Food and Depopulation

Written by Cassandra Anderson

Rockefeller Family

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The purpose of this article is to give a brief outline of how the elites, and the Rockefellers in particular, are using food as a weapon. Since the Rockefeller family came to power (especially after gaining a monopoly in 1914 with Standard Oil) they have manipulated our government into ruining our financial system by way of the Federal Reserve, energy through oil dependency and food with GMOs (Genetically Engineered Organisms). The intention is to rob us blind and kill us. It's time to wake up.

The official name of this program is Agenda 21 Sustainable Development. It the overarching blueprint for depopulation and total control over America and the rest of the world. There is no question that Americans are targeted for depopulation: GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) food has saturated American farmlands. GMOs are dangerous and the proliferation of corn crops (used as sweetener, animal feed, processed food, etc) in America is shortening our life spans.(1) Our water is polluted, containing over 60,000 chemicals, most of which have never been tested for safety.(2) Our air is toxic, and the US is one of the most targeted areas for chemtrails.(3) This is just the tip of the iceberg, the things we know about.

While Agenda 21 was introduced in 1992, the elite collectivists, lead by the Rockefellers, have been pushing population control on America and the world for generations. In 1992, this depopulation and control policy was modernized and given a name: Agenda 21, or the Agenda for the 21st century. The premise for depopulation and control is to preserve the environment. One would have to be an idiot to disregard environmental concerns, however, the solutions that Agenda 21 offers fail to address the real issues. The primary tools that Agenda 21 Sustainable Development uses are global warming lies, water shortages (like the man made drought in California, which also causes food shortages) and the Endangered Species Act (designed to take away private property, which is the base of wealth creation and freedom).(4) The focus of this article is revealing the link between the Rockefellers and their intended use of food as a weapon, which is more powerful than military domination and energy control.
Food control goes hand in hand with population control. The eugenics (improvement of humans through selective breeding, often using brutal methods like genocide and forced sterilization) program of the Third Reich in Nazi Germany was revealed after WWII. Obviously, people did not have a high opinion of eugenics, so, according to William Engdahl (author of "Seeds of Destruction", the Rockefeller strategists shifted their profile to champion the causes of the environment, resource scarcity and overpopulation.(5) The policy of population control remained, despite the illusion of caring concern- which is simply marketing; the word eugenics has been renamed as "human genetics". This scheme for improving their image worked for them before with their "philanthropy" and tax-free foundations, after the Rockefellers became very unpopular following the Ludlow Massacre.

The Ludlow Massacre took place at a Rockefeller owned coal mine in Colorado. The mines were notoriously unsafe, which caused many deaths and the workers were paid in scrip (currency substitute that is often credit), to be spent at the Rockefeller company stores. When the workers went on strike, they were evicted from their homes and lived with their families in tent cities. Then they were provoked through murder, machine gun spray, harassment, etc, in order to goad the workers into violence.(6) This was used as a pretext to get the National Guard involved; the state militia opened fire on the tent cities, resulting in up to 53 deaths, 13 of whom were women and children. So, the Rockefellers created a propaganda campaign to polish their tarnished image through tax exempt foundations. These foundations are hardly philanthropic; they are used to fund the destruction of America (please read this excellent transcript by G. Edward Griffin to discover the true nature of tax exempt foundations).(7)

Why do you think Senator Jay Rockefeller(8) is pushing so hard to censor the Internet?

Today, the Rockefellers use coercive population control tactics and food as a weapon through a front organization, CGIAR (Consultative Group on Agricultural Resources) as the Rockefellers are trying to distance themselves from public- just like the Rothschild clan has done. Engdahl reports that CGIAR operates under the umbrella of the UN World Bank, and its primary focus is the spread of GMO crops. CGIAR was created by the Rockefellers and the Ford Foundation, along with the UN World Bank in 1971 with $350 million dollars a year in funding.

The Rockefeller's "Green Revolution", which was the implementation of new farming methods in developing countries, like Mexico, India and Asia, increased crop yields, but ended in disaster; the program lasted from the 1940's- 1970's.(9) The "Green Revolution", funded by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations and the US government, was a farming experiment with these results:

* Hybrid rice was planted that is often sterile in subsequent generations
* Intensive water usage, which depleted water sources
* Use of pesticides and herbicides, which causes cancer but made the manufacturers wealthy
* Use of synthetic (petroleum based) fertilizers that damaged the environment, but created untold wealth for the Rockefeller owned Standard Oil
* Created a monoculture (only a single crop is grown), which means that the food supply can be destroyed in one season

Bill Gates wants to have a new "Gene Revolution" in Africa. Bill Gates has teamed with the Rockefellers, Monsanto and the government of Norway in the Doomsday Seed Vault, in which organic seed is stored for some anticipated world catastrophe.(10)

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund created the ISAAA (International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications) and the Rockefeller Foundation is a major donor. The ISAAA is involved in promoting proprietary GMO seeds to developing countries. Its sponsors include Monsanto (USA), Dow AgroSciences (USA), Cargill (USA), Bayer CropScience (Germany), and a mysterious "Anonymous Donor "(USA), and US-AID of the State Department, per William Engdahl.

