The Green New Deal Is This Generation’s Moon Shot
Sending humans to the moon was a choice. Saving the earth is a necessity.By D.D. GuttenplanTwitter JULY 29, 2019
What is it about the left and the space program? Back in the summer of ’69—long before he became The Nation’s lead editorial writer—the late Andrew Kopkind pointed out the inextricable ties between American militarism on earth and our country’s higher aspirations.
“We Aim at the Stars (But Hit Quang Tri),” he wrote, decrying a system “that swells the profits of the biggest military/space corporations without changing the system of distribution of those profits one whit.” Critics might say we’re still at it, still harshing the national buzz by noticing those on whose backs that giant leap was launched—just as we did at the time, when The Nation impertinently remarked that amid all the talk about “the blackness of space,” the faces on the screen were uniformly white.
So perhaps this is an odd place to confess my lifelong love affair with space.
[…]
The Green New Deal won’t be easy to pass—or to deliver. As President Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard.” Building the postcarbon economy we desperately need while unraveling the noose of inequality around our necks will be a gigantic undertaking. That’s the good news. The bad news is that unlike going to the moon, saving the earth isn’t an option. It’s a necessity.
D.D. Guttenplan is editor of The Nation and the author, most recently, of The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority (Seven Stories Press).
The Nation
Let’s get this out of the way first…
“Mr. Guttenplan, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Billy Madison, 1995, Paraphrased
At no point in Mr. Guttenplan’s rambling, incoherent essay was he even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought.
While it was a difficult, expensive and challenging endeavor, the “Moon Shot” had a defined, fixed objective which could be achieved with well-established aerospace engineering methods.
The Green New Deal has no fixed definition. There’s no way to know when it will have been achieved. And, most importantly, climate change, whether natural or anthropogenic, is no threat at all to Earth (AKA the planet).
The only way that the Green New Deal is analogous to the “Moon Shot” is that both are or were choices. We chose to go to the Moon. We can choose to destroy our economy… Or we can just choose to go back to the Moon again
The “Moon Shot” was the budgetary equivalent of NASA spending its entire budget on one program for 13 years.
In 1961, when President John F. Kennedy committed the nation to sending an astronaut to the moon “before this decade is out,” the federal budget enjoyed a surplus and economists were calling for government spending to stimulate the economy.
Even so, the final price tag still boggles the mind. Between 1960 and 1973, NASA spent $28 billion developing the rockets, spacecraft and ground systems needed for what became the Apollo program. According to a recent analysis by the Planetary Society, that translates into an estimated $288.1 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.That’s roughly equivalent to spending NASA’s current annual budget on a single project and sustaining that effort for more than a decade.
CBS News
People can argue whether or not the Apollo program was worth the expense… I clearly think it was. However, it was not an economically disruptive project. It was never more than a small percentage of the Federal budget.
It’s impossible to even guess how much the Green New Deal would cost… Because we don’t even know what it actually is.
Senator Edward Markey and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released a fourteen-page resolution[8] for their Green New Deal on February 7, 2019. According to The Washington Post (February 11, 2019), the resolution calls for a “10-year national mobilization” whose primary goals would be:[46]
“Guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States.”
“Providing all people of the United States with – (i) high-quality health care; (ii) affordable, safe, and adequate housing; (iii) economic security; and (iv) access to clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and nature.”
“Providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States.”
“Meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources.”
“Repairing and upgrading the infrastructure in the United States, including . . . by eliminating pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible.”
“Building or upgrading to energy-efficient, distributed, and ‘smart’ power grids, and working to ensure affordable access to electricity.”
“Upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification.”
“Overhauling transportation systems in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible, including through investment in – (i) zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing; (ii) clean, affordable, and accessible public transportation; and (iii) high-speed rail.”
“Spurring massive growth in clean manufacturing in the United States and removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and industry as much as is technologically feasible.”
“Working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible.”
Wikipedia
Contrast that Billy Madison-worthy manifesto with…
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard.”
President John F. Kennedy, 1961
A rambling manifesto vs. a specific objective.
The Heritage Foundation estimated that the cost of the Green New Deal’s carbon tax alone would be $3.9 trillion and 1.4 million lost jobs. Estimates of the costs vary widely, in part due to its ill-defined parameters.
