Guest: Dr. Harrison Schmitt. Topics: Climate control, CO2, realists vs. modelers, Returning to the Moon. Dr. Harrison Schmitt recently attended The Heartland Institute's 2009 International Conference on Climate Change held in New York from March 8-10 (See http://www.heartland.org/ for more information) and he was on today's Space Show to talk with us about climate change and anthropogenic global warming. Our discussion was far-reaching, scientific, and factual. Listeners asked lots of questions and several callers engaged Dr. Schmitt in comprehensive scientific discussions. Dr. Schmitt explained the differences between the two sides to the argument. There are the realists and observers of nature and those that engage in computer modeling and then make assumptions they project onto the climate and provide to politicians. This is a very important discussion that you should hear. Some of the questions, including a call from Sweden, hammered Dr. Schmitt on what would be the downside to making sure we don't make a mistake just in case humans are causing climate change, suggesting we fix "the problem" anyway just to be safe. Dr. Schmitt answered this question from both the scientific and economic perspective and you will want to hear what he had to say about this type of approach to climate issues. Dr. Schmitt explained how the models are built on the Mauna Loa CO2 studies but he also explained what is going on elsewhere around the planet. One of the other discussion topics included media treatment of the climate change issue and the fact that this conference had no media covering it. This led to comments about our educational systems in the U.S., government grant funding, ice core evaluation, and more. Later in the show, Harrison spent some time talking about non-competitive technologies, fusion including electrostatic confinement. He talked about water vapor in the atmosphere, natural CO2 and the human contribution of CO2 which is about 4% of total CO2 in the atmosphere. We also talked about warming trends and ocean currents. Later in the show, we talked about returning to the Moon rather than first going to Mars, He3 fusion, and maintaining the VSE in the new administration. Listeners asked about alternative energy to get off of fossil fuels and ARPA-E. You will want to hear what he had to say about these subjects. If you have a comment or question for Dr. Schmitt, please send it to me at drspace@thespaceshow.com and I will forward it to him.
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