Economics as science in the climate change discussion

I've been studying the variety of skeptical arguments people use when arguing against the evidence and theory behind anthropological climate change. This has led over the last several months to a summary study of economics and economic philosophy and even political philosophy. This effort has given me an opportunity to fill my bookshelves with interesting and new (to me at least) books and subscribe to a new group of podcasts expanding the horizon for me again. Fun stuff.

I haven't gone through the effort of categorizing all the skeptical arguments like the work done at Skeptical Science. There is no need for duplication and they do a fine job. What I have been working at is grouping the arguments into broad families and looking at how they approach the scholarly divisions between climate science, economics, and politics. I'm beginning to understand that some people object to the political consequences of a remedial policy and fight against any of the supporting arguments for the policy. That means a political objection could turn into a science skepticism even though there is no other connection between them than the fact that a science projection is used to advocate the policy.

I'm doing this because of a discussion I've had with friends that the science is in decent shape and offers good support for the conclusion that humanity is responsible for the most recent warming of the Earth. There is enough good science done to conclude that the correlation between recent human economic output and recent warming is actually a causation. This discussion has led to descriptions of what science actually is (Popper, Kuhn, etc) as distinguished from the dogma that is taught by most teachers who focus upon what science has learned. That finally led me to read F. A. Hayek and see the political distinctions he and others draw between classical liberalism, modern liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism (in a number of forms) and so on. The last 18 months or so has been a journey for me and I've met many people and heard many opinions along the way.

I don't know that shining a light on the groupings of skeptical arguments will make much of a difference, but it has been an interesting effort for me. I will generally argue that a climate skeptic should attack the thing they actually dislike, but since policy advocacy is about winning a negotiation position by forming a large voter block and not about being academically correct I'm probably urging a political impossibility. Democracy is what it is, after all.

Changes in the US manned space program

Change is coming to the US manned space program. At last! Real, dramatic, tangible, believable changes in the course and the results created will finally steer us to this nation's future we dreamed of decades ago.

The time for change is long past due. What we have been doing in human space flight in the US since Apollo has been a failure of epic proportions. Many will defend the status quo and express anger over the upcoming changes proposed by the Obama Administration, but the national track record for manned space flight demonstrates a past that is more about jobs programs, Congressional pork, and broken promises. Defenders of the past are left protecting many billions of dollars spent flying some stuff around in circles, employing a work force that has had no appreciable effect on any grand vision we hold for our national future, and quietly agreeing to accept the myth that they all are doing something useful.

At the risk of heresy, consider any rational measure of the NASA operated human spaceflight program since Apollo. How many promised milestones have been achieved regarding flight rates, payload costs, access for regular people, and science? The unmanned space program HAS managed to accomplish quite a lot with respect to science, but even they are held back by the high costs of accessing space. The original promises for the Space Shuttle spoke of weekly flights, ten dollars per pound ($22 per kg) to orbit, and low operational costs of a mundane service. Instead we were doing great to get five flights a year, purposely obfuscated costs for payloads, and $1,000 Million spent on each flight. We have a standing army employed to accomplish those flights and not a mundane service crew. This is an epic failure considering just the Space Shuttle alone! Consider the $1,000 Million spent on the X-33 that failed to be good enough to even leave the hangar and other attempted transportation projects since Apollo and it becomes abundantly clear that NASA human space flight expenditures weren't about successful space goals. The only measure of success by which they pass is the funneling of money to Congressional districts.

The background of repeated failures in our nation's human spaceflight program must be kept in mind when we judge the changes coming from the White House. These changes focus on Earth to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) transportation plans and how they can be provided by commercial sources. NASA proposes (at the White House's encouragement) to hand over this role to commercial space firms. They propose to buy transportation as a service. At the moment, the announcement is from the NASA Press Office, so a dose of skepticism is a good defense against yet another promise dashed by pork politics. This time, however, the White House is behind the message. We can dare to hope (audaciously so!) that we will break the circular self gratification huddle of our old ways and go somewhere else. More importantly we will go somewhere else in a way that lets us do it again, and again, and again. This time, 'we' will mean more than NASA's employees. It will mean us too. How can it? Those commercial providers will want to make money to increase share holder value (as they must) and that means they will want to sell other flights. That is where 'we' get our vision of the future.

NASA will have to make changes. It can no longer see itself as the Emperor of all things in space. It has done this in the past and failed to deliver. The agency simply cannot get it right when it comes to building their own launch systems, let alone operating them. They cannot be both a government agency and a profitable company. It is time they stopped trying and accept their successes elsewhere while relying upon the free markets to deliver the other services. They succeeded with Apollo because they had an achievable set of goals and didn't have to act like a corporation competing in a free market. They can let the taxi and trucking services go to those who want to deliver them now.

For example, California's SPACEX from its creation through its first successful orbital flights and all the industrial tooling and facilities to support them spent far less than the $445 million NASA has on the recent flight of the Ares 1-X mockup. That mockup didn't even make it to orbit. The Dragon capsule on a Falcon 9 from SPACEX is projected to cost a fraction of the Ares and Orion systems proposed by NASA. We know in which direction NASA's cost projections trend over the life of their programs of the last few decades and must remember that SPACEX has managed to put things in orbit. Orbital Sciences Corp is in a similar position with it's Taurus vehicle and projects similar cost savings over the smoke and mirrors that is Ares/Orion.