In February 2019, the centre-right American Action Forum, estimated that the plan could cost between $51–$93 trillion over the next decade.[75] They estimate its potential cost at $600,000 per household.[76] The organization estimated the cost for eliminating carbon emissions from the transportation system at $1.3–2.7 trillion; guaranteeing a job to every American $6.8–44.6 trillion; universal health care estimated close to $36 trillion.[77] According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Wall Street is willing to invest significant resources toward GND programs, but not unless Congress commits to moving it forward.[78]
Wikipedia
The IPCC’s SR 1.5 indicated that it would take a $240/gal tax on gasoline and $122 trillion to fight the Global War on Weather in order to stay below the arbitrary 1.5 ˚C warming limit. Which is basically where we are now without wasting $122 trillion and destroying the Free World.
RCP4.5 is a strong mitigation scenario with the atmospheric CO2 concentration leveling off below 540 ppm in the second half of the 21st century.
RCP 4.5:
The RCP 4.5 is developed by the MiniCAM modeling team at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI). It is a stabilization scenario where total radiative forcing is stabilized before 2100 by employment of a range of technologies and strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The scenario drivers and technology options are detailed in Clarke et al. (2007). Additional detail on the simulation of land use and terrestrial carbon emissions is given by Wise et al (2009).The MiniCAM-team responsible for developing the RCP 4.5 are:
RCP Database
Allison Thomson, Katherine Calvin, Steve Smith, Page Kyle, April Volke, Pralit Patel, Sabrina Delgado, Ben Bond-Lamberty, Marshall Wise, Leon Clarke and Jae Edmonds
Spending $122 trillion to stay below the arbitrary 1.5 ˚C warming limit, when we’re already just about there, would be like calling for a “Moon Shot” while Neil Armstrong was in the process of manually landing Eagle on the Moon.
AOC should stick to solving world hunger.
Because she’s going to need to figure out how to feed 3.5 billion people after she bans natural gas.
Elsewhere accused me of being stuck with 70’s science, out of date & touch.
Arrhenius proposed the RGHE in 1896. Spencer Weart noted that Savante’s contemporaries considered him full of baloney back then. In 1909 R. W. Wood debunked RGHE through experimentation. Classical science back when it had some semblance of integrity.
RGHE is over 120 years old. How current is that?
Now for something completely contemporaneous: the UCLA Diviner mission.
Point the First
UCLA considers 71.6 F to be the earth’s “average” temperature, about 22 C. That doesn’t mesh w/ IPCC’s & WMO’s 15 C or Trenberth/NOAA’s 16 C. So much for scientific consensus.
Point the Twoth
Per UCLA the moon is blazing hot on the lit side and bitter cold on the dark, the 2nd most extreme variation in the solar system, because it has not an insulating atmosphere like the earth.
Hmmmm.
The extremely obvious corollary is that without the atmosphere the earth would be much like the moon (Nikolov & Kramm knew it, wouldn’t say it.) that is: blistering hot on the lit side and bitter cold on the dark, a total contradiction and refutation of RGHE that postulates exactly the opposite.
The 30% reflective albedo created and sustained by the atmosphere cools the earth compared to no atmosphere.
The atmosphere’s insulating properties, i.e. thermal resistance, is how come the surface is warmer than the ToA just like a house.
And RGHE/man caused climate change/global warming take it right in the shorts!
*Roughly* 15 C has been the average surface temperature of the Earth over the past 100 years or so.
And will be for the next 100 years or so…
15 Celsius is the optimal temperature for photosynthesis, above 40 Celsius and below 0 Celsius and it won’t happen at all. This average temperature has been more or less the same since the Earth cooled despite variations in CO2 atmospheric concentration. It is the political Left that is driving the climate scare, not observation and common sense.
What was his lab experiment?
Robert W. Wood’s note describing his greenhouse experiment can be found here (https://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/08/revisiting-woods-1909-greenhouse-box-experiment-part-i/) among many other places. The experiment has been performed by many other people over the years, including Dr. Roy Spencer’s repeat. The results vary wildly, from producing the same (or similar) results to producing exactly the opposite results. Dr. Spencer’s experiment gave opposite results (https://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/08/revisiting-woods-1909-greenhouse-box-experiment-part-ii/).
My personal anecdotal experience rather supports Wood’s result. In the mid-1980s, I worked in San Bernardino, CA – a desert hothouse if ever there was one. I had a black sports car with black leather interior, and a large expanse of window surface (i.e. a lot of opportunity for the sun to shine in). Not surprisingly, the parked car would be an oven by mid-day…that is, unless I cracked the windows on both sides just 1/4 of an inch. Then it was actually comfortable. The only difference was adding convection as a mode of heat transfer.
