Slashdot Mirror
Trump White House Quietly Cancels NASA Research Verifying Greenhouse Gas Cuts (sciencemag.org)
Paul Voosen, reporting for Science magazine: You can't manage what you don't measure. The adage is especially relevant for climate-warming greenhouse gases, which are crucial to manage -- and challenging to measure. In recent years, though, satellite and aircraft instruments have begun monitoring carbon dioxide and methane remotely, and NASA's Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), a $10-million-a-year research line, has helped stitch together observations of sources and sinks into high-resolution models of the planet's flows of carbon. Now, President Donald Trump's administration has quietly killed the CMS, Science has learned.
The move jeopardizes plans to verify the national emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate accords, says Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of Tufts University's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy in Medford, Massachusetts. "If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement," she says. Canceling the CMS "is a grave mistake," she adds.
The move jeopardizes plans to verify the national emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate accords, says Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of Tufts University's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy in Medford, Massachusetts. "If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement," she says. Canceling the CMS "is a grave mistake," she adds.
Other countries need to fill in as the US culls science programs and generally sets itself back to the stone age. After all, you'll need to know how much CO2 is being emitted when the US has to come crawling back years from now to buy carbon credits from the EU and China...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You know, I love watching things burn. It isn't often you get to see a world leader self destruct from stupid on such a scale.
I wonder if he'll just start setting off nukes in populated areas next
*much munch*
Couldn't have happened to a nicer people....
Why would a Climate Monitoring System be under NASA and not NOAA?
I would think that NASA's only role in this should be launching and maintaining the satellites. The Science and Climate Monitoring itself should be under NOAA control.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Even if you think global warming is overhyped, this is still a bad thing, because more environmental data is always good for science.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
One of the biggest issues going on with CO2 is that a number of nations are cheating at this. For most of the western nations, we have loads of ground, sky, and space monitoring. However, nations like CHina, block all ground monitoring except for their own. As such, when groups like IEA report on energy usage, or CO2 emissions, they are simply taking numbers from those govs. Yet, when OCO2 went up, it forced China to admit that they were burning 17% more coal, which interestingly, none of the current figures have been updated with. Right now, OCO2, along with Japanese GOSAT, can do is show relative numbers and not absolute. What is needed now, is absolute measurements, which OCO3, combined with the other 3 sats can provide.
Keep in mind that China is NOT the only nation cheating. Plenty of others are cheating as well.
The other real possibility, perhaps one that is better, would be to have private funding of multiple sats. If we can get a pass over areas every hour or two, it will show what is really going on.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They withdrew from the PCA a year ago, so monitoring compliance of countries in the Accords is not within the USA's purview anymore.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
This isn't a uniquely Republican / Democrat United States problem. It's a problem in the UK and and it's a problem in Australia and so likely in most Western Democracies.
Simplistic ideas presented with easy-to-remember slogans defeat any complexity because of how humans work. Very few voters have any understanding of the various issues facing modern society, so politicians can say whatever they want without really being held to account in any kind of realistic fashion.
As a meta-example, it would be easy for me to get on your Republican-bashing bandwagon, but the issues at stake are infinitely more complex than that. The Republican / Democrat divide is a perfect example of humans inability to process nuance outside their areas of deep understanding, which are generally very narrow if they exist at all.
We've got easily persuaded societies under political systems that reward the kinds of people least deserving of positions of power.
If anti-science wins votes, then anti-science it is!
... hide the evidence
Headline doesn't mention that the US is simply not measuring greenhouse emissions to ensure Paris Climate compliance, because after all, why should the US spend money on something it was withdrawn from?
it has become Trump White House.
Was it a few years back Obongo's army that dropped more bombs than any other U.S. gov't?
Was it Obongo's White House that ordered the bombing of middle east, or funded the operations to kill gaddafi?
Thanks Paul Voosen Hilary supporter for the hypocrisy.
Hooray to Trump for slashing into this monstrosity. Next, abolish the whole agency!
Privatize everything.
Those tax cuts have to come from somewhere.
BIGLY.