Even if one feels less that secure in betting on NewSpace firms, it is important to realize that some of the large traditional companies are adapting old systems to carry payloads and people into orbit to serve commercial customers and yes... even the International Space Station. Atlas V and Delta IV have flown many times (infinitely more than Ares/Orion in terms of percentages) and the Boeing/Bigelow crew capsule under development will cost a fraction of that needed for Orion. This isn't smoke and mirrors as Bigelow already has experience in orbit too. NASA's exploration job need not start at the launch pad anymore. The gate to their part of the frontier has moved up and out into orbit

None of this will happen if the old politics and the old players win the day, but we are on the proverbial edge of a bright new frontier. We can not rationalize wasteful spending that leads us around in circles and employs bright people to accomplish nothing of great value. Access to orbit can be made more mundane, but only by unleashing the free market to do what it does best. NASA can achieve higher goals of exploration and science, but only by unleashing the power of free enterprise to deliver goods and services NASA fails to deliver to itself. The Obama Administration is proposing (through NASA) to do exactly that.

And so the battle is joined. In a dose of historical irony, many who fought so long the wasteful spending and years of great talent lost in the human space flight program in the US find ourselves standing with the current agency leaders like Charlie Bolden and the Obama Administration to fight for this new vision. Those of us who loved the early NASA and what it did for a generation of engineers, scientists, and dreamers fought back tears of anger and frustration for years over what they did next, but now we can join them in a defense of their new plan that makes rational sense. It is about time.

Dare we hope again?

Do we have the audacity?

(Thanks Rick!)

Last Moving Truck

I hope anyway. 8)

The family move to southern California is almost done and the new job is going well. I'm doing Remedy work still, but my new employer needs ITIL is a much bigger way than my last one and they know it. I'm going to have to learn to call it ISO 20000, though. I'm beginning to think of these standards as job security for guys like me.

We've used two 26 foot trucks and two 17 foot trucks from U-Haul now. This last 17 footer won't be full, so we probably could have done it with three 26 foot trucks. That's how much... uhmm... history... I am tracking around with me. Obviously I need some help getting rid of old stuff. It's much more fun to just acquire new stuff.

We arrived last night with typically foggy weather where it's not exactly safe to drive the highways at full speed. Of course, people DO drive the highways at full speed. I've lived in the central valley for about 26 years now. I won't miss this fog.

We have fit almost everything into a smaller house. I expect it to burst at the seams any day now. One more truck load should do it, though, like an after-dinner mint. It's wafer thin.

Rocket Racer prototype progress

Rocket Racer prototype video from XCOR last year. Oshkosh show. Note the re-ignition capability and what the pilots are NOT wearing. 8)

Energy and water linkage

It sure looks like clean water will get easier to deliver to people and that reduces the energy demand on our systems that do the delivery. Clean drinking water is big deal.

ACES and ACELA research

The distorted energy bill is through the House now and on it's way to the Senate. It doesn't have an S number yet, but there is good evidence the Senate will consider a different bill, so we will be at this for quite a while. I have to wonder if they can get anything done by the time the Copenhagen meeting rolls around this winter, but truth be told, I'd rather they did something good than something rushed.

This activity is on my list of things to learn about and track through the year, so I'm going to keep a few research links posted here.

The Energy Collective - Other 92%

ACES - 2009

Scare tactics effectiveness

We do it in politics, finance, education, and many other areas. When we want to motivate someone to do what we ask, we can argue with logic and we can argue with fear. We can bribe with money or we can threaten with harm. Each of these motivators requires that we pay some attention to what moves our audience and what the consequences of their use are.

Some in the climate change community use fear. While I am inclined to agree that there are many possible scenarios we want desperately to avoid, I think there is a problem with the use of fear in this regard. It works best if the audience understands the danger. I'm reminded of the various torture techniques used long ago by the Inquisition. The first level simply involved showing the person the implements that would be used and how they worked. A persons imagination can carry on from there much of the time since personal pain is pretty easy to understand. I don't see anything similar in the fear tactics being used to motivate better climate policy. Why should a person be scared if polar bears go extinct? Why should they be fearful if many people on the other side of the world are displaced from their homes and farms? Without that understanding, I think there is a technical flaw in the plan for those who would use scare tactics. With that flaw, the motivators have to fall back to the traditional brow-beating used by many liberals when we say others are behaving in a 'less moral' fashion than we are? Where is your compassion for the displaced after all?

The effectiveness of a technique can't be proven or improved unless one requires that success criteria be defined and measured. If a technique isn't working, it takes some thought and a willingness to change to achieve the actual goal.

too much fun

Sometimes these jokes work for us. Judging by the view count for this You-Tube video for the LHC someone deserves an award. 8)

This is going to get ugly

AIG execs
with contracted bonuses
emptied our wallets

Commercial Resupply of ISS

Not very many people will get excited about the big change going on at NASA, but this one is rather important. With the looming retirement of the Shuttle, NASA has problems with supplying the ISS. There choices are to build their own rocket and fly it, pay some other nation to do something similar, or turn to the commercial world and buy resupply services. They have opted to go with the last option after trying the first. You can read about it at Space Daily and Space Today.