It is worth mentioning that Robert Deitch's book, "Hemp: American History Revisited" explains that the Great Depression was not caused by the Wall Street stock market crash of '29, but by Prohibition (the 18th Amendment that prohibited alcohol from 1920 until it was repealed in 1933). Other businesses, besides the production of alcoholic beverages, that also used alcohol were ruined. Deitch claims that the big oil interests, like Rockefeller (Standard Oil) and Mellon (Gulf Oil) demonized alcohol, not on propagandized moral grounds, but to eliminate competition. The automobile industry was in its infancy and they wanted to corner the market on energy, so they devised a plan to knock out the competition of alcohol powered vehicles.

Later, in 1937, after relentless lobbying, they did the same thing with hemp, and through deception and demonization of marijuana, hemp was outlawed. Hemp contains only miniscule trace amounts of THC (the active agent in marijuana), yet it is considered a 'controlled substance'. Hemp is a low maintenance plant that needs no pesticides or herbicides, and can produce oil, paper products, biodegradable plastics, medicine and textiles (it is also a super nutritious food). Because the Robber Barons (Rockefeller and Mellon- oil, DuPont- chemicals and Hearst- paper) were threatened, they joined together to outlaw hemp.

Hemp was later needed during WWII, so its cultivation was allowed. Hemp was a threat to the Rockefellers not only because it produces oil, but also because Cannibis has uses as a medicine, thereby threatening their pharmaceutical drug monopoly. Nelson Rockefeller, as governor of New York, in 1973, established marijuana as a Schedule I narcotic drug, through the "Rockefeller Drug Laws" which had harsh penalties for the possession and sale of drugs (including marijuana) that could result in a sentence of 15 years to life. As other States followed suit, this was the genesis of America's abysmal 'War on Drugs'.(11)

California was the first State to defy the federal government in de-criminalizing marijuana for medical use, through the 10th Amendment (States' rights). Fourteen other States have followed suit. California will be vote on marijuana legalization in November; this may pass because the government wants to tax it. Ironically, in 2006, a bill to allow hemp farming passed both houses of the California legislature, but collectivist Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill because he said that marijuana and hemp are indistinguishable under federal law. Hemp could go a long way toward saving California's bankrupt economy.
Fifteen other States have introduced or enacted legislation to grow hemp, but they fear the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.(12)

Interestingly, California will have an initiative on the ballot in November to legalize marijuana. This means that if it passes, anyone can smoke marijuana for any reason, as opposed to limiting it to medical marijuana use. This is important for 2 reasons; first, it would open the door for hemp cultivation for food, oil, natural plastics, paper, etc. The second reason this is important is because it would nullify the federal drug law, thus enforcing the Tenth Amendment for state sovereignty.

Thanks to F. William Engdahl, author of "Seeds of Destruction"

1. http://www.theholisticoption.com/Pages/Video_King_Corn_Documentary_219.aspx
2. http://www.naturalnews.com/028638_EPA_water_supply.html
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD9ezi55mO4&feature=related
4. www. MorphCity.com
5. http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Geopolitics-GM-Food6mar05.htm
6. http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/Bill-Gates-3.pdf
7. http://www.realityzone.com/hiddenagenda2.html
8. http://www.infowars.com/murder-of-the-internet-and-the-free-market/
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
10. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529
11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_drug_laws
12. http://www.naturalnews.com/020625_hemp_farming_politics.html

So, You Think You’re Good At Math

So, you’re pretty good at math, are you?  I was playing with math problems online, and ran across a NASA post called “Space Math”.  This is designed for students.  I thought it was fun, so I’m putting a few up here.  Let’s see who can solve them.  I’ll post the answers in the comments before I post the riddle tomorrow.

Problem 1: Capella is three times larger than Regulus, and Regulus is twice as large as Sirius.  How much larger is Capella than Sirius?

Problem 2: Vega is 3/2 the size of Sirius, and Sirius is 1/12 the size of Polaris.  How much larger is Polaris than Vega?

Problem 3: Deneb is 1/8 the size of VY Canis Majoris, and VY Canis Majoris is 504 times the size of Regulus.  How large is Deneb compared to Regulus?

