot posts dozens of times without ever discussing this with me or having a coherent argument for why you did so.
I don't really mind, since it increases the visibility of the posts. I think they're good material and will weather the years well. But you're missing an opportunity for enlightening and/or entertainment.
Just two weeks later, it becomes clear that Iâ(TM)ve failed to communicate once again. The futility of these conversations is depressing and frustrating. Itâ(TM)s just not worth trying to clear up this apparent confusion of ~200 year instrumental aggregates with ~650,000 year ice core proxies like EPICA.
Update: Iâ(TM)ve failed to communicate again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
Each "again" is a link to one of my posts over what appears to be a year period between 2013 and 2014. I can't tell if they're all climate related (I doubt a one of them has anything to do with 650k year ice cores), but I had fun reading through them. Since Slashdot works so poorly with Google search, I might have better luck searching for my global warming change-related posts via your blog than via Google. There's some good stuff in there. Maybe you ought to read through my stuff sometime.
As a final remark, I posted this on your website in 2011 and my opinion has not changed since except for the last paragraph (due to the current creepy stalker vibe).
Let me put it simply. I donâ(TM)t trust the current research. I donâ(TM)t trust your or my characterizations of the current research. I donâ(TM)t have the time to figure this out though my belief is that there is insufficient uncertainty in the predictions of future climate change.
I figure though that this will all settled down in a couple of decades. Weâ(TM)ll almost double the duration of satellite-based evidence (plus have a greater span of data collected) and global warming will be more pronounced by then. Further, the economics side will be better known. Weâ(TM)ll have a better idea of the future direction of fossil fuels since peak oil will probably happen by then with peak natural gas coming. Alternative technologies like solar cells (which appear to be declining in price per watt by about 50% per eight years) may obsolete some or most fossil fuel needs. Perhaps the problem will solve itself by then.
I thank you for this marvelous website though. You have been sincere, helpful, and knowledgeable. I will consider your words even though Iâ(TM)m obviously not very receptive at the moment.
That remains my position. A couple of decades of climate should be enough, if there's a near future problem. So far, it doesn't appear to indicate such a problem wih slow warming growth.
Wow. I responded: Jane's accounting for "power out" without including a term for "power in". That's not A = A, it's A = 0 because one of the terms has been ignored. It's led Jane to the absurd conclusion that electrical heating power doesn't depend on the cooler chamber wall temperature. If that's the case, then how did we detect the 2.7K cosmic microwave background radiation with warmer detectors? How do uncooled IR detectors see cooler objects? Again, why is Venus hotter than Mercury?
Maybe khallow's referring to Jane's insistence that:
But I repeatedly failed to communicate that the grey body equation has to reduce to the black body equation when emissivity = 0, in which case there are no reflections or scattering.
Ack, I meant when emissivity = 1, as I said originally.
Thanks for that. You just saved me a lot of work. Although I am pretty darned sure that wasn't your intent.
I'm not worried about what you say here. I also have records, and I remember the conversations.
Other people, who actually know some physics (or have the proper textbooks) can follow the conversations if they like, and see that indeed, your "solution" to the problem that I let YOU define was just plain wrong.
I haven't bothered to go through what you've posted here yet, but if it's anything like what you did before, I expect it's grossly incomplete and cherry-picked.
I see also that about half those links, or more, are to your "dumb scientist" site, where you like to indulge in your one-sided arguments against cherry-picked, out-of-context comments by others.
I mentioned that to you years ago, but I see you're still doing it.
You can be sure that I am putting the full picture together, no cherry-picking on my part.
I did take exception to what YOU were calling "net" in the context of that argument. But I certainly do know what net is.
I repeat that my "NO!!!" comment was about your entire fallacious line of reasoning, in which you failed at basic math. That comment was about your incorrect USE of "net", NOT about what the definition of "net" is. To even think that's what I was saying, given the whole context of the argument, is pretty stupid.
Jane, my "line of argument" was very simple. If you weren't disagreeing about the definition of the word "net" then why did you scream "NO!!!!!" in response to my comment?
I've explained this to you in public about 10 times now. I'm not going to do it again. I consider your incessant re-questioning about things I've already answered to be harassment.
