Ground Control to Major Tom…er Cmdr Chris…

At the conclusion of his stint as commander of the International Space Station, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield signs off with a slick and fitting send-off prior to taking the somewhat hazardous return trip in the Soyuz capsule. Hadfield made a point in this tour of bringing the ISS mission to folks on the ground through link-ups and sing-a-longs with schools, video and photo presentations, and the general esprit de corps that says science, even space science, doesn’t have be all technical and devoid of humanity. The video is, of course, a slightly updated(!) cover of David Bowie’s well-known Space Oddity.

Tracinski: The End of an Illusion

The End of an Illusion By Robert Tracinski, April 4, 2013, RealClear Politics Many years ago, I remember thinking that it would take many years to refute the panicked claims about global warming. Unlike most political movements, which content themselves … Continue reading →

McKittrick: We’re not screwed?

We’re Not Screwed? by Ross McKittrick, Financial Post, April 1, 2013 11,000-year study’s 20th-century claim is groundless We’re screwed: 11,000 years’ worth of ­climate data prove it. — The Atlantic, March 10 The modern rise that has recreated the temperatures … Continue reading →

WUWT: A Big Picture Look At “Earth’s Temperature” – “Extreme Weather

[Ed. Note 1: Cross posted from WUWT. This is a large, valuable, albeit semi-technical, discussion about the validity of the Global Warming meme so righteously (and religiously) promoted by mainstream media, and a variety of catastrophic climate scientists advocates and … Continue reading →

Shaw: Hurricane Warning: McKibben Alert

Hurricane Warning; McKibben Alert By Caleb Shaw August 21, 2012  (Reprinted courtesy WUWT). Forward by Anthony Watts: With Joe Bastardi stating an opening for an east coast hurricane is possible the next three weeks, it might be timely to submit this … Continue reading →

Dyer: Govfall: Or, tell me again why federal courts are ruling on the validity of scientific theories?

Govfall: Or, tell me again why federal courts are ruling on the validity of scientific theories?

by J.E. Dyer, June 28, 2012, Hot Air

We in the US appear to be very close to becoming a theocracy.  The religion in question is not Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, nor is it even environmentalism.  It’s “government infallibilism,” or, as I like to call it, Govfall.  The central tenet of this religion is that government is competent to decide or rule on anything – anything at all, regardless of evidence or lack of it, knowledge or paucity of it, or understanding or dearth of it.

The branch of the US government that represents the proper use of Govfall’s main religious tenet isn’t always the same one (which, frankly, ought to be a clue for believers).  The judicial branch has been, as it were, on the throne of judgment for a number of decades, but Americans have also suffered a few presidents to seat themselves on it, like FDR and Obama.  (Contemporary accounts of FDR’s arbitrary morning decisions on what relationship the dollar should have with gold are a sort of emblem of that political theocrat’s brand of Govfall.)  Congress, which actually represents the people in their hamlets and villages, is rarely the infallible theocrat, but it has had its moments as well (and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has certainly had a habit of speaking in a sort of goofy ex cathedra style).

The fundamental question is why we have come to accept this idea that government can and should rule on unproven theories about global cause and effect, and proceed to govern as if their propositions are “true.”  Setting aside the questionable nature of some theories, why should government take on this role?  Why should anyone?  What is it we think we know or need to accomplish, that we have agreed to submit our futures to this concept of Govfall?

The matter at hand is the D.C. court of appeals ruling on the EPA’s authority to kill economic activity in the name of global warmism.  The ruling describes the EPA’s opinion on global warming and greenhouse gases as “unambiguously correct” – which is a deeply silly formulation for characterizing any scientific theory, but would also have been considered, by our Founders and virtually all federal jurists up until the last 20-30 years, as comprehensively invalid language for any kind of judicial ruling.  Judges aren’t competent to make decisions for the public on this matter.  Their competence is in interpreting the law, not certifying scientific conclusions.

