A similar thing happened to Aptera Motors. A great little company with lots of potential (queue the electricity jokes), but they never reached their potential - all due to the idiots on the board.
So sad. If Murdoch does take the reins, I predict Elon will resign as CEO, and simply keep his spot on the board.
Hey bro, I understand your frustration. Aviation is expensive, especially as a hobby, and nobody likes Uncle Sam breathing down their neck.
And I hate to break it to you, but ADS-B is also required in class E airspace at various altitudes depending on where you are: FAA Nextgen info. These requirements are subject to change, and we all know the FAA regulatory process is pretty much one way, unless congress gets involved. The FAA grounds planes all the time. Every time an FAA licensed IA mechanic inspects an airplane and determines that the airplane isn't airworthy (like, not having required equipment), it's grounded until it's fixed. And don't think you'll be able to squeak through some airspace undetected. If you knew the capabilities available to track and assign target IDs to anything moving, in the air or on the ground, being tracked by ADS-B would be the least of your worries.
There are much cheaper options for ADS-B than a $5000 radio. However, some use your existing mode C transponder or require an external GPS source, so they have a bit of extra complexity and will be a bit more expensive to install and maintain.
These cheaper options are not more expensive than the mode C mandate was years ago due to inflation. $500 in 1960 is equivalent to over $4000 today. $500 in 1970 is equivalent to over $3000 today: Inflation calculator
And sadly, your $20,000 dollar airplane has a $20,000 engine. It's going to need to be rebuilt or replaced eventually, and your friends will only be able to kick the can down the road for so long by replacing a valve or cylinder here and there. Also, your exhaust components don't last beyond a thousand hours or so, so you'll need new stainless steel exhaust parts. And that muffler! You inspect that flame tube frequently, right? No cracks, hasn't broken off and fallen out, right? Mufflers only last a few hundred hours, and they are around $500 to replace. And those aging Marvel Shebler carburetors, not cheap!
The point is that if you or your friends can't afford to drop $1k every now and then (an aviation standard monetary unit), once or twice a year on maintenance and safety items, then you should probably pick a different hobby. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't terribly different than a nice -ish car that is out of warranty. Timing belts and clutches add up.
And as for ADS-B allowing the FAA to track everything about who, what, and where you go when you fly: yep, it's kinda creepy. And have you seen what it takes to sign up a new student for flight training?! They almost strip-search new students to prove they are US Citizens or are here legally and have a good reason to learn to fly. 911 changed things bro, in a big way.
I do not wish planes to be grounded or pilots to not fly as any form of elitism. In fact, I am rather fond of folks flying anything, even drones and quadcopters, as more people responsibly participating in aviation is a good thing.
And lastly, I am not going to return your ill sentiment, but I will tell you this: you do not have any more of a right to fly or occupy an airspace than you have the right to drive. Flying, just like driving, is a privilege, not a right. Violate that privilege and you'll hurt someone and/or go to jail. And please don't be one of the pilots described in A Darker
Hey bro, I didn't read any of that wiki article except the title and first two sentences. I glanced at some of the pretty pictures though. Dealing with aircraft systems like ADS-B was my day job once upon a time, so I just dug around in my brain for most of it, thus it's rambling and disjointed nature:-p
I have ADS-B in and out in a plane that I fly as often as I can, and I did a fair amount of the physical install, and worked with a repair station to make it all legal, a few years ago. I think I was one of the first IFR certified ADS-B installs in my state. I chased down the first air to air contact I saw on my first flight with ADS-B. That was a bad idea, turned out to be a Blackhawk helicopter. Up close, they look like flying anger, and they can fly sideways and look at you with intensity.
ADS-B adoption rates are increasing as my cockpit display is getting gradually more cluttered, and the FAA is likely to simply ground airplanes that don't comply, which I would support. I can see temporary exemptions being issued on a case by case basis. ADS-B brings too much capability to the table, both for pilots and for controllers, to put off any longer. Also, prices are coming down, and the FAA is likely to re-introduce some financial incentives and rebates. Check out the NGT-9000, it's sweet! And for not much more than the price of two new Continental O-470 cylinders, you can have one installed! The install really is easy. The hardest part is tying in to the encoder, so if you haven't already, it's best to upgrade to a serial output encoder. Encoders are cheap, under a kilobuck, below a standard aviation monetary unit! Not many devices going forward are going to keep supporting binary gray code, or so I've been led to believe.