Problem 4: Aldebaran is 3 times the size of Capella, and Capella is twice the size of Polaris.  How large is Aldebaran compared to Polaris?

Problem 5: Antares is half the size of Mu Cephi.  If Mu Cephi is 28 times the size of Rigel, and Rigel is 50 times as large as Alpha Centauri, how large is Antares compared to Alpha Centauri?

One More: The sun’s diameter is 10 times the diameter of Jupiter.  If Jupiter is 11 times larger than Earth, how much larger than the Earth is the sun?

Okay, get those brains in gear and have fun.  You shouldn’t need your calculator, but we won’t laugh at you if you do.  We’ll just work on those self esteem issues ’cause you’re smarter than what you’re giving yourself credit for.  I got a kick out of these, they remind me of the “what color is the bear” problem.  And everybody thank NASA for always coming up with fun ways for our kids to learn about math and the universe.

NCBI ROFL: OMG! ur cell phone is mkng u impotent. | Discoblog

cellPhonebunnyEffects of exposure to a mobile phone on sexual behavior in adult male rabbit: an observational study.

“The accumulating effects of exposure to electromagnetic radiation emitted by a conventional mobile phone (MP) on male sexual behaviour have not yet been analyzed. Therefore, we studied these effects in 18 male rabbits that were randomly divided into phone and control groups. Six female teasers were taken successively to the male’s cage and the copulatory behavior was recorded. Serum total testosterone, dopamine and cortisol were evaluated. The animals of the phone group were exposed to MPs (800 MHz) in a standby position for 8 h daily for 12 weeks. At the end of the study, the copulatory behavior and hormonal assays were re-evaluated. Mounts without ejaculation were the main mounts in the phone group and its duration and frequency increased significantly compared with the controls, whereas the reverse was observed in its mounts with ejaculation. Ejaculation frequency dropped significantly, biting/grasping against teasers increased notably and mounting latency in accumulated means from the first to the fourth teasers were noted in the phone group. The hormonal assays did not show any significant differences between the study groups. Therefore, the pulsed radiofrequency emitted by a conventional MP, which was kept on a standby position, could affect the sexual behavior in the rabbit.”

rabbit_cellphone_impotence

Photo: flickr/Climbing Rocks

Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: OMG uv got chlamydia, srsly.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Why you should always put bull semen in your carry-on (but don’t worry about the embryos).
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Want your rat to get it on while high on ecstasy? Play loud music.

WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!


Elsewhere on DISCOVER: Seal Whiskers, Sea Monsters, and a Baby Exoplanet | 80beats

elsewhere80beats aims to bring you all the science news that’s fit to turn into bytes of digital information, but sometimes DISCOVER’s other bloggers get to the juicy news stories first. To make sure you don’t miss anything, here are a couple of links:

  • Supersenses! Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science covers two journal articles in which scientists investigated the amazing sense of touch in seal whiskers and sharks’ equally astounding sense of smell in the water. To test the sensitivity of seal whiskers, researchers blindfolded a seal and had him “read” the turbulence of a wake.
  • For the first time, scientists get to watch as an exoplanet orbits its star—63 light years away. Check out Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy post for the must-see image. Elsewhere on the Web, National Geographic notes that this planet, Beta Pictoris b, is just a baby. According to the paper published in Science, Beta Pictoris appears to be only a few million years old, yet it’s fully formed–which surprised astronomers who thought that planets take much longer to come into their own.
  • Finally, a look back to the marine reptiles that ruled the prehistoric seas. A new study suggests that unlike most reptiles, these mighty sea monsters may have been able to regulate their body temperatures, reports Ed Yong. That ability could have allowed these top-of-the-food-chain hunters to swim fast and dive deep, regardless of ocean temperatures.


Photo Gallery: When Artists Take Over the Science Fair | Discoblog

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Who doesn’t miss the excitement, the curiosity, the baking soda volcanoes of the typical grade-school science fair? Even the cutting-edge artists behind NYC’s Flux Factory got a little nostalgic recently, and decided to host a science fair of their own–but the displays are decidedly atypical, and there’s nary a volcano in sight. Try quantum physics and robots instead.

The science fair art exhibit was inspired by “the similarity between the creative and scientific process,” according to the organizers. And did we mention the trophies? Shiny awards were handed out to artists at an award ceremony last night for the best projects in such categories as “Big Violence,” “Most Empirically Rebellious,” and “Most Metaphysically Pursued.”

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Science Fair runs through this weekend, so head over to Queens to check it out. Or you can click through this gallery for a selection of our favorite projects.

