This makes a lot of sense if you are a rational thinking person. I thought I’d alert WUWT readers to it. Below is a table from the front page of Spaceweather.com today, operated by NOAA and Dr. Tony Phillips.
And this week, we saw what can happen when PHA’s come calling:
So in light of that, I thought this article was rather interesting.
Death from the Skies = Boring, Sweat from GHGs = Sexy [Jonah Goldberg]
Published at The Corner, part of NRO
From a longtime reader:
Dear Jonah,
I thoroughly enjoyed your article today, and not just because you touched on an area where I worked – at least tangentially – for over a decade. You are right, virtually nobody is doing the leg work on keeping track of all the debris and potentially nasty sized rocks out there compared to the number of people shrieking about our impending slightly warmer earth. The big reason is that it isn’t very sexy work, unlike being a proponent of Anthropocentric Global Warming (AGW). If you work on space debris, minor planet orbits and earth crossing orbits about the best you can hope for is getting to name a new rock nobody else saw, or maybe getting your name in the paper while being misquoted by some reporter who doesn’t have a clue about what preliminary results or margin of error means when he says that your recently discovered rock will destroy the earth in 2029.
By comparison if you use your computer model to predict that according to your model the earth might possibly warm by somewhere between 0.9 and 3.5 degrees Celsius by the year 2100 you get to hang out with Al Gore and Bono and morally scold the ignorant proles for driving their SUVs to pick up the kids from daycare as you jet off to Switzerland for another speaking engagement. Of course there is one other distinction. The guy cataloging rocks is actually doing science, and that’s hard work.
One of the problems many people, especially scientists, are starting to have with the AGW proponents is their use of shrill tone and authority of numbers to try to stifle debate. Science is not consensus, and though there can be a scientific consensus that doesn’t constitute science either. Computer models predicting conditions 50 years from now in a system as complex as the earth aren’t within spitting distance of science. To be science something has to be testable and falsifiable. It must produce a predicted data point, interaction or outcome that is unique to the theory and can be verified or falsified. Would you bet your future on the accuracy of day seven of a seven day weather forecast? That is essentially what we are being told by the AGW proponents we absolutely must do without delay. Of course I think the without delay part has more to do with “We must pass the stimulus without delay” or “We must pass healthcare without delay” considerations than any notion that waiting three or four years will actuall make any long term difference.
read the rest of the article at The Corner
h/t to Planet Gore
To me, pretty much EVERYTHING ELSE is more important or pressing than AGW.
The only thing pressing about AGW is the incredible waste of resources given to it.
(A-ha… I see a most cunning plan).
A UN Address…
We the United Nations (UN) are proposing a new world wide initiative – Titled “Space Guard” to defend the Earth from the catastrophic impact of PHAs.
It has been the consensus of the best space and rocket scientists of the last 100 years that the number of observed PHAs has grown from 0 to 1067.
This is an enormous rise in the number of PHAs and represents an unprecedented rise in the risk of a Catastrophic World Destroying Impact.
The only viable solution is a “Space Guard” managed by the UN.
A world wide “Safe Skies” levy will need to be paid to the UN to allow for the technical research, construction and staffing of “Space Guard” and associated “Safe Skies” systems.
It is anticipated that the levy will be a small portion (not more than 1.5%) of all financial transactions carried out by the worlds banks.
As an adjunct to the “Space Guard” and “Safe Skies” initiatives, a “Future Ark” initiative will also be put in place to safeguard the genetic future of the world.
The “Future Ark” initiative will include a carefully, and scientifically selected group of diverse world citizens who will be provided a share of the aforementioned “Safe Skies” levy to ensure that they are always able to be moved to a safe place in the event of the activiation of the “Space Guard” initiative.
In addition to the above, a further levy (of 1.2%) will be raised to fund a “Space Corps” – an elite military organisation with the express purpose of safeguarding the “Future Ark” selectees, and all associated assets of the Space Guard” and “Safe Skies” initiatives.
We the UN are pleased to announce these initiatives for the welfare, not only of Humanity, but of all creatures who inhabit this precious world of ours.
