Saw this earlier today. A must read for sure. I hope this gets published as a book so I can buy it and give it to people as gifts. It's strange to read a massively important story like this just...
Saw this earlier today.
A must read for sure.
I hope this gets published as a book so I can buy it and give it to people as gifts.
It's strange to read a massively important story like this just days after the revelations regarding the President of the United State's private meeting with the two head honchos of the Times and accusing them of fake news peddling.
In a world of alternative facts and relative truths, it's cliche that some truths are so inconvenient we wish we could just ignore them. Now it's become mainstream to do just that.
That was a good read. If anyone is on the fence about investing a little time into reading it you should definitely give it a chance. On the downside, it made me miss my train station because I...
That was a good read. If anyone is on the fence about investing a little time into reading it you should definitely give it a chance.
On the downside, it made me miss my train station because I was so wrapped up in it.
I found it surprising that originally it was The Republican Party that was in favour of swift action, but not all surprised that action came to a juddering halt under the Reagan administration.
Based on the scroll bar, I am still only about 1/4 of the way through the article. However, this statement from an Exxon official jumped out at me, and I wanted to comment before I lost the train...
Based on the scroll bar, I am still only about 1/4 of the way through the article. However, this statement from an Exxon official jumped out at me, and I wanted to comment before I lost the train of thought.
A senior researcher named Henry Shaw had argued that the company needed a deeper understanding of the issue in order to influence future legislation that might restrict carbon-dioxide emissions. “It behooves us to start a very aggressive defensive program,” Shaw wrote in a memo to a manager, “because there is a good probability that legislation affecting our business will be passed.”
I wanted to discuss why we, as a society, allow corporations to influence politics so freely. It feels like so many policies serve corporations at the expense of the people. How did corporate lobbying become acceptable in the first place? What can we do, as normal people, to fight back against the corporations with so many more resources?
I write this from a (somewhat defeatist, given the current state of things) US perspective, and welcome insight from anyone in the rest of the world where things might not seem as bleak, as well as my fellow country folk.
Edit after reading the whole thing:
I've finally made it through the whole article. This part in particular made me mad, especially given how much of the current administration's policies are based on nothing more than unfounded news headlines.
When a junior staff member in the Energy Department, in a meeting at the White House with Sununu and Reilly, mentioned an initiative to reduce fossil-fuel use, Sununu interrupted her. “Why in the world would you need to reduce fossil-fuel use?” he asked. “Because of climate change,” the young woman replied.
“I don’t want anyone in this administration without a scientific background using ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’ ever again,” he said. “If you don’t have a technical basis for policy, don’t run around making decisions on the basis of newspaper headlines.”
I can't even imagine being one of the scientists who has known this was coming, testified to congress over and over again for decades, and been ignored and shot down every time. Hansen being forced to change his testimony to congress by the Bush administration in particular seemed insane to me.
As someone who wasn't even born when this all started, and still very young during the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, I am surprised that the republicans were often spearheading attempts to pass climate change and environmental conservation legislation back in the 70s and early 80s. It saddens and frustrates me immensely to see how they have completely reversed that position and actively oppose environmental regulation these days without reason.
Edit 2, or 'I Missed the Epilogue':
The epilogue tied back to my first point, where a coalition of oil and gas companies banded together to make an organization called the G.C.C.
The chance to enact meaningful measures to prevent climate change was vanishing, but the industry had just begun. In October 1989, scientists allied with the G.C.C. began to be quoted in national publications, giving an issue that lacked controversy a convenient fulcrum. “Many respected scientists say the available evidence doesn’t warrant the doomsday warnings,” was the caveat that began to appear in articles on climate change.
This kind of blatant corporate lobbying against the interest of humanity is absolutely infuriating, but I am once again left wondering what I can do about it as a normal person.
More from Sununu, champion of climate change:
When I asked John Sununu about his part in this history — whether he considered himself personally responsible for killing the best chance at an effective global-warming treaty — his response echoed Meyer-Abich. “It couldn’t have happened,” he told me, “because, frankly, the leaders in the world at that time were at a stage where they were all looking how to seem like they were supporting the policy without having to make hard commitments that would cost their nations serious resources.” He added, “Frankly, that’s about where we are today.”
Even though he personally went out of his way to stop this, he just shrugs it off and says 'somebody else would have done the same.'
The following year, when President Bill Clinton proposed an energy tax in the hope of meeting the goals of the Rio treaty, the A.P.I. invested $1.8 million in a G.C.C. disinformation campaign. Senate Democrats from oil-and-coal states joined Republicans to defeat the tax proposal.
And the hits keep coming! Why do we allow this? How can we stop it? Is it too late? Should I just give up, move somewhere near the poles, and hope I can survive?
