Friday, December 25, 2009
Off course it can. If global warming is anthropogenic, and I feel certain that it is, it should be
seen as a demonstration that humans already exert control over the climate. We need only to reverse
the sign. Two things can do it: 1) increase efficiency and 2) decrease the number of "warming
centers" (i.e. reduce the number of people on Earth). Number 1) should be a crash program, since
efficiency pays for itself over time. Human population reduction on the other hand, must be very
gradual to retain a voting majority. All subsidies for fecundity, such as tax deductions for
dependents, should be eliminated.
From San Francisco to Maine there is a campaign to require cancer warning labels on cell phones.
Fact: cell phone radiation doesn't cause cancer. Cancer agents break chemical bonds, creating mutant
strands of DNA. Microwave photons cannot break chemical bonds. This is not debatable. In 1989, Paul
Brodeur, a staff writer for the New Yorker, claimed in a series of sensational articles that
electromagnetic fields from power lines cause childhood leukemia http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN89/wn082589.html. Brodeur, however, understood none of this and
when virtually every scientist agreed that it was impossible, Brodeur took their unanimity as proof
of a massive cover-up. Other anti-science know-nothings followed Brodeur's lead, shifting their
attack to cell phone radiation. Cell phones have since spread to almost the entire population, but
with no corresponding increase in brain cancer. Case closed.
I was asked to address this question. I said last week that Daniel
Ellsberg, is one of the great heroes of the 20th century for releasing
the "Pentagon papers." Do I think so because I agreed with his goal? It
certainly didn't hurt. This week I received a lengthy statement from Kevin
Trenberth on hacking of climate files. It was a line from a Trenberth e-
mail, taken out of context that caused much of the finger-wagging in the
press: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the
moment and it is a travesty that we can't." He was not questioning the
link between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission and warming. A paper
Trenberth published this year complained about our inability to monitor
energy flows associated with short-term climate variability.
The International Space Station, which was built to give astronauts
something to do, is slated for retirement five years later. It is a
classic example of functional unemployment. Spirit and opportunity, for
example, the two telerobot explorers on Mars, live on sunshine. They were
designed specifically for the Martian environment. Meanwhile, it is clear
that research results from the ISS have not justified the enormous cost of
maintaining a research laboratory in low Earth orbit. The GAO put the
launch cost to support the ISS at $44,000 per kilogram.
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