Considering the enormous size of the federal budget and how many considerably more expensive programs are in it, it really makes you wonder why Trump would cut such a small program. It's obviously not for fiscal reasons as that's chump change and it's not for political reasons either as it's only going to piss people off, particularly educated people. No, the only logical reason I can think of is special interests groups representing heavily polluting industries lobbied him into doing it so that they can pollute more freely the same way Israel and Saudi-Arabia seem to have lobbied him to pull out of the Iran deal in an effort to weaken Iran (a regional competitor).
Then again maybe he's still just learning the political ropes kind of like Margaret Thatcher when she ended the British school milk program in 1971 to minimal savings and massive political uproar, earning her the nickname "Maggie Thatcher - Milk Snatcher" and teaching her that ending programs like that needed to come with actual cost savings to be politically worth it.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
What about the thousands of years of empirical evidence showing that government is the biggest thief, murderer, and destroyer of civilization the world has ever known? Does your statist ideology override that data?
USAamericans are morans. Everyone knows.
The House of Saud is disinvesting itself from America but you gais got nuttin to worry bout! Trump will make it all BIGLY again.
I would say good post, but I think it is better to say sad post. You are spot on.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Why Trump? It's his administration.
He calls global warming a hoax.
He's old and will not live long enough to see the damage he causes this world and our country.
The first sentence makes the assumption that you can manage it. As everybody knows, when you make an assumption, you make an ass out of you and umption.
I'm surprised this story isn't flooded with the usual RusskiBots and Trump muppets all pushing the agenda like every other Slashdot story for the past 2 years.
Such monetary figures equate to a basement project for likes of Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, Al Gore, etc. Each of those charlatans has aircraft and maintenance costs that approach $65 million dollars - just to spew carbon for their collective convenience they're paying it already.
They can pay for this easy
Wow... people still believe countries committed to cutting their carbon footprint? It's almost like no one wants to actually go and read what the countries of the world, other than the US, pledged versus current and projected numbers. Practically no one, except the US, actually took a step to say they were going to change the way they are.
Congress?! The anti-science global warming is a hoax Republican controlled Congress? That Congress?
The Republicans that are bought and paid for by the coal industry? Them?
People like Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who lie and say that there was a "war on coal" when in fact it was because gas was cheaper? And because he was bought and paid for by the coal miners.
That Congress?
No to Agenda 21 and its heirs
No to Kyoto and its heirs, specifically the PCA.
None of these "international agreements" have ever been ratified by the Senate and are therefore not binding on the US or its citizens.
Any programs of dollars spent towards any of these things that were "nodded" to by previous administrations needs to be stopped immediately.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I don't know, maybe because he's the President? I don't recall any similar complaints when people attributed actions by the Obama administration to President Obama.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I pity the fool who things the administration does anything for an above board reason.
North Korea kidnaps people. Trump kidnaps policy.
Which raises the question: if the con artist doesn't believe in climate change and is scrapping this program because it's not needed, why did he need to build a sea wall to protect his failing golf course?
Ask those in Hawaii about controlling nature much less the climate.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I think you might have found the perfect US political spin for this: it's not that canceling monitoring is bad for the environment, it's that it helps China cheat.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
NASA takes up the Flat Earth model after President Trump deflated the globe theory.
First, it has hardly quiet, it was talked about months ago, it was published that the funding was going to other programs that NASA put at a higher priority, and the federal spokesmen even answered questions about the program ending. What would be needed to not make it a silent closing?
Second, the people complaining are those that were making money from it. According to this and other article if you have any financial interest in it, you are not a scientist but a shill. All the people mentioned in the article are nothing but shills and upset "their" money is going to others.
Third, this is a duplication on effort. There are already others who are doing the exact same measurements.
Maybe it's because he knows it's all a bunch of nonsense having more to do with politics and money than any real threat. 10 million per year to monitor carbon? That's a lot of graft to the contractors. Political donations too I'm sure. One hand always washes the other.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
A country full of actresses who played Joanie Cunningham?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Public and private entities are not inherently good nor evil, they are both made of people and are both susceptible to human flaws and weaknesses. Does the American government really kill more Americans on an annual basis than private entities??? I think the case can be made that they don't.
Hey, I would piss on a spark plug to restore that. Simple fact is, that we need it for so many reasons and it is one of the CHEAPEST means of getting that data. OCO3 is built and ready to take up to the ISS. It would cost us less 5M, probably less than $1M.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Do little anonymous shitfucks like you actually think that we don't know that they're just payed climate-change-denying shills from the oil industry ? Do they actually think that we don't know that these "have been verified" claims are pure lies ? That what they claim actually never happened ?