But net radiative power out of a boundary around the source = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in", so the equation Jane just described also says:
And this is where you're misusing "net". With all objects having the same emissivity, in a vacuum, no NET radiation is absorbed by the hotter body from the colder body. Therefore, that radiation cannot also be claimed to be part of the net radiated power of the hotter body.
I repeat once again: you're counting the radiation twice.
And I've explained that to you many times now. I've also explained that at least 3 textbooks on radiative heat transfer agree with me. And I've given you the titles of at least one of those textbooks, but if I remember, all three.
So you can look up YOURSELF that you are wrong. And you have NEVER, even once, tried to show me how the textbooks were wrong about this issue.
And I will repeat this again, too: your insistence on requiring me to defend my position about an argument you LOST months ago is harassment.
If you want to win, you will have to show that those textbooks were wrong. You haven't even tried to do so. So take it elsewhere, I am even less than not interested.
Jane, all I did there was substitute the standard physics definition of the term "net" into your equation. So if you're not disputing the definition of the word "net", you must agree with that simple substitution. Right?
I am NOT going over this with you again. It isn't going to happen.
Your "solution" broke the laws of thermodynamics 2 different ways. If you want to prove yourself right, you'll have to prove those textbooks wrong.
Jane seems to be saying that at steady-state:
I am NOT going to re-argue this with you. If you want to prove yourself right, you're going to have to prove those textbooks wrong. I will only repeat here what I've stated before. Given the conditions we discussed (i.e., gray bodies with same emissivity, vacuum, steady-state, etc.:
(A) NET radiative heat transfer is always from warmer object to cooler. Anything else is a violation of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics.
(B) The equation for radiative power output of a body at steady-state does not change in the presence of cooler bodies. It remains exactly the same. It is dependent ONLY on emissivity, thermodynamic temperature, and the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.
So you dispute my simple substitution of the standard physics definition of the term "net" into your equation, while simultaneously insisting that you don't dispute the standard physics definition?
Good grief. For months, I've repeatedly explained that Jane's Sky Dragon Slayer equation violates conservation of energy. I've repeatedly asked Jane to write down an energy conservation equation for a boundary around the source without wrongly "cancelling" terms. Jane/Lonny Eachus adamantly refuses to take the very first step in applying the first law of thermodynamics to this problem, but as usual he's willing to endlessly insist that he's right.
Once again, no matter how many times Slayers are told that the second law of thermodynamics isn't violated because more power is radiated from hot to cold than vice-versa, that fact never seems to penetrate their skulls.
Once again, Jane has 4 textbooks that say "radiative power out per square meter = (e*s)*T^4". Since I've repeatedly agreed with that statement, those textbooks don't disagree with me.
Once again, Jane/Lonny Eachus just has 4 textbooks that say "radiative power out = (epsilon * sigma)*T^4*area". I bet Jane $100 that his textbooks don't claim that electrical heating power = radiative power out. That's Jane's incorrect Slayer assumption. Even Jane should be able to recognize that his 4 unnamed textbooks don't support him, because deep down even Jane should be able to tell that he's just endlessly blustering to cover up the fact that he can't produce any textbook quotes saying that electrical heating power = radiative power out.
financial scraps, this is it (really, this dirt change out of total fed budget). And another example of written laws and charters that are interpreted very differently among different people (politicians and various people on the forums).
mfwright@batnet.com
Strictly speaking if you asked anyone in the Occupy Wall Street movement whether US taxes should go up to pay for hospitals and primary education in Mogadishu almost all of them would say yes. Add in the "why do we need to raise taxes? we can just cut defense spending and use that money" and you've got damn near everybody. The rest of the economic left would agree. And it's not like Paul Ryan is bitching about the evils of the 1%.
The reasons that aid isn't a lot larger is there's a) numerous veto-points in the US System for people like Paul Ryan who disagree with the "1%" argument and b) it's remarkably hard to get get everyone else to actually cut checks. They almost all show up for the big donor's conference, and say they'll donate a huge dollar amount, but very follow through is generally lacking.
Basically as a practical matter the policy you say liberals should implement can't happen until there's a One World Government which can just do shit without paying attention to the goddamn subcommittee chairman from Canada. And unless I'm mistaken* you would oppose that quite strongly.
