Wow, “say anything” to get the appointment, then reverse your position. I see a “you’re fired!” Trump moment in the not too distant future.
James Delingpole writes:
NASA’s new administrator Jim Bridenstine has done his president a grave disservice.
Perhaps he thinks he has just been politic – canny even – by publicly reversing his stated position on man-made climate change and declaring himself a true believer.
“I heard a lot of experts, and I read a lot,” was the excuse he recently gave to the Washington Post.
He added:
“I came to the conclusion myself that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that we’ve put a lot of it into the atmosphere and therefore we have contributed to the global warming that we’ve seen. And we’ve done it in really significant ways.”
But this was an unforced error which has needlessly hampered the Trump administration’s war on the Climate Industrial Complex.
It’s the kind of cynical positioning you might have expected from a RINO swamp appointee in either of the Bush administrations.
But it’s entirely inappropriate in the Trump era: there’s a war to be fought here and there’s really no space for fainthearts – not even when those fainthearts are Republican ex-congressmen with a distinguished past as US Navy fliers.
There are lots of things Bridenstine could have told the liberal media when quizzed about his views on climate change.
He could have pleaded the Fifth: “Look, my primary job is to restore NASA’s tarnished reputation as an institution for space exploration. So you’ll understand, I’m sure, if I don’t undermine this difficult task at so early a stage by answering loaded questions which have more to do with politics than NASA’s function.”
Better still, he could have said: “Glad you asked this question. And it’s one of those contentious issues I believe NASA can help solve. That’s why I’ll be encouraging NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies to work closely with any of the administration’s efforts to reassess the state of global warming science, so as to ensure that policies which affect all American taxpayers are based on evidence rather than dubious computer projections…”
What he didn’t need to do is throw the cause of skeptical science to the wolves.
Surrendering to a worthless opposition is bad enough. But what’s inexcusable is handing those scheming ingrates a weapon with which to beat the good people on your own side.
“I read a lot”?
What was Bridenstine thinking?
Does he seriously want to put out the message that the primary difference between the climate skeptic position and the climate alarmist position is that the latter group has done the most thorough reading, whereas the skeptics have just kind of made their stuff up from the top of their heads?
Needless to say, the alarmists haven’t stopped crowing.
Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann has tweeted:
Yes, I apologize for once calling him “The Wrong Stuff”. He’s certainly regained my respect.
As Climate Depot‘s Marc Morano told me:
“Something is very wrong when Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt approve of Trump’s pick for NASA.”
and
“Bridenstine would fit in previous GOP administrations when you expect to have sellouts, but not in a Donald Trump Administration.”
I agree. And so, I think, will almost anyone who appreciates the magnitude of the task facing Donald Trump in draining the swamp and cleaning up the mess left by his predecessors, especially Obama.
The U.S. – nay the world – was just one election cycle away from leftist Armageddon. Trump arrived only just in time…
NASA, for example, had been reduced to a combination of Muslim-outreach program and chief promulgator of climate change alarmism, using dodgy statistics provided by its house green activists – first James Hansen, subsequently Gavin Schmidt – at NASA GISS.
It needed a completely new broom. And the man needed to wield that broom needed to be a fearless figure in the mold of Trump’s bravest and most able administrator, Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency.
I would go in even harder on what I see as Bridenstine’s treachery. But since old school NASA stalwarts say that in most other respects he is an excellent pick, perhaps we should give him the benefit of the doubt.
Apollo-era veteran Thomas Wysmuller tells Breitbart News Network:
I believe Jim Bridenstine was trying to diffuse what is essentially a non-mission-critical issue, as the Potomac estuary will not inundate NASA Headquarters anytime soon, or within anyone’s lifetime either. NASA is an agency far different than the one I worked in during the Apollo days, and the challenge Jim faces will be getting it back to a no-nonsense, measured, and validated data orientation. Catastrophic SLR and runaway temperature rise is part of the nonsense, and he will be very wise to systematically sidestep it for the short term.
In fact, he’s entered a proverbial hornet’s nest without a smoke pot and his best strategy will be to methodically let the NASA “hive” settle down. There is much to do there, Major Mission Critical Work (repeat three times), and having a climate-oriented disruption during his first few months is not in his, or the nation’s, best interest. My guess is that he intelligently quickly read the “lay of the land” and is acting accordingly.