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Sugar and Spice | The Intersection

Dr. Isis and I recently had similar reactions to John Tierney's NYTime's piece Daring to Discuss Women's Potential in Science. What's so "daring" John? It's been discussed. Over and over and over and back again. I was as bored as Isis, until I reached his uh, "daring" question:
I'm all in favor of women fulfilling their potential in science, but I feel compelled, at the risk of being shipped off to one of these workshops, to ask a couple of questions: 1) Would it be safe during the "interactive discussions" for someone to mention the new evidence supporting Dr. Summers's controversial hypothesis about differences in the sexes' aptitude for math and science? And then I was just frustrated. I mean really, do we have to continue to "debate" this? Sure it sparks a lively comment thread, but I'm tired of it. Furthermore there are so many aspects of gender disparity Tierney fails to mention that have a role in academic performance. So I wasn't impressed and decided not to re-write the same post I've composed countless times in the past. Fortunately, the domestic and laboratory goddess did have the stomach to respond, so go take a look...


Suspended Animation for Worm Embryos: Life After Frozen Death | 80beats

icyMolecular biologist Mark Roth has found a way to bring frozen worm embryos and yeast cells back from the dead: he makes them hold their breath. In a paper to appear in the July 1 issue of Molecular Biology of the Cell, Roth questions the relationship between low oxygen, low temperatures, and life after death.

Freezing almost any living thing means certain doom, but, on occasion, organisms inexplicably make it through the cold. Even some humans have come back from what seemed an icy demise, for example the Canadian toddler Erica Nordby. In 2001, Nordby’s heart stopped beating for two hours and her body temperature dropped to 61 degrees Fahrenheit before rescuers found her and brought her back to life. Apparent miracles like these inspired Roth to hunt for the biological mechanisms at work.

This study did not freeze humans. Instead, Roth looked for a common life-preserving link in two frozen organisms very different from each other. He chose the nematode embryo and the yeast cell, and found that successful resuscitation in both organisms required extreme oxygen deprivation before freezing.

Roth and colleagues found that under normal conditions, yeast and nematode embryos cannot survive extreme cold. After 24 hours of exposure to temperatures just above freezing, 99 percent of the creatures expire. In contrast, if the organisms are first deprived of oxygen and thus enter a state of anoxia-induced suspended animation, 66 percent of the yeast and 97 percent of the nematode embryos will survive the cold. Once normal growth conditions are resumed–upon rewarming and reintroduction of oxygen–the organisms will reanimate and go on to live a normal lifespan.[Science Daily]

A developing nematode embryo rapidly divides its cells. When frozen, the embryo cannot divide these cells properly–and errors mean death. Roth believes that first reducing the organism’s oxygen, pauses it (as seen in the video, below) and keeps it from carrying out its job incorrectly.

The mechanism … has to do with preventing the cascade of events that lead to biological instability and, ultimately, death…. “When an organism is suspended, its biological processes cannot do anything wrong,” Roth said. “Under conditions of extreme cold, sometimes that is the correct thing to be doing; when you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all.” [Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Release]

Though this research does not explain the medical mysteries of frozen children coming back to life, Roth believes that this line of research into slowing organisms’ natural functions might eventually help preserve human organs for transplant or help in surgery.

Roth’s laboratory studies the potential clinical benefits of metabolic flexibility–from anoxia-induced reversible suspended animation to metabolic hibernation brought on by exposure to agents such as hydrogen sulfide. The ultimate goal of this work is to find ways to temporarily lower metabolism–like dialing down a dimmer switch on a lamp–as a means to “buy time” for patients in trauma situations, such as victims of heart attack or blood-loss injury, by reducing their need for oxygen until definitive medical care can be given. [Science Daily]

Related content:
DISCOVER: Suspended Animation
80beats: Scientists Clone a Mouse From the Deep Freeze; Woolly Mammoths Could Be Next
Science Not Fiction: Eleventh Hour: Hydrogen Sulfide, A Stinky Way To Hibernate
Science Not Fiction: The Middleman Cryonics-a-go-go

Image: flickr / ianduffy


Gay Men May Soon Gain the Right to Give Blood | 80beats

blooddriveBlood donation is fraught with arcane restrictions and a mess of complex requirements meant to keep the blood supply as safe as possible (I can’t give, for instance, because I lived in England in the early 1990s. Thanks a lot, mad cow scare.) But one of its most controversial—a lifetime ban on donation by men who’ve had sex with other men—may finally be coming to an end.

Massachusetts lawmakers like Senator John Kerry are pushing an overturn of the ban. The Red Cross, American Medical Association, and American Association of Blood Banks all want the lifetime ban to go away, though the Red Cross supports in its stead a single-year donation ban dating back to the last sexual encounter.