*This assumption is based entirely on the strong correlation between criticizing the left for it's concern about economic inequality and opposing things like One World Government. In real life, unlike Sherlock Holmes, the guy who guesses based on correlation isn't always right.
I get by on no home and $25k.
So if you didn't mind a) giving up your nice car for a slightly older one with better mileage, b) selling your house and moving to an apartment, c) declaring staycations to be the bomb, d) deciding that your kids would just have to live with a normal public school education and student loans, etc. you'd be fine.
But generally if you're the kind of person who actually buys a home, a couple cars, in a nice suburb with good schools, etc. you are not willing to do that kind of thing.
I don't know, Paul Ryan has been working hard to figure out ways to help poor people. I'm not sure you actually know what you're talking about.
It's cool that you think we should help people in Mogadishu, though.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It's impossible with home equity, because most people don't actually know what their homes are worth.
Just do a survey of people at a dinner party about their guess as their home;s worth. Then use the Zillow zestimate tool. nLast time I tried this everyone was off by at least 25%, and despite the fact Zestimates are known to be high most of them were too high.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The 1% argument isn't just about helping poor people. It's about helping the everyone including the upper bits of the Middle Class (ie: all of the 99% who aren't in the 1%). It's also about reining in the people who are are in that 1%. Among most of it's adherents the idea is that you tax guys like Mitt Romney, and use the money to pay for nice things for everyone. Thus you get proposals like a financial transaction tax, ending the 529 deduction, etc.
Paul Ryan is thinking about the helping poor people side of the equation. But he doesn't seem to think the Middle Class seems serious economic help, and if he proposes any new spending it will almost certainly be paid for by cutting some other spending, not increasing the tax burden of the 1%. Whatever he ends up proposing will almost certainly be mostly tax cuts targeted at helping poor people, plus some rethinking of how current government money is spent.
So basically what you're saying is you want to hurt rich people and help yourself?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Who said anything about what I think? There's a difference between understanding the intellectual underpinnings of a movement and agreeing with it.
Regardless, very few social movements in the US are totally divorced from self-interest. Black abolitionists, for example, were quite self interested. Even white abolitionists tended to frame their arguments in terms of their own self-interest -- "we can't compete with slave wages," "the slave power will take our freedoms," etc.
As far as I can tell the only Americans who currently support a system that will not result in nice things for other people being cut while nice things for them get a healthy boost are very wealthy limousine liberals and relatively poor working class white conservatives. And both of those groups actually believe that in the long term they'll be better off if their nice things get cut.
Even Jane should be able to recognize that his 4 unnamed textbooks don't support him, because deep down even Jane should be able to tell that he's just endlessly blustering to cover up the fact that he can't produce any textbook quotes saying that electrical heating power = radiative power out.
Completely irrelevant. You found a temperature difference = power equation that applied to a completely different situation and you've been inappropriately applying it to this problem ever since. Much like when you tried to call a heat transfer equation the equation for radiative power out. (Hint: it isn't.)
But the reality is: the power source doesn't matter. Only power input matters. It doesn't matter whether that power is an electrical source, or a kerosene heater, or friction from a horse's ass... which I seem to be seeing a lot of lately for some strange reason.
So you dispute my simple substitution of the standard physics definition of the term "net" into your equation, while simultaneously insisting that you don't dispute the standard physics definition?
I am disputing nothing at this time. I am NOT going to re-argue this with you. I have exactly zero reason or desire to do so.
Once again [slashdot.org], Jane has 4 textbooks that say "radiative power out per square meter = (e*s)*T^4". Since I've repeatedly agreed with that statement, those textbooks don't disagree with me.
I will, however, correct this one straw-man, which you have made over and over and over again.
The textbooks say a great deal more than that. And you have been unwilling to admit that they're right about the rest of it, too.
Your answer was wrong. I showed you where it was wrong. I used standard textbook radiant heat transfer equations to prove it. I explained to you WHY it was wrong.
I have nothing further to say, unless you want me to just keep coming back here and showing people where you're trying to misleading everybody yet again.
You don't get to keep trying to make your problem my problem without consequences. I strongly suggest you knock it off.
