Today, the Boston Globe reported that NASA is “canceling or delaying a number of satellites designed to give scientists critical information on the earth’s changing climate and environment.” The paper further reports that
The space agency has shelved a $200 million satellite mission headed by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor that was designed to measure soil moisture — a key factor in helping scientists understand the impact of global warming and predict droughts and floods. The Deep Space Climate Observatory, intended to observe climate factors such as solar radiation, ozone, clouds, and water vapor more comprehensively than existing satellites, also has been canceled.
From this administration’s perspective, these cancellations were no-brainers. This administration simply has no need to know such envornmental information. Either global warming A) is not caused by human activities or B) is caused by human activities, but we’d rather not know it because we don’t want to do anything about it.
The money that would have funded these projects will now instead go to allowing astronauts to return to the moon, an enormously expensive project of questionable scientific value. Primarily an opportunity for photo ops.
This keeps my streak going. You can determine my position on almost every issue by simply figuring the opposite of President Bush’s. The one exception: The national no-call list. Annoying telemarketers often disrupted my life before that truly a good law was enacted. I need to give credit where credit is due. You see, I’m not against Bush in a simple-minded sort of way. Thank you, President Bush, for the no-call law!
Yeesh. First that silly Mars aspiration, now this. Some people call me overly cynical and small-minded for generally spitting upon outreaching space programs, but I think we have a logical obligation to structure NASA's rather enourmous budget around pragmatic needs rather than the often childlike wishes nestled in the "S" of the acronym. The politicing behind this move looks so obvious. Those firmly opposed to emissions controls lean on the assertion that we "just don't know enough" about global warming yet. And if Bush has his way, we'll have some lovely moon rocks and Mars ice, but we'll never know "enough" about our own planet's environment. But somehow I suspect many Americans just won't pick up on the correlation between these two issues.
I really like Erika's comment, because it so nicely captures the strategy of the Bush Administration. Indeed, what better way for the Bushies to protect their argument that "There is no proof that human activities contribute to global warming." than by undermining efforts to find the proof?
This reminds me of one of Erich's previous posts ( http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=79 ) about how Bush's science "advisors" have been doctoring government-prepared scientific reports (not just about global warming) to blunt conclusions that the Bushies don't like. Apparently, the Bushies have now decided that the best way to avoid being caught doctoring unfavorable scientific reports is by not having any unfavorable scientific reports in the first place.
It seems George Bush and George Orwell have more in common than just their first names.
Today's news is that numerous scientists say that Al Gore got the science right in his movie: "An Inconvenient Truth."