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I wonder what the motive of these 49 NASA JSC ex-employees is?

At this link you will find a letter that denounces NASA's support of Climate Change having human activity as a major cause: http://www.livescience.com/19643-nasa-astronauts-letter-global-warm...

On that webpage you can find a link to the report regarding this letter.

If their motive is looked at carefully, what would we find?

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Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on April 13, 2012 at 9:03pm

"If their [the letter's writers and signers] motive is looked at carefully, what would we find?"

Until we have a scientifically valid means to determine their motives, we will do well to look at NASA's mission as identified in the laws that created and today fund the agency.

NASA has done a lot of very creditable work, with many spectacular successes and a few spectacular failures. As to the causes of climate change, has it exceeded its lawful authority?

Until we know, let's please not cast aspersions.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on April 13, 2012 at 11:12pm

After reading the background material you provided, it is clear they are not denying climate change, but whether it is human caused or not. How can that question be quickly solved without good scientific studies and I would expect to learn about the CO2 in glacier ice layers. I suppose that information is posted but I haven't paid attention to it.

What would be the motive of human caused climate change denial? Have you looked at the biographies of each of them and found any common patterns? The first thing I would look for is religious affiliation. Also, how would each benefit if they were correct? Do any of them have connections with gas, oil, coal, nuclear energy? Please tell me you have looked and I don't have to. I do want to know, however. How would funding or reduction in funding impact their motive to sign such a letter? If climate change is caused by natural forces, we need even more basic science.

If they are not denying climate change, and let's assume for a moment that climate change is happening, and is caused by natural cycles, we still have to get ready for consequences of rising water levels, changes in acid levels in oceans and changes in currents and changes in flora and fauna on land and in sea. There will be mass extinctions of food products and changes in agricultural zones.

Whatever causes this phenomena will require a lot of work and changes in our lifestyles, including living lower on the food chain, as well as having a harder time to get to the deep sea oil deposits. I hope we get forced off petroleum products.

Permalink Reply by Indygrl76 on April 14, 2012 at 7:45pm

It's simple really. Look at the list of those who signed this letter. They are exclusively engineers, pilots, computer specialists, designers of systems, etc. Not one of them is an environmental or climate scietist. They are exactly the type that are bought and paid for by interests that want to undermine the science-- fossile fuels and their tools like the Heritage Institute or Cato, etc. Just as they bought off engineers and non-science researcher to fight the science of smoking... they are doing the same thing here. It creates doubt in the mind of the public, stops the process of trying to address the problems effectively and, thus, they continue to polute and profit. Very effective strategy.. tried and true. They push the "fear" buttons in people and nothing changes...

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on April 16, 2012 at 6:14pm

@Indygrl76 It appears you hit it right on the button. I have been looking for comments and several came up, but this one seems to be as thorough as your comments. http://http://www.skepticalscience.com/NASA-climate-denialist-lette...

"If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse."

NASA Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati has issued a response

with very similar points and suggestions as our post.

A bouquet from my garden photo in your honor.

Permalink Reply by Ben Roth on April 18, 2012 at 2:01pm

Your accusation that these engineers, Heritage, Cato, et al are bought is completely unfounded. This is completely unlike the debate over smoking where a very few tobacco funded institutes published poorly executed, inconclusive studies for decades in an attempt to muddle the science and they were the ONLY ones who were saying it.

Heritage and Cato aren't denying global warming, rather they're pointing out the legitimate point that many of the proposed 'solutions' to global warming will cause economic ruin that would be worse than the worst case scenarios the climatologists are coming up with. They're merely advocating a proportional response that looks objectively at the trade-offs between our options. Global warming activists are using the very same fear buttons you accuse others of using.

Liberals have a terrible habit of assigning evil intentions to anyone who disagrees with them. Just because you don't understand or agree with their position doesn't make them evil. Please stop it.

Permalink Reply by Susan Stanko on April 18, 2012 at 3:21pm

And you shouldn't generalize to all Liberals. Please stop it.

Permalink Reply by Ben Roth on April 18, 2012 at 3:41pm

The difference is that the generalizations I made have been borne out statistically, while the ones I'm responding to are more or less inherently unknowable and therefore certainly speculative.

Permalink Reply by Susan Stanko on April 18, 2012 at 3:50pm

Your source for those statistics?

Permalink Reply by Ben Roth on April 18, 2012 at 4:24pm

Book by the author of the study (normal mode):
http://righteousmind.com/

Article about the research (easy mode):
http://www.american.com/archive/2012/april/liberals-or-conservatives-who2019s-really-close-minded

Actual academic paper (hard mode):
http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/articles/manuscripts/graham.no...

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on April 18, 2012 at 10:27pm

Jonathan Haidt: Religion, evolution, and the ecstasy of self-transcendence

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_humanity_s_stairway_to_self...

Have you read his books or journal articles? Have you read what he had to say about climate change?

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on April 18, 2012 at 11:32pm

Liberals or Conservatives: Who’s Really Close-Minded?

http://www.american.com/archive/2012/april/liberals-or-conservative...