Intentional Ignorance

There are a record breaking three Category 4 hurricanes and a new tropical depression in this August 30, 2015 image of the Pacific Ocean taken with NASA’s GOES-15 satellite.  We depend on our ability to observe Earth from space. But now climate change deniers are trying to make NASA conveniently blind.

By any measure, NASA’s Earth science program has been an extraordinary success.  It has revolutionized weather forecasts, agricultural predictions, resource management, and climate science.  Return on investment is off the charts.  But such a program has to be maintained.  Quoting a 2007 report from the National Academy of Sciences, “The current capability to observe Earth from space is in jeopardy.”  Without resources, that capability will be lost.

So why is it that as of this writing, Congress is poised to slash as much as three-quarters of a billion dollars from the program and cripple a vital global perspective that we have come to depend on?  The answer is disturbingly simple.  Many in Congress, along with their well-heeled backers, would prefer that we not see what NASA’s data are showing us.

The crux of the issue is, of course, global warming.
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[A]ccording to the U.S. Navy’s Military Advisory Board — hardly a liberal cabal — “Climate change impacts are already accelerating instability … and are serving as catalysts for conflict.” Speaking for a bipartisan group of prestigious political, business, and academic leaders, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin summed it up well, calling climate change “the existential threat of our age.”

While the details are subtle, the basics of global warming are incontrovertible and easily understood.  It is disingenuous and irresponsible to pretend otherwise.  Politicizing climate change is like politicizing gravity.  If you step off of a building, you fall and hurt yourself, regardless of your politics.  Crippling NASA’s ability to observe Earth will not stop global warming; it will only leave us blind.

Read more at Intentional Ignorance