Sparc up dump1090 on a linux laptop or pi and watch all the stuff flying near you that has ADS-B. Now, if you are in BFE small town, you'll mostly just see airlines and business jets going overhead, but you'll catch a bug smasher now and then. A pi and USB SDR will also receive FIS-B weather very nicely, and send it to your cell phone or tablet via wifi or bluetooth or something. Never tried it, too much cockpit clutter for me. I saw folks at Oshkosh 3D printing cases for a pi, usb sdr and battery for cockpit use one year. Kids and their toys:)
Similar levels of bitching were encountered when the mode C mandate was issued about the time my existence first became multi-cellular. The world didn't end, and aviation adopted mode C.
TCAS has no dependency on ADS-B. TCAS depends on other aircraft having mode C, and is itself built on mode S, which is just a digital enhancement to mode C.
TCAS basically direction finds and ranges mode C broadcasts. TCAS antennas have multiple elements, thus multiple antenna cables, to allow the timed reception and calculation to determine range and direction.
ADS-B, once fully implemented, will mostly obsolete TCAS, as ADS-B has an integrated WAAS GPS source and broadcasts identity, location, and heading info. ADS-B transponders that both listen and transmit can provide proximity alerts and display relative positions and headings of other aircraft.
I say mostly because the ADS-B protocol is not secure, so bad actors can spoof being somewhere and/or someone they aren't. This could and would be detected, and, ah -eliminated with prejudice- rather quickly once deteced - i.e. in the range of a ground radar station (which is now most everywhere), but it would be very annoying none the less.
If you are really bored, you can buy a $10 usb TV tuner, now marketed as a 'software defined radio'. You can then run a program called dump1090, which will directly receive the 1090 MHz transmissions of aircraft transponders in the area. You can then plot these aircraft on a map (if they are broadcasting ADS-B), and see what commercial or civilian aircraft are flying in your area.
Flightradar24 would like you to send them the data you collect, which they will then display for the world to see:
Politicians and hoity-toity folks who think they are special can request that the FAA not pass on tracking data to folks like Flightaware and Flightradar24.
If you receive the transmissions directly from nearby planes, you can track whoever you damn well please, because the only way to prevent it would be for the airplane to turn off it's transponder, which is illegal:) Except for non-civilian aircraft. They have alien technology:-p
But paramotor pilots have eyeballs to see and avoid other aircraft. At least they do until they encounter a pissed off and highly territorial eagle or hawk and have their face ripped off, or just have their day ruined
If you are able to get an ultralight in the air with no training and survive the landing, great! Welcome to aviation! And since you are carrying around a pair of Mark I Eyeballs in your head, please see and avoid other aircraft. And watch out for all the damn drones:-p
This is exactly what it means. Once you have a pilot's license and your drone is equipped with sufficient instrumentation to see and avoid other aircraft, you could file a flight plan (if needed) and land at a local airport. Just keep in mind that depending on the services you require at an airport, you could be charged a landing fee.
And, despite the fact that I am a pilot and can fly my own damn plane, I can see the day when I would pay you for a drone ride to the other side of town in order to avoid hellacious traffic. I can also see the concept of an 'airport' evolving greatly over time.
An alternate approach that doesn't require expensive radiation hardening also seems to have worked with a half-day transition through the Van Allen belt. It will be interesting to see if their approach can stand up over time on a long mission.
if we privatize space travel that all goes away. Personally I don't want it to. Stuff like NASA is the closest thing to socialism we can get in the US. I don't like the idea of space travel becoming a rich man's club. I want a public option. But then again I also want public transit for my streets (that doesn't run one bus every 90 minutes) and I can't get that either.
I'm having a hard time processing this comment. You seem to be suggesting that NASA is supported by a nascent socialist agenda, and that without it access to space would be too expensive for anyone but the super wealthy... when in fact, it was NASA's attempt to foster free-market competition between all launch providers, even brand new and little known ones like SpaceX and SNC, that sparked the development of today's low-cost access to space.