There is a difference, of course, between demonstrated harm and theoretical, yet-to-be-realized harm.  When trash piles up and emits gases into a local area, that can be detected and documented (although rarely “unambiguously,” which is a prohibitively humongous claim in the skeptical realm of science).  When toxic substances are detected in dead fish or decrepit urban trees – substances that actually kill forms of life, not just substances that advocacy groups don’t like – that too is often more certifiable than not, if not necessarily “unambiguous.”  The tradition of empirical, non-religious-based law has some remedies for demonstrated harm: property owners can sue polluters when the pollution, whatever it is, damages or impinges on the full rightful use of their property; legislatures can make laws prohibiting (or managing, as with fees and clean-up requirements) certain defined types of polluting activity.

But when there is no demonstrated harm, but only unproven theories about very generalized, potential, worldwide harm in the future, it is a central question why government, through any of its branches, should be doing anything about it.  This question gets at very basic things:  what we expect of our life in the world, and what we expect of government.

Do we expect human life in the world to need constant supervision from a central authority in order to ward off cataclysm?  Is our view of life pessimistic and fearful in this way?  Do we believe that we are an incontinent, destructive species, as unaware as infants of the damage we do?  Is there an unspecified cosmologic “judgment” hanging over us that we have to organize to avert?  Are we effectively insentient organisms in a system with predetermined processes and outcomes, operating in a universe of deadly limits and shortages?

As for government, do we agree that its job is to enforce on everyone a particular attitude about these matters?  We can’t agree among ourselves, from state to state or town to town, whether very present and material things like prostitution or abortion-on-demand should be legal, but we expect the central government to rule on an inchoate vision of what might happen in the future, however unlikely it may be, and then constrain everyone’s options – for just about everything – based on that ruling.

Why does there need to be an entity with the authority to do that?  We didn’t start our life as a nation with the idea that government should have that authority.  A state government, by its limited geographic nature, cannot effectively exercise such an authority, and our national idea is actually that the central government must not.  Our national idea is limited government and liberty of thought, conscience, and economic endeavor.

If we cannot behave, in our economic lives, as if we think catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is a much-falsified theory waiting for some solid proof, then we are not effectively free to think it.  We are constrained to behave as if we don’t.  That situation differs only by the jackbooted thugs at the door from the lifestyle of people under communist rule, in which you’re free to “think” whatever you want, as long as you say and do only government-approved things, and never speak about or live by your own beliefs.

Sometime in the last century, the weight of sentiment among those who aspire to government jobs, in any role in any of the branches, tilted toward the religion of Govfall.  It has become unendurable to them to think of the people out here doing things they disapprove of, and they have diligently enlarged the purview of government to encompass ruling on ideas and theories – always invoking the supposed disasters and wrongs that government power is either averting or redressing.

In the oft-invoked Galileo v. Pope analogy, today’s Govfall faithful, however much they may want to see themselves as Galileo, are actually “the Pope” (or, technically, the Roman Inquisition).  The Govfall believers are the people insisting on a single, cosmological orthodoxy, in spite of the continued lack of evidence for it and the strong arguments against it.  In the matter of global warmism, their orthodoxy is throwing into informative relief not only their religious attitude about man and the natural world, but the dangers of the religion of Govfall in general.

Just as the papacy could not be infallible on the matter of the earth’s and sun’s places in the solar system, so modern government cannot be infallible on whether the globe is headed for a man-made natural cataclysm.  No human organization can be infallible on something like that.  Being “the government” doesn’t confer special powers of insight or prophecy; it just hands a gun and a badge (or a black robe) to a bunch of ordinary people no smarter than the rest of us.  That’s why our Founders wanted government to be limited and constitutionally restrained: because nothing good comes from expecting too much of the government, or giving it too much to do.

The end result for Galileo and the Pope was that Galileo’s theory became the accepted one, and the papacy eventually changed its policy on inquiring into, or taking sides on, scientific questions.  The Catholic Church was undergoing the “Counter Reformation” throughout the precise period when Galileo lived and wrote, and ultimately, one of that reformation’s chief casualties was the idea of putting the imprimatur of the Holy Church on the material conclusions of politics or science.  Galileo’s personal story had an impact on that, but the change in attitude came at least as much from the Protestant Reformation, the Church’s recognition of internal corruption, the successful revolt of England’s Henry VIII against Rome, and the political turmoil on the continent from the Protestant-Catholic rift.