Not to get on the wishful thinking side of things but i think just limiting our fossil fuels and meat consumption bit by bit is not going to be enough. Maybe our last option is something like a...
Not to get on the wishful thinking side of things but i think just limiting our fossil fuels and meat consumption bit by bit is not going to be enough. Maybe our last option is something like a space mirror at the earth-sun lagrange point. It’s estimated that a 160,000 km^2 mirror there will take us back to pre-industrial levels. The BFS spaceX is building has a volume of 850m^3, and the mirrors can be very thin, I don’t think mass would be much of a concern either. If it can fit say 500m^2 of mirror each launch, that would be about 3,000 launches, which is a challenging but actually feasible goal, especially if they get reusability to where they say they will (which is actually looking likely). And the effects will still be felt even as it’s under construction. I’m not sure how likely this is to happen, but just some food for thought
essentially a giant mirror at the L1 lagrange point (a point that is always between the earth and the sun, any object at this point would need virtually no propellant to stay there) would be...
essentially a giant mirror at the L1 lagrange point (a point that is always between the earth and the sun, any object at this point would need virtually no propellant to stay there) would be enough to decrease the amount of light hitting the earth by about a single percentage, but that will be more then enough to return us to a sustainable tempurature.
I also don’t think we have the luxury of waiting until we’re desperate. A project like this will take years to even get started. The BFR that SpaceX is building will be capable of getting more into orbit then the most powerful rocket ever, while at the same time being cheaper per launch then the cheapest (orbital) rocket. That isn’t just media sensationalism, these figures are for real due to the reusability, methalox propellant, and just not having to deal with the bloat and red tape surrounding all aspects of any government program. It’s actually relatively simple as far as engineering goes, but takes an incredible amount of raw effort. If we don’t start right now, we’ll be dealing with much worse then a few wildfires by the time something like this is ready. Maybe it’s time we seriously consider building our first megastructure, and just imagine the effect this would have on our morale. I’m thinking I might start a sub for this actually because the more I think about it the more it makes sense
What you describe about BFR sounds an awfully lot like the Space Shuttle, which was hailed as a unique way to reduce the cost of getting payloads into orbit by making the main components of the...
What you describe about BFR sounds an awfully lot like the Space Shuttle, which was hailed as a unique way to reduce the cost of getting payloads into orbit by making the main components of the system reusable. Of course, this never panned out, due to the very high refurbishment costs associated with recycling and turning around each orbiter, the expensive solid rocket boosters, and the thrown away external tank. Most of this wasn't NASA's fault mind you—despite suffering from the lens of optimism—the Air Force's requirements led to large amounts of scope creep which effectively doomed any cost effectiveness the program could've had.
It's all fun and nice to believe Musk's extremely optimistic visions which he types into the twittersphere every so often, but there's a long way to go before any of what you said is remotely proven possible.
Take for example Falcon 9. The last iteration of the vehicle, one which was quote "designed for reuse", actually turned out only to be reusable for two flights. Granted, this is a massive improvement on single-use booster stages, but it's not anywhere near what Musk hoped for. Block 5 is looking more positive, but there's a long long canyon that separates "usable for 10 flights without refurbishment" and "airliner like operations".
BFR is a technically complicated system which requires numerous revolutionary advances in rocket engine construction (unthought of chamber pressures), ablative heat shields which don't ablate, the largest single pressurised compartment ever launched into space before, and reusability on the order of an airliner while also being subjected to forces most things we build can never be expected to tolerate.
So when you say "these figures are for real", what you really mean is "these figures are what Musk dreams about". It may happen. I don't deny that. But it also may not. Starry-eyed optimism doesn't get you there alone. Engineering does.
Do you have a source for this? The blocks <=4 have never been flown more then twice but but that being a design limitation is news to me, and I’ve been following them closely for a while now. It...
Take for example Falcon 9. The last iteration of the vehicle, one which was quote "designed for reuse", actually turned out only to be reusable for two flights.
Do you have a source for this? The blocks <=4 have never been flown more then twice but but that being a design limitation is news to me, and I’ve been following them closely for a while now. It was my understanding it was due to the reluctance of choosing a used rocket as well as the high production of cores they had at that time. And I know B5 has plans for at least one 24 hour turnaround, which is absolutely unheard of for any other rocket
I don’t really see many similarities between the Shuttle and the BFR besides being ambitious tbh, even the concepts of reusability are completely different between the two. the Shuttle was a complicated mess of old S5 parts bolted onto a glider along with unreliable solid rocket engines and an ET that had to be discarded every flight. There were probably more single points of failure on that thing the 95% of rockets out there.