Michael,
OSHA requires surfaces over 140 F, 60 C, 333 K to be insulated or guarded to protect workers from contact. Why 140 F? They conducted studies and experiments and found that most people would recoil from contact with a surface at 140 F and their skin would show a red mark.
How hot was the hood of your black car? Bet you couldn’t leave your hand on it so well over 140 F.
If this car were on the moon where the vacuum allows only radiation as a heat transfer process the hood’s equilibrium temperature would be 394 K, 121 C, 250 F at 1,368 W/m^2 and emissivity = 1.0, it emits equal to what it absorbs.
But in the presence of a contiguous participating media, i.e. atmospheric molecules, the non-radiative processes of conduction, convection, advection and latent cool that surface and radiation emits less than the total absorbed.
Assume a bright clear day albedo of 15%, 1,163 W/m^2 reaching the surface, 378 K, 105 C, 222 F.
Let’s say the measured equilibrium temperature of the hood is 200 F, 93 C, 366 K and 1,021 W/m^2.
That means that 347 W/m^2 are leaving by the non-radiative processes and 1,021 W/m^2 by radiation for an emissivity of 87.8 % (1,021/1,163).
A light breeze springs up increases the rate of (cond & conv = advection) and the cooling effect drops the hood temperature to 150 F, 66 C, 339 K and 745 W/m^2
That means that 418 W/m^2 are leaving by the non-radiative processes and 745 W/m^2 by radiation for an emissivity of 64.1 % (745/1,163).
A rain shower passes by and drops the temperature of the hood to a touchable 90 F, 32 C, 305 K and 492 W/m^2.
That means that 671 W/m^2 are leaving by the non-radiative processes and 492 W/m^2 by radiation for an emissivity of 42.3 % (492/1,163).
This would make a really interesting HS science faire project.
This same process applies to the surface of the earth.
160 W/m^2 reach the surface. 17 W/m^2 leave by convection, 80 by latent leaving 63 by radiation for an emissivity of 39.4%, (63/160).
At the theoretical “what if” BB surface temperature at 289 K power flux is 396 W/m^2 and the emissivity would 63/396 = 0.16.
Because of the chaotic non-radiative processes of the contiguous participating media, aka atmospheric molecules, BB radiation from the surface is not possible.
The 396 W/m^2 upwelling does not exist.
The net 333 W/m^2 up/down/”back” loop does not exist.
GHGs have no input energy and no output emission.
No RGHE, no GHG warming, no man caused climate change.
RGHE stands for exactly what?
It could be radiative green house effect or it might be…
Yes, Radiative Green House Effect.
I’m not inclined to explain the acronyms.
If you have done the homework you know them.
If you haven’t done the homework, sit quiet and listen.
Oh Nick, you are incorrect, a vacuum is insulation and, relatively, air is conductive, but that effect has nothing to do with GHE. Earth is warmer with its atmosphere than without, due to the radiative effect of water vapor and CO2 in the atmosphere. Just plug Tground, Tsky, and Touterspace, emissivity of N2, emissivity of CO2 into SB equation until you figure it out….
DMac
What are these T’s?
I assume they together w/ S-B are used to calc up/down welling W/m^2.
Correct?
Earth has oceans. Oceans hold 999x the heat that the atmosphere holds. As the Chicago weatherman says warmer by the lake.
Only in the winter. In summer, it’s cooler by the Lake.
David
“Spending $122 trillion to stay below the arbitrary 1.5 ˚C warming limit, when we’re already just about there, would be like calling for a “Moon Shot” while Neil Armstrong was in the process of manually lading (Landing the ?) Eagle on the Moon.
Great post….again
signed
Your friendly, 6 hour delayed pest….lol
When I refer to ships, I treat their names as names.
Example “USS Enterprise“, not “the USS Enterprise“. If I was referring to Enterprise as an aircraft carrier, it would be “the aircraft carrier.”
When Neil Armstrong radioed, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,”… He technically should have said, “Eagle has landed.” But, he was kind of excited, or at least as excited as he ever got. In radio traffic, the spacecraft were generally referred to by their names, without a “the” article. On the other hand, if they were simply referring to the types of spacecraft, it would be appropriate to say “the lunar module,” “the LEM,” “the command module.”