First, nice to know you care more about your pro-nuclear position than you do about providing solutions that help people more than by just lining the pockets of big energy companies.
IF you're not willing to be sensible on the matter though then you've more or less outed yourself as not really caring about CO2 or overall long term environmental costs, and you are instead focusing entirely on your own little pet project and myopic view of the world.
Please provide a scientifically based reference to back up your claim that climate scientists are "fraudsters". The links you provided are a little, um, light.
I'm going to provide a Wikipedia link, which in and of itself is worthless, except for the massive collection of listed references used to support this article:
And from this arrticle, under the "Continuing research" section, emphasis mine:
Marcott et al. 2013 used seafloor and lake bed sediment proxies to reconstruct global temperatures over the past 11,300 years, the last 1,000 years of which confirmed the original MBH99 hockey stick graph.
Yes, the trend in US CO2 emissions is declining. The net emissions of CO2 from the US is still massively positive.
Agreed, many other countries do not have a declining trend. Yet. They have no way to invest in battery gigafactories, or solar cell manufacturing, or high-tech clean energies. They are simply trying to thrive,or just survive, with what they have. We lead, the rest of the world follows. Or would you suggesting we abdicate technical leadership in technologies to mitigate global climate change to the Chinese?
The last time I checked, global sea levels are shared by pretty much every nation that matters (sorry Switzerland, nothing personal:), thus climate change is a shared problem, so the bitching should probably be evenly distributed.
Listen folks, before you get all giddy with the possibilities presented in this article, take a long, hard look at Lockheed Martin's past involvement in the US Space program. Then, dig beneath the surface and see if anything has changed, if your tax money is being used effectively or efficiently...
NASA awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin to build a replacement for the Space Shuttle. The first test article was called the X-33, the final version was to be the VentureStar.
This was a high-risk program that integrated a lot of new technologies with the hopes of creating great new capability, namely single-stage to orbit and rapid, low-cost re-use, with a launch turn-around in the order of days. Lockheed got close, very close, but were ultimately thwarted by their own senior leadership who ignored their own engineers - repeatedly - and insisted on constructing fuel tanks that would never have worked. Not surprising, these fuel tanks failed in test. That leadership bungle ultimately cost them the program. The engineers came up with a stop-gap solution that would have worked, but by then Lockheed's relationship with NASA had soured, in part because they refused to pay for their own mismanagement, and they kept insisting on more money. Ultimately this led a former NASA director, Ivan Bekey, to testify before congress (emphasis mine):
What I would recommend is that NASA and Lockheed Martin face up to the risks inherent in an experimental flight program and renegotiate the X-33 cooperative agreement so as to delay the flight milestone until a replacement composite tank can be confidently flown.
Both NASA and Lockheed Martin should make the investments required to build another composite tank and to absorb the program costs of the delay, because only then will the X-33 program be able to meet its objectives
Lockheed refused to invest anything in the program and insisted that congress cough up everything to construct a new, proper set of tanks. Congress declined, the program was cancelled. Four years later Northrop Grumman demonstrated the composite tank technology needed to complete the X-33, and ultimately the VentureStar. But neither congress or Lockheed showed any interest in reviving the X-33 program. As a result, the United States abdicated it's manned space program to the Russians, a sad state of affairs that remains to this day.
If you read between the lines of Ivan Bekey's testimony before congress, only a small fragment shown above, you can see the seeds for a new type of development mentality in NASA taking root - instead of the hour-billing cost-plus bureaucratic boondoggle exemplified by Lockheed Martin and the X-33 (a situation that exists to this day, see the Orion Capsule), something resembling a market driven commercial enterprise.was needed. Ivan Bekey's testimony contributed to the death of the X-33/VentureStar, but it laid the foundation of NASA's Commercial Crew Development Program, or CCDev.
The CCDev program is what created SpaceX - which was created from the ashes of Lockheed Martin's X-33/VentureStar failure. I'm not going to summarize SpaceX's accomplishments over the last 10 years - this audience should already be quite familiar with what they've been up to.