The BFR on the other hand is actually pretty simple in comparison, it doesn’t have to deal with an ET sticking over the orbiter dripping debris, or unstable solid propellants. Raptor is basically done already, the size of the vessel is a challenge but it’s not impossible, although tbh I’m not the most informed as to the progress of the heat shield, it seems to be more of a materials issue then an engineering one. I will admit I get a bit ‘starry eyed’ when the topic of the BFR comes up, but the truth is even if it accomplishes half of what it claims it will still be revolutionary. If you follow the progress of it, and I don’t mean the almost trump-like tweets spewing from Musks twitter but of the project itself, it’s actually going really well so far
Meh, I stand by this point, we're already seeing the effects but soon they're going to become more severe. The solution they had in the 80's was more of a passive long-term one that would have...
If we don’t start right now, we’ll be dealing with much worse then a few wildfires by the time something like this is ready
Meh, I stand by this point, we're already seeing the effects but soon they're going to become more severe. The solution they had in the 80's was more of a passive long-term one that would have prevented us from getting to this point to begin with, the one I'm proposing is a shorter term active approach that can fix this ongoing problem before it spirals out of control.
I'm trying to decide between /r/spacemirror or /r/sunshade , or if anyone else has a better idea for a name
I didn't realize climate change was that well understood back in the 1980s. We truly dropped the ball on energy reform back then and there's little chance of getting anything like that passed in...
I didn't realize climate change was that well understood back in the 1980s. We truly dropped the ball on energy reform back then and there's little chance of getting anything like that passed in the current polarized political climate.
Saw this earlier today.
A must read for sure.
I hope this gets published as a book so I can buy it and give it to people as gifts.
It's strange to read a massively important story like this just days after the revelations regarding the President of the United State's private meeting with the two head honchos of the Times and accusing them of fake news peddling.
In a world of alternative facts and relative truths, it's cliche that some truths are so inconvenient we wish we could just ignore them. Now it's become mainstream to do just that.
That was a good read. If anyone is on the fence about investing a little time into reading it you should definitely give it a chance.
On the downside, it made me miss my train station because I was so wrapped up in it.
I found it surprising that originally it was The Republican Party that was in favour of swift action, but not all surprised that action came to a juddering halt under the Reagan administration.
Based on the scroll bar, I am still only about 1/4 of the way through the article. However, this statement from an Exxon official jumped out at me, and I wanted to comment before I lost the train of thought.
I wanted to discuss why we, as a society, allow corporations to influence politics so freely. It feels like so many policies serve corporations at the expense of the people. How did corporate lobbying become acceptable in the first place? What can we do, as normal people, to fight back against the corporations with so many more resources?
I write this from a (somewhat defeatist, given the current state of things) US perspective, and welcome insight from anyone in the rest of the world where things might not seem as bleak, as well as my fellow country folk.
Edit after reading the whole thing:
I've finally made it through the whole article. This part in particular made me mad, especially given how much of the current administration's policies are based on nothing more than unfounded news headlines.
I can't even imagine being one of the scientists who has known this was coming, testified to congress over and over again for decades, and been ignored and shot down every time. Hansen being forced to change his testimony to congress by the Bush administration in particular seemed insane to me.
As someone who wasn't even born when this all started, and still very young during the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, I am surprised that the republicans were often spearheading attempts to pass climate change and environmental conservation legislation back in the 70s and early 80s. It saddens and frustrates me immensely to see how they have completely reversed that position and actively oppose environmental regulation these days without reason.
Edit 2, or 'I Missed the Epilogue':
The epilogue tied back to my first point, where a coalition of oil and gas companies banded together to make an organization called the G.C.C.
This kind of blatant corporate lobbying against the interest of humanity is absolutely infuriating, but I am once again left wondering what I can do about it as a normal person.
More from Sununu, champion of climate change:
Even though he personally went out of his way to stop this, he just shrugs it off and says 'somebody else would have done the same.'
And the hits keep coming! Why do we allow this? How can we stop it? Is it too late? Should I just give up, move somewhere near the poles, and hope I can survive?
Wow, that's a long and in-depth article. I'll need to come back to this one later.
Haha yeah, the "long read" tag felt completely inadequate for it.
Can't wait till users can vote on tagging, so someone can add the tag
Not to get on the wishful thinking side of things but i think just limiting our fossil fuels and meat consumption bit by bit is not going to be enough. Maybe our last option is something like a space mirror at the earth-sun lagrange point. It’s estimated that a 160,000 km^2 mirror there will take us back to pre-industrial levels. The BFS spaceX is building has a volume of 850m^3, and the mirrors can be very thin, I don’t think mass would be much of a concern either. If it can fit say 500m^2 of mirror each launch, that would be about 3,000 launches, which is a challenging but actually feasible goal, especially if they get reusability to where they say they will (which is actually looking likely). And the effects will still be felt even as it’s under construction. I’m not sure how likely this is to happen, but just some food for thought
edit: check out www.reddit.com/r/SunShield
essentially a giant mirror at the L1 lagrange point (a point that is always between the earth and the sun, any object at this point would need virtually no propellant to stay there) would be enough to decrease the amount of light hitting the earth by about a single percentage, but that will be more then enough to return us to a sustainable tempurature.
