2013 Continued the Long-Term Warming Trend

2013 Continued the Long-Term Warming Trend

Excerpt of Neil Armstrong's Commencement Address To USC in 2005

Neil Armstrong hailed from the Midwest originally, but he spent quite a bit of time in Southern California. He transferred to the nearby Edwards Air Force Base, where he worked at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NASA's predecessor) as a research pilot. He also completed his master in aerospace engineering from University of Southern California, where I graduated with a BS in Aeronautical Engineering in 1961. I also had the opportunity to sit in the cockpit of the X-15 (which Armstrong flew) at Edwards AFB, during a USC class field trip. It was a very tight fit.

Students of my vintage did not have calculators, cell phones, credit cards, personal computers, Internet or reality TV. Some might say they were very fortunate. At the time of my college graduation, airliners were propelled by propellers. A few military jets existed, and rocket engines were primitive. Had a faculty member at that time suggested preparation for a career in spacecraft operations, he or she would have been ridiculed. The most serious proposals for space flight were found on a Sunday evening television program, “The Wonderful World of Disney.” But within just three years, the Soviet Union launched the first Earth satellite and the space age was born. Within a decade, satellites were being used for a variety of scientific and commercial purposes. Probes had been sent to nearby planets and humans were frequently flying into space. That suggests that you can’t imagine the change and related opportunity that will arise for you in the years ahead. Hopefully, the things you have learned here will help you be ready for them. And you will not stop learning - learning is a lifelong process - and you have a great start.

Custom dictates that a commencement speaker give a word of advice to the new graduates. And I feel a sense of discomfort in that responsibility as it requires more confidence than I possess to assume that my personal convictions merit your attention. The single observation I would offer for your consideration is that some things are beyond your control. You can lose your health to illness or accident. You can lose your wealth to all manner of unpredictable sources. What are not easily stolen from you without your cooperation are your principles and your values. They are your most important possessions and, if carefully selected and nurtured, will well serve you and your fellow man. Society’s future will depend on a continuous improvement program for the human character. And what will that future bring? I do not know, but it will be exciting.

The author of “The Little Prince,” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was a pilot in World War II, which, unfortunately, he did not survive. Fortunately, his writings did survive, and I will pass along one piece of his advice. In Saint-Exupéry’s “Wisdom of the Sands,” he wrote: “As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.” And so it is. Congratulations and good luck.

Armstrong with the X-15

One Pinnacle of Human Achievement to Another

Astronauts on flight STS-1 captured this view of Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait through a viewport on the space shuttle on April 13, 1981. The photo was taken with a handheld camera on the 15th orbit around Earth, during a flight that lasted 54 hours.


This week NASA is announcing where the soon-to-be-retired space shuttles will be displayed as museum relics. On April 19 the space shuttle Endeavor will be launched, on the penultimate mission of the program. The end of the space shuttle program will mean that the U.S. will have to rely on Russian rockets to deliver American astronauts to space, pending the development of private commercial spaceflight.

Wave goodbye to human space exploration.

Ignorance is Bliss for Republicans

A floating restaurant stranded in a branch of the Yangtze River during a drought in Chongqing Municipality, March 21, 2010.
Photo: Reuters/Stringer

House Republicans have proposed a budget that would slash funding for scientific study of our atmosphere and the consequences of the past 150 years of massive carbon-dioxide pollution on our climate. Some representatives seek a $379 million cut in NASA’s programs to study climate change from space that would deprive scientists of essential knowledge about our increasingly chaotic climate. The bill would also devastate America’s clean energy and other scientific research by cutting the Department of Energy’s Office of Science by 18 percent.

In addition to flattening funding for scientific investigation, the House Republicans’ proposed spending bill would devastate the federal government’s ability to study, understand, and communicate vital information about our changing energy sector. It would cut the Department of Energy’s independent Energy Information Agency by nearly one-sixth. EIA is the preeminent collector and disseminator of vital statistics and projections of energy production, consumption, and pollution.

