Americans Are As Clueless As Ever On NASA's Purpose (As Revealed In New Bloomberg Poll)

The Space Shuttle - one of the achievements of NASA in its heyday. The disasters that occurred (Challenger, Columbia)  were largely owing to spreading resources too thin and unreasonable demands

A recent, wide ranging Bloomberg poll on Americans' views of  space showed once again why we shouldn't take a survey's responses seriously unless the respondents have  a proper educational background. That includes - or should have,  in the Bloomberg case - at least one semester of Earth or Space Science  and a year of general physics. Otherwise what you get is "garbage in, garbage out."

In this case, "the poll was conducted for Bloomberg Business Week  by research firm Morning Consult which surveyed 2,202 U.S. adults in July." 

Fair enough, so what did this illustrious poll find?

The poll, predicated on querying the ignorant, delivered the following dubious insights in regard to NASA's primary reason(s) for being:

.-  "Observing the climate" should be the top priority according to 43 percent

-  25 percent insisted the agency should "monitor asteroids and other space objects"

-  8 percent indicated that sending humans to Mars or other planets should be the agency's main goal

-  Only 3 percent said that sending astronauts to the Moon ought to be a main priority

According to a Bloomberg  news report by Riley Griffin and Justin Bachman:

"The findings point to a stark contrast with NASA's current focus on human spaceflight and deep space exploration as the agency works on a lunar orbital platform for the early 2020s and a mission to Mars n the 2030s. "

Adding to this insight compliments of Casey Dreier, director of Space Policy at the Planetary Society:

"Most people view space issues through a prism of relevance to one's daily life. What's relevant to people? Well, climate change. Going to the Moon and Mars, presented without context, probably doesn't sound very important to people."

And he has a point - again - because too few are exposed to Space Science and its relevance, e.g. such as the recent launch of the Parker probe to the Sun - which will inform us much better on how our star really works, and be especially relevant to the theme of space weather. As I wrote in a post on the probe from last June,

"Space weather phenomena include: solar flares and especially coronal mass ejections, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/12/coronal-mass-ejections-successfully.html

As we know these violent events can affect everything from electrical grids and GPS systems to the navigation controls of aircraft.  If a monster flare triggered a "central meridian"  CME we could expect adverse effects on all GPS positioning satellites. Bear in mind that GPS, besides providing directions for road users, allows synchronized cell phone conversations, as well as orchestrates air traffic not to mention 'date stamping' most financial transactions and guiding the dynamic positioning of the majority of deep sea oil drilling and gas operations. "

I don't see how any normal person, with even an average IQ and a modicum of insight, could fail to be impressed at the relevance. But let's go back to the survey results and try to ferret out some of the fundamental misconceptions reflected.

In the case of the 43 percent who insist "observing climate" ought to be NASA's main priority there ae some huge issues. First, one does not "observe climate" - one observes sequences of climate manifestations occurring at different times (e.g. extraordinary 'thousand year' floods, monster hurricanes,  hail storms etc.), in addition to geophysical records  - e.g. ice cores - to piece together a climate picture.  I still recall the words of Prof. Gunter Weller, e.g.

who I first met at the Geophysical Institute in Fairbanks, AK in 1985, who said: "We never observe climate as a static phenomenon  as if frozen in a photo- but we instead  piece together climatic events over geological time to obtain a dynamical insight into the operational climate factors and their impacts"

Perhaps  no where has this been more clearly demonstrated than in the excess of radiocarbon C14 over C12 over a 2,000 year period, e.g.












2000-year record of C14:C12 deviations has been compiled by P.E. Damon ('The Solar Output and Its Variations')

As pointed out by solar physicist John Eddy (in his monograph, 'The New Solar Physics'):

"The sharp upward spike at the modern end of the curve, representing a marked drop in relative radiocarbon, is generally attributed to anthropogenic causes—the mark of increased population and the Industrial Age. The burning of low radiocarbon fossil fuels- coal and oil- and the systematic burning off of the world’s forests for agriculture can be expected to dilute the natural C14/C12 ratio in the troposphere to produce an effect like the one shown..."


Meticulously obtained evidence such as this, expose the caterwauling of lamo WSJ letter writers, i.e. of one "Rob Shipley" three weeks go,

"Are we certain our planet wasn't warmer a thousand years ago?"

As simply recycled, misdirected  codswallop, given the  differential D C  or excess was much less 1,000 years (.eg. 1,000 A.D.)  relative to the current spike upwards.

These 43 percent of respondents also seem not to know that climate monitoring is the task of a network of facilities, e.g. Scripps  Oceanographic Institution, Geophysical Institute etc. -  many based at universities. The general oversight for the U.S. lies with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  Again, the ignorance of the respondents leads to their simplistic - even childish - inputs.  Thanks to these coordinated efforts we now know just how serious the current climatic manifestations are, e.g.