I see an analogy to these events in the religions of Govfall and global warmism.  Govfall, a cult of central, infallible authority, is the basic problem, and it is the thing that will have to change.  Warmism may well be a focused, singular precipitating factor – one that will be especially memorable in the centuries to come – but there are a number of others that highlight the sclerosis and unsustainability of Govfall.  What history tells us is that a political religion like Govfall is unsustainable.  In one way or another, the people, over time, decide against it.

The American people are waking up to the absurdity of a federal appeals court proclaiming that warmist theory is “unambiguously correct.”  The Govfall religion sits wrong with us, and the evidence of its pervasiveness is piling up.  In the end, it will not be Govfall that triumphs.  The ruling public idea of government will change, in favor of the wisdom of our Founders – and Govfall will fall.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

The 2012 Hurricane Season Gets Underway: Tropical Storm Beryl

Everybody was caught a bit by surprise by the early start of the hurricane and tropical storm season this year. Four named storms have occurred so far, two in the eastern Pacific and two in the western Atlantic. Tropical Storm Beryl is currently pounding down on the southeast US coast around Jacksonville, Florida:

Click on the near real-time radar scan to go to the EWR Atlantic hurricane page for more information on Beryl and access to other advisories.

FP: Vivian Krause: Suzuki’s funding

[Editorial comment: US tax code provides for massive aggregation of monies exempt from corporate tax as foundational "charities", with subsequent significant personal benefit to the principals and donors involved. Unlike in Canada, there are relatively few restrictions on the political use of these foundational grants for "social engineering", and the dollar amounts are staggering. While it's fun to characterize climate "deniers" as being in the pay of "Big Oil", the warchests of Big Green make Big Oil puny by comparison. Explore the World Wildlife Fund sometime, which just raised a million bucks running people up and down the CN Tower in
Toronto, for "Earth" Day. ]

Vivian Krause: Suzuki’s funding

Vivian Krause, Special to Financial Post  Apr 19, 2012 – 9:48 PM ET |Last Updated: Apr 20, 2012 11:40 AM ET

His foundation got $13-million from U.S. groups

More than any other initiative in the 2012 federal budget, the one that struck a chord with Canadians is $8-million for the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to require greater transparency from non-profits with regard to their political activity and foreign funding. An Angus Reid poll found that 80% of Canadians support this move.

Environmentalists, however, feel that they’re being picked on.

David Suzuki has dismissed the focus on U.S. funding as “twisted logic” and “a conspiracy theory.” Further, in an open letter sent last week, Mr. Suzuki, Canada’s foremost environmentalist, suggested that his foundation is being “bullied.” He also announced that he has stepped off the board of his foundation. “I want to speak freely without fear that my words will be deemed too political,” he wrote.

Related: Kelly McParland:…wait a minute, doesn’t that have something to do with David Suzuki?

It stands to reason that David Suzuki would defend his funding. After all, he built his foundation with millions of U.S. dollars. Back in 2000, more than half of the Suzuki foundation’s budget was covered by U.S. foundations. The U.S. share has dropped dramatically since, from 52% in 2000 to 5% in 2010. Still, according to my calculations, over the past decade U.S. foundations accounted for at least 17% of the revenue of the David Suzuki Foundation. In correspondence for this article, the foundation did not dispute these numbers.

Of the $81-million that the Suzuki Foundation took in from 2000 to 2010, $44-million was from tax-receipted donations, $9-million was from other charities and $25-million (31%) was from unspecified gifts and other revenue. Tax returns also show that $3-million came from investment and rental income, sales of goods and services, and so on.

Between 2000 and 2010, total annual revenues doubled at the Suzuki foundation from $5-million to $10.6-million.

