Posts by Sumner R Andrews Jr

Further Review

Granted this could be a big joke of NASA's. However, blowup the picture for a close up of the alleged dress. Notice that it stands out from the bleak and basically uniform background behind it. Note that circle designs and a ripple in the dress are discernalbe. Pretty odd, huh.

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This is a great shame. There is a better way at far less cost.

Governments should make the Scentilla Perk Kit http://blog.sentilla.com/2008/05/sentilla-announces-worlds-smal.php freely available to pc users to monitor CO2 emissions on a real time basis. This information could be piped into an independent web site such as the Purdue Vulcan project http://www.purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/index.php. Check out the Vulcan project. You can zoom down to the lowest possible level to view CO2 offenders.

Sumner

Good Insurance

Let's say for the sake of argument that Dr. Hansen is absolutely correct about the remaining time left. If so, the solution will be to terminate the irresolvable give and take between the do nothings (substitute energy CEOs) and the concerned as quickly as possible with a new approach.

The new American president should be persuaded to initiate a global NASA style rapid response to the Climate Change and Energy dependence problem. The challenge of course will be to encourage the US president to include his global counterparts and the supporting research community as equal partners. The underlying principles are covered in the article, "Ten Components" at http://sandrewsjr.net/gosi/proposal/ .

A rapid response alternative is just good insurance. By undertaking such an effort, the world effectively spreads its risk across the board from top down comprehensive legislative answers to a crash program which has the potential of directly involving the world in a major paradigm shift equivalent to stepping onto alien soil. At the end of David Sington's film, "In The Shadow of the Moon", astronauts on a world tour recounted that they heard from many non technical peoples the quote, "We did it". They didn't say, "You (the United States) did it." Isn't it time we start inspiring people as we clean up our problems?

Sumner R. Andrews Jr.

Consensus Building

The comments to this article are intelligent and reasoned irregardless of the perspective. The problem is that it is all bandwidth. IMHO the solution will be to take all of the MacKays and equally talented scientists, policy makers, and business professionals together and place them into a box hooked into an unprecedented massive computing modeling center and work out the optimal solution given the known constraints. They should be charged to come up with their solutions in a decade so that we can implement them in the following decade and begin our new lives from that point hence.

There are very few calls for such a rapid response to the energy dependency and Climate Change problems. This option needs to be fleshed out as fully as Dr. MacKay's draft. Money should be raised, a website started, books written and a movement undertaken to convince our leaders to achieve the consensus that currently eludes them. Anybody up for a challenge?

Sumner R. Andrews Jr.

US Federal Contribution

The US government under a new president's leadership must prime the fiscal and technological pump through a NASA type effort in order for Mr. Gore's plan to work. The Republican's may win this slug fest which again would put Mister Gore on the outside. Unless of course he saw this as a bipartisan effort. The only difference between then and now is that it must be a cooperative effort on a global scale.

The question is whether the US can work collaboratively with the rest of the world. Undoubtedly, they would have to observe a minimum set of requirements outlined in the 'Ten Components' document located at http://sandrewsjr.net/gosi/proposal/ . In other words, they would have to learn how to play nice. The ten components are derived from a NASA style proposal titled the 'Global Open Source Initiative' found at the same location. After reading these documents you may guessed correctly that this is John McCain territory. He has already met with EU leaders last month on the issue of climate change. McCain possesses a distinguished global warming record. Keep an eye on him as possibly the next US president. His contribution to climate change may be more critical to our survival than anyone could imagine.

Sumner Andrews Jr

We need to sort this all out

We need straight facts. The best way is to develop an optimum constraint computer model to establish the best mix of energy consumption, greenhouse gas management, and resource preservation. Several of the key variables are obviously: fuel availability\type, waste by products\effect and a better use of worms. Why don't the universities and governments pool their global IT resources to do this? Yesterday, the Reg updated its coverage on Yahoo's Hadoop grid application. This sounds like a good use of resources such as this. At least our comments on the matter would be less contentious and parochial.

Urgency demands an immediate response

Urgency is the operating term. Eight years have passed without a significant global response to global warming. To make up for lost time, a crash program similar to the Global Open Source Initiative proposal which can be downloaded from http://sandrewsjr.net/gosi/proposal/ (bandwidth permitting) should be undertaken. We appear to be facing a potentially devastating situation.

Sumner