This is what NASA head Jim Bridenstine said at the end of the week in response to a question from the science website and in a performance before students in Jerusalem
"NASA will continue to investigate climate change, but it is not its role to make decisions on how to act." This is what NASA head Jim Bridenstine said at the end of the week in response to a question from the science site At his press conference and that of Science Minister Ofir Akunis on Thursday (when a cooperation agreement was signed between the Israeli Space Agency and NASA) And in a performance the next day in front of students in Jerusalem.
Although US President Donald Trump recommended Brindstein as his candidate for the position of NASA head, the approval process was long and in the end he was elected to the position about two months ago on the tip of one vote, unlike the previous NASA heads who were chosen by consensus by all members of the Senate. Most of the opponents, most of them members of the Democratic Party, were afraid of the opinions he expressed regarding warming, according to which it had seemingly stopped, which would have added to the hostile atmosphere for climate science in the administration following Trump's withdrawal from the climate agreement reached in Paris.
At the press conference we reported in a previous news item, Bridenstine was asked by the science website about the news that he changed his mind regarding global warming, and whether there is a chance that the rest of the administration will follow suit. Bridenstine answered: "One of NASA's missions is to explore the Earth." We spend 1.8 billion dollars a year on Earth exploration, in fact we even have a dedicated division - Mission to Earth. This is only a small part of NASA's budget, but an important part".
"You may be surprised to hear that the president's budget proposal for earth exploration is larger than the budget for three years of the previous president's term (Barack Obama AB). NASA's Earth exploration budget is in good shape. As for the comment about my personal opinion, it has not been adequately described, I have been involved extensively in the field of climate change, and I am committed to the study of the Earth just as much as anyone else.
The next day there was a meeting in Jerusalem between Bridenstein and school students, organized by the Israel Space Agency at the Ministry of Science. Two of the participants also asked Bridenstine about his position in the climate field." "In the USA there are net two political parties and they like to score points on each other in the climate field. My position on climate and earth science in general has not been accurately portrayed in the media. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I signed a law that required research into how the climate is changing and how it affects our national security. As a pilot in the US Army I know that now we have to defend territories that we didn't have to defend before, among other things because the polar ice is melting. Some of our competitors also know how to do things in the Arctic region that they couldn't do until now." (Allusion to Russia AB).
"I have always supported the need to learn and understand how the climate is changing. During my tenure in Congress I supported NASA's Earth exploration projects. During the hearing held for me before being appointed as the head of NASA, I was attacked because of one statement from 2013 in which I said, against the background of the tornadoes in Oklahoma, that we should invest the money where we can save lives today."
"I said then: 'The Earth stopped warming ten years ago but I know my constituents could die this year. And we need to invest money where we can save lives and property today.' Some have interpreted this as if I do not believe in man-made global warming. There was a ten year hiatus, I took it from the NASA website it was in 2013, in 2014 the temperatures started to rise again. My words were taken out of context by political opponents and misinterpreted. "
"NASA's role is to explore and understand the Earth. What we don't do is regulation. We collect data, share it with the world but do not offer solutions. Then we leave the decision to the decision makers. But of course, when the decision makers have to make a decision, there is always a balance between economic growth, health and well-being of the citizens, and to what extent we can impose regulations that will harm the well-being of the residents and even strive to improve the well-being of the citizens. You always have to keep the balance. But that's not what NASA does. NASA investigates every day how carbon dioxide warms the earth.. it is a greenhouse gas and it did cause warming. We investigate this every day.”
Commentary - perfection
This balance between science and the needs of industry, for which Trump acts as a lobbyist, is very much in favor of industry. "Industry before science" was the motto of Scott Pruitt, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency EPA, until he was fired a few weeks ago due to his involvement in corruption. The EPA, the same body that should manage the regulation, has been severely cut, and scientists are prohibited from taking part in the various steering committees, but on the other hand, they are filled with industry representatives. Since then, some of the restrictions imposed by the Obama administration on the dumping of contaminated waste from coal plants into the nearby streams have also been lifted, and this is just one example of the multitude of damages to the environment, and of course the most extreme step was the withdrawal of the US from the climate agreement in Paris, which was designed to stop the warming at 2 degrees above the level of temperatures before the industrial age . If the situation continues, and even worsens as a result of the termination of the US commitment, average temperatures are expected to be 3.5 degrees Celsius higher than their level before the industrial revolution.
Already today, at a level of one degree on average above the level before the industrial age, we feel changes around us almost everywhere, the melting of the ice in the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic continent, the spread of deserts, in long forms in the Mediterranean Sea that attribute them to warming. The industry is the main cause of this - emissions from factories, power plants and vehicles emit greenhouse gases and bring the concentration of carbon dioxide to the historical record level of millions of years. If the industry wants to be ahead of science, it must first of all embrace its conclusions and not fight the scientific truth through forceful actions and politicians who owe their election in the primaries to the money of the Koch brothers, who caused the Republican Party to be purged of people who agree with the scientific truth.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
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Uri S.
The warming is real and it is serious.
The science is simple - there is a sharp increase in the percentage of PAD in the atmosphere.
This FDH causes the climate to change by adding energy to the atmosphere.
We know for sure that man is the source of a large part of this FDF.
Climate change is seen all over the world.
Solutions can certainly be discussed, and maybe it's really worth destroying our grandchildren's world so that we can continue driving Hummers.
But - first you have to choose honest leaders.
I write what is also written in the most important websites, New York Times, Guardian. The story of the EPA is a sad one. They didn't even hide their intention. It's too sophisticated for people whose strategy is "what's good for the oil gods is good for me."
In the past when the issue was not political, even on Fox you heard about global warming. Since the two tycoons decided to pour tons of money to stifle the public debate, the issue important to all of us has become political.
It's sad that a website that claims to be scientific talks about conspiracies as the last of the delusions.
My impression that climate science is not a good enough science, is in its infancy, is not sufficiently based on an understanding of the complex processes that take place. I can liken this to the research level of nutritional science in the 50s-60s and the blanket recommendation to stop consuming fatty foods. Therefore, the reasoning that 99 percent of scientists agree that man-made warming is occurring and is progressing at one rate or another is not relevant. (In the times of Copernicus to Galileo, 99 percent of scientific thinkers thought that the Earth was the center of the universe).
What is clear: you don't need to be a scientist of stature to understand that carbon dioxide emissions from the chimneys of power plants, cars and buses pollute the living environment terribly. And the quality of life, especially in the cities, in this respect is poor. But what, the apocalyptic visions of scientists prevent treatment of this problem. One of the simple solutions is to switch to nuclear energy. Yes, it is the well-known one - which is responsible for 90 percent of the energy in France. Nuclear reactors today are significantly safer than the reactors that were built 50 and 60 years ago. And looking back, 3 major accidents are known over the course of 60 years, the impact of which is also a fraction of the cumulative damage of coal energy. Because of the raging agenda in the last twenty years, huge sums have been invested in the construction of clean energy facilities such as wind and solar energy plants which, in aggregate, have replaced the old nuclear reactors that have gone out of use. And clean energy is unstable and requires the backup of polluting stations.