Now, in closing: linked above is the funding section for Lockheed Martin's Orion Capsule. Here are the highlights:
funding through completion of development by 2023, is $20.4 billion (nominal).
and
There are no NASA estimates for the Orion program recurring yearly costs once operational, for a certain flight rat
That cartoon would only be a false dichotomy if environmentalism were not linked with a sincere desire to stay alive.
Activities that contribute to the continued existence of humanity are big business, the biggest, or maybe just the oldest of which is sex. Some like it kinky, some like it painful, some like it in groups, and some only like it after being ritualistically mutilated with a knife as an infant, but one way or another, the end result is more people. Some cultures are more balanced than others, while some acknowledge basic human nature only on dark and seedy street corners and in alleyways. And in boring and lengthy fiery sermons about sin and hellfire and the afterlife, where choir boys and girls daydream about being somewhere else. With each other.
The fact that AlGore, or ManBearPig, or whoever, wants to buy and sell carbon credits for profit is no different than some nut job with delusions of grandeur trying to monopolize temple prostitutes. Fortunately throughout history and across cultures boys and girls eventually figure out that they can pair up all on their own, with or without institutional guidance, and do what comes natural. And here we are.
So, in closing, environmentally minded people have more frequent and more enjoyable sex, and people who tend to reject environmentalism are cannibals. So it is to your advantage to be an environmentalist, and to not worry to much about trying to point out false dichotomies, like this one.
If US numbers were climbing then you could maybe argue the US should do its part to cut back. But US numbers are going down. We're doing our part. And that's before you account for all the carbon sink qualities of US territory.
By your reasoning above, a gruesome analogy would be that you would prefer murder by throwing someone off a cliff because it takes orders of magnitude longer to die than simply shooting someone in the head with a gun.
So... Enough. Go whine to China or possibly Europe who's numbers UNLIKE US NUMBERS are not going down.
Maybe global climate change is caused by humans, maybe it's not, but regardless, it does seem to be occurring. So slowing down behavior that is known to be environmentally destructive is good, but patting oneself on the back for a reduction that seems to be a drop in the bucket may be a bit premature.
Maybe you can talk Trump into easing economic sanctions in his little trade war with China based on adoption of environmentally friendly policies and products. Oh, wait... nevermind.
Under the "Continuing research" section of the above link, emphasis mine:
Marcott et al. 2013 used seafloor and lake bed sediment proxies to reconstruct global temperatures over the past 11,300 years, the last 1,000 years of which confirmed the original MBH99 hockey stick graph.
Force of habit, I capitalized President. Combined with the link, had I left it un-capitalized it would have been a subtle but poor joke. Damn. I intended to deride them both equally.
The Supremacy Clause is a clause within Article VI of the U.S. Constitution which dictates that federal law is the "supreme law of the land." This means that judges in every state must follow the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the federal government in matters which are directly or indirectly within the government's control. Under the doctrine of preemption, which is based on the Supremacy Clause, federal law preempts state law, even when the laws conflict.
Now, this is the fun part. The very next sentence reads:
But in the absence of federal law, or when a state law would provide more protections for consumers, employees, and other residents than what is available under existing federal law, state law holds.
If this turns into a boxing match between Governor Moonbeam and The President, I suspect Moonbeam might win.
Slashdot Mirror
Passive IR is blocked by glass: https://youtu.be/Fx49t4sv7f0
So running away and hiding behind glass might be feasible.
Anyone/thing stupid enough to use active IR (an illuminator) in a contested environment deserves to...
Ha, well done :)
yes, the current state of affairs is re-volting, I am not amped about this. The potential for failure is high.
A similar thing happened to Aptera Motors. A great little company with lots of potential (queue the electricity jokes), but they never reached their potential - all due to the idiots on the board.
So sad. If Murdoch does take the reins, I predict Elon will resign as CEO, and simply keep his spot on the board.
A very valid nit. I always forget about those guys, but I have encountered one in congested airspace outside KOSH during the air show. They're ghosts.
Great info, thanks!
I thought this kind of technique required synchronized clock signals, but I guess GPS time is good enough!
Hey bro, I understand your frustration. Aviation is expensive, especially as a hobby, and nobody likes Uncle Sam breathing down their neck.