The budget also would wipe out the “Greenhouse Gas Registry” that collects data on companies’ carbon-dioxide pollution. These two cuts would save a paltry $25 million. For comparison, this is just one-twentieth of the $500 million spent on military bands in 2010. The large congressional climate science denier caucus clearly believes that ignoring the problem will make it go away.

Well over half (55 percent) of the incoming Republican caucus are climate zombies. Thirty-five of the 46 (76 percent) Republicans in the U.S. Senate next year publicly question the science of global warming. Of the 240 Republicans elected to the House of Representatives, 125 (52 percent) publicly question the science.

Of the freshmen Republicans, 36 of 85 in the House and 11 of 13 in the Senate have publicly questioned the science. There are no freshmen Republicans, in the House or Senate, who publicly accept the scientific consensus that greenhouse pollution is an immediate threat.

Nearly all the rest of the Republicans in the 112th Caucus either signed the “No Climate Tax” pledge from the climate-denier Koch Industries front group Americans For Prosperity, the “No Cap-And-Tax” Tea Party pledge, or co-sponsored a resolution to overturn the EPA’s scientific finding that greenhouse pollution threatens the American public’s health and welfare.

This post is based on: The Wonk Room @ http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/11/19/climate-zombie-caucus/

and The Center for American Progress @ http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/02/budget_cuts_innovation.html

Mysterious Ribbon Around Solar System

Whale's Eye Star and Cluster, Hubble Space Telescope

"We thought we knew everything about everything, and it turned out that there were unknown unknowns." Richard Fisher, Director of NASA's Heliophysics Division, upon discovery of a mysterious ribbon around our solar system —- a stripe made of hydrogen —- that defies all current expectations about what the edge of the solar system might look like.

Beating Around the Bush

New revelations about the Bush Administration’s arrogant disregard for responsible governance seem to come cascading down around us every day. The latest comes in the form of a Justice Department investigative report that concludes that hiring decisions at the Justice Department were illegally politicized. In other words, the sign over the door read, Bushies Only. We suspected as much when former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, testifying before Congress on the firing of prosecutors claimed not to “recall remembering” being involved in or even being aware of the firing of prosecutors who were not Bush loyalists. Now, the report by the DOJ's own Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility states that
Monica M. Goodling, the White House Liaison at DOJ, and her deputies had broken civil service laws, run afoul of department policy and engaged in "misconduct" in the hiring and firing of prosecutors, judges, and other DOJ applicants/employees. Goodling is another Bush appointee chosen not because she was the best qualified for the job – she graduated from Messiah College and Pat Robertson’s Regent law school – but because she was a Christian conservative Bush zealot.

The Bush Administration has been infamous for its distortions and manipulations of the truth on many fronts. In another case, the panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on lead poisoning was planning to strengthen lead poisoning regulations in response to science showing that smaller amounts than previously understood could cause brain damage in children. Before the panel could act, then Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tommy Thompson, a Bush appointee, rejected the recommendation and replaced two members of the panel with individuals tied to the lead industry.

It was also under Thompson that HHS downplayed the true cost of the prescription drug benefit law by $150 billion. The actuary that pointed out the true cost was threatened with termination if he revealed to Congress his estimate.

Last month, the NASA Inspector General found that White House political appointees in the NASA press office "reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized" studies of global warming, toning down politically unwelcome conclusions. A news conference on global warming was postponed, according to a senior scientist, because the Bush Administration did not want any negative environmental news before the 2004 election.

Under the Bush Administration, scientists who work for and/or advise the federal government have seen their work manipulated, suppressed, or distorted, while government agencies under the direction of Bush appointees have systematically limited public and policy maker access to critical scientific information. The Union of Concerned Scientists has constructed a clever web site in the form of a periodic table illustrating the wide spread manipulation of science by Bush and his minions.

But hey, "Great job, Brownie."