The lifetime ban was enacted in 1983 before AIDS was widely understood and has long infuriated gay rights groups since it applies to all gay men regardless of their HIV status. Heterosexuals who engage in risky behavior, like having sex with prostitutes or HIV-positive partners, are only banned from giving blood for a year [Boston Globe].

Besides the ugly unfairness of that arrangement, there’s the fact that HIV testing now allows for the detection of infection just weeks after it happens, and everybody who donates blood is screened.

Dr. Norbert Gilmore, an AIDS clinician, says the first priority for medical officials has to be keeping the trust of Americans in the blood donation system. But we can do that and still get rid of rules that reflect the AIDS panic of the 1980s and not modern scientific advances.

“With the technology we have, the risks are so small that keeping this ban in place is like permanently grounding the entire aviation system because we’re afraid that eventually we might have a single crash,” he said [BusinessWeek].

The Department of Health and Human Services is considering the change. If the agency decides to ax the lifetime ban, the change would have to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. UCLA research (pdf) found that going to a one-year ban instead of a lifetime one would bring in 90,000 more pints of blood every year; demolishing any ban based on sexual orientation, meanwhile, could bring in 210,000.

Related Content:
80beats: Lesbian Parents & Their Well-Adjusted Kids: What the Study Really Means
80beats: Obama to Hospitals: Grant Visiting Rights to Gay Couples
80beats: Familial Rejection of Gay Teens Can Lead to Mental Health Problems Later
DISCOVER: The Real Story on Gay Genes

Image: flickr / crispichikin


Sneak Peek at Futurama! Plus, Our Conversation With Billy West | Discoblog

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Robot-human intermarriage. The Harlem Globetrotters performing mathematical wizardry. Hearing, “Good news, everyone!” when bad news is on the way. It means one thing: Futurama is back.

The interstellar travels of the Planet Express crew—canceled by Fox in 2003 but kept alive by syndication, straight-to-DVD movies, and the unstoppable force of geek fandom—return with 26 fresh episodes on Comedy Central, starting with a full hour on June 24 at 10PM eastern.

Here’s our conversation with voice actor Billy West. The voice behind Philip J. Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, and Zapp Brannigan on Futurama (not to mention Stimpy on Ren & Stimpy and Looney Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in Space Jam) talks of the origin of the professor’s vocabulary, why Richard Nixon is the President of 31st century Earth, and whether it’s weird to talk to yourself so much.

(For spoilers about the new episodes, check out our interview with executive producer David X. Cohen, coming in two weeks.)

Discover Magazine: Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: During the hiatus, what was the turning point when you felt like this was really going to happen?

Billy West: Because, I think, the Futurama movies sold well, it gave them an indication of who was still out there. So as I’ve maintained all along, the super fans of this show kept it alive. It’s too good to go away. That’s my feeling.

DM: We’re big sci-fi nerds, and the show itself both parodies and pays homage to a lot of the past TV shows and movies. Were you a sci-fi person before you did Futurama?

BW: I used to try to tell my friends about some cool show I saw, and so I’d go to explain and I’d say, “Wait, let me just do it for you,” and I’d wind up doing a ream of characters in a scene. So, that’s where I think a lot of artists cut their teeth, because you didn’t have any way to instantly replay anything. It was on TV, and then it was gone. And maybe you’d see it in the re-runs, but if not, you’re out of luck, Charlie.

But, the thing about those movies: The Day the Earth Stood Still and all these things that people make fun of now were hair-raising back then. You know? To see this giant robot that was going to open up his hatch in front and disintegrate the entire planet put a lot of stuff in jeopardy. It was always the human race that was at stake with sci-fi, which is what I love. I love that much hanging in the balance. It’s a popular theme, probably more today than ever.

DM: Any other particular favorites of yours?

BW: Oh, yeah. It Conquered the World, where this craft from Venus somehow wound up in the Sierra Madre hills or wherever they filmed it. This thing that was in the spaceship hid out in a cave, and it looked like a giant cucumber or some sort of root vegetable with teeth and eyes, and it had these little vampire bats that would crawl out from underneath it and go and sting people in the neck, and they’d become his servants. Everybody wants everybody else to serve them. You will serve!

DM: Does the fact that you grew up on that stuff influence the way you do some of the characters on the show? The professor, in particular, is a classic sci-fi mad scientist.

BW: Yeah, I would say so. My whole world was a sonic one. I mean, more than watching something, I listened to it, spectrum-analyzed it in my head. I could remember what pitch they were in and what accent. Was it Midwestern or was it Mid-Atlantic or was it Southwestern or Eskimo? It just registered in my head for some reason. I can’t do anything else, but I can do that really well.