(parody)
PHAs go boom so they don’t need as much hype plus they’re foreign to the Earth so the exotic factor comes into play. GHGs on the other hand are mundane and familiar so the thinking goes that they need a good marketing campaign. Human nature explains much.
Lessee, a might (one in ten? Dunno.) happen Armageddon, versus a zero in ten Thermageddon…Yeah, no contest.
We’ve got a much greater ability to actually do something about PHAs than Climate Change. There are side benefits too, like a real spacefaring capability for the human race.
For an inspiring fictional tale about the possibilities read Michael Flynn’s 4 book “Firestar” series. Mike Flynn also co – authored “Fallen Angels” with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle a cautionary tale of environmentalism gone mad… oh wait.
We have a better chance of dying off when the end of the world happens per the Mayan calender than GHG causing our extinction. But to keep it on topic, my money is on the PHA’s by several lengths. Heck GHG doesn’t even show.
But like the other (phantom) menace there is no technology available or even on the drawingboard that could do something about it, the main difference is that predicting the course of asteriod is solid science compared climatology trying to predict the past.
“Would you bet your future on the accuracy of day seven of a seven day weather forecast?”
My future? Not. A few bucks if you give me a plus or minus 10 degrees F. window. Maybe $100 if you make that window +/- 20 degrees.
As for the title “Which is the bigger threat?”
Try these: Democrats, Republicans, the Administration, the State Department, the EPA, the Energy Dept., The Dept. of Education, the . . .
One very near miss would get our attention,or a Tunguska type incident.But, i hope that happens before the big one hits…
I think we need to look at this danger to Mankind as if it is an updated version of the classic game of RPS.
The Scissor team is represented by Mankind’s technology, which is always to blame for cutting Paper mercilessly and making a profit doing it.
The Rock strikes the Scissor factory, breaking the assembly line to bits and leaving a smoking debris crater. This is just traditional ‘Rock beats Scissors’ but on a much larger scale. Against such a Big Rock, Mankind’s technology didn’t stand a chance.
The GHG team picks Paper as its preferred weapon, as Paper is made from green trees which thrive on sequestering CO2. Paper thus tries to cover the Rock but the Rock is too large to be covered this time and thus strikes the Earth, burning all the forests that had sequestered carbon in earlier years. While at first the GHG team might try to argue a tie between burning paper and the Big Rock, in reality the dust and smoke from the impact and fires causes rapid cooling over the Earth.
Thus with the Big Rock, it’s “game over.”
No need to worry about asteroids. Bruce Willis and his oil rig buddies can take care of that without a problem.
Well, the zone around the Earth has been pretty well swept by the Earth-Möön system over the eons, so it’s unlikely we’re endangered by anything larger than, say, Al Gore. RUN!!!!!
Scary thing is, Jupiter got hit again and all mankind saw was the scar on the surface after impact. I don’t think anybody saw that one coming. http://blogs.jpl.nasa.gov/?p=49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I don’t know if it is true, but I read somewhere that there are more people working at a single McDonald’s than are watching for NEO ( Near Earth Objects ). Perhaps we should give this a re-think.
Anybody got an good ideas about how to tax PHAs ?
Will AIG will insure us against a “PHA encounter” ?
What part of a PHA can we sell to Al Gore’s VC buddies ?
Heh well AGW is now being replaced with AAM or Anthropogenic Atmospheric Modification. So “they” are going to move off the “global warming” issue and change to somehow waive their arms that the atmosphere is changing and that must be regulated … even if they can’t find any negative impact from it. So the rhetoric is going to change from a “scientific” discussion to a purely emotional discussion.
See, CO2 is going up!
Yeah, I see that.
That’s BAD, we are changing the atmosphere!
Uhm, bad in what way? How will that hurt us?
Man! What’s wrong with you? We are CHANGING the ATMOSPHERE!
Ok, replace all the coal plants with nuclear plants.
NO WAY! NUKALER IS WAY BAD! 2-4-6-8 we don’t want to radiate!