David
I was also pointing out your typing error..( lading instead of landing)
p.s. I’m amazed my comment got posted in less than 6 hours…Darn “Dog House”….lol
Cheers
“Example “USS Enterprise“, not “the USS Enterprise“. If I was referring to Enterprise as an aircraft carrier, it would be “the aircraft carrier.””
Exactly right. That’s why it irks me so when Californians refer to Interstate 5 as “the 5”, as they tend to do with all their highways.
Did you hear about the new restaurant that opened up on the moon? I heard the food is great,but there’s no atmosphere.
Interestingly, though labeled ‘Rimshot’, it is not. The rudiment used is a ‘flam-tap’, with the flam on the surface of the snare, and the tap on the cymbal. A nice effect, nonetheless.
Come on Mr. Nitpicker Fraser !
“Rimshot” is just a common name for a sound effect that’s somehow supposed to make a bad joke better, but doesn’t.
I would like to hear that sound effect after every sentence by Alexandria Occasionally Coherent.
It doesn’t matter that “rim shot” means something else to a real drummer — the world is going to end in 18 months (Prince Charles) and YOU are teaching drumming fundamentals !
A rim shot is a percussion technique used to produce an accented snare drum back beat. The sound is produced by simultaneously hitting the rim and head of a drum with a drum stick.
LOL! i’m moonstruck! or maybe i’m a LUNAtic!
The Green New Deal is this generation’s Mein Kampf . Is it worth saving?
Keep it and file it away here…
The analogue isn’t the Apollo program it’s the Holodomor or the Great Leap Forward.
I’d go with the Great Leap Forward… and just say no!
What most people don’t understand is that the Great Leap Forward (and many similar events, like Stalin’s work in Russia or the Khmer Rouge) was a huge success.
The reason people don’t realize those programs were successful is because they don’t understand what they were really supposed to accomplish.
1) To radically industrialize their mostly agrarian nation.
2) To kill off a large percentage of their no longer needed subsistence farmers.
Welcome to Communism, where The State is more important then The People.
~¿~
So ….. purpose of the GND … Moon us .
😉
GND is also where electricity goes when you are done with it and it is no longer useful.
“The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority – The Nation”
Another BIIIIG Lie. They’re a tiny minority, shrinking more every day, who follow Rules for Radicals #1: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.”
Every time I hear the lament, “What has the moon shot ever done for us?” I cringe and fight the urge to become annoyed until I remind myself the ignorance just stated is a sort of general ignorance as to what science and engineering from the space programs alone has added to the life experiences of the general public.
Just few examples might enlighten them as to how space programs have changed their lives and where many of the items they take for granted came from and would probably not have existed were it not created for another more exotic need. Firstly lets remember that the space program pretty much began in earnest when the captured German scientists were brought back to the US after WWII (early ’50s). Its been cranking since then.
Lets just look at one very small but extremely important aspect of space programs; materials science and engineering. The field that discovers and creates all these fancy materials we now have.(not my field, I design)
Aluminized mylar (that shiny stuff we used to call …space blankets) spawned from the need to create a stable light weight highly reflective material. It was originally developed by Eastman/DuPont for photographic film used in high altitude cameras of the day. BUT, holy cow does it also have some fantastic other properties, its air tight, sunlight proof as well. A perfect fit for perishable storage containers (and every potato chip bag today is made from some variation of that material). In 1964 NASA sort of kicked off another first with a huge inflatable reflective sphere which portended all those fanciful colorful party balloons which have almost continental flight capabilities before drifting into power lines and causing disruptions. Seems while they were developing this wonder material they were also stringing up power lines with out considering that we be dropping tinsel down on them in 50 yrs.
We can create wonders, but we still can’t fix stupid.
Tang.
But seriously, every technological advance has spinoffs that repay its original expense. One thing builds on multiple predecessors so that it becomes pointless to try to calculated direct benefits.
Next time YOU pay for the 1969 Apollo moon mission rocket scientist, and the half dozen missions that followed.
All a HUGE waste of taxpayer money.
Not that a so-called “rocket scientist” would see it that way.
The amount of money wasted on Apollo missions, including all prior missions, was about $500 billion +/- $200 billion, in 2019 dollars … minus the value of the moon rocks and dust brought back.
There was nothing on the moon of value.
We knew that, and went there anyway.
That is one definition of insanity, in my opinion.
Any secondary benefit from the very expensive research and development needed to get to the moon would have been invented anyway, maybe a few years down the road.
Great to know we spent $500 billion and now have better material potato chip bags.