I would remember the lingo that some of these guys used, and I’ve dropped it here, there, and everywhere in the show. I think there was one sci-fi movie where the guy with all the answers—the mad scientist—ran out of answers, and somebody said something to him and he went, “Ah, fuff!” So the professor wound up saying, “Oh, fuff.” There was another instance where a lot of people in the 40’s: Instead of saying “robot” they would say, “What’s the big idea with the rob’t?” So I had Dr. Zoidberg, any time he refers to them he goes, “What’s with the rob’t? Why won’t the rob’t come home?”

It’s juicy because it’s language nobody knows, and it’s a pronunciation kind of thing that nobody remembers. I’ve had a love of language since day one, and when I listen to old radio broadcasts I listen to the stuff they used to say, the detectives, or whoever. There was a whole other bunch of descriptions for things, which would be brand new today.

Next: Futurama’s vision of the future and Nixon’s return


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Senate narrowly votes down antiscience greenhouse gas Resolution | Bad Astronomy

earthonfireA Senate vote yesterday narrowly allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to monitor and regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. There has been a lot of spin and furor over this vote, but in the end I think that this was heavily (though not totally) influenced by a political (and heavily partisan) denial of climate change.

Here’s the deal: The Clean Air Act allows the EPA to monitor and regulate various pollutants emitted by industries. A recent provision, Section 202(a), added six greenhouse gases to that list — specifically, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride — and paves the way to allow the EPA to actively regulate them.

However, a Joint Resolution was submitted by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), basically disallowing that Section of the Act. In other words, this Resolution would not allow the EPA to regulate those greenhouse gas emissions.

The Resolution was voted down by a 47-53 vote. Yay! Interestingly, not one of the 53 votes against it came from a Republican. A half dozen votes supporting it did come from Democrats, however.

What do we make of this?

Those who voted for the Resolution have a list of reasons. They say this is a power grab by the EPA, trying to overreach its authority. That, however, is clearly wrong. The idea of the EPA regulating pollutants goes back to the Clean Air Act’s beginnings in 1970. Since then, when new pollutants are found, they are added to the EPA’s list. Greenhouse gases are pollutants by definition, so the claim that this is some power grab is thin indeed.

There are also claims that this will allow the EPA to impose a backdoor tax on small businesses, farms, and so on, in the form of permits. This idea has more traction. I’ll note that some of the Democrats who voted for the Resolution have made these same claims as well. I agree that there is a financial burden on small businesses, and I am loathe to see it get any worse. However, I think climate change is a bigger problem overall, and it needs to be addressed.

Also, and very importantly, it should be noted that the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA must regulate these gases. That puts both those above claims into shady territory.

Regulation is needed. It’s a good thing. Regulations make sure industry doesn’t take advantage of lax laws and lax law enforcement. One of the root causes of the current recession, and the oil spill in the Gulf, is a lack of regulations and enforcement. I’m all for allowing corporations to grow and to profit, but there has to be some oversight. While the vast majority of private businesses operate above board, it only takes a handful to truly screw things up. That’s why we have laws.

But even if the supporters of the Resolution do believe those claims are valid, I still have alarm bells ringing in my head, because for at least some of them this is really about scientific ideology.

About this Resolution, Orrin Hatch (R-UT) came out and said, "There is nowhere a scientific consensus on one of the EPA’s findings that humans are causing warming or that warming is necessarily bad for the environment or for humankind." Senator Hatch, that’s utter garbage. There is a consensus. The disagreement over this is almost entirely a manufactured controversy, artificially created and pumped up by a religiously fervent noise machine.

Not everyone on that side said this, to be fair. Moderate Olympia Snowe (R-ME) stated that she understand what the science actually says, and I’m glad — very glad! – to hear that. But people like Hatch, Inhofe, and others make me very suspicious indeed — see the Related Posts at the bottom of this post for a litany of reasons why.

Obviously, this is a complicated issue. We have the real danger of greenhouse gas emissions and the real danger opposite it of over-regulation. But time and again we have seen the far-right members of Congress stomp on science, and I’m pretty much at the "fool me twice, shame on me" stage when I hear them on these issues. And I know I agree with this sentiment:

"The Murkowski resolution gives the United States Senate a choice between real science and political science," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois. "That’s what it comes down to."

"This discussion about global warming is now political, not scientific. And this is absurd," added Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont.

As even Senator Murkowski said, science is what it is — though reading her entire statement, I don’t think she actually puts a lot of stock in it. It is my fervent hope that someday — maybe even after the mid-term elections coming up this fall — we’ll have a Congress that truly understands that and acts on it.