He has his hands full and they need to rapidly wrap around things that really matter. Guess what: Climate isn’t one of them, but things like developing a rational manned space program and launch (& return) capability along with developing CIS Lunar Space most certainly is. Re-transitioning NASA back to its role as a fountainhead of technology development for the Nation and the World should be added to the list. Ending reliance on unpublished models for policy recommendations? That belongs there too!
There are more things that I won’t bother to list here – many more in fact, but one thing is abundantly clear: Of all the choices that President Trump could have made to run the Agency, he has chosen Jim Bridenstine brilliantly, and I see Jim Bridenstine’s star rising brightly as he returns NASA to greatness.
Let’s hope Wysmuller is right and that Bridenstine is able to prove himself in other areas.
But the fact remains that there was no excuse for Bridenstine’s frivolous, dishonorable and weasel-ish U-turn on man-made global warming.
When your president is up against a Climate Industrial Complex so mighty and all-encompassing it embraces everyone from the United Nations and the European Union to the Pope, the best thing you can do if you’re unable to stand strong is to keep your mouth shut.
Read more at Breitbart
The ONLY thing one needs to know [and appreciate] about this guy is that he was a “successful” multi-term USA Congressman; which means:
[a] he knows ALL the important BIG DOLLAR lobbyists … led prominently by the enviro-whackos;
[b] honesty in the DC swamp, except for patriots and fools, is of NO VALUE; and,
[c] he is well-versed at screwing freedom-loving America.
PS: Who nominated, for this position, this guy? Was he asked, specifically about AGW opinions, during his Senatorial confirmation hearings.
I dunno, there still seems to be a problem with people understanding their job titles. We asked for a rocket scientist, and got this guy.
Perhaps he thought he was, compared to James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt.
Unfortunately, NASA is pretty much irrelevant at this point. They’re currently building the most expensive rocket the world has ever seen, which was supposed to be a cheap-and-cheerful design because it reused Shuttle technology but has dragged out for a decade and will cost billions of dollars every time it flies. Meanwhile, SpaceX is slashing the cost to orbit to the point where there’ll be no justification whatsoever to launch anything on the Senate Launch System if it ever does fly.
And let’s not forget the JWST, which is more than a decade late and nearly ten billion dollars over-budget. It’s about the only payload that could afford an SLS launch without really noticing it in the budget.
The best things they’ve done in the last twenty years were helping Musk get SpaceX off the ground, and the planetary probes that will be pointless soon, if Musk and Bezos put people there instead.
Can him… from N Korea.
Could it be possible that Trump will also flip one day.
if he ever decides it will enhance his grip on power and feeling of self importance ?
I am mentally and emotionally prepared for this, betrayal is a politicians dna
I find it hard to believe that Trump’s sense of self importance can be enhanced any further at this point.
Jim Bridenstine says “I read a lot”. Jim, you are not reading the right stuff. Read this, understand it, and then issue a full retraction of your warmist nonsense.
I’ve added a few points to my 2008 and 2015 papers that “close the loop” on my observed ~9 month delay of atmospheric CO2 AFTER global temperature.
Regards, Allan
PRESENTATION OF EVIDENCE SUGGESTING TEMPERATURE DRIVES ATMOSPHERIC CO2 MORE THAN CO2 DRIVES TEMPERATURE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, P.Eng., June 13, 2015
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/
Observations and Conclusions:
1. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. The rate of change dCO2/dt is closely correlated with temperature and thus atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record. The rate of change dCO2/dt vs. temperature plot follows:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah5/from:1979/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
2. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
3. Atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
4. CO2 is the feedstock for carbon-based life on Earth, and Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are clearly CO2-deficient. CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
5. Based on the evidence, Earth’s climate is insensitive to increased atmospheric CO2 – there is no global warming crisis.
6. Recent global warming was natural and irregularly cyclical – the next climate phase following the ~20 year pause will probably be global cooling, starting by ~2020 or sooner.
7. Adaptation is clearly the best approach to deal with the moderate global warming and cooling experienced in recent centuries.
8. Cool and cold weather kills many more people than warm or hot weather, even in warm climates. There are about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths every year in the USA and about 10,000 in Canada.
9. Green energy schemes have needlessly driven up energy costs, reduced electrical grid reliability and contributed to increased winter mortality, which especially targets the elderly and the poor.
10. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society. When politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer and die. That is the tragic legacy of false global warming alarmism.