The foundation consistently generated a surplus such that total assets increased to $10.8-million as of 2010, up from $1.3-million in 2000.

Since the late 1990s, U.S. tax returns show that American foundations have made at least 30 grants to the David Suzuki Foundation, each for a value of US$100,000 or more.

The average value of these 30 U.S. grants (made in 34 disbursements) is US$267,000. The total value of the top 30 U.S. grants alone is US$9-million, equivalent to $13-million. This included US$1.8-million from the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation (“Hewlett”), US$1.5-million from the David & Lucile Packard Foundation (“Packard”), US$1.7-million from the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation (“Moore”), US$1-million from the Wilburforce Foundation, US$955,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, US$930,000 from the Seattle-based Bullitt Foundation and at least US$181,000 from the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts.

As far as I can tell, Suzuki’s connections with U.S. foundations go back to 1992. In the minutes of a retreat of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, held at Rosario Resort in Washington State in 1992, Suzuki is on record as saying, “I must say that I’ve been absolutely electrified to come here last night because the groups that I hang out with, of course, have very little money, just a lot of enthusiasm and commitment.

“And it’s nice to realize that there is some money available in the fight.”

The problem with Suzuki’s American funding is that for many years it was underreported or not reported at all. In annual reports for 2001, 2002 and 2003, Suzuki’s foundation mentions vaguely that it received grants from “throughout North America,” but names of donor foundations weren’t given. In those three years alone, the Suzuki foundation took in US$3.6-million from U.S. foundations ($5.5-million).

In 2004, the Suzuki foundation listed its largest donors, including U.S. foundations, as having contributed “more than $10,000,” when in fact Hewlett granted $750,000 over three years, Packard granted $340,000 and the Lannan Foundation gave $375,000. In 2006, Suzuki’s foundation listed the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation as having contributed “more than $5,000.” For that same year, Moore paid Suzuki’s foundation $570,868, tax returns show.

On top of the U.S. funding that the David Suzuki Foundation has received directly from U.S. foundations, the foundation has also received U.S. money indirectly through Tides Canada.

For example, in 2008 Tides Canada granted $377,586 to Suzuki’s foundation. That money originated from the Moore foundation, which has granted at least $92-million to BC. environmental organizations, including $32-million to Tides Canada.

When one looks at how the Suzuki Foundation spends money, the numbers are somewhat surprising. Between 2007 and 2010, revenue was $35.8-million. Of that, 53% went to charitable programs, 13% was management and administration, 15% was fundraising, 17% ($6-million over four years) went into assets, and 1% was for political activity, according to CRA filings.

When contacted for this article, the foundation objected to the use of information from its tax returns. “CRA financial filings data are not necessarily appropriate to assess financial performance,” the foundation wrote. Online, the foundation says that in 2010-11 it spent 71% of its operating budget on environmental programs and campaigns, 6% on administration and 23% on fundraising. The operating budget was $8.6-million, while total revenue for 2010 was $10.6 million, tax returns say.

By far, the foundation’s biggest expense is staff. Payroll (staff compensation plus professional and consulting fees) was $5-million in 2010, up from $500,000 in 2004. Neither David Suzuki nor his wife, the long-time president of the foundation, nor any member of the Suzuki family is paid by the foundation, it says.

As far as I can tell, Suzuki’s largest Canadian donor is the Claudine & Stephen Bronfman Foundation, which has granted at least $6-million (2000-10). Since 2008, Power Corp., the Lefebvre Foundation and the Trottier Family Foundation have given annual donations of at least $1-million.

Anonymous donors are also reported for $1-million or more. For 2010, the Sitka Foundation, run by Ross Beaty and his family, gave $407,000 and the Jim Pattison Foundation gave $200,000.

Since 2009, the CRA requires non-profits to report the total amount of funding that they receive from foreign sources. For 2009 and 2010, the Suzuki foundation reported roughly half a million per year from abroad ($514,096 and $553,560, respectively). That accounted for 5% or 6% of total revenue.

