Astronomer decides against raping, pillaging environment

I caught this in the Austin Statesman:

CLIMATE CHANGE

UT scientist drops research that he says pollutes

Astronomer pulls out of NASA project that involves a plane.

By Hudson Lockett
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, November 30, 2008

“Going with his conscience, an astronomy professor at the University of Texas has decided to back out of a NASA project that he spent about a decade working on because he thinks it excessively harms the environment.

“An instrument developed by John Lacy, considered one of the top physicists in the country, will be used along with a telescope in the back of a modified Boeing 747 to determine the chemical makeup of objects light-years away. For the project, the jet will fly about four times a week for up to 12 hours at a time.

“Lacy said the flights will emit too much fossil-fuel pollution in the name of science”

.

.

.

“Lacy first made his intentions known to his colleagues at UT in the spring during a presentation about the project. For Neal Evans, chairman of the UT Astronomy Department, the news came out of left field. “I was at least somewhat taken aback by this,” Evans said.

“Everybody here has to operate on their own judgment about their science and any ethical issues,” Evans said, adding that he personally doesn’t have any ethical issues with the project.

“When Lacy’s instrument is ready, Evans said he will have no problems using it for his own research in infrared astronomy”

I always though astronomy didn’t really benefit the public (I mean really.. when society collapses, the best we will be able to do is leverage our eclipse-predicting skills into some manner of astrology-based high-priesthoods… or navigate ships. Oh wait.. there will probably still be compasses.)

I guess though that I never really thought we might be actively harming the public. I mean, besides all those ways the Army takes astronomical technology and uses it for things like its laser spy satellites, or weapons that project microwave beams that make people think they’re on fire.

A Modest Proposal

But the good news is, we can offset this! Yes, we astronomers can make our profession a little more carbon-neutral, which is to say not very carbon-neutral at all. You see, Astronomers routinely fly to telescopes to take data, thus egregiously polluting the skies. The grand polluter itself, SOFIA, is a modified Boeing 747-SP that will fly approximately 8-12 hours, four times a week.  Such a plane, in civilian use, would seat about 230 passengers. If astronomers travelled less to their observing sites, we could make up for this.

A typical astronomer’s flight might involve travel to California, Hawai, or Chile- so on average lets say these are 5 hour flights, with an average of one graduate student accompanying a professor. This is then two people each taking two five hour flights. In order to balance out SOFIA, we would need to have 460 fewer such observing runs each week, (ideally resulting in cancelled flights).

Now, even for an observatory such as Keck, one does not usually have more than two teams observing each night, so there are only 14 possible observing slots each week. Observing runs are also generally about 2 nights long, so really one would not expect more than about seven possible observing runs per telescope per week.

Therefore, to balance out SOFIA, there would need to be 67 telescopes that operated entirely independently of observers. This could either be a queue observing system, such as that in use at Gemini, or remote observing, such as that in use at Keck.

So consider this, astronomers, for the sake of the children. Apply to observatories with queues, or choose to make that next observing run remote. The earth, and her skies, will thank you for it.

And now, a picture of an octopus.

(Presumably raping and pillaging)

It was an epic battle.

But I finished my NSF.

Now though, I’m not exactly focusing so well on getting back to real work.

Application season

I have to join the party and write my NSF fellowship app for a few weeks.

I won’t let it get me down though.

Thursday isn’t Friday

And I didn’t do much work today.

My Presidential platform.

The four point agenda I will push when elected:

Giving illegal immigrants jobs as human-powered vehicle drivers.
This will
1) Decrease economic dependence on foreign oil
2) Reduce greenhouse emissions
3) Solve illegal immigrant problem, keep American jobs and all that.

Increase nuclear power plants, Weaponize spent nuclear fuel
This will
1) Decrease economic dependence on foreign oil
2) Reduce greenhouse emissions
3) Decrease defense spending! Instant arsenal of dirty bombs.
4) Create a whole bunch of new jobs, stimulate the economy

Heat buildings over the winter with body heat from homeless people!
This will
1) Decrease economic dependence on foreign oil
2) Reduce greenhouse emissions
3) Save businesses money, as prices to feed the homeless are much less than heating oil
4) Provide food and a roof over the head for the needy.

Build me a golden, solar-powered palace
This will
1) Decrease economic dependence on foreign oil
2) Reduce greenhouse emissions
3) Create American jobs.