How climate change is supercharging a hot and dangerous summer

Excerpt:
"Gone are the days when scientists drew a bright line dividing weather and climate. Now researchers can examine a weather event and estimate how much climate change had to do with causing or exacerbating it."

Thanks to climate networks and diverse inputs from multiple disciplines (e.g. paleo-oceanography) we are now also aware of:

- the increasingly rapid release of an even more powerful greenhouse gas - methane, e.g.

More Rapid Permafrost Melting Triggers Emergency …

-  The soil itself is now releasing more carbon e.g.

Warmer soil releasing more carbon, worsening climate change

- The increasing  acidity of Earth's oceans -  the greatest not only since the dawn of the Industrial revolution, but in the past 300 million years. The particular chemical reaction is:
H2O + CO2 -> H2 CO3

The lower the pH level in the seas ('7' is neutral pH), the more acidic they are.  Much of the work on this aspect of climate change has been done at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, e.g.
Ocean Acidification | Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego

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Another deficit of respondents'  knowledge: Too few appear to know that the Moon cannot be excluded from exploration and settlement (lunar base) if we are to get to the more distant worlds, including Mars. The reason is that a lunar base can provide the initial "off ramp" to provide critical resources including fuel,  to get to the more distant places.

NASA does have a role in monitoring climate change, such as to provide ongoing satellite imagery, for example, on the receding Arctic ice, e.g.
Arctic Sea Ice Minimum - NASA Climate Change
But to halt NASA doing any space research including for manned space missions, is a fool's errand. It would render our already myopic species - in terms of the purview of its interests - even more at risk than it is, e.g. from potential small asteroid impacts such as the Chelyabinsk event, e.g.

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Brane Space: Small Asteroid Early Warning And Targeting Just Got

Even the Planetary Society has Climate Change Flat Earthers

Incredibly,  on reading the most recent issue of the Planetary Society's Planetary Report (Sept-Oct., p. 18, 'Members' Dialogue') I was astounded to come across two letters that took the organization to task for its "biased treatment of the global warming issue".  This was after their reading the July-August, 2008 special issue. Of course, even then the issue was relatively settled but now even more so - thanks to high resolution satellite imagery of the poles, as well as more detailed ice core analyses. Thus, the complaint that "a growing number of papers don't support global warming" is plain bullocks. In fact, just the converse is true.

One knuckle-dragger, a Warren Miller, wrote:

"Without going into great detail,  interglacial periods are directly correlated to a number of natural phenomena, including Sun cycles, Earth axis variation, orbital procession variation, and yes, CO2 levels. These processes combine to cause an end to ice ages usually once every 100,000 years. Most of the causal culprits are never mentioned by the global warming camp."


Well, they're never mentioned because they're not really relevant. While Miller is gracious enough to note the effects of CO2- CO2 levels, he doesn't go the next step and report that there never has been a glacial period or ice age when the CO2 level is at 200ppm or higher (see, e.g. Gale Christianson's book, Greenhouse).   In effect, the 'Sun cycles' (solar sunspot cycles) would not have played any role in halting an ice age for when CO2 levels were < 200ppm.  The same applies to 'Earth axis variation', 'orbital procession variation' (i.e. change in eccentricity of orbit) which are to do with the controversial Milankovitch hypothesis, which I've already exposed as half-baked schlock in a previous post, e.g. 'The Travails of the Milankovitch Hypothesis', Dec. 5, 2007)

Miller also drags in the red herring of "global cooling" being a prevalent belief in the 1970s, failing to note that the reason was to do with an effect only appreciated years later called global dimming  - by which aerosols and other pollutants in the atmosphere artificially kept down the ambient temperatures by 40 percent or more. Once 'clean air' laws were passed, as in the USA and Britain, the pollutants contributing to the cooling were reduced to the point global warming predominated.

Miller then adds:

"If you wish to continue publishing global warming articles, please do so in an unbiased fashion, befitting the long history of the Planetary Society. Better yet, stick with the topics that have led to your loyal readership."

Ah yes! Don't veer too far off the path of the 'Middle Mind' - into areas some factions of our country can't handle and never will - because it means economic growth must be retracted. And oh, by the way, steer clear of anthropogenic based warming or you will piss guys like Miller off. To which I'd tell Bill Nye, lead CEO of the Society, let that ilk go and even allow the door to smack them in the butt on the way out. We don't need or want them. In fact, their very presence gives a bad name to the Society.

Not to be outdone, we spot the reply of another genius, Phil Pickering, who moans:

"It is going to continue to warm up no matter what is done. Learn to live with it. Just do not continue to scare our young people with unproven scientific facts that make mankind there evil culprit."

Right! So, in other words, our young people are too infantile to handle the truth - that we are steering this planet toward an incendiary disaster - and we need to coddle them and feed them fairy stories that we're not the ones responsible. So just go on burning all that fossil fuel - whether in auto engines, or in coal fired plants and be happy!