I used to be really sorry that poor pathethic loosers like you existed, that could spread misinformation that could cause real harm to society in the long run, just for money. Your kids must be very proud of their dad. Or do you simply not tell them what you actually do for a living ?
I find it really sad that there exists people in this world that have such pathetic, worthless, meaningless, empty lives that they resort to such low quality trolling for entertainement. I would pity you, if you were actually worth my pity.
You're a paid shill. Go away Shareblue/Media matters toady. We're tired of your low-brow 'English major' poltical shilling. Slashdot is for scientists, Engineers and deep IT nerds, you're out of your depth.
What part of 'updated figures' do you think means 'none of the figures have been updated'?
A simple look here shows that isn't the case at all.
The real news is Trump did something quietly.
Table-ized A.I.
From the OP:
"The move jeopardizes plans to verify the national emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate accords"
We aren't in the F'ing Paris climate accords anymore. Why would we keep this around, then?
So much ignorance and hate displayed on Slashdot recently.
MAGA indeed.
I get your point, but I think the President's point is that: we're not the world CO2 police.
It's a bullshit, political issue allowing massive numbers of white-guilt liberals to expiate themselves by "doing something"...
NOTHING we say is going to change the public's gullibility on this, nor the Left's insistence that everything is the West's (and mainly America's) fault. Nothing. You could have reams of data showing the cheating, how the Tokyo, then Copenhagen, then Paris accords are nothing more than fancy posturing and vapid promises, whose only real intent is a massive justificatory wealth-transfer and nobody will change their mind. CERTAINLY not a few pages of numbers from US satellites.
Look at the new rounds of the Paris accords: essentially, the poor countries are complaining that the free handouts aren't coming fast enough, while simultaneously insisting that Developed nations' requirement for things like documentation and transparency are 'unreasonable'.
-Styopa
This is exactly the kind of leftist thinking that makes me so furious with Republicans, and I wish they would listen harder to their more conservative opponents across the aisle. (At least on this topic. I hope you will continue to ignore them on some others, e.g. guns.)
Obesity is something you mostly do to yourself. Maybe there are "reasons" (you're a kid and your parents feed you foolishly, or maybe you have disadvantageous genetics, or whatever) but seriously, a lot of it has to do with the obese person eating when they ought to stop, never getting off their ass and instead staring at a screen all day, etc. We don't need government to fix that. Obesity isn't something that people are doing to each other. People taking responsibility for themselves is the #1 very best solution to obesity.
Government might be able to play a role, either in public education, possibly mandating calorie labels, whatever -- these are somewhat leftist approaches too but I don't totally discount them. Government policy might be a factor in addressing the consequences of obesity (e.g. forcing doctors to provide treatment) and maybe ties into health care finance. But for the most problem, obesity is fairly far removed from the kinds of topics that government should be addressing. You can address it, either by getting your shit together, or persuading a loved one to get their shit together. Go for a walk.
Pollution is something that people do to each other. I pollute for my gain, but you pay the price. I run up your bills. I reach into your pocket and take out money.
Things people do to each other, is why we need laws. That's why we need government using force, so that you and I don't start shooting at each other. I'm not going to shoot at you because I'm fat -- it's not your fault. But I might shoot at you if you keep spewing pollutants into the air I have to breath, or if you change the weather so that my land isn't as useful as it used to be.
Ok, ignore the shrillest ones. Ignore the even slightly shrill ones. You're still left with approximately 100% of remaining atmospheric researchers saying that it's definitely happening. You might be able to make a case that there is a conspiracy where someone is tampering with all the thermometers made by all the different manufacturers, but .. no, actually you can't make that case, can you?
Meanwhile, all the people who are saying it's not happenening, instead of pointing at numbers, they point at their faith. Your faith tells you that pollution isn't real. Your faith tells you that the thermometers are all somehow wrong.