(eyes glaze over) …
Oh, look! An asteroid!
Cap ‘n Trade NEO’s!
I believe Congress is a greater threat then either.
Graeme Rodaughan (20:38:29)
2.7% of all transactions to get Al Gore and Bono on Fireball XL5 to destinations unknown sounds good to me; I’m in.
Picking the lint from my belly button is more important than acting on AGW.
As far as I am concerned, looking for space rocks while developing a space industry, building moon bases, exploring mars, the solar system and constructing massive telescope arrays on the moons surface and such like ….. all sounds much more exciting than flagellating oneself with an environmental superstition.
I had understood that a lot of scientists ARE working on the path of PHAs and dealing with any that may hit us. Deflecting asteroids is not easy though and it will needs lots of taxpayers’ money and so you will have lost the support of most AGW [snip] already, whose main purpose for [snip] is because acting on any threats will hurt their bank balances. So it’s best to pretend they don’t exist.
What;’s the latest on arctic ice, given that we have had a two year spell of relative solar inactivity ?
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png
Surely some mistake?
Reply: It is far less work to delete rather than edit your posts. Don’t make me go there. ~ charles the moderator
Can we stop it? YES WE CAN!
sorry, couldn’t help
More time should be sprent finding and preparing for these PHA’s. The hit on Jupiter is a wakeup call. AGW is distracting needed attention from the real dangers: What’s Up in Outer Space.
How’s about a Science Diet? Cut out the greasy AGW stuff, it’s bad for you.
The AGW problem I think is solely the current hysteria about reducing CO2 in the atmosphere!
Given science we’ve negative temperature feedback — not IPCC’s strong reinforcement. Then, if we can increase carbon dioxide by say 10 percent, or 50 percent, we may increase temperature with between +0.05 C and +0.2 C. If we’re doing that we’ll may delay the introduction of the next ice age (even if the start of an ice age isn‘t abrupt it‘s not at all something good).
If a new ice age is partly enabled by positive feedback from the albedo from more ice (?), then we maybe able to delay early signs of the new ice age (gradually lower temperatures and increasing ice) for centuries.
(The rapid end of an ice age seems definitely to be driven by dominating positive feedback, assumingly from this and other effects when ice melting.)
Probably we’ll stop large scale burn of fossil fuel within say 500 or 1000 years, so I think we shall listen to e g Freeman Dyson about how to substantially (a lot!) increase CO2 levels without burning fossil fuel. The CO2 level between a few and several millions of years ago I think was good for plants and humans.
CO2 is genuinely good.
–
PS. We can’t do much about being in the “hot house”-, or in the “ice house” position in the Milky Way, so we probably can’t stop the coming ice ages.
Thanks reviving this issue. I commented about it back in
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/20/thanks-neil-michael-and-buzz/#comments (18:40:53)
but was soundly ignored by the preponderance of commentors who were sentimentally recalling the moonwalk, or who might have thought I was wielding British humor.
Here are articles that address the recent Jupiter impact, and the inevitability of a collison:
“Jupiter’s cosmic smash: what does it mean for Earth?”
http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2009/07/jupiters-cosmic-smash-what-does-it-mean-for-earth.html
Will a Killer Asteroid Hit the Earth?
“When it comes to asteroids’ wreaking disaster on Earth, the real question is not if, but when.
http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/news_detail.cfm?ID=39
I think that environmental groups will ignore the reality of an eventual impact because there’s no hidden agenda that can be leveraged, i.e. CO2, capitalism, overconsumption, industrialization, etc. It’s a rather stark choice, even though the time line is vague – will we live or die? Warmists will also insist that it’s a distraction from the “real” problem of global warming.
Even though the present attitude is that nothing seems to be dangerously close, the truth is that the interrelationship of gravitational fields is too complex to be accurately modeled, given that many objects are undetected and constantly changing course. Funding for detection of NEOs was cut several years ago, but has been partially restored. Several groups are observing deep space for the hazard, but there isn’t an organized effort that would guarantee a high rate of confidence. Bottom line, the only warning we might have is a flash and explosion, and then…