And I hate to break it to you, but ADS-B is also required in class E airspace at various altitudes depending on where you are: FAA Nextgen info. These requirements are subject to change, and we all know the FAA regulatory process is pretty much one way, unless congress gets involved. The FAA grounds planes all the time. Every time an FAA licensed IA mechanic inspects an airplane and determines that the airplane isn't airworthy (like, not having required equipment), it's grounded until it's fixed. And don't think you'll be able to squeak through some airspace undetected. If you knew the capabilities available to track and assign target IDs to anything moving, in the air or on the ground, being tracked by ADS-B would be the least of your worries.
There are much cheaper options for ADS-B than a $5000 radio. However, some use your existing mode C transponder or require an external GPS source, so they have a bit of extra complexity and will be a bit more expensive to install and maintain.
These cheaper options are not more expensive than the mode C mandate was years ago due to inflation. $500 in 1960 is equivalent to over $4000 today. $500 in 1970 is equivalent to over $3000 today: Inflation calculator
And sadly, your $20,000 dollar airplane has a $20,000 engine. It's going to need to be rebuilt or replaced eventually, and your friends will only be able to kick the can down the road for so long by replacing a valve or cylinder here and there. Also, your exhaust components don't last beyond a thousand hours or so, so you'll need new stainless steel exhaust parts. And that muffler! You inspect that flame tube frequently, right? No cracks, hasn't broken off and fallen out, right? Mufflers only last a few hundred hours, and they are around $500 to replace. And those aging Marvel Shebler carburetors, not cheap!
The point is that if you or your friends can't afford to drop $1k every now and then (an aviation standard monetary unit), once or twice a year on maintenance and safety items, then you should probably pick a different hobby. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't terribly different than a nice -ish car that is out of warranty. Timing belts and clutches add up.
And as for ADS-B allowing the FAA to track everything about who, what, and where you go when you fly: yep, it's kinda creepy. And have you seen what it takes to sign up a new student for flight training?! They almost strip-search new students to prove they are US Citizens or are here legally and have a good reason to learn to fly. 911 changed things bro, in a big way.
I do not wish planes to be grounded or pilots to not fly as any form of elitism. In fact, I am rather fond of folks flying anything, even drones and quadcopters, as more people responsibly participating in aviation is a good thing.
And lastly, I am not going to return your ill sentiment, but I will tell you this: you do not have any more of a right to fly or occupy an airspace than you have the right to drive. Flying, just like driving, is a privilege, not a right. Violate that privilege and you'll hurt someone and/or go to jail. And please don't be one of the pilots described in A Darker
Hey bro, I didn't read any of that wiki article except the title and first two sentences. I glanced at some of the pretty pictures though. Dealing with aircraft systems like ADS-B was my day job once upon a time, so I just dug around in my brain for most of it, thus it's rambling and disjointed nature :-p
I have ADS-B in and out in a plane that I fly as often as I can, and I did a fair amount of the physical install, and worked with a repair station to make it all legal, a few years ago. I think I was one of the first IFR certified ADS-B installs in my state. I chased down the first air to air contact I saw on my first flight with ADS-B. That was a bad idea, turned out to be a Blackhawk helicopter. Up close, they look like flying anger, and they can fly sideways and look at you with intensity.
ADS-B adoption rates are increasing as my cockpit display is getting gradually more cluttered, and the FAA is likely to simply ground airplanes that don't comply, which I would support. I can see temporary exemptions being issued on a case by case basis. ADS-B brings too much capability to the table, both for pilots and for controllers, to put off any longer. Also, prices are coming down, and the FAA is likely to re-introduce some financial incentives and rebates. Check out the NGT-9000, it's sweet! And for not much more than the price of two new Continental O-470 cylinders, you can have one installed! The install really is easy. The hardest part is tying in to the encoder, so if you haven't already, it's best to upgrade to a serial output encoder. Encoders are cheap, under a kilobuck, below a standard aviation monetary unit! Not many devices going forward are going to keep supporting binary gray code, or so I've been led to believe.
