Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Economics, Education, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The Climate Wars

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The (rare) voices of reason:

10. Can we put the polarization genie back in the bottle, on climate or anything else? I really don’t know. But I do wonder how those advocating further radicalization of climate advocacy imagine any of this ends.

11. Making ever more radical demands might be a fine strategy were there someone to negotiate with. But by the reckoning of most prominent climate hawks, there isn’t.

12. Nor does it appear that a more inclusive climate coalition is likely to bring larger congressional majorities. Any Democrat-only climate strategy has to be predicated on not only winning but holding purple/red districts over multiple elections.

13. These are precisely the districts that radicalized climate rhetoric alienates culturally and the green policy agenda punishes economically. Since the failure of cap and trade in 2010, climate activists have taken rhetoric to 11, and what it got them was Trump.

And it will continue to.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

A To-Do List For Bridenstine

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Some advice from Scott Hubbard. But here is the problem:

…the new administrator must provide NASA and the rest of the world much more clarity on the brief statement issued by Vice President Pence and the newly revived Space Council that the United States will “lead the return of humans to the Moon.” Studies of the future of human space exploration have for decades emphasized that Mars is the target of greatest interest for reasons of science and exploration.1–4 The last initiative that attempted to include both human landings on the Moon and eventually Mars, the so-called Constellation program, collapsed from its own budgetary (over) weight.

Two points: First, the assumption that human spaceflight is about “science and exploration.” I’ve written about this error at length. Second is the notion that Constellation collapsed because it was attempting to do both the Mars and moon. It wasn’t seriously trying to do either. NASA wasn’t seriously trying to do either.