Theme: Real Science, Real Choices
Where: Hilton Chicago, 720 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL
When: Monday, May 21 – Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Attend: Register here!
Signed Recent Letter Critical of NASA’s “Advocacy of an Extreme Position” on Climate Science
Two Apollo-era astronauts and two prominent former NASA scientists will speak at The Heartland Institute’s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-7), taking place in Chicago on May 21–23. The four men were among 49 signatories to a March 28 letter to NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) urging the agencies to cease their “unbridled advocacy” of anthropogenic global warming.
Dr. Harrison Schmitt, the first scientist and last man to walk on the moon in the Apollo 17 mission, and Apollo 7 lunar module pilot Walter Cunningham will talk about how NASA’s “unproven and unsupported remarks” on global warming damage the agency’s reputation.
The astronauts will be joined in the discussion by Harold Doiron, who worked for decades on vehicle stability and design at NASA, and Thomas Wysmuller, a meteorologist for the Royal Dutch Weather Bureau in Amsterdam and a long-time employee and consultant for NASA.
Register to attend the conference at this link.
Talking about Space
Serious blow to dark matter theories? New study finds mysterious lack of dark matter in Sun’s neighborhood
A team using the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, along with other telescopes, has mapped the motions of more than 400 stars up to 13 000 light-years from the Sun. From this new data they have calculated the mass of material in the vicinity of the Sun, in a volume four times larger than ever considered before.
“The amount of mass that we derive matches very well with what we see — stars, dust and gas — in the region around the Sun,” says team leader Christian Moni Bidin (Departamento de Astronomia, Universidad de Concepcion, Chile). “But this leaves no room for the extra material — dark matter — that we were expecting. Our calculations show that it should have shown up very clearly in our measurements. But it was just not there!”
http://phys.org/news/2012-04-dark-theories-mysterious-lack-sun.html
Like man made Global Warming
Models show that it should have shown up very clearly . But it is just not there!
This is great news. Maybe the other 46 signatures could also attend, or at least lend their support in some way.
“signers” and “signees” or “signatories” – whichever is the proper term for these NASA people who bravely sent this letter..
It would be ones wildest dream to sit, see and listen to ‘Two Apollo-era astronauts and two prominent former NASA scientists’ present at such a conference. To be in awe of heroes once again and science.
Australians should remember one of our own teachers, Ms Jeanette Rothapfel who won a coveted prize in the teaching of SCIENCE (SCIENCE of teaching) to youngsters.
http://www.scienceawards.org.au/teacher_awards/teacher_winners/2004.asp
This guy Harrison Schmitt is clearly a crank, see below – sarc
“EDUCATION: Graduated from Western High School, Silver City, New Mexico; received a bachelor of science degree in science from the California Institute of Technology in 1957; studied at the University of Oslo in Norway during 1957-1958; received doctorate in geology from Harvard University in 1964.
ORGANIZATIONS: The Geological Society of America (Honorary Fellow); The American Geophysical Union (Fellow); The American Association for the Advancement of Science (Fellow); The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Fellow); Sigma XI; American Association of Petroleum Geologists (Fellow); The American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers (Honorary Member); New Mexico Geological Society (Honorary Member); The American Astronautical Society.”
Memo to Steve Zwick: The one group of people who know most about historic climate and the mechanisms of climate change are the geologists, the most sceptical group (government employees excepted for obvious reasons) of individuals in the world today about CAGW . You are the crank, not the sceptics, who very simply have only one common trait: they abhor bad/misleading/fraudulent science, particularly the type practiced today by most government funded, grant addicted, ‘climate scientists’. .
Lawrie Ayres said..
“Mistakes cost money and data/observation was king. I think that is why farmers and tradesmen tend to be skeptics.”
You can add engineers to the list.
In fact you can probably add everyone who has to go out and actually _make_ something to the list. There’s no hiding behind wooly liberal rhetoric or suspect ‘models’, things either work or they don’t. And if they don’t someone’s paying for it.
I don’t know if anybody watches ABC News (USA), but it seems that every day now they feature some story about climate change and it’s caused the mild winter, warm spring, continued drought, an explosion in the insect population and is threatening the polar bear.
Not one story ever features a skeptical scientist or dissenting opinion. The letter to NASA from the former engineers, scientists and astronauts? Never reported, of course.
~more soylent green!
[SNIP: Insult and snark. Cut it out. -REP]
“they are forced to teach in schools & colleges up & down the land, as dictated by Big Guvment from on high.”
This is the problem. Government really has no idea what a person should learn to be a responsible, competent, and successful member of society. Just as they cannot create wealth and do not know how to choose winners in industry (which they should not be doing anyhow, as it quickly becomes crony capitalism), they are incapable of choosing the education needed. They will always see education to be a tool to design the citizens to their liking and needs.
Here, in the US, our curriculum has suffered under the Federal Department of Education and everybody loses. However, they get to indoctrinate the kids to the government’s needs, which is not good in any way for the country or the people.
One cure is for the teachers to stand up as a group, form a power base, and set a real, honest, nonpolitical curriculum and tell the government to shove it. We can never stand up to the government if we rely on it to give us the tools to do so. It will not.
In the US, one cure is to dissolve the Dept of Education and return educational responsibilities back to the states, so they can be competitive with each other and thus strive to produce the best and most productive individuals. People will flock to the states that do the best job. Wow, sounds like free enterprise at the state level. It is!
[SNIP: You’ve been warned. -REP]
Sorry, that goldilocks zone has been completely staked out, by the CAGW advocates… AND we are paying the bill. GK
I look forward to meeting and becoming familiar with the former NASA gentlemen at ICCC-7.
Wonderful.
John
Great news indeed.
I suspect as time goes on that more and more of the folks that have to live in the real world will continue to come into the light as we have seen recently. Engineers and real world science practitioners know how to smell out the bs artists such as the team, James Hansen, Mike Mann and the rest of the scammers gig is up and they know it, the only detail remaining is the last chapters of the book, but like all bad horror movies there always seems to be another sequel.
Heres to making The Team a one hit wonder, with a sequel set in the federal pen.
lucien says:
April 19, 2012 at 5:12 pm
It seems that you must be retired to become, if not skeptic at least critic.
If you are a critic and not retired you were made redundant instead. I know. I was converted into a climate skeptic by a group of computer modellers who had just that done to them for pointing out glaring errors in the model’s basic concepts and then became chip designers for a company we dealt with. I do not find it the least bit surprising there is consensus when only one view is allowed.
This issue will be divisive, and it is a shame that those speaking up need to be free of the company line to feel comfy doing so. I was an employee of a consulting firm for 17 years, and as time progressed, they became increasingly meme-spouting about CAGW, and what they planned to do about it. Fortunately for me, they decided my employee status should change to consultant…about the time I began feeling more strongly about the issues…and beaking off against their adopted policy. The paths diverge, and I’m free to speak…at which point the AGW side takes freedom of speech to the limits of the concept. Pretty disgusting, really. But hear of it we must, in order to carry the fight.
All those millions of dollars from Big Oil are paying off. /sarc
The scientific process is self correcting.
The only reason that Heartland need their own conference on the topic of climate change is to keep out the science.
It deserves no more interest than it receives.
Gleick’s irrational (& prima fascia illegal) acts on the Heartland Institute are likely to significantly increase the popularity of and attendance at its ICCC-7 in Chicago this May.
Overall, Gleick will have caused an increase in Heartland’s skeptical influence on the climate science discourse. He weakened his CAGWist cause for sure.
Thanks to Gleick for advancing the skeptic cause!
John