Allan MacRae, P.Eng., Calgary, June 12, 2015
References:
“CARBON DIOXIDE IS NOT THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING:
THE FUTURE CAN NOT CAUSE THE PAST”
By Allan MacRae, January 2008
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
Spreadsheet at
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRaeFig5b.xls
“COLD WEATHER KILLS 20 TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE AS HOT WEATHER“
By Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae, September 4, 2015
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
________________________________________________________________________
ADDENDA:
A. RE POINT #1 ABOVE: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ~9-MONTH CO2 LAG AND THE AVERAGE ~36-MONTH TEMPERATURE CYCLE IN THE EQUATORIAL PACIFIC.
Introduction:
I proved in January 2008 that the rate-of-change dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with global atmospheric temperature, and its integral the atmospheric CO2 trend lags temperature by ~9 months.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
– See Figures 1 and 3
The integral of a sine curve lags the sine curve by 90 degrees, which equals 1/4 of the 360 degree full cycle.
CO2 lags temperature by about 9 months, therefore this total cycle time should be about 4×9 = 36 months.
Hypothesis:
This approx. 36 month cycle is the Equatorial Pacific Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Cycle and the Global Temperature cycle.
Equatorial Pacific Ocean SST’s and global atmospheric temperatures have a natural temperature cycle (peak-to-peak) averaging about 36 months peak-to-peak.
For example, based on UAH LT temperature peaks, the mean cycle is 36.3 months and the lag is 9.1 months vs the approx. 9 months in my 2008 icecap.us paper.
The above Hypothesis is supported by the evidence.
B. GLOBAL ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURES CLOSELY FOLLOW EQUATORIAL PACIFIC OCEAN TEMPERATURES WITH A 4-to-6 MONTH LAG
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/solar-activity-flatlines-weakest-solar-cycle-in-200-years/#comment-2341336
Summary:
The Equatorial Pacific Ocean has a natural Sea Surface Temperature cycle averaging about 36 months peak-to-peak.
Equatorial average air temperature and humidity follow Equatorial Pacific Ocean temperature – about 3 months after the Nino34 SST Anomaly and about 5 months after the East Equatorial Upper Ocean Temperature Anomaly.
Global average air temperature follows Equatorial average air temperature and humidity about 1 month later – about 4 months after the Nino34 SST Anomaly and about 6 months after the East Equatorial Upper Ocean Temperature Anomaly.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1458004480943776&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1618235531587336&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
Notes:
“Sato” is an adjustment for the Sato Global Mean Optical Depth Index – the volcanic atmospheric aerosol index.
Formula: UAHLTcalc Global (Anom. in degC) = 0.20*Nino3.4IndexAnom (four months earlier) + 0.15 – 8*SatoGlobalMeanOpticalDepthIndex
Data: Sato Global Mean Aerosol Optical Depth at 550 nm https://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/strataer/tau.line_2012.12.txt
C: ALSO RE POINT #1 ABOVE: HUMLUM ET AL REACHED SIMILAR CONCLUSIONS IN 2013:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658
“Highlights:
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5–10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
– Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980.
– Changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.”
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1551019291642294&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
D. CONCLUSIONS:
I suggest that the global warming alarmists could not be more wrong. These are the true facts, which are opposite to their alarmist claims:
1. CO2 is plant food, and greater atmospheric CO2 is good for natural plants and also for agriculture.
2. Earth’s atmosphere is clearly CO2-deficient and the current increase in CO2 (whatever the causes) is net strongly beneficial.
3. Increased atmospheric CO2 does not cause significant global warming – regrettable because the world is too cold and about to get colder.
Regards to all, Allan
next up, flipping Pruit
Not likely to happen, but he may lose his job for other reasons.
You’re incapable of defending your position, Steve. So is Zeke Hausfather and so is Rich Muller.
To be charitable, you can be excused because you’re incompetent, even if insistent. However, those among your group who are not incompetent (if any) are lying.
You people are guilty of the worst abuse of science, ever. You and your partners in crime are guilty of the excess winter deaths due to fuel poverty, as benighted politicians follow your lead. Be it on your head.
Every winter brings CACA pushers ever closer to the death toll of their eugenics-pushing predecessors.
Every winter brings CACA pushers ever closer to the death toll of their eugenics-pushing predecessors…
And millions of kids died from malaria due to the ban on DDT .
The DDT ban and malaria, Excess Winter deaths from fuel poverty, lung disease from green opposition to fossil fuel energy in the developing world, the list goes on…
Radical greens are the great killers of our time.
What he didn’t need to do is throw the cause of skeptical science to the wolves.