Sparc up dump1090 on a linux laptop or pi and watch all the stuff flying near you that has ADS-B. Now, if you are in BFE small town, you'll mostly just see airlines and business jets going overhead, but you'll catch a bug smasher now and then. A pi and USB SDR will also receive FIS-B weather very nicely, and send it to your cell phone or tablet via wifi or bluetooth or something. Never tried it, too much cockpit clutter for me. I saw folks at Oshkosh 3D printing cases for a pi, usb sdr and battery for cockpit use one year. Kids and their toys :)
Similar levels of bitching were encountered when the mode C mandate was issued about the time my existence first became multi-cellular. The world didn't end, and aviation adopted mode C.
TCAS has no dependency on ADS-B. TCAS depends on other aircraft having mode C, and is itself built on mode S, which is just a digital enhancement to mode C.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
TCAS basically direction finds and ranges mode C broadcasts. TCAS antennas have multiple elements, thus multiple antenna cables, to allow the timed reception and calculation to determine range and direction.
ADS-B, once fully implemented, will mostly obsolete TCAS, as ADS-B has an integrated WAAS GPS source and broadcasts identity, location, and heading info. ADS-B transponders that both listen and transmit can provide proximity alerts and display relative positions and headings of other aircraft.
I say mostly because the ADS-B protocol is not secure, so bad actors can spoof being somewhere and/or someone they aren't. This could and would be detected, and, ah -eliminated with prejudice- rather quickly once deteced - i.e. in the range of a ground radar station (which is now most everywhere), but it would be very annoying none the less.
If you are really bored, you can buy a $10 usb TV tuner, now marketed as a 'software defined radio'. You can then run a program called dump1090, which will directly receive the 1090 MHz transmissions of aircraft transponders in the area. You can then plot these aircraft on a map (if they are broadcasting ADS-B), and see what commercial or civilian aircraft are flying in your area.
Flightradar24 would like you to send them the data you collect, which they will then display for the world to see:
https://www.flightradar24.com/...
Politicians and hoity-toity folks who think they are special can request that the FAA not pass on tracking data to folks like Flightaware and Flightradar24.
If you receive the transmissions directly from nearby planes, you can track whoever you damn well please, because the only way to prevent it would be for the airplane to turn off it's transponder, which is illegal :) Except for non-civilian aircraft. They have alien technology :-p
But paramotor pilots have eyeballs to see and avoid other aircraft. At least they do until they encounter a pissed off and highly territorial eagle or hawk and have their face ripped off, or just have their day ruined
If you are able to get an ultralight in the air with no training and survive the landing, great! Welcome to aviation! And since you are carrying around a pair of Mark I Eyeballs in your head, please see and avoid other aircraft. And watch out for all the damn drones :-p
This is exactly what it means. Once you have a pilot's license and your drone is equipped with sufficient instrumentation to see and avoid other aircraft, you could file a flight plan (if needed) and land at a local airport. Just keep in mind that depending on the services you require at an airport, you could be charged a landing fee.
And, despite the fact that I am a pilot and can fly my own damn plane, I can see the day when I would pay you for a drone ride to the other side of town in order to avoid hellacious traffic. I can also see the concept of an 'airport' evolving greatly over time.
If you stay clear of the National Airspace System and keep your drone within sight and out of the way of a bunch of us flying meat bags, then you're good to go.
Happy flying!
Excellent explanation, thanks!
Your link is circular back to this same slashdot article, but a google search of your link title finds this:
https://www.militaryaerospace....
This is cool, thanks!
Also interesting:
An alternate approach that doesn't require expensive radiation hardening also seems to have worked with a half-day transition through the Van Allen belt. It will be interesting to see if their approach can stand up over time on a long mission.
if we privatize space travel that all goes away. Personally I don't want it to. Stuff like NASA is the closest thing to socialism we can get in the US. I don't like the idea of space travel becoming a rich man's club. I want a public option. But then again I also want public transit for my streets (that doesn't run one bus every 90 minutes) and I can't get that either.
I'm having a hard time processing this comment. You seem to be suggesting that NASA is supported by a nascent socialist agenda, and that without it access to space would be too expensive for anyone but the super wealthy... when in fact, it was NASA's attempt to foster free-market competition between all launch providers, even brand new and little known ones like SpaceX and SNC, that sparked the development of today's low-cost access to space.
Renewables cannot do that and even what little they can do is at best highly uneconomical.
The real world economics that I've hinted at in an earlier reply contradicts your statement.