Tip o’ the thermometer to reddit.


Related posts:

- Deniers abuse power to attack climate scientists
- Climate change attacks followup
- Breaking: Climate scientists cleared of malpractice by panel
- Let them eat fake
- You can’t resolve away climate change


When the Sun Was Young, Did It Steal Comets From Other Stars? | 80beats

Comet_Hale-BoppWhen you saw the Hale-Bopp comet, you may have seen material from a distant star passing by. In a new study, a team of astronomers argues that most of the comets that streak through our solar system were actually born in other solar systems.

Given their eccentric orbits and infrequent visits, comets seem like worthy candidates for an exotic origin. But the prevailing thinking said no, they are rather ordinary. Researchers thought most of the comets that pay us a visit initially formed from the sun’s protoplanetary disk—the same swirling mass that formed our own planet—and came to reside in the weird Oort cloud region at the periphery of our solar system. From there, the gravitational bullying of larger bodies can dislodge a few like Halley’s Comet or Hale-Bopp, which swerve into an orbit that sees them visit the inner solar system now and then.

In a study in Science this week, researchers led by Harold Levison posit a different idea: Many of the comets hanging around our solar system are stolen. It goes like this:

Like most stars, the sun may very well have been created in a tightly nestled birth cluster, a stellar nursery with tens, hundreds or possibly even thousands of stars. During millions of years of intimate infancy, the newborn stars could have exchanged vast numbers of comets from the fringes of their disks, each of them winding up with an ensemble of hand-me-downs from their stellar siblings [Scientific American].

The idea arose because the Oort cloud itself doesn’t make sense under the long-standing interpretation of comet origins.

The researchers argue that the Oort cloud’s 400 billion objects could not have all originated from within the solar system: There are about 70 times fewer objects there than needed to explain the Oort cloud’s size. Therefore, the team argued, a large portion of the material that makes up the Oort cloud had to come from somewhere else [Los Angeles Times].

Levison’s team found that this material “from somewhere else” could constitute as much as 90 percent of the Oort cloud.

Other astronomers had proposed the same idea in decades past, but lacked the computing power to model such a scenario. As computing power marches ever upward, these models of the solar system may prove more and more ideas to be possible: Just two days ago we reported on a separate team that finally had the computing power to model the formation of Saturn’s tiny moons, showing that they could have formed from the planet’s rings.

Then again, a model is just a model.

Julio Fernandez, an astronomer with the University of the Republic in Uruguay, said the study was interesting but relied on several assumptions. Among them: that the sun formed in a star cluster; that every star in such a cluster formed a planetary system with a comet swarm around it, just like ours; and that the sun was close enough to other stars in the cluster to be able to capture an entire comet cloud [Los Angeles Times].

Even the population of the cloud itself, which spurred this question of alien comets, is just an estimation. The Oort cloud is a hypothesized region that extends to the most distant extent of the sun’s gravitational influence—maybe even halfway to the nearest foreign star. Guessing how many objects reside there isn’t a shot in the dark, but it’s no exact science, either.

Related Content:
DISCOVER: NASA Takes a Wild Comet Ride
80beats: Saturn’s Rings May Have Birthed Its Small Moons—And More Could Be Coming
80beats: Comets Not So Likely To Smash Into Earth And Kill Us All
80beats: A Newly Discovered Comet Brings Tidings from the Oort Cloud

Image: Wikimedia Commons


Crushed-Out Man Stole Sally Ride’s Flight Suit | Discoblog

sallyrideWalking by a replica of Sally Ride’s flight suit during visits to NASA and Space Center Houston, Calvin Dale Smith would snicker. Later, he told his wife that he knew the location of Ride’s original flight suit. He didn’t tell her that it was in their home, in a duct tape-wrapped suitcase.

As Wired reports, Smith allegedly got his hands on Ride’s flight suit while working as a contractor at Boeing’s Flight Group Processing Office, which maintains the suits. During his time there, he also stole a NASA Omega watch and several machined spaceship parts (including a safety tether and airlock parts).

According to court documents (pdf), Smith’s wife turned in her husband, who had previously served jail time for domestic violence, after being asked to send her estranged husband his belongings. He wanted a suitcase, “the suitcase.”

Though the first American woman in space’s blue jumpsuit is estimated to fetch $2,500 if sold to the public and $3,500 at an open auction, Smith apparently, according to a local KHOU TV news report, wanted the suit because of a “crush” on the astronaut. A rejection letter found with the suit also shows an unsuccessful attempt to sell it to the Smithsonian.