Of the 30 U.S. grants that Suzuki’s foundation received for a total of US$9-million, 29 are earmarked for British Columbia. Forget the rest of Canada, the only place that U.S. foundations have heavily funded Suzuki’s work is on the strategic, north coast of B.C., right smack where oil tankers export bound for Asia would need to travel.

For a total of US$2.8-million, 11 U.S. grants to the Suzuki foundation were tagged for projects specifically with First Nations on the north coast of B.C. Canadian tax returns show that between 2000 and 2003, the Suzuki Foundation disbursed $2-million to B.C. First Nations.

Some U.S. grants are telling.

For example, in 2004 the Rockefeller Brothers Fund paid the Suzuki Foundation $20,000 toward two projects. One was to predict the impact of global warming on fish. The other was “a campaign to support a continuing moratorium on offshore oil and gas exploration,” tax returns say.

Peter Robinson, president of the Suzuki Foundation, said the foundation sets its own funding objectives. “Our priorities are set by our board of directors not donors. When we find a grant maker — Canadian, U.S. or other — who shares our conservation mission, we apply for a grant and hope to be successful. This has enabled excellent science, policy and public education on some of the most pressing environmental issues facing Canada.”

The largest project of the Suzuki Foundation, Tides Canada and their U.S. funders, has been the creation of the Great Bear Rainforest, a 21 million hectare “no trade zone” on the north coast of B.C. It’s the size of Switzerland. Now, in the name of protecting the kermode bear, the so-called Great Spirit Bear, environmentalists say that oil tanker traffic must be banned on the entire north coast of B.C. No tankers means no oil exports to Asia and that the U.S. gets to keep its virtual monopoly on Canadian oil. Whether this was the intention all along or not, the Great Bear Rainforest has become The Great Trade Barrier, thanks in large part to David Suzuki, Tides Canada and their American backers.

Vivian Krause is a Vancouver researcher and writer. Her blog is www.fair-questions.com. On Twitter, she’s @FairQuestions

49 top NASA scientists call an end to NASA’s support for its position on CO2 as a major cause of climate change.

[Ed note: The following press release is squarely aimed at the antics of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies director, James Hansen, and others of the GISS team, notably Gavin Schmidt, controversial operator of the pro-AGW blog Real Climate. Hansen, an astrophysicist by profession, has been a strident antagonist of fossil fuel usage since the '80s. While still a US public servant, he has been lecturing from podia around the world, and been arrested more than once for civil disobedience, all the while expressing that his views are that of a private citizen. Schmidt is well-know for his heavy-handed moderation of "sceptics" when they comment on his blog (well, not his, really, but that's for the reader to delve into...). Questions have been raised by many observers as to how GISS members manage to continue their personal course of climate change advocacy while remaining the public face of a government agency.]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Blanquita Cullum 703-307-9510 bqview at mac.com

Joint letter to NASA Administrator blasts agency’s policy of ignoring empirical evidence

HOUSTON, TX – April 10, 2012.

49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week admonishing the agency for it’s role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.

The group, which includes seven Apollo astronauts and two former directors of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, are dismayed over the failure of NASA, and specifically the Goddard Institute For Space Studies (GISS), to make an objective assessment of all available scientific data on climate change. They charge that NASA is relying too heavily on complex climate models that have proven scientifically inadequate in predicting climate only one or two decades in advance.

H. Leighton Steward, chairman of the non-profit Plants Need CO2, noted that many of the former NASA scientists harbored doubts about the significance of the C02-climate change theory and have concerns over NASA’s advocacy on the issue. While making presentations in late 2011 to many of the signatories of the letter, Steward realized that the NASA scientists should make their concerns known to NASA and the GISS.

“These American heroes – the astronauts that took to space and the scientists and engineers that put them there – are simply stating their concern over NASA’s extreme advocacy for an unproven theory,” said Leighton Steward. “There’s a concern that if it turns out that CO2 is not a major cause of climate change, NASA will have put the reputation of NASA, NASA’s current and former employees, and even the very reputation of science itself at risk of public ridicule and distrust.”