Once again [slashdot.org], no matter how many times Slayers are told that the second law of thermodynamics isn't violated because more power is radiated from hot to cold than vice-versa, that fact never seems to penetrate their skulls.
And once again, this is a mis-statement of the facts. Nobody I am aware of claims -- and I certainly did not claim -- that thermodynamics is violated because more power is radiated from hot to cold than vice-versa. Show me where somebody did say that.
In order for YOUR argument to work, a sphere of one substance suspended in a vacuum cavity surrounded by the same substance at the same temperature, would spontaneously increase in temperature. If it did that, it would be at a higher temperature (i.e., radiate more power to the wall of the cavity), which would then itself become warmer, and you would have a universe-destroying positive feedback.
That doesn't happen, man. Physics just doesn't work that way. It's a ludicrous self-destructive argument. It doesn't work. I've explained that to you in plain English, and with simple textbook physics equations, and it just doesn't work.
The only thing left, then, is that you're either a troll or a loon. I don't care to guess which. I just want you to go away and STOP HARASSING ME.
Don't you see how the fact that you previously disputed my simple substitution of the standard physics definition of the term "net" into your equation looked like disputing that standard physics definition?
If you're really not disputing my simple substitution any longer, then you're now agreeing with my energy conservation equation. If so, that's great news!
Good grief, Jane. You've previously hallucinated conduction and convection terms in my equations describing conservation of energy through vacuum-filled spaces. If that's what you mean by "inappropriately applying" then you should look at my equations very carefully. Notice the complete lack of conduction and convection terms. Notice that my equations are based on a fundamental principle called "conservation of energy" that applies to all situations.
Good grief, Jane. This is your response to my comment explicitly and repeatedly telling you that radiative power out is different than electrical heating power? I've repeatedly told you that conservation of energy leads to heat transfer equations that describe electrical heating power, but the Stefan-Boltzmann equation can give you "radiative power out".
Once again: the Stefan-Boltzmann equation can give you "radiative power out" but only a completely different principle called "conservation of energy" can give you a totally different quantity known as "electrical heating power".
Once again: "radiative power out" isn't just a fancy way of saying "electrical heating power". They're completely different. To find electrical heating power, Jane needs to use conservation of energy, where power in = power out. That results in a heat transfer equation, not just an equation for "radiative power out".
Jane, I've been very clear that a heat transfer equation is used to find electrical heating power, not "radiative power out". And yet you keep claiming otherwise. Why, Jane?
Answered here.
I think the only "point" in this sub-thread is that the 'temporarily embarrassed billionaires' are shilling for oligarchs by shifting the focus of a discussion about national politics to the globe.
So which energy conservation equation do you fully side with, Khallow?
I'm not Khallow but I support the energy conservation of you remaining quiet and still
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Seriously? Stop studying the Earth because what they are finding conflicts with what the GOP prefer to believe? That's insane. Who votes for these idiots? It verges on evil.
Only boring people are ever bored.
BS to this: "the cold waters of Earth's deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005", according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have stopped in 1998. It started in 1978. But there really has been no warming this century." The careful choice of words about "deep ocean" ignores the rest of the ocean. It takes centuries for the deep ocean to be affected by what's going on up top. Beware of lies told in this way.
Only boring people are ever bored.
Sounds like you don't think very clearly.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Energy is always conserved, so power in = power out through any boundary where nothing inside is changing.
For the hundredth time: nobody is disputing this. Your own attempt at a solution was what violated this rule. I am aware that you don't seem to understand why, after it was explained to you several times. But YOU do not seem to be aware that is not MY problem. And I am very far from happy with your attempts to publicly MAKE IT my problem. In case you missed it, that isn't working.
As usual, that doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't make any sense to you. My analysis made sense to everybody else I showed it to.
I've repeatedly explained that in every single equation I've derived, more power is radiated from hot to cold than vice versa. So my solution doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics (or the first).
And this is where YOU are mis-stating what is meant by "net". You say "more" goes from hot to cold, but you have also been claiming that SOME goes from cold to hot.
But what you're not getting is: given the nature of the experiment, that would be creating energy from nothing. You are increasing the thermodynamic energy of a hotter body by transferring heat to it from a colder body or bodies. And I'm not sorry to tell you: nature doesn't work that way.
