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

The Uncertainty Of Climate Sensitivity

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…and its implications for the Paris “negotiations”:

In my previous post Climate sensitivity: lopping off the fat tail, I argued that it is becoming increasingly difficult to defend high values of ECS. However, the uncertainty is sufficiently large that we can’t really identify a meaningful ‘best value’ of sensitivity, or rule out really high values.

A key issue is that emerging estimates of aerosol forcing are considerably lower than what was used in the AR5 determinations of ECS, implying lower values of ECS than was determined by the AR5.

This uncertainty in ECS makes emission targets rather meaningless. It will be interesting to see how this uncertainty is factored into the Paris negotiations

Note, there are other papers on this general topic that are in the review process, I expect a spate of such papers to appear during the next month.

Paris is doomed to failure, thankfully.

Business, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Space, Space History, Technology and Society

NASA’s Bureaucracy

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This comment over at NASA Watch is a pretty good description of the problem, on the 57th anniversary of the agency transforming from the NACA (which it needs to return to) to NASA:

In another current post on NW, Wayne Hale laments that the lengthy list of specifications is going to kill the commercial crew effort. Why this lengthy list of specs? Maybe because the NASA people who wrote the program requirements had no actual experience in developing any space hardware, and they did not know which specs to select, so they just included them all?

I should also note that it is not because more experienced and more qualified people were not available in these instances of program management, vehicle design, or spec writing. There were people with experience in Shuttle, Spacehab (commercial), Mir systems development, and with DOD programs, but the NASA management went with people they “knew” despite their lack of experience. You can look all the way to the top of the program, the AA for manned spaceflight, and he has little more experience, and so how can he provide the guidance for others to “learn the trade”. In fact he appears to have been responsible for naming a large number of his contemporaries, all from his old organization, payload operations, to leading positions. I don’t think they’ve worked out too well.

The mission ops directorate has the right idea-they require people to be certified and as they get certified their careers progress and they move from document writer to flight controller to flight director. The other technical/engineering disciplines do not have this and so we wound up in a situation where virtually anyone with a degree can be selected for almost any position.

Now, especially after 3 decades of ISS, you have the big bureaucracy in which the main experience base is in meeting attendance. And the people without the experience in the top positions are fearful of the people who actually have any education and experience. This is a corrupt bureaucracy.

That Wayne Hale post, from five years ago, is sadly prophetic.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Why Fiorina Outrages The Left

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She has “exposed another socialist bone heap.” They don’t take well to having their mass murder exposed.

And the comparison with Solzhenitsyn is quite apt.

[Wednesday-morning update]

Remember that time the Left said that Fiorina lied about the video? I know you’ll find this shocking, but they lied.

[Bumped]

[Update mid-afternoon]

Thoughts on Planned Parenthood: Our summer of Omelas:

In 1973, award-winning science fiction author Ursula Le Guin published a very short story-essay titled “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” It described a dreamlike summer festival in Omelas, a beautiful city that embodies everyone’s utopia, a magical place where everyone was joyful, a place where sorrow never touched the citizens or guests. But beneath that city lay a secret: all its joy and pleasure depended on the suffering and misery of a single lonely, abused child living in a filthy basement. If that child were saved, all of Omelas would fall, its beauty and perfection lost.

The citizens of Omelas, when they reached a certain age, were taken below to view the child so that they might understand their civilization. Most rationalized the suffering, as was encouraged: the child was mentally defective anyway, it could never be happy now if taken out, it was incapable of appreciating the beauty of the world like others. Only a few could not bear the truth, but instead of removing the child and Omelas be damned, they walked away, leaving for parts unknown.

America has had a summer of Omelas.

[Update a few minutes later[

Democrats: The party of abortion, not the party of women.

That link via Elizabeth Price Foley, who adds:

Moreover, never mind that Republicans are spearheading the effort to make birth control pills more widely available by classifying them as over-the-counter–something the Democrats and Planned Parenthood vehemently oppose. And never mind that Republicans wish to expand access to all kinds of women’s medical care–not just abortion and contraception–by expanding funding for community health centers. None of that fits with the Democrats’ “war on women” label, so it can’t be too widely discussed.

If the Republicans in Congress were smart (a big if, I know), they would start talking about the Democrats’ “war on birth control” and “war on women’s health.”

Don’t hold your breath. They’re stupid.

Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Space

Martian Brine

4 Comments

I haven’t had much to say about Monday’s “big” announcement, but Joel Achenbach has the straight scoop. In light of renewed concerns about planetary protection, from Emily Lakdawalla and others, I’m thinking about writing an op-ed on why we’re going to Mars, or sending humans into space at all.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I don’t know if I have the time or energy to properly fisk this right now, but Alana Massey says that sending humans to Mars is a terrible idea.

Business, Space, Technology and Society

Blue Origin

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The company announces that it’s completed a hundred successful tests of its staged-combustion turbomachinery. It’s a little misleading to show a full-engine test, with shock diamonds, though. Also, they don’t say if there have been any failures. Particularly of the rapid-unscheduled-disassembly type.

Meanwhile, Aerojet Rockedyne continues to beg for money.

[Update a few minutes later]

George Sowers just tweeted to me that these were subscale tests, not full scale. Hopefully, that’s next.

Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

More Junk Nutrition Science

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This is appalling:

While eliminating saturated fats can improve heart health, a new study shows that it makes a difference which foods are used in their place. A study shows that replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats and high-quality carbohydrates has the most impact on reducing the risk of heart disease. When saturated fats were replaced with highly processed foods, there was no benefit.

You don’t say.

In other words, you’re replacing good stuff with bad stuff, but when you replace the good stuff with less-terrible stuff, your results aren’t as bad. Pro tip to cardiologists: There is zero scientific evidence that eliminating saturated fat improves heart health.

And here’s a chef who’s an idiot.

Yes, restaurants are making you fat, but not because they’re serving you fat.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!