I also don’t think we have the luxury of waiting until we’re desperate. A project like this will take years to even get started. The BFR that SpaceX is building will be capable of getting more into orbit then the most powerful rocket ever, while at the same time being cheaper per launch then the cheapest (orbital) rocket. That isn’t just media sensationalism, these figures are for real due to the reusability, methalox propellant, and just not having to deal with the bloat and red tape surrounding all aspects of any government program. It’s actually relatively simple as far as engineering goes, but takes an incredible amount of raw effort. If we don’t start right now, we’ll be dealing with much worse then a few wildfires by the time something like this is ready. Maybe it’s time we seriously consider building our first megastructure, and just imagine the effect this would have on our morale. I’m thinking I might start a sub for this actually because the more I think about it the more it makes sense
edit: and a group, when I can
edit numero dos: check out www.reddit.com/r/SunShield
What you describe about BFR sounds an awfully lot like the Space Shuttle, which was hailed as a unique way to reduce the cost of getting payloads into orbit by making the main components of the system reusable. Of course, this never panned out, due to the very high refurbishment costs associated with recycling and turning around each orbiter, the expensive solid rocket boosters, and the thrown away external tank. Most of this wasn't NASA's fault mind you—despite suffering from the lens of optimism—the Air Force's requirements led to large amounts of scope creep which effectively doomed any cost effectiveness the program could've had.
It's all fun and nice to believe Musk's extremely optimistic visions which he types into the twittersphere every so often, but there's a long way to go before any of what you said is remotely proven possible.
Take for example Falcon 9. The last iteration of the vehicle, one which was quote "designed for reuse", actually turned out only to be reusable for two flights. Granted, this is a massive improvement on single-use booster stages, but it's not anywhere near what Musk hoped for. Block 5 is looking more positive, but there's a long long canyon that separates "usable for 10 flights without refurbishment" and "airliner like operations".
BFR is a technically complicated system which requires numerous revolutionary advances in rocket engine construction (unthought of chamber pressures), ablative heat shields which don't ablate, the largest single pressurised compartment ever launched into space before, and reusability on the order of an airliner while also being subjected to forces most things we build can never be expected to tolerate.
So when you say "these figures are for real", what you really mean is "these figures are what Musk dreams about". It may happen. I don't deny that. But it also may not. Starry-eyed optimism doesn't get you there alone. Engineering does.
Do you have a source for this? The blocks <=4 have never been flown more then twice but but that being a design limitation is news to me, and I’ve been following them closely for a while now. It was my understanding it was due to the reluctance of choosing a used rocket as well as the high production of cores they had at that time. And I know B5 has plans for at least one 24 hour turnaround, which is absolutely unheard of for any other rocket
I don’t really see many similarities between the Shuttle and the BFR besides being ambitious tbh, even the concepts of reusability are completely different between the two. the Shuttle was a complicated mess of old S5 parts bolted onto a glider along with unreliable solid rocket engines and an ET that had to be discarded every flight. There were probably more single points of failure on that thing the 95% of rockets out there.
The BFR on the other hand is actually pretty simple in comparison, it doesn’t have to deal with an ET sticking over the orbiter dripping debris, or unstable solid propellants. Raptor is basically done already, the size of the vessel is a challenge but it’s not impossible, although tbh I’m not the most informed as to the progress of the heat shield, it seems to be more of a materials issue then an engineering one. I will admit I get a bit ‘starry eyed’ when the topic of the BFR comes up, but the truth is even if it accomplishes half of what it claims it will still be revolutionary. If you follow the progress of it, and I don’t mean the almost trump-like tweets spewing from Musks twitter but of the project itself, it’s actually going really well so far
Meh, I stand by this point, we're already seeing the effects but soon they're going to become more severe. The solution they had in the 80's was more of a passive long-term one that would have prevented us from getting to this point to begin with, the one I'm proposing is a shorter term active approach that can fix this ongoing problem before it spirals out of control.
I'm trying to decide between /r/spacemirror or /r/sunshade , or if anyone else has a better idea for a name
edit: maybe /r/SunShield
edit again: aaaaand www.reddit.com/r/SunShield is now live
/r/BallOfFire or /r/GreatBigBallOfFire
I didn't realize climate change was that well understood back in the 1980s. We truly dropped the ball on energy reform back then and there's little chance of getting anything like that passed in the current polarized political climate.