Perhaps it's the political left wing -- the ones who say it's ok to take things away from other people without their conmsent -- who are the "shrill" ones. Your shrill alarms scream that your faith is under attack. And you know what? It is. Fuck your faith. When you try to take things away from me, and the numbers on the thermometers prove that you're doing it, your faith is rejected as a valid explanation. And then I start looking at that faith and realizing how it's causing so many of the problem we rational people are having with you people. So yeah: sound the alarm. I am out to weaken your faith.
Swell. Maybe you should publish some numbers on how affordable this air travel is.
Meanwhile, stop trying to remove government's checks on pollution. We need government to get more involved in stopping this theft. As wasteful as spending money on ro
Just Wrong. More on the order of 30-50 mil. Not the 1 or 5 you are touting. Not to mention the other more important items you would have to cancel to get it up there. Let's let NASA get back to exploration, lots of astronauts and aerospace engineers are cheering this cancellation.
First off, I agree that the far left is being worthless on this. They continue to point fingers at just America, and use worthless normalization. Basically, it is a case of we will go after the one doing 5 knives, not the ones doing 4 knives, 10 knives, or even 30 knives to kill somebody.
Secondly, putting up OCO3 is NOT about policing. It is about KNOWING who is doing what. There is a difference between policing and just getting intelligence. And that is what scientists do. They gather intelligence on all of this.
As to paris accord, it is a joke. As long as we allow ANY nation to continue growing their emissions with new coal plants, we only make things worse. ALL nations need to stop adding fossil fuel plants (that includes America). It is one thing to simply replace old coal plants with new plants, that are smaller in size, and will burn equal or less coal. The problem in places like China is they are replacing OLD coal plants with new ones that are multiple sizes bigger, and will burn 2-5x as much coal. IOW, they are adding to the global problem.
Trump should allow science to continue. To try and kill it off and declare that it is not happening when all of the top scientist say otherwise, is just plain insane. Right now, America will continue to drop CO2 emissions due to economics. Nat gas and wind are now cheaper than coal, so, our old coal plants are being replaced by decently clean energy. However, if Trump goes in and changes the economics such as direct subsidies for coal, as he is talking, we are fucked. We will become no different than China.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Allah be praised!
They are supposed to create the budget that includes funding for research such as this. They haven't done a proper budget in years. Besides, how important is this compared to boondoggles like like California's high speed rail "to no where" that is getting Federal money. You can't fund everything so if you have something you care about call up your representative. If you can't be bothered I guess it really isn't that important.
I'd almost believe in a God if I thought I could pray hard for Trump to come down with brain cancer and die, soon, and have it happen.
I've noticed a big difference. Perhaps instead of comparing anecdotes, we should get some scientists to study this. I think NASA has the needed expertise.
CAPTCHA: inform
I'm not sure where you get your news... but, the Russia thing is not bullshit. Russia did hack the US and spread FUD on social media to try and influence the election. These are known facts. The Mueller investigation is still going on, so we don't know for sure if there was any collusion or not.
Trump is mentioned by people on here, not because people are "butthurt", but because his administration pulled the plug on a vital program. It is an idiotic move. Especially given that the common argument of Climate change deniers is that "We don't know if climate change is man made. We don't have enough evidence." So...lets stop collecting more evidence and more science. If you don't have enough evidence, wouldn't you want to ramp up and collect more evidence and study it more? Besides the fact that there are many hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed documents which come to the same conclusion. i.e. Man made climate change is real and is a fact.
This is a horrible move. Just because you can't notice a different, personally, does not mean the overall climate in the world hasn't changed since then. I personally haven't noticed a difference from my childhood either (my "sniff test"). The problem is that climate change is so gradual, that people don't notice, it makes it tough for scientists to explain, because we live in a culture of instant gratification and instant change, etc.
However, climate change is happening. It is causing global warming (they are 2 different things). It is well documented and researched and is considered to be a fact. But, this is a free country and you are free to deny it all you want. That doesn't mean it isn't real and isn't a fact.
How does this article exist?
It wasn't *THAT* quiet.
Whoever posts these articles is really really really insanely stupid and should kill themselves.
Good!!! NASA isn't the EPA and has no business being used as a political tool to validate environmental agenda's. They're Aeronautics and Space, not environment and emotions.
Clearly a word got dropped when I was moving it around / changing it. Are you smart enough to tell what it was?