What both these characters need to see is the MSNBC documentary, 'The Last Days of Planet Earth': where physicist Michiko Kaku observes:  "For the first time in history, humans have the potential to alter the destiny of a whole planet."

On the same documentary astrophysicist Neil Degresse Tyson put it another way:

"Imagine the irony of our species having the intellect to stop an asteroid impact, but lacking the intellect to moderate the worst effects of global warming. It boggles the mind!"

Indeed, because it's inexcusable! Further, I go so far as one British climatologist who opined in the same documentary that so-called "climate mavericks" and their skeptic pals who are holding back bold changes, are no different from Holocaust deniers. (Who in a number of countries, such as Austria and Germany can be jailed for making public pronouncements).

Is this an incursion of liberty or "free speech"? Well another question: If a fire breaks out in a crowded theater and several 'maverick' voices yell 'There is no fire, stay put!' and all the people perish, what is their accountability (hint: they sneak out after yelling the injunction to stay put)? Should they not face lengthy prison terms? The same situation applies to the global warming deniers whose defective PR has postponed necessary, timely action, which will make the difference between a moderately-warmed, tolerable planet and an intolerable one in the maw of the runaway greenhouse effect.

In this light, I recall after the failure of the climate conference in Durban to accomplish anything significant or durable,  The Economist (December 17, 2011 p. 138) sounded off:

"Its terms - even assuming they are acted upon - are unlikely to prevent a global temperature rise of of more than 2 C, which was the stated aim of the whole UN climate 'process'. Indeed, they might easily allow a 4C rise"

The latter would be catastrophic and on top of the existing (hitherto) 1.2 C increase, bring us to the precipice of the runaway greenhouse. Carl Sagan noted in an interview (with Ted Turner) ca. 1989 (still have it on tape) that the limits for catastrophic climate change- we're talking species exterminating magnitude with a runaway greenhouse - are not as high as many think. In fact, he cited the tolerance increment of six degrees Celsius.

This position was reinforced in Sagan's essay: 'Ambush - the Warming of the World', p. 98, in his last popular book, Billions and Billions, Random House, 1997.

Is this all "scare mongering"? That is what the flat Earth, Denier cultists want you to believe, so they can wreck the world on the basis of pure economics with no thought of the morrow or how our children and grand children will forever curse us for putting our comforts and stock profits over their welfare.

In a blog four years ago, I warned about the impending signs of ice sheet breakup and melting in Greenland in connection with the phenomenon known as "Jokulhlaup" (cf. ‘Jokulhlaup Observed in Greenland ice sheet’, appearing in Eos: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (Vol. 89, No. 35, 26 Aug. 2008, p. 221). The cited paper specifically noted an increased frequency in occurrence of “jokalhlaups”or sudden glacial bursts of melting runoff from glaciers. It was this phenomena that also played a role in the “unusual cracks" that set off the separation of a “chunk of ice the size of Manhattan” (19 sq. miles)from Ellesmere Island in Canada’s northern Arctic.

Since then, many more drastic break-ups of glaciers have been observed and documented and now readers can access this material directly at the following link:

http://video.pbs.org/video/1108763899

Anyone watching this documented evidence who isn't terrified, has lost most of his or her brain neurons.

We also know that this process provides one of the nonlinear drivers toward catastrophic climate change. Melting of ice caps and glaciers (already occurring) results in diminished albedo (fraction of solar radiation reflected back into space), a darker Earth surface - with more infrared radiation (e.g. HEAT) being absorbed - reinforcing and enhancing global warming. As more ice melts from the polar regions, the positive feedback from lowering albedo proceeds faster. The overall (mean) ocean temperatures continue to rise - ultimately becoming too hot for any marine life- and reaching equilibrium temperature somewhere in the next 500 years. All ocean currents, circulation systems will, of course, eventually cease. With atmospheric circulation soon following (as on Venus) , all solar energy going into heating the oceans until their specific heat capacity is reached. We then will have vaporization.

Even now, before the runaway has set in, we know the acidity of sea water has increased nearly 30% since the Industrial Revolution. Given that sea life, including corals, fish, and the critical phyto-plankton (which provide most of our planet's oxygen) can only exist within very narrow pH levels this may be most disturbing. It means that there is the potential for humanity to suffer devastating famines and loss of life long before the Runaway Greenhouse charges up.

The upshot of all this is that deniers and their BS can no longer be tolerated, given the havoc already afoot from the delays they have promoted. And rather than give the likes of Warren Miller and Phil Pickering a forum to spout off the Planetary Society would do better to ignore them. Their voices represent only a small and irascible minority, and let's bear in mind that in science - unlike in a democracy - truth isn't settled by votes (even if they are few and far between) but by facts and hard evidence.