Then give up and not use everything you own or use that relies upon satellites AND thejobs and taxes added to the economy from the advancements obtained by the Space program and NASA.
Like Satellite Communications, Satellite TV, GPS, Cellphone location and emergency response capabilities, advances in astronomical Science, satellite laser communications networks,
Are you arguing that if we hadn’t gone to the moon, we wouldn’t have any satellites today?
I’m not going to try to list all (or even most) of the things we got out of the Apollo program to prove just how wrong Richard is. Others will undoubtedly do so, and do a better job then I ever could.
No I’m going to turn it around and come at it from the opposite side. Every dime NASA spent on the Apollo program would have been spent anyway, on the nearly the exact same technologies, if NASA hadn’t existed. It would have been spent in the name of Ballistic Missiles and high altitude aircraft. And then, since much of it would have been kept secret by the Military, it would have been spent AGAIN by anyone wanting to develope Satellite communication, weather monitoring, or astrophysics.
Assuming anyone other then a government even COULD have done it. We could have easily ended up waiting till someone like Musk came along before anything like that got off the ground. Heck, would Musk even be able to stir up the funding he does if NASA hadn’t already proven that it was possible?
~¿~
There is nothing that was used in the space program that wasn’t already in development, if not already in the market.
We went to the moon using kerosene, a fossil fuel, while The path to the green new deal is merely paved with good intentions.
And liquid hydrogen, which is also derived from fossil fuels.
Mercury to Appolo:
Let’s light this candle!”
Green new deal:
“Let’s find the candle-it”s getting dark!”
Gonna have to disagree with you on this one, David. I’m guessing AOC could throw a really impressive Moon Shot! What? You mean the kind with rockets and capsules and stuff? Oh, never mind.
That was good, Ron. I enjoyed the laugh +100
Jim
GND: Loon Shot.
These global warmists folk are technologically in the 18th Century – wind and solar. It would be easy as hell to remove carbon emissions – molten salt small modular reactors n easily accomplish that and the cost would be less than one trillion for theU.S. and that would also supply all the power an electric transportation fleet requires. These global warmists are stupid all over – both in their exaggerated claims about warming and their absurdly stupid solutions.
Not sure about electric aircraft. But one can always hope.
Electric works fine for large blimps. Slower than planes but a lot faster than ships.
The problem with LTA’s (Zeppelins and Blimps) is that they have difficulty traversing high altitudes as thy must dump gas overboard via ballonets or otherwise to avoid rupture during ascent and then need to repressurize upon descent. Often they cannot carry enough to re inflate properly during descent and because buoyancy by compression gasses is a meta-stable situation (positive feed back – you lose buoyancy as you sink) they crash.
They are also highly vulnerable to weather conditions that conventional planes can handle with little difficulty.
GND: Solving made up problems with yesteryear’s technology.
I see two analogies between the “Moon Shot” and the Red New Deal. One, they are both unconstitutional. The US government has no authority either to explore space or to manipulate the climate. Two, they are both built on lies: the “national security” excuse for Kennedy’s boondoggle; the failed computer models of the Climageddon cult.
“. . . they are both unconstitutional.”
The hell you say. The preamble of the US Constitution specifically cites “. . . promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” as a reason for its existence. The fact that the US moon program enhanced the general welfare of the United States is indisputable. The blessings of the liberty of the majority of US citizens to stand in support of this governmentally-directed program stand as one prime example of the insightful wisdom of the authors of the Constitution.
Gordon Dressler, as the Constitution itself states and all the Founders attested, the document grants the national government only a few, specific powers. (See “Enumerated Powers.”) All other actions are explicitly forbidden to the national government and reserved the States and the People (Amendment 10).
To read the preamble as negating the rest of the document is absurd, though fairly common. As the Father of the Constitution, James Madison, wrote: “If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.”
By the way, JFK implicitly recognized this when he pretended that the moon shot was about national defense (a power that is granted the national government in the Constitution).
As did Ike with the Interstate Highway System.
That said, Article I, Section 8 was intended to be a little more flexible than that…
Unfortunately, we now have a whole lot of precedents for public works spending.
David Middleton, that section buttresses my point. Madison never thought any part of the Constitution was “flexible.” Indeed, if the founders had wanted a “Whatever seems good unto Thee, O King” kind of government, they wasted a lot of bullets getting out from under one.