The topic is greenhouse gasses, CO2 and coal consumption. Try to keep up.
Joanie loves chochyyyyyy!!!
What's with the knife nonsense? You are much higher than other countries so you clearly have the most to cut. You also have the most money, so it should be easiest for you to cut as well.
Why are you telling all the poor countries they can't be just like you? What makes you so special you get to use so much more of the CO2 quota?
If the whole world was like India, what would happen?
If the whole world was like China, what would happen?
If the whole world was like America, what would happen?
The world would be saved, but we would all be shitting in fields.
The world would struggle on as everyone tried to cut back.
The would would basically already be destroyed...
Did you just cry on your keyboard?
The problem in places like China is they are replacing OLD coal plants with new ones that are multiple sizes bigger, and will burn 2-5x as much coal.
What kind of stupid argument is this?
Show somewhere credible that predicts China will use 2-5 times as much coal?
China already has oodles of spare capacity, if it's 'master plan' as you think it, is just to burn more coal, they would already be doing it. They are trying to cut back. Hundreds of plants have been cancelled. If they were planning for 5x the coal, why would they do that? You just aren't credible WindBourne.
Capacity isn't use. It's quite important for you to understand this so I'll tell you again. Capacity isn't use.
New plants are all more efficient than the old ones. They can and will burn coal cleaner, produce more electricity from the same amount of coal.
The number of plants doesn't matter, it's how much coal you burn in them...Fewer bigger plants are better than lots of little ones spread about anyway.
The main reason your argument is stupid though is that the US is only running it's coal plants at about 50% capacity. You could burn 2x the coal as well without building another coal plant (using older dirtier plants to boot). That's if you are entertaining your fantasy scenarios. Back in the real world, neither actually will.
NASA's Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), a $10-million-a-year research line, has helped stitch together observations of sources and sinks into high-resolution models
Yes, but...
The move jeopardizes plans to verify the national emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate accords
Well since the U.S. is not *in* the Paris Climate Accords, why should we spend $10/million a year on something we do not need?
If the countries still clinging to that accord really want the data that badly, they can fund it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
God you people are so fucking delusional.
Be pretty damm funny if you weren't pissing away my money doing it...
If its not changing in your backyard then who's backyard is it changing in?
... in funding for the SPACE FORCE!!!
Oh, the change is real (and small) but the causation is still not understood and certainly the percentage of causation attributed to humans isn't.
Why do we care again? None of those nations actually committed to doing anything. In case you forgot, the Paris Climate Accord was an agreement where each nation set their own goals and there were no penalties for not meeting them and no benefits to meeting them early.
Speaking of delusional... I think it is funny that people like you continue to deny facts, even when the proof is indisputable. But it is a free country, so you can believe or deny whatever you want.
So great to see a President who fights for America. Thank you to all of those hard working men and women who produce the energy that fuels our wondrous computing machines and powers American manufacturing. Now that global cooling is a thing, many will turn away from Al Gore's Church of Global Warming (TM). I'm proud to say that I was raised free in Zion, outside the Democrat-media-academia complex that latched onto anthropogenic global warming as a convenient tool to effect world socialism. Vostok ice cores anyone? Take the red pill, and I will show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Meanwhile, America is back and people are going to work, raising families, and dreaming about the future. Welcome to Earth, 3rd rock from the Sun... #MAGA
Actually it is understood and well documented. Humans are causing climate change.
Completely agree. Well said.
The climate change hysteria is getting out of hand. I can't even notice a slight difference in winters from my childhood (40 years ago now), but somehow we have imminent disaster coming? It doesn't pass most people's sniff test.
You've got to be a paid troll. No human can be this stupid. It's not possible.
I can't see you My eyes are closed You're not there!
***
OUCH. What just hit me?
It's good to have information.
That statement is arbitrarily vague.
What if I collected all of the information about how often I bought shoes over the last ten years. According to you, that has any value whatsoever because "it's good to have information".
The truth is there is a lot of information is the world it is meaningless to have, especially when you are weighing spending $10 million to obtain it. Since this is NASA, I would vastly rather that $10 million go to outer space probes, information that in the long run is ACTUALLY VALUABLE.
