Astronauts condemn NASA’s global warming endorsement

After all, if their scientific research tells them that global warming is man made, it's their duty to let us all know.
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Well, I haven't seen an example paper where NASA IS claiming to have found any primary cause for global warming. I see a lot of studies of effects and studies of potential climate change drivers, but nothing that makes that leap toward weighting the change factors and finding a primary cause, let alone taking a political stance on it. So really, at this point, I'd say the basis for the original letter from the vets seems rather unfounded.
 
From a boy who loved NASA: How 49 heroes lost the right stuff and sullied their names over climate politics


the letter demands that NASA

"refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data."

Sounds like a reasonable request. Troubling even. Until you realize that science never proves anything. Ever. That would be math.

What science does is measure, compare those measurements to known quantities, make testable predictions, do experiments, and produce results that either confirm or refute the predictions. In this way it builds knowledge of the physical world that is separate from us as individuals and our opinions and beliefs about the way we wish things would be. After a while that knowledge begins to pile up and paint a pretty compelling picture. The jigsaw puzzle picture begins to come into focus. Then we can either accept it or begin to deny the reality of our own measurements.
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That's the sort of hard-headedness that I used to love about NASA - the idea that humans, if they just kept plugging away, could figure stuff out - and that other humans - astronauts and test pilots - would stake their very lives on it. Not this hand-wringing by deniers that argue we can't figure anything out, we can't afford to do anything, it's all a vast hoax, and we shouldn't try. A far cry from the can-do of NASA.
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You know that snowy winter Red was on about - well, some parts of the world got cold like they haven't gotten in a long time. Other parts had nice warm winters. Seems that back in the day a nice strong jet stream kept the Arctic air penned in at the pole for the winter - but as the jet stream has weakened it has allowed the Arctic air to slop around all over the place.

The weather is getting weirder.
 
The "Global Weirding" program cited there was on the BBC over here a few weeks ago.

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In fact it's here:
 
Minnesota has tulips blooming 4 weeks early. Loons are returning 3 weeks early. Fish are spawning 3-4 weeks early.
 
Robert said:
The "Global Weirding" program cited there was on the BBC over here a few weeks ago.
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Wow. Thanks Robert. I always used to watch Horizon in the UK and it was a most excellent show. I didn't know they were still making them but now it looks like I have hundreds of hours of catching up to do :)
 
Yes, Horizon is still one of the best programmes on the telly over here.
They've recently done some nice retrospective pieces, based mainly upon their own programmes on various subjects over the years. Very interesting watching the science develop over time.
 
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