I know what your argument is. I haven't misunderstood it. You're just wrong.
The statement that "no net energy is transferred to the warmer body from the colder" is exactly WHY the equation for radiant heat output does NOT change in the presence of colder bodies. BUT... you neglect the fact that it would have to, if it were absorbing and re-radiating radiation from those colder bodies.
Your statement is a contradiction. Whether you claim it is a "raising" of energy of the warmer body, or "less loss" from the warmer body, the only other input power is the same. So you end up with a "hotter" hot body. But if your hot body is hotter, then its radiative output CHANGES, and so then does the temperature of the colder body, and you have created a feedback loop, not a new equilibrium. As I have already mentioned, you don't get to do that. You're adding energy from nowhere.
Further, even if you tried to maintain that it wasn't a feedback loop but just a new equilibrium, with the hotter temperature you would still have to increase the power to maintain the exterior walls at a constant temperature. Which means you would be extracting more thermal energy from the system... but not adding any more. Contradiction.
A given input energy is only going to raise a body of given properties to a certain maximum temperature. It doesn't matter whether that energy is electricity or cow farts. Any other assertion is... well... hot air.
I am completely done here. I have nothing further to say to you about this, regardless of whether you try to distort the issue even further.
"Nobody" is disputing this, apparently in the same way that "nobody" is disputing my simple substitution of the standard physics definition of the term "net" into Jane's equation.
No, Jane. The equation for radiant heat output is still the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. As I've repeatedly told you, we agree that it is dependent ONLY on emissivity, thermodynamic temperature, and the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.
However, temperature is determined by internal energy. That's determined by a fundamental law called "conservation of energy" which is necessarily true and certainly isn't a "very rare exception" or "doomed to fail".
The fact that conservation of energy determines temperature doesn't change the equation for radiant heat output, even in the presence of colder bodies. The Stefan-Boltzmann equation remains exactly the same, as I've repeatedly explained.
Jane, I've repeatedly failed to explain how "conservation of energy" works. Once again: any power used by the exterior wall cooler (or heater) is simply being moved from some point outside the boundary to another point which is also outside the boundary. Because that power never crosses the boundary, it's irrelevant.
The word you're looking for isn't "contradiction". It's "irrelevant." As in, "Jane's objection is irrelevant because that power never crosses the boundary."
I didn't see the point of addressing your "friction from a horse's ass" observation because that didn't seem productive,
It certainly wasn't, but it should have been. Most people would have gotten the point.
Pretending that we only need to know the power flowing in and not the power flowing out is like pretending we only need to know a bathtub's faucet flow rate to determine the steady-state water level in the bathtub, and it doesn't matter if the drain is open or closed.
I didn't pretend that, and in fact I explicitly stated as much in my last comment. Where did you learn to read?
Spencer's experiment stipulated that the outer wall be kept at a constant temperature. Given that it is being given input from interior heat sources, it would take energy (over time, power of course) to maintain that low temperature. This was obviously Spencer's attempt to model the radiation "escaping to space".
However, YOU have repeatedly stated that your electrical power input was considered to be maintaining a temperature difference between the heat source and the outer wall. In fact that was the stated basis for many of your arguments about conservation of energy.
But you you neglected to consider that when your heat source gets hotter, more thermal energy must be extracted from the walls to maintain that difference. Which consumes more electrical power.
But your input energy was supposed to be constant. So you're either violating the parameters of the experiment, or you are creating energy from nothing. You don't get to have it both ways, and again your "solution" contradicts itself.
The rest of this is similar mis-construction or mis-representation of my actual analysis of the problem. There is nothing new here, and nothing I have any reason to repeat yet again.
DONE. And I mean it. All you're doing is giving me fodder to make you look like a bigger fool later when I publish this. Your continued self-contradiction amounts to little more than clownish buffoonery and indirect insult.
Again, any power used to maintain that low temperature is simply being moved from some point outside the boundary to another point which is also outside the boundary. Because that power never crosses the boundary, it's irrelevant.
No, the electrical power input is however many watts are sent in through the boundary around the heat source. That's why it's included in the energy conservation equation through that boundary.