We don't need to spend $10 million a year collecting CO2 data because it is pointless. The overall trend for the U.S. will be down going forward as renewable adoption increases as do emissions standards (and yes, emissions standards are getting more stringent every year despite what you have heard about a pause on the way to the final limit adoption).
Or to speak in a language you can possibly understand since it's the language of emotion and not rationality, we could use that $10 million to feed the homeless. Obviously by supporting Big Carbon Research you are literally killing millions of homeless children. You monster.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm not sure where you get your news... but, the Russia thing is not bullshit. Russia did hack the US and spread FUD on social media to try and influence the election. These are known facts. The Mueller investigation is still going on, so we don't know for sure if there was any collusion or not.
The HELL you say! Mueller has found plenty of collusion! Hillary and the DNC paid for opposition research from a British national that got information from Russian operatives.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Those "charlatans" have done more with their lives than you'll ever do, I'll bet.
As for your willingness to spend Other People's Money, that's something that another organization likes to do, some organization you people typically claim to hate. Starts with a "gov", and sometimes that is done through a branch org that starts with a "NAS".
Strange. I could have sworn I was talking to someone, then they disappeared in a cloud of vinegar, desperation and envy.
...to the story Chicago.
Woman (played by the US) kills her cheating husband (the environment). Gets off in court (the Paris Agreement) by lying her ass off and pretending to be an innocent, wronged debutante, alone and lost in the Big City!
It's not as if we don't have a dog in this hunt. It's in our interest to assist others to reduce the rate of carbon dioxide increase and to move to a period where it is lowered. Sadly, looks less and less likely that will be done in time to keep Earth habitable for humans.
Not knowing where we are in the decline of Earth's ecosystems only makes the current situation worse. Its a lot like being in an ubcreasingl blinding storm and deciding to poke out your eye.
Trump's decision, just like the rest only guarantee that others will pick up the leadership role that he is incapable of. Consequently, expect American "leadership" to continue to decline and the technological "superiority" to shift elsewhere.
When Bush was President is was "Bush did this" or "Bush did that", when Obama became president it was "The government did this" or "The government did that", now we have "Trump did this or that". See the pattern?
They rely on us to give them information so that they can budget accordingly. Fuck them. Let them use Facebook or something, this administration gets NOTHING from me that they cannot take by force.
Mine. The effects are evident, honestly, to anyone that bothers to look. That you're attempting "devil's advocate" indicates that you haven't bothered looking or you haven't understood the nature of what you found; either way, it illustrates either laziness or idiocy.
"The number of plants doesn't matter, it's how much coal you burn in them"
O rly?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
China currently produces 2x the CO2 as the US. (While producing barely 2/3 the GDP, too)
They should be subject to (at least) 2x the penalties and restrictions.
Are they? No?
Then the climate accords are political hypocrisy, not problem-solving.
-Styopa
Are you stooopid...We are talkin about coal, go back to kindy.
We thought Windy was the thick one...
How much is he paying you to make himself look better by being this foolish?
Which is worse burning 10 Tons of coal in 1 plant, or burning or 5 Tons of coal spread out over 3 plants?
So the spin was that the government implemented ObamaCare and Obama had nothing to do with it? Right ...
Furthermore, the current administration seems hellbent on undoing most of the big things Obama got credit for. Your claim that Obama didn't get credit/blame for these things seems utterly ridiculous. The pattern I see is that your own bias is showing loud and clear.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
The White House (AKA the evil orange guy) did NOT quietly cancel all the science that is going to save the planet, in order to satisfy his boss, Satan.
1. There has been NOTHING secret about the desire of this president, and many Republicans generally, to stop NASA from being used as a political tool by acolytes of Al Gore. This has been well-publicized and even campaigned on. Most on the right see NASA as an agency that improves aviation and explores space and other worlds. NASA has only recently been used as a tool to monitor air quality on Earth.
2. There is a government agency specifically tasked with studying the Earth's atmosphere and seas: NOAA (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). NASA was created as a merger of NACA (an aviation tech research enity) and ABMA (the Army Ballistic Missile Agency) for the purpose of developing flight within, out of, beyond, and back into the atmosphere. NASA's charter mentions studying the atmosphere but that was in the context of needing to understand the stuff vehicles are flying through not in the context of weather and climate and emissions controls and taxation and regulation.