“The plan of the convention declares that the power of Congress, or, in other words, of the NATIONAL LEGISLATURE, shall extend to certain enumerated cases. This specification of particulars evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd, as well as useless, if a general authority was intended.” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #83
I absolutely agree with you on the intent of the Constitution. I’m pointing out that Madison appears to have anticipated that “precedents” would eventually make public works spending “constitutional.” Madison’s Federalist Papers provide a great explanation of how the Constitution would constrain the Federal government. Unfortunately, there were workarounds.
Regarding Hamilton, he more or less crawfished Federalist #83 when it became inconvenient.
damp, OK . . . the details then (beyond David Middleton’s comments).
In Section 8 “Powers of Congress”, the following is stated as one power of the Federal government (specifically, “the Congress”): “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States . . .” So the the phrase “promote the General Welfare” found in the preamble is found as the Section 8 specifically-enumerated power “to provide for the . . . general Welfare of the United States.”
So, in fact, the preamble does not negate the rest of the Constitution, as you claim . . . it reinforces its intent in this regard.
Perhaps you are unaware that Madison also wrote “it was impossible to confine a Government to the exercise of express powers; there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication, unless the Constitution descended to recount every minutia.” (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution). Hence, the phrase “general Welfare”, encompasses things the framers of the Constitution could never even have imagined, let alone enumerated in that document, such as the needs for the Federal government to implement and control:
— commercial radio communications across the US (FCC)
— commercial aviation, rocket launches and space travel involving US airspace (DOT and FAA)
— commercial nuclear power (NREC)
— medical standards in the US (FDA)
— consumer product safety (CPSC)
— environmental pollution limits (EPA)
— anti-discrimination (Civil Rights Act of 1964; Federal EEOC)
If you really believe what you posted, you should be off challenging the constitutionality of each of the above Federal agencies whose purposes are not enumerated in the Constitution, but that nonetheless inarguably provide for the General Welfare of the United States.
It is analogous to a “Moon” shot, just not the one they meant.
/grin
I hate it when the Democrats invoke the Great And Glorious JFK as the Democrat President who had the power to declare a moon mission in a speech and it just happened. As though the Presidency holds the power of the purse and every other power, imperial and autocratic but OK as long as it is a Democrat.
Camelot!
In fact he had some very good speechwriters but not the personal power to launch a mission to the moon.
The Space Race was a military venture start to finish, engendered by the panic created by the Sputnik launch during the Eisenhower administration. We knew the Soviets would establish military hardware in space unless we got there first.
The whole world was poised on the tipping point of another World War, prevented only by the precarious balance of nuclear weapons capability between the two major powers. Any new space capability of the Soviets could have tipped the balance.
It made military sense to get there first, and the “moon shot” made a plausible scientific patina for public consumption.
But ever since that famous speech the Democrats invoke its memory whenever they want to spend a whole lot of money on anything. Clueless.
That would be Saint John, the Kennedy.
America is supposed to be “the land of opportunity”, not “the land of give me what I want so I don’t have to work”. You achieve commensurate to your abilities and drive (and sometimes what you inherit).
What is the point of marshalling logical arguments when the issue you are addressing is NOT LOGICAL?
The Green Deal is a process aimed at retaining a liberal elite in power by scaring the populace. None of the scare stories are true, but they aren’t going to admit that, are they?
Taqiyya is acceptable.
Something good has come out from the Green New Deal….. more people are realizing just how disruptive CC mitigation plans are. The fact that AGW is not the driving force for climate aside, people can see the cost of complying with the lunacy. Revert to an agrarian society? Become a vegetarian? No more private transportation? Forget about airplane flights? Move to a packed vertical city? No more jobs connected in any way to fossil fuels (probably few that are not)? Energy cost so high no one can afford it causing everyone to move to a temperate location. And on and on. Installing wind turbines and solar panels affected very few people compared to the GND. People aren’t stupid enough to take the bait that every job associated with fossil fuels can be replaced with jobs associated with wind and sun power and life will continue as usual.
