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Politics : Manmade Global Warming, A hoax? A Scam? or a Doomsday Cult? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FJB who wrote (2314)	3/2/2011 5:24:34 PM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 4326

You are NOT supposed to notice that they change what they say.

To: FJB who wrote (2314)	3/4/2011 2:35:27 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4326

NASA 'Global Warming' satellite fails to reach orbit ........................................................... NASA satellite rocket launch fails, lands in ocean By JESSICA GRESKO and SETH BORENSTEIN Mar 4, 2011 hosted.ap.org WASHINGTON (AP) -- A rocket carrying an Earth-observation satellite plummeted into the Pacific Ocean after a failed launch attempt Friday, the second-straight blow to NASA's weakened environmental monitoring program. The Taurus XL rocket carrying NASA's Glory satellite lifted off early Friday morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but fell to the sea several minutes later. The same thing happened to another climate-monitoring satellite two years ago with the same type of rocket. "We failed to make orbit," NASA launch director Omar Baez said at a press conference Friday. "Indications are that the satellite and rocket ... is in the southern Pacific Ocean somewhere." Officials explained that a protective shell atop the rocket didn't come off the satellite as it should have about three minutes after launch. That left the Glory spacecraft without the velocity to reach orbit. The 2009 failed satellite, which would have studied global warming, crashed into the ocean near Antarctica. Officials said Glory likely wound up landing in the same area. Both were on Taurus rockets launched by Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va. NASA has already started a board to investigate the mishap. The next NASA Earth sciences launch on a Taurus rocket is scheduled for 2013 but the space agency can still change launch vehicles if the Taurus proves unreliable, NASA Earth Science Director Mike Freilich told The Associated Press. "I don't know if that's necessary or not," Freilich said. "We're not going to fly on a vehicle in which we don't have confidence." The $424 million mission is managed by the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. NASA paid Orbital about $54 million to launch Glory, according to Orbital spokesman Barron Beneski. The Taurus rocket has launched nine times, six of them successfully. NASA and Orbital spent more than a year studying and trying to fix the problem that caused 2009's Orbiting Carbon Observatory to fail. The payload fairing - a clamshell-shaped protective covering for the satellite - did not open to release the satellite. The same thing happened with Glory, officials said. "We really went into the (Glory) flight feeling we had nailed the fairing issue," said Ronald Grabe, general manager of Orbital's launch systems division and a former space shuttle commander. Orbital officials said they redesigned the system used to trigger the removal of the protective covering and a similar system worked three times in other Orbital rockets, not the Taurus. There are different weight and size issues with the Taurus rocket. Had Glory reached orbit it would have been on a three-year mission to analyze how airborne particles affect Earth's climate. The tiny atmospheric particles known as aerosols reflect and trap sunlight. The vast majority occurs naturally, spewed by volcanoes, forest fires and desert storms. Aerosols can also come from manmade sources such as the burning of fossil fuel. Glory would also have tracked solar radiation to determine the sun's effect on climate change. For about a decade, scientists have complained of a decline in the study of Earth from space. NASA spent more money looking at other planets than it did at Earth in 2007. That same year, the National Academy of Sciences warned that NASA's study of Earth "is at great risk" with fewer missions than before and aging satellites. NASA's Freilich said airplanes and other satellites can track climate change, though not as well. The solar radiation tracking is done by other older satellites and will continue, while a new proposed satellite, scheduled for launch by the end of the decade, can look for aerosols, he said in a telephone interview from Vandenberg. The loss of Glory will mostly hurt projections and modeling of future climate change, he said. "The NASA team does the things that are important, not necessarily the things that are easy," Freilich said. "Sometimes it takes more than one try at it." Investigators spent several months testing hardware after the 2009 accident, interviewing engineers and reviewing data and documents. The probe did not find evidence of widespread testing negligence or management shortcomings, but NASA declined to release the full accident report, citing sensitive and proprietary information.

To: FJB who wrote (2314)	3/8/2011 8:47:16 PM
From: joseffy	3 Recommendations Respond to of 4326

Green Math: Let’s Spend a Billion to Save $8 Million mensnwsdaily ^ March 7, 2011 By Donna Laframboise climatechange.mensnewsdaily.com A few months ago I blogged about a Los Angeles Times story on climate change, drought, and Australia. It was a classic example of how media outlets who are unlikely to take seriously other ‘end of the world’ predictions nevertheless treat climate change speculation as though it were gospel. This past weekend though, the Times redeemed itself. The final installment of a six-part series examining financial and management concerns at LA community colleges finds that $10 million has been wasted on green energy projects. If this squandered cash hadn’t been deducted from the paycheques of real taxpayers – and hadn’t deprived real students of proper facilities – the story would be hilarious. It is, however, a cautionary tale with larger implications. When organizations that exist to do one thing (educate young people) get distracted by other goals (reducing carbon emissions) matters are almost guaranteed to turn out badly. First, attention and funds are shifted from the core purpose. Second, the fashionable new goal is often pursued by individuals who lack appropriate qualifications and experience. A man named Larry Eisenberg is at the center of the LA Times story. He believed his green energy vision was “amazing.” Among other things, it involved chopping down trees and covering sports fields with solar panels. Here are some choice quotes from the story: He overestimated how much power the colleges could generate. He underestimated the cost. …The problems with Eisenberg’s energy vision were fundamental. For starters, there simply wasn’t room on the campuses for all the generating equipment required to become self-sufficient. …Plans for large-scale wind power collided with the reality that prevailing winds at nearly all the campuses are too weak to generate much electricity. To date, a single wind turbine has been installed, as a demonstration project. It spins too slowly in average winds to power a 60-watt light bulb. …His advocacy had a messianic tinge. In one e-mail to his advisors, he described his renewable-energy agenda as “what the world needs now. No one else is doing it. We can and will.” …Eisenberg’s cost estimates for taking the nine campuses off the grid ranged as high as $975 million — this for a college system that in 2010 spent less than $8 million on power bills. …Eisenberg wanted to spend $98 million on hydrogen fuel-cell equipment that had never been put into commercial operation. He called for spending $59 million on untried hydrogen storage devices… It’s worth noting that this excellent investigative piece didn’t get written because the newspaper decided to examine green energy boondoggles. Rather, it occurred because the paper had already cast a scrutinizing eye at other concerns associated with these community colleges. . In news elsewhere, the February 26th-March 4th print edition of The Economist magazine contains a passing reference, on page 75, to a leaked AOL document. It reveals that journalists who work for that organization are expected to file 5 to 10 stories per day: nofrakkingconsensus.files.wordpress.com This is called churnalism. And it’s one of the reasons media coverage of climate issues is so pathetic. Journalists on that kind of treadmill have no time to read any background. They have no time to verify any facts. They merely take a press release, modify it a bit, and file the story. Which means that, more than ever before, we really shouldn’t believe everything we read.