The political left wants as much credibility for their climate change propaganda as possible, so they demand NASA (the agency that put man on the moon) be the agency pushing the agenda on the public rather than NOAA (an excellent and competent agency actually tasked with these things but little-known to the public).
Before NASA got saddled with climate change and Muslim outreach it was the agency that put men on the moon and then operated a space plane. Now as an agency that has wasted man-decades on leftwing environmental propaganda, "education" and "outreach" NASA is unable to even place a chimpanzee into orbit (something it could do in 1961) and must buy rides to the space station from the Russians.
Anybody at NASA doing anything other than supporting new aviation technology or the exploration of space should be given the choice of early retirement or re-assignment to NOAA. The Trump people are far from being that that bold, but they ought to be. in 1969 when we put men on the moon, we all expected to have people on Mars by 1980 (or pessimistically 1990 if things got really messed-up). All the befuddled mismanagement and misdirection of NASA has made it so NASA is still 20 years away from Mars, and will likely arrive there in time to pay a landing fee and rent a parking pad at a colony put there by a private company called SpaceX.
Oh well, it's an election year and the Democrats need to energize their base voters, so we all should expect lots of news that will anger (a) single women, (b) blacks, (c) hispanics, and (d) geeky millenials who've been been propagandized by a dozen years of exposure to unionized teachers into believing in the entire left wing world view including climate change. This story is for group D and would have been better targeted if it had concluded with: "thus ending the world, women and minorities to be hardest hit!"
articles on slashdot that were like: Obama's administration this or that.
Would be - 'goverment cut funding for this and that'.
Dear Editors, please choke on bag of dicks: https://media.thetab.com/blogs.dir/279/files/2017/05/Screen-Shot-2017-05-29-at-5.43.39-PM-1177x557.png
Glad itâ(TM)s over.
Small groups, up to and including some states are working to combat climate change. The federal government, on the other hand, is doing its level best to increase global warming and pollution in general, in direct opposition to those groups and the rest of the world.
So, it is indeed true that the US as a nation is unwilling to do anything to combat AGW or even ordinary pollution.
And you have brought that on yourselves. So please wake up! The world needs the USA on side in this fight.
You can't manage what you don't measure. The adage is especially relevant for climate-warming greenhouse gases,
I don't think this was ever actually said by its original attributee (Abraham Lincoln).
WAKE the FUCK up, EVERYONE!
Trump IS the proverbial anti-Christ!
Someone please help me understand: How can this be a good thing?
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
While this probably should've been under NOAA instead of NASA, I can't remember the last time NASA was given something to do. It seems like any news is either funding cuts, project cuts, etc., or look at what their robot toys are doing. Maybe it's time to turn the military implications of satellites and the like over the military and let the military handle the military implications of space development and use and sell off the rest of NASA's assets to SpaceX or some other American company and be done with it. The government is clearly incapable of doing anything else worthwhile with NASA and it's pretty much just dead weight now.
I loved learning about all the good things NASA has done in the past with things like the Apollo program and the like and I thank NASA for doing it, but that age is gone and it's not coming back. At this time I'd rather see private companies move forward with space exploration run by citizens who actually care about getting results.
As for Trump cutting something related to climate change, is anyone here really surprised? Trump would rather have us turn back the clock before the information age and live lives full of pollution and bad living conditions because it's profitable for his wealthy friends and it's easy to cover up truths when information does not spread so easily. He and people like him who live in the past will doom the US to being left far behind by the rest of the world. Conservatives and Liberals both need to step up and modernize big time if we're going to get out of this funk we're in.
Firstly it's clear you are a right leaning idiot. Logic, common sense and reading ability isn't what they're good at. Clearly its the amount of coal and not the amount of coal plants. Let's just ignore that stupidity.
The main point here, if you think the size of the country doesn't matter. Why is America producing more CO2 than EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD , except China? Why are you number 2. I get it China is bad and dirty and evil etc etc.
But why the fuck are you patting yourself on the back for being second WORST in the world?
Of course it's the wests fault, they are the most polluting by far. You don't want to be the CO2 police because you would be arresting yourselves, and your idiot citizens would have to face the fact that they are the worst.
Much easier to not check and then blame poor people. Those same poor people driving around their big cars and running their aircon 24/7...