Man on the moon
It was the first time ever
that man reached his endeavor
to step on the moon
among the craters and the dunes
And the lack of gravity
sort of made them happy
as they hopped along slowly
almost as if they were floating
It was history in the making
as the world stood gazing
at this feat so amazing
And as the astronauts looked upon the earth
knowing that they’re the first
they marveled at this beautiful blue-like marble
their God-given home we call earth
And as they kicked up some moon dust
they gathered up some moon rocks
and picked up their stuff
heading back to their ship
for their return home trip.
written by Dan Cody May 30th,2019
On July 21 of this year,it will mark the 50th anniversary of the first man ever,astronaut Neil Armstrong,to step on the moon followed by his fellow astronaut,Edwin Buzz Aldrin.The Apollo 11 mission,which left earth on July 16,1969,landed on the moon on July 20th,1969.Astronaut Michael Collins stayed in the lunar module orbiter above.As Armstrong stepped on the moon for the first time ever,he said that famous quote,’That’s one small step for man,one giant leap for mankind”.Those 11 words say it all.It was the greatest achievement that man has ever made. – DC
Leave no one behind? If they’re leaving I’ll stay and endure the dooming thanks all the same.
The fundamental meme today from the alarmists is that “climate change” is a BAD THING.
So, let’s start with the most fundamental question: What is the climate that we, the people of Earth, want to have so that we can then fight to prevent any future change in that state.
There are some ancillary questions that logically follow:
— Who decides what that “ideal” climate is?
— How much variability, geographically, are we going to permit so that “ideal” climate is acceptable to all humans on Earth, ranging from inhabitants of forests and tropical islands along the equator to nomads in the deserts of the world to inhabitants near both poles?
— Where is the atmospheric CO2 level to be stabilized to best meet the conflicting needs of land plant growth, ocean life, and global “forcing” so that the IPCC models start working correctly?
— What are the plans for changing Earth’s orbit around the Sun and also the sun’s variability so that we can eliminate all future extraterrestrial forcings upon Earth’s climate (e.g. Milankovitch cycles, Schwabe cycles, deVries cycles, and Dansgaard-Oeschger event periodicities) so as to achieve the “ideal” stable climate?
— What are the estimated total cost and the timeline to achieve the “ideal” stable climate?
I could go on and on, but need I?
The great blogger James Lileks had a wonderful post about the mindset of modern (i.e.Marxist) Democrats. He said that if America worked the way they keep bleating about, rich people would literally have to be going into the poorer parts of the country, grabbing people by the ankles, turning them upside down and stealing whatever came out of their pockets. The fact that they keep pushing this belief is a very clear indicator of the contempt in which they (and their publicity agents e.g. CNN) hold their followers’ intelligence.
Jordan Peterson has some excellent videos explaining the pathology of the doctrine of equal outcome. Check them out when you get a chance. I only wish I had the power to make him the Prime Minister of my country.
The Apollo missions were meant to combat the unelected socialists; the green new deal is meant to embrace the unelected socialists. The Apollo missions were meant to inspire humanity; the green new deal is meant to inhibit humanity. The Apollo missions used verifiable and provable science; the green deal abhors verifiable and provable science.
There is no need for anyone to be worrying about implementing the per se, … Green New Deal, …. via its primary goals of a “10-year national mobilization”, …… simply because none of the stated “to do issues” are technologically feasible of doing.
Saikat Chakrabarti, AOC’s chief of staff, and Corbin Trent, her communications director, would be leaving her congressional office in the next few weeks.
Chakrabarti in a rare bit of honesty has said: “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal, is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all. Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Chakrabarti continued. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”
The Green New Deal is more like a self-inflicted shot to the head than a moon shot.
The GND is analogous to Khmer Rouge times 1,000 – 1 billion humans will pass to archive their goals of total domination, nothing to do with climate. The amount of livestock that will cease to exist is off the charts.
The political goal of going to the Moon was the beat the Communist. There were many valuable tech spin-offs.
The political goal of The Green New Deal is to have the Communist win. No real spin-offs unless you hate birds.
The Green New Deal is not analogous to the “Moon Shot”
The Green New Deal IS analogous to a “Brain Shot” – that is, shooting yourself in the brain.
WHAT THE GREEN NEW DEAL IS REALLY ABOUT — AND IT’S NOT THE CLIMATE
July 20, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/20/what-the-green-new-deal-is-really-about-and-its-not-the-climate/
The Green New Deal is reminiscent of the various German retreats from rationality that gave rise to the Nazis. Seeking to “cure” an non-existent problem would have been typical of those movements, from biodynamic agriculture to eugenics.
“Dr. Green’s new health deal”
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/35984/
Gaea P.(for planet) Earth, an elite athlete in her early 20’s preparing to compete in the decathlon next year, goes for an annual doctors exam with her physician, Dr. AOC Green.
Gaea, is in the office when Dr. Green enters the room.
Dr. Green: Your body is dying. Your heart is giving out. You need a heart transplant within 12 years or you will be dead.
