If you ever wondered why NASA should have employed Hansen, who was such an eco-activist that I understand he was arrested six times, this incredibly revealing document, from NASA’s “Societal Impact of Spaceflight” (2007) explains why. In part NASA used the environment to justify massive funding for itself, in part as NASA itself says:
NASA realized that it needed to research environmental-atmospheric impacts of the shuttle to defend itself, if necessary, against possible opposition more positively, Fletcher sought to align his agency with environmental values. In 1973, he told congress that NASA should be considered “an environmental agency.” he declared: “everything we do …helps in some practical way to improve the environment of our planet and helps us understand the forces that affect it. Perhaps that is our essential task, to study and understand the earth and its environment.”
That’s right! It was no accident that NASA brought in eco-activists. Indeed, it appears to have been part of a deliberate policy to align itself with the environmental movement and to use environmentalism to create alarm thereby justifying its own budgets to the politicians and public.
That is why NASA climte could fabricate the data apparently with impunity – the policy of egging the data to fit an environmentalist agenda was sanctioned at the highest level within NASA
NASA and the Environment: Science in a Political context
W. Henry Lambright
The advent of the space age has paralleled the rise of the environmental movement. NASA was born in 1958 and Rachael Carson wrote silent spring in 1962; that book is generally seen as marking the onset of modern environmentalism. NASA has intersected with the environmental movement—a set of values and interest groups concerned about the need to protect our natural setting for the current and future generations—in many ways over the years. How did NASA do so? How did it evolve an environmental mission? What did it do with that mission? What were the consequences for society—and NASA—of its environmental role? To answer these questions, this paper will discuss two of the most important ways NASA and the environmental movement related.
First, NASA has had direct impacts through the images of earth taken by Apollo astronauts as well as by satellites in earth orbit. Those satellite images and theories about earth as a system evolved into an organized NASA program, initially called mission to planet earth (MTPE), later the earth sciences program. Second, there was an indirect relation through NASA’s mission from earth. comparative planetology came into existence as a new field; learning about other planets stimulated better understanding of earth.
There are many other issues in the NASA–environment relation, such as space debris and the contamination of other planets, but these two themes—earth monitoring and comparative planetology—are especially salient in NASA’s history, present, and likely future. The first theme focused on the use of space-based remote sensing and became the dominant emphasis in NASA’s environmental history.
There evolved a set of satellites that can be seen as environmental satellites. They are the centerpiece of NASA’s mission to earth. That mission has had an uncertain, somewhat uneasy relationship with other parts of NASA and other agencies. Some people think it is NASA’s most societally relevant mission whereas others think it is extraneous to NASA and belongs somewhere else—the national oceanic and atmospheric administration (NOAA) is the usual candidate. Virtually every observer has found it a controversial mission, one in need of high-level policy attention and improvement for the sake of NASA, the nation, and the world.
The second theme, comparative planetology, has indirectly influenced the main debate—a reminder of the fact that earth is an island home in the vast sea of space and is the only planet (so far) supporting life. NASA’s long association with the environmental and earth sciences has been fruitful but it has also been contested and even tortuous. The history of NASA and its environmental mission is one of science in a political context.
However …mother nature does not like doing anything predictable.
If we do have a La Nina, we are likely to see cooling for perhaps 1-4years. So, any La Nina cooling will end in plenty of time for another El Nino to kick us into a warm spike perhaps around 2021-2025. So if AMO is dictating global temperature, then any El Nino after the La Nina is likely to kick up temperatures again.
However … if we don’t get a La Nina and instead we go into El Nino. That means we may see warmer temperatures for perhaps 2-4years. If so, and AMO is dictating climate, then the next El Nino will be too late to show as “exceptional” warming.
Global Warming Alarmism Forecast
As a very rough estimate, it therefore appears that we have another 3-8 years of “global warming alarmism” to deal with. We must not forget however, that we expect very modest warming from the rise in CO2. This may slightly delay any warming and could modestly enhance any El Nino warming peak. So, it is possible that there will be another El Nino warming stronger than the last two in the next 8 years. However, (without data fiddling) this will not be anywhere near large enough to match the global warming forecasts, but it will be large enough to keep the hopes of alarmists alive.
However around 2025 it is likely we will begin to see a substantial drop in global temperatures with a peak cooling expected 2026-2046. If this cooling occurs, then we will undoubtedly see a resurgence of the global cooling alarmism, if this cooling does not occur, then either the effects of CO2 are greater than that of their direct greenhouse effect, or AMO is not a good predictor of global temperature. And global warming alarmism will flourish.
However
If the alarmists are not totally removed from their jobs by Trump and other governments – then it will become so endemic that we’ll have no idea what is happening to global temperature – and we may as well go back to sacrificing goats.