He didn’t throw anything to the wolves. I am skeptical and I fully agree with what he said. And with what he didn’t say too. He for sure didn’t talk about climate sensitivity (which can be very low while still accepting that the majority of the warming since 1950b could have been caused by us) nor about believing anything close to the climate models predictions about the future, nor did he say that climate change is a problem, let alone “the most important” one. He gave away to journalists the most that could be given to let the case rest. I think he did it well.
There is no evidence whatsoever that the majority of warming since the 1950s has been caused by us, and all the evidence in the world against that unsupported conjecture.
For starters, the world cooled dramatically from the 1940s to the 1970s, all the while CO2 was increasing. Then the PDO flipped, and we enjoyed mild warming for over 20 years, until the super El Nino of 1999. Then Earth’s temperature at best stayed flat until the super El Nino of 2016. Since then, it has resumed cooling.
Where is the man-made CO2 signature in those observations of physical reality?
I agree that there is no proof of the +50%, however it is perfectly possible and there is no definitive proof against it either. I feel about that sentence a bit like I feel when discussing NASA GISS temperatures. I don’t necesarily believe them, there’s a lot of messing and adjusting of historical data, always cooling the past, but whether they are right or they exagerate too much is not an important point worth the effort of fighting it. Temperatures can be what GISS claim that they are and still Global Warming be a no-problem. Human contribution percentage can be above 50% and still Global Warming be a no-problem. Let’s admit them for the sake of the argument and to avoid some nasty name-calling and concentrate on the actual critical points: Global Warming is still quite small and mostly beneficial. None of the fatal consequences that alarmists claim that will come can actually be detected yet in the historical data, except for increasingly bad heat waves, which come together with decreasingly bad cold waves.
Good comments Felix.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/06/nasa-reports-massive-hole-in-suns-atmosphere/#comment-2323227
meteorologist in research wrote:
“If the temperature of the planet goes down for a statistically meaningful amount of time then AGW will be falsified.”
Agreed m-i-r, but this has already happened, when Earth cooled from ~1940 to ~1977, even as atmospheric CO2 accelerated, so the CAGW hypo is already falsified.
The CAGW hypo is also falsified as follows:
The upper-bound estimate of Transient Climate Sensitivity of ~1C/(2xCO2) by Christy and McNider (2017) is highly credible for the satellite era from ~1979 to mid-2017. This upper bound was calculated assuming (conservatively, for the sake of simplicity and clarity) that ALL the observed warming in the satellite era was due to increasing atmospheric CO2. This maximum climate sensitivity is so low that there is NO credible global warming crisis.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/2017_christy_mcnider-1.pdf
I have searched and found NO credible evidence that catastrophic human-made global warming exists in reality. None!
Incidentally, using the same assumptions as Christy and McNider, the TCS for the period ~1940 to ~1977 is about MINUS 1C/(2xCO2).
Furthermore, I proved in 2008 that the velocity dCO2/dt changes contemporaneously with global temperature, and its integral atmospheric CO2 changes ~9 months later. This clear signal can only exist if TCS is very small. See also Humlum et al (2013) for a similar observation.
Practically speaking, if TCS exists at all in significance, it must be very low, probably a positive number less than 0.5C/(2xCO2), or even lower.
In summary, the catastrophic human-made global warming crisis has already been disproved.
Yes I see your point.
It’s like a statement carefully worded to appease but doesn’t really admit much.
And also he doesn’t talk about actions that need to be taken, which is what really counts.
But the problem is he has stated that
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/389168-nasa-head-no-reason-to-doubt-climate-change-science
Which I disagree with completely.
Maybe a congressional committee should ask him what he’s read, and wt arguments have been put to him, that have changed his views. Then those authors and advisors should be interrogated, along with their critics.
Jack Schmitt for NASA Administrator, climate skeptic and the only scientist on the moon
He’s raised a flag. So watch it, and give him the initial benefit of the doubt. If he get’s on and does what he’s there to do, then that’s not so bad.
Evidently he didn’t read about how Trump reacted to Macron of France stabbing him in the back.
He might just suffer the fate Trump desires of Macron.
I guess he just reads the wrong stuff.
That was people-kind Trudeau (avec un coup de coude Francais).
Gee, I guess this makes him a lukewarmer.
Can somebody make a freedom of information request to obtain the documentation that caused this change of opinion?
If the head of the EPA has to document his opinion, https://www.peer.org/assets/docs/epa/6_4_18_Pruitt_climate_ruling.pdf, then so should the head of NASA.