Thank you. Vote for me.
And once again, as president, I pledge not to feed America to a giant snake.

Caffeine

Atypically for an astronomer, I have been avoiding it recently.

But yesterday, I had to go talk about research with the department chair, and my mentor and I ended up in his fancy conference room. And no visit there is complete without using his fancy, $3000 espresso machine. It comes off like his favorite toy, and i worry i would deeply offend him if I ever refused.
So i drank it.

Really, who would ever think graduate school would be so posh?
In other news, budget cuts are eliminating the number of teaching positions so the department is having a hard time paying all of its graduate students, and some second year physics students still don’t have offices.
It’s okay though. I’m sure that they can go outside to the patio and sit down on a nice $1000 chair and feel all better.

But most of all Sarah Palin kind of frightened me.

“I’m thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president’s policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are. John McCain and I have had good conversations about where I would lead with his agenda. That is energy independence in America and reform of government over all, and then working with families of children with special needs.”

This floored me.

At least she would use this power for good… right? Families of special needs children and all?

In her defense.. it sounded a little more coherent when she said it.

“You mentioned education and I’m glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? I say, too, with education, America needs to be putting a lot more focus on that and our schools have got to be really ramped up in terms of the funding that they are deserving. Teachers needed to be paid more. I come from a house full of school teachers. My grandma was, my dad who is in the audience today, he’s a schoolteacher, had been for many years. My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here’s a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate.”

-Sarah Palin, from the CNN transcript of the Vice Presidential debate

Fact Checking Palin

I’m sorry, I can’t resist.

Palin’s assertion: “He’s proposing a $5,000 tax credit for families so that they can get out there and they can purchase their own health care coverage… That’s budget neutral. That doesn’t cost the government anything…”
Fact check: “The fact is most economists fear McCain’s refundable tax credits will actually result in deficit spending. “
-CBS News
Palin’s assertion: “…as opposed to Barack Obama’s plan to mandate health care coverage and have universal government run program… consider health care being taken over by the feds.”
Fact check: “Obama’s health-care plan does not call for a government takeover. In fact, it isn’t even universal. It would only cover all children. Obama’s plan would give Americans the opportunity to have government health insurance, but they also could pick a private plan.”
-USA Today
Palin’s assertion: “We’re circulating about $700 billion a year into foreign countries, some who do not like America — they certainly don’t have our best interests at heart — instead of those dollars circulating here, creating tens of thousands of jobs and allowing domestic supplies of energy to be tapped into and start flowing into these very, very hungry markets.”
Fact check 1: “But the U.S. is on track to import a total of only $536 billion worth of oil at current prices, and close to a third of that comes from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.”
-Annenberg political fact check
Fact check 2: “Americans consume 25 percent of the world’s produced oil, but our nation holds less than 3 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves”
-National Resources Defense council
And don’t forget: “Enactment of the legislation in 2008 would result in first production from the ANWR area in 10 years.”
-Energy Information Administration

Bottom line: Drilling cannot sustain the energy needs of the US. It would not significantly decrease our dependence on foreign energy. It would not even begin to make a difference for at least ten years. Hopefully then she is referring to tapping and starting the flow… of alternative energy sources.

Palin’s assertion: “And with the surge that has worked we’re now down to pre-surge numbers in Iraq.”
Fact check: “Before the surge, there were about 130,000 troops in Iraq. While plans for troop reductions would get us close to that level, we are not there yet. There are still about 152,000 troops in Iraq.”
-CNN

Palin’s assertion: “Well, first, McClellan did not say definitively the surge principles would not work… McClellan didn’t say anything opposite of that.”
Fact check: His name is General McKiernan.

It’s the economy, stupid.

Congress is stupid. You go on vacation after causing the stock market to crash? Nice one.

Oh and the presidential candidates? McCain has missed 65% of the votes this session. Obama has missed 47%. A system where you run for office by… not doing your job? Stupid.

People are stupid. You withdraw your FDIC insured money just because you’re afraid you briefly couldn’t access it if the bank failed? Well thanks to you it did! I think I’ll keep my money in WAMU(Chase). At least I’ll be with other customers who don’t withdraw their money in a panic because they might need to suddenly drop 20,000 on a whim…

The Family Circus is also stupid, but better when you add a caption from another comic that day.

Too bad the economy can’t be fixed that easily.