Your god is a lie and I will not drink your koolaid. ;-)
I have no god, only theories and testable data, including economic data.
Lots and lots of data.
First, nice to know you care more about your pro-nuclear position than you do about providing solutions that help people more than by just lining the pockets of big energy companies.
Renewable energy in developing Countries.
and specifically, in India.
IF you're not willing to be sensible on the matter though then you've more or less outed yourself as not really caring about CO2 or overall long term environmental costs, and you are instead focusing entirely on your own little pet project and myopic view of the world.
Solar grid parity, a growing trend.
Please provide a scientifically based reference to back up your claim that climate scientists are "fraudsters". The links you provided are a little, um, light.
I'm going to provide a Wikipedia link, which in and of itself is worthless, except for the massive collection of listed references used to support this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And from this arrticle, under the "Continuing research" section, emphasis mine:
Marcott et al. 2013 used seafloor and lake bed sediment proxies to reconstruct global temperatures over the past 11,300 years, the last 1,000 years of which confirmed the original MBH99 hockey stick graph.
and finally:
https://rationalwiki.org/w/ima...
Yes, the trend in US CO2 emissions is declining. The net emissions of CO2 from the US is still massively positive.
Agreed, many other countries do not have a declining trend. Yet. They have no way to invest in battery gigafactories, or solar cell manufacturing, or high-tech clean energies. They are simply trying to thrive,or just survive, with what they have. We lead, the rest of the world follows. Or would you suggesting we abdicate technical leadership in technologies to mitigate global climate change to the Chinese?
The last time I checked, global sea levels are shared by pretty much every nation that matters (sorry Switzerland, nothing personal :), thus climate change is a shared problem, so the bitching should probably be evenly distributed.
Listen folks, before you get all giddy with the possibilities presented in this article, take a long, hard look at Lockheed Martin's past involvement in the US Space program. Then, dig beneath the surface and see if anything has changed, if your tax money is being used effectively or efficiently...
NASA awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin to build a replacement for the Space Shuttle. The first test article was called the X-33, the final version was to be the VentureStar.
This was a high-risk program that integrated a lot of new technologies with the hopes of creating great new capability, namely single-stage to orbit and rapid, low-cost re-use, with a launch turn-around in the order of days. Lockheed got close, very close, but were ultimately thwarted by their own senior leadership who ignored their own engineers - repeatedly - and insisted on constructing fuel tanks that would never have worked. Not surprising, these fuel tanks failed in test. That leadership bungle ultimately cost them the program. The engineers came up with a stop-gap solution that would have worked, but by then Lockheed's relationship with NASA had soured, in part because they refused to pay for their own mismanagement, and they kept insisting on more money. Ultimately this led a former NASA director, Ivan Bekey, to testify before congress (emphasis mine):
What I would recommend is that NASA and Lockheed Martin face up to the risks inherent in an experimental flight program and renegotiate the X-33 cooperative agreement so as to delay the flight milestone until a replacement composite tank can be confidently flown.
Both NASA and Lockheed Martin should make the investments required to build another composite tank and to absorb the program costs of the delay, because only then will the X-33 program be able to meet its objectives
Lockheed refused to invest anything in the program and insisted that congress cough up everything to construct a new, proper set of tanks. Congress declined, the program was cancelled. Four years later Northrop Grumman demonstrated the composite tank technology needed to complete the X-33, and ultimately the VentureStar. But neither congress or Lockheed showed any interest in reviving the X-33 program. As a result, the United States abdicated it's manned space program to the Russians, a sad state of affairs that remains to this day.
If you read between the lines of Ivan Bekey's testimony before congress, only a small fragment shown above, you can see the seeds for a new type of development mentality in NASA taking root - instead of the hour-billing cost-plus bureaucratic boondoggle exemplified by Lockheed Martin and the X-33 (a situation that exists to this day, see the Orion Capsule), something resembling a market driven commercial enterprise.was needed. Ivan Bekey's testimony contributed to the death of the X-33/VentureStar, but it laid the foundation of NASA's Commercial Crew Development Program, or CCDev.
The CCDev program is what created SpaceX - which was created from the ashes of Lockheed Martin's X-33/VentureStar failure. I'm not going to summarize SpaceX's accomplishments over the last 10 years - this audience should already be quite familiar with what they've been up to.