Select excerpts from the letter:

“The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.”
“We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated.”
“We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject.”

The full text of the letter:

March 28, 2012

The Honorable Charles Bolden, Jr.
NASA Administrator
NASA Headquarters
Washington, D.C. 20546-0001

Dear Charlie,

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.

The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.

As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate. We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject. At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA’s current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself.

For additional information regarding the science behind our concern, we recommend that you contact Harrison Schmitt or Walter Cunningham, or others they can recommend to you.

Thank you for considering this request.

Sincerely,

(Attached signatures)

CC: Mr. John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator for Science

CC: Ass Mr. Chris Scolese, Director, Goddard Space Flight Center

Ref: Letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, dated 3-26-12, regarding a request for NASA to refrain from making unsubstantiated claims that human produced CO2 is having a catastrophic impact on climate change.

/s/ Jack Barneburg, Jack – JSC, Space Shuttle Structures, Engineering Directorate, 34 years

/s/ Larry Bell – JSC, Mgr. Crew Systems Div., Engineering Directorate, 32 years

/s/ Dr. Donald Bogard – JSC, Principal Investigator, Science Directorate, 41 years

/s/ Jerry C. Bostick – JSC, Principal Investigator, Science Directorate, 23 years

/s/ Dr. Phillip K. Chapman – JSC, Scientist – astronaut, 5 years

/s/ Michael F. Collins, JSC, Chief, Flight Design and Dynamics Division, MOD, 41 years

/s/ Dr. Kenneth Cox – JSC, Chief Flight Dynamics Div., Engr. Directorate, 40 years

/s/ Walter Cunningham – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 7, 8 years

/s/ Dr. Donald M. Curry – JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Leading Edge, Thermal Protection Sys., Engr. Dir., 44 years

/s/ Leroy Day – Hdq. Deputy Director, Space Shuttle Program, 19 years

/s/ Dr. Henry P. Decell, Jr. – JSC, Chief, Theory & Analysis Office, 5 years

/s/Charles F. Deiterich – JSC, Mgr., Flight Operations Integration, MOD, 30 years

/s/ Dr. Harold Doiron – JSC, Chairman, Shuttle Pogo Prevention Panel, 16 years

/s/ Charles Duke – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 16, 10 years

/s/ Anita Gale

/s/ Grace Germany – JSC, Program Analyst, 35 years

/s/ Ed Gibson – JSC, Astronaut Skylab 4, 14 years

/s/ Richard Gordon – JSC, Astronaut, Gemini Xi, Apollo 12, 9 years

/s/ Gerald C. Griffin – JSC, Apollo Flight Director, and Director of Johnson Space Center, 22 years

/s/ Thomas M. Grubbs – JSC, Chief, Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Branch, 31 years

/s/ Thomas J. Harmon

/s/ David W. Heath – JSC, Reentry Specialist, MOD, 30 years

/s/ Miguel A. Hernandez, Jr. – JSC, Flight crew training and operations, 3 years

/s/ James R. Roundtree – JSC Branch Chief, 26 years

/s/ Enoch Jones – JSC, Mgr. SE&I, Shuttle Program Office, 26 years

/s/ Dr. Joseph Kerwin – JSC, Astronaut, Skylab 2, Director of Space and Life Sciences, 22 years

/s/ Jack Knight – JSC, Chief, Advanced Operations and Development Division, MOD, 40 years

/s/ Dr. Christopher C. Kraft – JSC, Apollo Flight Director and Director of Johnson Space Center, 24 years

/s/ Paul C. Kramer – JSC, Ass.t for Planning Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Div., Egr. Dir., 34 years

/s/ Alex (Skip) Larsen

/s/ Dr. Lubert Leger – JSC, Ass’t. Chief Materials Division, Engr. Directorate, 30 years

/s/ Dr. Humbolt C. Mandell – JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Program Control and Advance Programs, 40 years