As far as I know he is looking to actually sell the ISS to private buyers! And with private manned launches way behind, NASA will pay Russia to run the ISS, all of it. Trump want’s something bigger than this, back to the Moon. So far all the big projects are being sliced up by his Wall Street advisor. The 3 Trillion infrastructure plan he promised for example. He must fire Wall Street. His promised Glass-Steagall, at the immanent crash now looming would do just that. Then NASA can get a real mission, again. Until then we will get frivolous fidgeting.
“And with private manned launches way behind”
The only reason ‘private manned launches’ aren’t launching yet is because NASA keeps demanding much higher levels of safety than Soyuz or the Shuttle. They’d rather launch astronauts on an antique Soviet rocket than a modern American rocket. If manned launches were actually considered important, SpaceX could have been doing them several years ago.
I read a lot too. But more importantly I watch what happens in the atmosphere. Mr. Bridenstine would do well to set aside the papers, walk away from the computer screen, and just stand outside and watch a thunderstorm. That’s what happens to heat. Blasted into space.
Is this why Trump is coming home early? I hope so.
At a party this weekend:
“Jim Bridenstine, I’d like you to meet Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada.
“Mr. Prime Minister, this is the fellow from NASA about whom I was speaking.
“I’m certain that you gentlemen will soon have lots in common to talk about.”
“I heard a lot of experts, and I read a lot,” …What was he reading, Marvel Comics?
Fire him now
I still am trying to understand why NASA even has a climate group in GISS. Atmospheric studies should be the mission of NOAA. The only atmospheric properties NASA needs to understand is those affecting the flight of aircraft and spacecraft when in the atmosphere. NASA has the mission of making sure NOAA’s space-based sensors and experiments get into the correct orbit or sub-orbital trajectory. If I were the Pres. I’d tell the NASA head to ship the whole lot of GISS climate scientists off to NOAA, and give the NOAA administrator orders to keep his total headcount at the same level – lay off anyone in a duplicate job.
When someone says they are a “true believer” concerning science, a barring order should be requested by science to keep that individual away from it
Might give the guy a break. He and his family & friends may have been threatened……
As Ozzy Man famously said when contarsting Mexican and Australian weather forecasts, “no one gives a shit”;-). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePG6zUYvUZg
CAGW-believers care not a whit about facts and science. Their goal is to advance the social objective of redistribution of wealth under the mantra of the ends justify the means. An increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is deemed to cause a significant increase in global temperature, a priori. Serious debate is rejected as a pointless exercise.
The rate of increase (first derivative) of the global mean temperature trend-line equation (green curve) has been constant or steadily decreasing since October 2000. The HadCRUT4 temperature anomaly has decreased by nearly 44 percent from March 2016, the El Nino peak, to March 2018. The rate of change of the trend-line (red curve) will likely become negative within the next 20 years, reaching the lowest global mean trend-line temperature in almost 40 years. (draft ref: An-Analysis-of-the-Mean-Global-Temperature-in-2031 at http://www.uh.edu/nsm/earth-atmospheric/people/faculty/tom-bjorklund/) Lower temperatures could persist for decades.
In November 2016 Rosenbaum at Caltech posited that nature cannot be modeled with classical physics but theoretically might be modeled with quantum physics. (http://www.caltech.edu/news/caltech-next-125-years-53702)
In the article “Global atmospheric particle formation from CERN CLOUD measurements,” sciencemag.org, 49 authors concluded “Atmospheric aerosol nucleation has been studied for over 20 years, but the difficulty of performing laboratory nucleation-rate measurements close to atmospheric conditions means that global model simulations have not been directly based on experimental data….. The CERN CLOUD measurements are the most comprehensive laboratory measurements of aerosol nucleation rates so far achieved, and the only measurements under conditions equivalent to the free and upper troposphere.” (December 2, 2016, volume 354, Issue 6316) The article emphasizes the importance of replacing theoretical calculations in models with laboratory measurements.
Contrast these facts with, Bridenstine’s comments to NASA employees: “I also know that we, human beings, are contributing to it in a major way. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. We’re putting it into the atmosphere in volumes that we haven’t seen, and that greenhouse gas is warming the planet. That is absolutely happening, and we are responsible for it,” he added. “NASA is the one agency on the face of the planet that has the most credibility to do the science necessary so that we can understand it better than ever before.” The comments have no substance.
Bridenstine seems to be in no mood to challenge orthodox thinking on climate change. NASA is marching in lock-step with the CAGW alarmists crowd and has no credibility on the subject of climate change. Bridenstine’s appointment as NASA Administrator appears to be a huge mistake.