According to Wired, Smith pleaded not guilty on May 27. He has a July 12 court date and, if convicted, could serve 10 years in jail. Closing KHOU TV’s report: “If convicted, Smith’s obsession with Sally is taking him on a Ride, to Federal Prison.”

Related content:
Science Not Fiction: Trend Watch: Scientists as Fashion Accessories
Bad Astronomy: Astronauts in the bag
Cosmic Variance: Women in Space — We. . . um . . . salute you

Image: NASA


No, We’re Not There Yet! The Trouble With Hydrogen Cars | The Intersection

One of the perks of being a Hill staffer is access to cool new technologies when lobbyists visit. And so in 2006, I looped around D and 2nd in a hydrogen car. When I asked the nice man who brought the vehicle about safety and the inherent 'chicken and egg' problem (cars and fueling stations - which comes first?), he provided a clearly scripted response intended to brush off public concerns. I was sure he'd repeated it dozens of times that afternoon and--needless to say--I wasn't convinced. * * * * * * * On Monday when I announced my new position with UT's Webber Energy Group, some commentors inquired about hydrogen. In short, despite all the hype, it's unlikely to become a significant source of energy. I'll explain what makes this energy carrier appealing, followed by outlining its detractors, especially regarding use in personal vehicles. Hydrogen has superior energy density compared other fuels (a whopping 120 MJ/ kg in the liquid form). You may remember that George W. Bush often brought up the way its combustion yields water avoiding emissions. He committed over $1 billion to the development of a hydrogen car. And it's true that fuel cells can produce electricity with ...


Diving into and out of the sky | Bad Astronomy

After I posted the amazing picture of the Shuttle launch and the F-15E fighter jet last week, I got a nice email from Peter Hugosson-Miller, an avid skydiver. He and some friends went jumping over Florida one day a few years back… in fact, it was on April 24, 1990. If that date sounds familiar, then maybe the picture he sent me will jog your memory:

ShuttleJump_clean_610

In the foreground are Peter and his jump-buddies, and in the background is the Space Shuttle Discovery launching the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit!

How freaking cool is that?

The picture was taken by Van Wideman, and just slays me. I remember what I was doing on that very day — getting ready to start my PhD work using that telescope, an adventure that would last for ten years. At the time, though, it sure felt like jumping out of an airplane…

The final launch of Discovery is scheduled for September 16, 2010.

Picture credit: Van Wideman, scanned by Peter Hugosson-Miller, touched up a bit by me to clean up blemishes and adjust contrast. Used with permission.


Related posts:

- Happy 20th anniversary, Hubble!
- Hubble picture of the week
- Hard to port! Eject Goose, eject!


3 Quarks Daily Science Prize – the finalists cometh | Not Exactly Rocket Science

3Qd finalistsThe editors of 3 Quarks Daily have finished their deliberations and compiled a list of finalists for their Science Prize. The good news is I’m in, and thanks to everyone who submitted a post and voted for one. The bad news is that the competition is immensely stiff (although no real surprises here – these are some of the finest science bloggers around).

It’s all down to Dawkins now.

In no particular order, here are the finalists:

  1. Cosmic Variance: Free Energy and the Meaning of Life
  2. My Growing Passion: The Evolution of Chloroplasts
  3. Not Exactly Rocket Science: Gut bacteria in Japanese people borrowed digesting genes from ocean bacteria
  4. Observations of a Nerd: Evolution: The Curious Case of Dogs
  5. Scientific Blogging: MSL: Mars Action Hero
  6. The Loom: Skullcaps and Genomes
  7. The Primate Diaries: Chimpanzees Prefer Fair Play to Reaping an Unjust Reward
  8. The Thoughtful Animal: Does oral sex confer an evolutionary advantage? Evidence from bats
  9. Why Evolution Is True: The Evolutionary Calculus of Depression

Announcing My Next Point of Inquiry Guest: Bill McKibben | The Intersection

I'm excited to announce my Point of Inquiry guest, for the program airing on Friday, June 18: Bill McKibben. He is author of many great books including, most recently, Eaarth: Making Life on a Tough New Planet--which is prompting a ton of discussion right now about the new world we're going to have to inhabit for the rest of our lives (and indeed, for many generations) because of anthropogenic climate change. Although I've failed to do so for the last two shows, I'm announcing this interview in plenty of time to take questions for McKibben from POI listeners. I will be interviewing Bill on Monday afternoon, the 14th, so that leaves three full days for thinking about questions you might like to hear him address on the air. So leave your questions for Bill McKibben below, or, head over to the Point of Inquiry forums and leave them there. Either way, I'll be reading some off on the air...