Now, in closing: linked above is the funding section for Lockheed Martin's Orion Capsule. Here are the highlights:
funding through completion of development by 2023, is $20.4 billion (nominal).
and
There are no NASA estimates for the Orion program recurring yearly costs once operational, for a certain flight rat
That cartoon would only be a false dichotomy if environmentalism were not linked with a sincere desire to stay alive.
Activities that contribute to the continued existence of humanity are big business, the biggest, or maybe just the oldest of which is sex. Some like it kinky, some like it painful, some like it in groups, and some only like it after being ritualistically mutilated with a knife as an infant, but one way or another, the end result is more people. Some cultures are more balanced than others, while some acknowledge basic human nature only on dark and seedy street corners and in alleyways. And in boring and lengthy fiery sermons about sin and hellfire and the afterlife, where choir boys and girls daydream about being somewhere else. With each other.
Anti-environmentalism - spewing carbon and other harmful things with reckless abandon - is more like cannibalism and human sacrifice. What kind of culture would have children and fatten them just to give them to temple priests for sacrifice and consumption? This is what we do when we pour mercury into the oceans and carbon into the air from coal power plants and elsewhere. It's just ritualistic human sacrifice made somewhat more impersonal.
The fact that AlGore, or ManBearPig, or whoever, wants to buy and sell carbon credits for profit is no different than some nut job with delusions of grandeur trying to monopolize temple prostitutes. Fortunately throughout history and across cultures boys and girls eventually figure out that they can pair up all on their own, with or without institutional guidance, and do what comes natural. And here we are.
So, in closing, environmentally minded people have more frequent and more enjoyable sex, and people who tend to reject environmentalism are cannibals. So it is to your advantage to be an environmentalist, and to not worry to much about trying to point out false dichotomies, like this one.
If US numbers were climbing then you could maybe argue the US should do its part to cut back. But US numbers are going down. We're doing our part. And that's before you account for all the carbon sink qualities of US territory.
By your reasoning above, a gruesome analogy would be that you would prefer murder by throwing someone off a cliff because it takes orders of magnitude longer to die than simply shooting someone in the head with a gun.
So... Enough. Go whine to China or possibly Europe who's numbers UNLIKE US NUMBERS are not going down.
Look it up.
I looked, and this is what I found:
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
Maybe global climate change is caused by humans, maybe it's not, but regardless, it does seem to be occurring. So slowing down behavior that is known to be environmentally destructive is good, but patting oneself on the back for a reduction that seems to be a drop in the bucket may be a bit premature.
Maybe you can talk Trump into easing economic sanctions in his little trade war with China based on adoption of environmentally friendly policies and products. Oh, wait... nevermind.
By now we should all be familiar with the Hockey Stick Controversy
Under the "Continuing research" section of the above link, emphasis mine:
Marcott et al. 2013 used seafloor and lake bed sediment proxies to reconstruct global temperatures over the past 11,300 years, the last 1,000 years of which confirmed the original MBH99 hockey stick graph.
In cartoon format:
https://rationalwiki.org/w/ima...
And a free-market reaction to the above, with other considerations: an alternative energy consumption and production paradigm seems to be gaining traction, which seems to be related in some way to recent discussions about melting glaciers and sea level rise.
Force of habit, I capitalized President. Combined with the link, had I left it un-capitalized it would have been a subtle but poor joke. Damn. I intended to deride them both equally.
Well, it's not quite that simple. I believe this falls under the Supremacy Clause and the Doctrine of Preemption: (Article 6 of the US Constitution)
Emphasis mine:
The Supremacy Clause is a clause within Article VI of the U.S. Constitution which dictates that federal law is the "supreme law of the land." This means that judges in every state must follow the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the federal government in matters which are directly or indirectly within the government's control. Under the doctrine of preemption, which is based on the Supremacy Clause, federal law preempts state law, even when the laws conflict.
Now, this is the fun part. The very next sentence reads:
But in the absence of federal law, or when a state law would provide more protections for consumers, employees, and other residents than what is available under existing federal law, state law holds.
If this turns into a boxing match between Governor Moonbeam and The President, I suspect Moonbeam might win.