ya'll didn't like livin on the earth anyways..(sorry anouk)

[Guest guest]

January 15, 2006 Op-Ed Contributor

Scorched Earth By ROBERT L. PARK, College Park, Md.

 

NASA has quietly terminated the Deep Space Climate Observatory, citing

" competing priorities. " The news media took little notice. Few Americans, after

all, had even heard of the program. But the entire world may come to mourn its

passing.

 

Earth is growing warmer. Even the most strident global-warming deniers have

taken to saying that a little warming is a good thing. If the trend continues,

however, it will have catastrophic consequences for life on this planet.

Correctly identifying the cause could be the most important problem facing

humanity.

 

Most scientists link global warming to unrestrained burning of fossil fuels,

which shrouds Earth in a blanket of carbon dioxide, trapping the Sun's energy.

Others, backed by industries that spew pollutants into the atmosphere, insist

that greenhouse emissions are not the problem. They prefer to attribute warming

to natural variations in solar output. Scientists are skeptical, but they don't

deny the possibility. The issue cries out to be resolved.

 

Even in a world wracked by wars, battles are not fought over scientific

disagreements. In science, nature is the sole arbiter. Disputes are resolved

only by better experiments.

 

The better experiment when it comes to global warming was to be the climate

observatory, situated in space at the neutral-gravity point between the Sun and

Earth. Called Lagrange 1, or L1, this point is about one million miles from

Earth. At L1, with a view of the full disk of the Sun in one direction, and a

full sunlit Earth in the opposite, the observatory could continuously monitor

Earth's energy balance. It was given a poetic name, Triana, after Rodrigo de

Triana, the sailor aboard Christopher Columbus's ship who first sighted the New

World.

 

Development began in November 1998 and it was ready for launching three years

later. The cost was only about $100 million. For comparison, that is only

one-thousandth the cost of the International Space Station, which serves no

useful purpose.

 

Before Triana could be launched, however, there was a presidential election.

Many of the industries favored by the new Bush White House were not anxious to

have the cause of global warming pinned down. The launching was put on hold.

 

The disdain of the Bush White House for Triana goes much deeper than just a

desire to avoid the truth about global warming. Triana began life in early 1998

as a brainchild of Al Gore, who was then the vice president. Mr. Gore, the story

goes, woke up one morning wondering if it would be possible to beam a continuous

image of the full Earth back from space to inspire people with the need to care

for our planet. The 1972 portrait of the full Earth, taken from the Moon, had

inspired millions with the fragile beauty of our blue planet. Why not beam the

image live into classrooms, allowing students to view weather systems marching

around the globe?

 

Scientists had dreamed of such an observatory for years. They hoped Mr. Gore's

influence would make it happen. Mr. Gore's support would end up destroying it.

Those who hated him, hated Triana. His dream of inspiring environmentalists and

schoolchildren served only to trivialize the project. It was ridiculed as

" Gore's screen saver. "

 

Triana is terminated, but global warming is not. Someday, there will have to be

an observatory at L1. Perhaps the most important lesson from our exploration of

the solar system is that the most terrible place on Earth is a Garden of Eden

compared to the best place anywhere else. We must find out how to keep it that

way.

 

Robert L.Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, is the

author of " Voodoo Science: The Road From Foolishness to Fraud. "

 

1000 miles of endless screams, where all the dead heroes lay

I've got the choice to set my knife, I've got the courage to set my life

I've got the day I'll pick to die. Gotta hate someone, I don't know why

I'll fight for a better way, be a dead hero for the U.S.A.