The electrical power input which crosses the boundary around the heat source is constant. Any power which doesn't cross that boundary is irrelevant, because it isn't included in that energy conservation equation.
And again, inserting the standard physics definition of the word "net" into your equation reproduces the energy conservation equation you're still adamantly rejecting. Would it really be so hard to take a few seconds to write down an energy conservation equation for a boundary around the source without wrongly "cancelling" terms? That's another way to see that you should consider using the standard physics definition of the word "net".
This is really basic physics, Jane. If you're actually this hopelessly confused, maybe you shouldn't be lecturing physicists about physics.
And for your sake I hope you actually are just confused. It's difficult to understand why anyone would deliberately spread misinformation about what the National Academy of Sciences calls "one of the defining issues of our time."
No, the electrical power input is however many watts are sent in through the boundary around the heat source. That's why it's included in the energy conservation equation through that boundary.
You have just contradicted yourself AGAIN, because I have records of you clearly arguing that the input power was to maintain a temperature difference between the heat source and the walls, while I was arguing that the input to the heat source was constant but the power to the cooled walls was not stipulated and could be variable.
So now you're contradicting yourself, in trying to argue otherwise.
I am NOT going to re-argue this with you. I showed you the correct answer, double-checked according to standard textbook physics, in both directions.
Anything else you have to say is self-serving prevarication. And you've had an awful lot of it to say. That's a real problem you have, man. It isn't mine.
You were wrong. Own it, accept it, and move on. Until then, you're being WORSE than an obnoxious ass. You're harassing me and being a PAIN in the ass.
Again, the reason the electrical input power heating the source is included in the energy conservation equation through a boundary around the heat source is because it passes through that boundary. That's the important point.
You still don't seem to understand that power which doesn't pass through that boundary isn't included in that energy conservation equation. I've repeatedly failed to explain that the power to the cooled walls you keep talking about is completely irrelevant because it doesn't pass through that boundary.
Jane, this is on the level of "drawing within the lines." Does the power pass through the boundary or not? Just think about whether a crayon line crosses the lines in a coloring book. If it does, that power gets included in the energy equation through that boundary.
Seriously, take a few seconds to write down an energy conservation equation for a boundary around the source without wrongly "cancelling" terms. You'd quickly find that:
(1) The power to the cooled walls is irrelevant.
(2) Because only the power passing through the boundary is included, the electrical power heating the source maintains a temperature difference between the heat source and the walls.
And again, inserting the standard physics definition of the word "net" into your equation reproduces the energy conservation equation you're still adamantly rejecting. That's another independent way to see that you should consider the possibility that only power passing through a boundary should be included in the energy conservation equation across that boundary.
You still don't seem to understand that power which doesn't pass through that boundary isn't included in that energy conservation equation. I've repeatedly failed to explain [slashdot.org] that the power to the cooled walls you keep talking about is completely irrelevant because it doesn't pass through that boundary.
I understand the situation quite well, and I solved it using standard physics textbook methods. I am very definitely not the person who is confused here.
I've repeatedly failed to explain [slashdot.org] that the power to the cooled walls you keep talking about is completely irrelevant because it doesn't pass through that boundary.
No, you haven't "failed to explain" this. What you did -- typically in your fashion, in my experience -- was change your story when you realized that it was not a viable avenue of attack.
I repeat: I have all this already on record.
GO AWAY. You are achieving NOTHING with this nonsense but making yourself look progressively more foolish.
Don't be ridiculous, Jane. Anyone who clicks that link will see that I've consistently told you that only power which passes through a boundary is included in its energy conservation equation. Again, the source heating power passes through that boundary, but the exterior wall cooler power doesn't pass through that boundary.
It's just like crayons in a coloring book, Jane.
Gosh, really? Before you give a copy of your cussing and screaming to your grandchildren, you might want to consider giving it to them before they've mastered coloring books. Otherwise "Grandma Jane" will have to answer a lot of awkward questions.
And again, inserting the standard physics definition of the word "net" into your equation reproduces the energy conservation equation you're still adamantly rejecting. That's another independent way to see that you should consider the possibility that only power passing through a boundary should be included in the energy conservation equation across that boundary.
Continued here and here and here.