Gaea: How can this be? I never felt better. My performance in every event has been improving the past year. I rarely get sick. What could possibly have caused this?
Dr. Green: It’s all those supplements that you are feeding your body. They are toxic/poisonous. They have destroyed your heart. You must cut them out completely too or they will kill your entire body. You must consume nothing but green, leafy vegetables to provide your body with the energy and nutrients that it needs and do it now or you will be dead soon.
Gaea: Aren’t you at least going to do some tests to have empirical data to base all this on?
Dr. Green: I don’t need to run tests. I am am authority. All the other doctors know that I’m an authority. I am certified by The American Medical Association. The evidence is obvious. You had the flu 2 years ago and earlier this year, you had a cold. This is not natural. It could only have been caused by your terminal condition. My simulated model of your outcome, extrapolates this to exponentially accelerate and result in death soon.
Gaea: Don’t you think that I should at least go to a cardiologist to get a 2nd opinion?
Dr. Green: Absolutely not. I will not tolerate a patient with views like this. My diagnosis is settled. The debate is over. Your are a denier!
Gaea: What is your viable plan to make this happen? Don’t I have to get on a heart transplant list. Don’t I need evidence to show that my heart is failing?
Dr. Green: I’m the doctor, you’re the patient. Don’t question me. I say that your heart only has 12 years left in it…………exactly 12 years I tell you and those toxic nutrients that you are putting into your body are killing you. You must do everything that I tell you right now or you will be dead soon.
Gaea: Yes Dr. Green. I will do exactly as you say because I believe everything that you say. I want to be around long enough to see the newly elected socialist president that I strongly support, finish out their 2nd term in office.
I have spent many hours reading hundreds of respected journals on this subject and there is no doubt in my mind that we can reverse climate change and save the world if we start feeding the cows avocado toast.
Whatever the reasons at the time for going to the moon it was an important step in the long term survival of our species. Sooner or later we are going to get hit with another big rock. It would be in our best interests to put our eggs in more than one basket. ie colonies on other planets, moons, asteroids etc. Loose one, the species survives.
A bunch of losers take easy degrees while in college, then when they graduate and find out that the big money is going to those who actually studied while in college.
They decide that the fault must lie in the system, since it couldn’t possibly lie in themselves, therefore the system is broken and they must fix it so that they can finally start receiving the salaries they have convinced themselves they are entitled to.
The New Green Deal is more analogous to Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution combined, and will have the same results – untold millions dead, economies shattered, untold millions impoverished.
Everyone who wants the “NGD” get in line and we’ll gladly send you to the moon where you can do whatever you want for an economy. I will personally send money for this cause!
Pondering upon the Green New Deal one has to ask what the output would have been had the Good Samaritan been as skint and destitute as the unfortunate traveller.
Since before landing on the moon we started the Great Society under LBJ. Trillions later we went from 10% impoverished to perhaps 15%. After more than 50 years and dumping trillions and trillions into a back hole that does little than to fund an ever growing bureaucracy. That bureaucracy is insane wasting more and more money it claims it needs while its results would be better having done nothing and let everyone figure it out for them selves.
49 years ago we started the original GND, Earth Day. Doom and gloom that was five years from catastrophe that got put to ten years out then 20 and now longer as each “tipping point” was passed and…no doom and gloom! The earth should have starved to death back in 1975, 1980 at the latest as Dr. Paul Erlich predicted. Well he’s still on the payroll telling us now that the end is 50 years away instead of just five like he told us 49 years ago…
Remember, until the leaders walk their talk, they are just blowing smoke…
The Green New Deal has to be one of the stupidest pieces of legislation I have ever heard of; and I refuse to read the full details of what the deal is about to avoid being mentally scarred; but from what I can piece together it calls for 100% carbon neutrality. Basically by that, they want to ban things like lawn mowers and motorized garden tools, barbeques, fire places, gas stoves, generators, motorcycles, cars, pickup trucks, buses (including school buses), emergency vehicles (I: E: ambulances, fire engines,) vans, construction equipment, fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, trains, boats, crematoriums, waste incinerators, heating plants, iron-ore smelters, steel foundries, candy factories, basically any man-made object that emits Co2.
You have to ask yourself, are these disco sticks mad in the head or something? Do they realize how society would collapse if they had to do away with these conveniences? Of course, they are too stupid to realize that they have to abide by the Green New Deal too, and this would make it virtually impossible to carry any of their stupid schemes that the GND is supposed to try and help them achieve.