/s/ Donald K. McCutchen – JSC, Project Engineer – Space Shuttle and ISS Program Offices, 33 years

/s/ Thomas L. (Tom) Moser – Hdq. Dep. Assoc. Admin. & Director, Space Station Program, 28 years

/s/ Dr. George Mueller – Hdq., Assoc. Adm., Office of Space Flight, 6 years

/s/ Tom Ohesorge

/s/ James Peacock – JSC, Apollo and Shuttle Program Office, 21 years

/s/ Richard McFarland – JSC, Mgr. Motion Simulators, 28 years

/s/ Joseph E. Rogers – JSC, Chief, Structures and Dynamics Branch, Engr. Directorate,40 years

/s/ Bernard J. Rosenbaum – JSC, Chief Engineer, Propulsion and Power Division, Engr. Dir., 48 years

/s/ Dr. Harrison (Jack) Schmitt – JSC, Astronaut Apollo 17, 10 years

/s/ Gerard C. Shows – JSC, Asst. Manager, Quality Assurance, 30 years

/s/ Kenneth Suit – JSC, Ass’t Mgr., Systems Integration, Space Shuttle, 37 years

/s/ Robert F. Thompson – JSC, Program Manager, Space Shuttle, 44 years/s/ Frank Van Renesselaer – Hdq., Mgr. Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters, 15 years

/s/ Dr. James Visentine – JSC Materials Branch, Engineering Directorate, 30 years

/s/ Manfred (Dutch) von Ehrenfried – JSC, Flight Controller; Mercury, Gemini & Apollo, MOD, 10 years

/s/ George Weisskopf – JSC, Avionics Systems Division, Engineering Dir., 40 years

/s/ Al Worden – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 15, 9 years

/s/ Thomas (Tom) Wysmuller – JSC, Meteorologist, 5 years

[H/T WUWT]

Earth Hour: A Dissent

by Ross McKitrick , Professor of Economics, University of Guelph, Canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 2009 I was asked by a journalist for my thoughts on the importance of Earth Hour.

Here is my response.

I abhor Earth Hour. Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity.

Giving women the freedom to work outside the home depended on the availability of electrical appliances that free up time from domestic chores. Getting children out of menial labour and into schools depended on the same thing, as well as the ability to provide safe indoor lighting for reading.

Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible. The expansion of our food supply, and the promotion of hygiene and nutrition, depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of hot water.

Many of the world’s poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke- and parasite-related lung diseases.

Anyone who wants to see local conditions improve in the third world should realize the importance of access to cheap electricity from fossil-fuel based power generating stations. After all, that’s how the west developed.

The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity.

Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation it becomes an hour devoted to anti-humanism. It encourages the sanctimonious gesture of turning off trivial appliances for a trivial amount of time, in deference to some ill-defined abstraction called “the Earth,” all the while hypocritically retaining the real benefits of continuous, reliable electricity.

People who see virtue in doing without electricity should shut off their fridge, stove, microwave, computer, water heater, lights, TV and all other appliances for a month, not an hour. And pop down to the cardiac unit at the hospital and shut the power off there too.

I don’t want to go back to nature. Travel to a zone hit by earthquakes, floods and hurricanes to see what it’s like to go back to nature. For humans, living in “nature” meant a short life span marked by violence, disease and ignorance. People who work for the end of poverty and relief from disease are fighting against nature. I hope they leave their lights on.

Here in Ontario, through the use of pollution control technology and advanced engineering, our air quality has dramatically improved since the 1960s, despite the expansion of industry and the power supply.

If, after all this, we are going to take the view that the remaining air emissions outweigh all the benefits of electricity, and that we ought to be shamed into sitting in darkness for an hour, like naughty children who have been caught doing something bad, then we are setting up unspoiled nature as an absolute, transcendent ideal that obliterates all other ethical and humane obligations.

No thanks.

I like visiting nature but I don’t want to live there, and I refuse to accept the idea that civilization with all its tradeoffs is something to be ashamed of.

Ross McKitrick
Professor of Economics
University of Guelph, Canada.