4 Spring 2010 Applegater
THE STARRY SIDE
TRENDS AND OBSERVATIONS
Orion’s final bow
BY GREELEY WELLS
There’s something to notice about
the Spring night sky: it’s comparatively
empty and there’s a very interesting reason
for this. We live in the Milky Way Galaxy
which is like a thick, slowly-swirling plate-
like form moving through the universe.
Our galaxy is just one of many—actually
one of billions, we now know. Here on
earth we are approximately in the middle
of the Milky Way, so when we look at the
night sky we are usually looking out into
our own galaxy. That means usually every
star we see, certainly the large, easily visible
ones, is within our galaxy. However, right
now our night vantage point is not into
or along our galaxy but out from it! We
see fewer stars in spring, because we are
looking out into almost-blank space.
How does this work? In the spring,
when we look at the night sky we are
looking out away from our galaxy; it’s
actually all around us, but most of it is just
below the spring horizon line all the way
around. Imagine a large thick plate made
of glass with beautiful stars or diamonds
in it, and we are near — but not in — the
center of the thickness. From all our views
sideways all the way around us and below
us we would see diamonds. Looking into
the thickest part there would be a great
many, and that’s exactly what the Milky
Way is in our sky. But looking straight up
and out, we would see far fewer diamonds,
simply because it’s the thinnest part of the
plate from our position. We don’t really
see stars outside of our galaxy, because it
floats in space all by itself. We only see our
“neighbor” galaxies in the distance, and I
mean distance— hundreds of thousands
of light years away! They are so small as
to mostly look like stars or smudges to
the naked eye. Because all the real stars
we see are in our galaxy, we see fewer stars
in spring, when we look out into almost
blank space. (There are a few of our stars
between us and the edge of the galaxy
because we don’t live on the very edge.)
The winter constellations are
sinking in the west along with the winter
horizon of our galaxy; in summer, the
eastern horizon will rise, and along with
it will rise the summer constellations and
the Milky Way Galaxy, home for our solar
system and us. So bright Sirius is setting in
the west as winter sets, and bright Arcturus
is rising in the east as spring rises.
Before going on to other subjects, I
must mention Orion’s final triumph. The
hunter Orion (and at his heals his dog,
Sirius, the brightest star in the sky) sinks
into the west gracing our Spring sunsets.
And amazingly, he does it on his feet,
standing tall, perfectly oriented vertically.
Feet on the horizon, belt parallel to it, arms
up facing Taurus whom he’s been battling
all this time to his right. It’s a perfect end
to his show— you might remember how
he started out in the east on his back? So
for almost six months Orion has slowly
risen and rotated toward this perfect
landing in the west. Next, of course, he’ll
sink out of view, moving northerly.
Following Orion, dominating the
night sky next, will be a dipper and a lion.
The lion moves right overhead with the
Big Dipper high and close in the north.
If you’ve got a comfortable lounge chair
or lie back on the ground feet to the south
you will see both these constellations right-
side up. The dipper’s real name is actually
Ursa Major (the big bear). Many cultures
(including our American Indians and our
western cultures) have seen a bear, but
there’s something odd about that, as you’ll
see in a second.
Are you lying down with your feet
pointing south, and north behind the back
of your head? If so, imagine the dipper
itself as the body of a bear and the handle
of the dipper as its tail. Hard, right? What
bear has a long tail—or almost any tail for
that matter? Well, there are stories in some
of cultures about the bear losing its tail, so
that’s sort of an explanation. Now look
further south and you’ll see three sets of
two close-together stars. Those are three of
the four feet of the bear; as you can see, he’s
big. These legs point halfway to Leo (the
lion) who’s also upright, but lying down
(not standing up like the bear). To our
right is the Sickle, or backwards question
mark; that’s the lion’s head and mane. At
the bottom are the front legs and the very
bright heart (Regulus). To the left is a
triangle forming the behind and tail of the
regal lion. The pointers of the big dipper
actually can be used backwards and will
point right to the lion! In other words, a
line runs from the north star through the
pointers of the big dipper, and right to Leo.
You can find the lion this way any time he
is in the sky. These two huge constellations
are locked together (with the always-still
north star) as they rise, swing overhead in
April and into the west in May. As Leo
sets this summer, the Big Dipper (or the
big bear) will swing around under the
north star and begin to be upside down,
or maybe set altogether depending on your
northern view. At my house, a mountain
and evergreens swallow up my bear when
he gets low.
See ORION, page 6
Hope for sanity in the
climate debate
BY KIRK PERTTU
The last few months have been
an eventful time for the discussions
surrounding climate change science and
policy. Until sometime in February,
mainstream American newspapers and
television had largely failed to cover the
recent big stories in any meaningful way,
to the point that both the Columbia
Journalism Review and Knight Science
Journalism Tracker felt it necessary to
address this absence of coverage (CJR quite
critically). Meanwhile, British and Indian
newspapers, as well as climate-related blogs,
have been in a slowly-but-steadily building
climate-frenzy since last November.
The first story began a few weeks
before the UN Copenhagen climate
summit with the leaked or hacked release
of thousands of emails of many prominent
climate scientists writing from and to
the University of East Anglia’s Climactic
Research Unit (CRU), one of the most
prominent climate research organizations
in the world. You may have heard it
referred to as “Climategate” when it was
briefly acknowledged by American media.
It’s impossible to properly summarize in as
little space as there is to give to it here, but
in short the released emails seem to suggest,
amongst other things, that a collection of
climate scientists sought to subvert the
peer review process and acted to obstruct
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.
The story is still progressing. In
the last months, CRU’s head, Phil Jones,
has stepped down, a UK government
agency has determined the released emails
represent prima facie evidence that Jones
criminally obstructed FOI requests, and
the Parliament has initiated a formal
inquiry.
The second story involves the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC). Its intermittent assessment
reports—particularly the “Summary for
Policymakers” portions of them—are
looked to by most governments of the
world as the most thorough representation
of the risks anthropogenic climate change
poses to the world. The controversy
began with troubling conflicts of interest
coming to light regarding the organization’s
chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, but quickly
led to deeper concerns about the IPCC’s
citation and review processes.
This story is also still far from over.
At this point, the UN has announced it
will begin an independent inquiry into
the organization. Some are defending the
IPCC as essentially sound while others,
including the former IPCC chairman
and other respected climate and political
scientists, are expressing deeper concerns
and suggesting the IPCC structure or
processes may need a fundamental overhaul
in order to establish a reasonable credibility.
Neither of the extreme political
camps in the greater debate, both of which
often sacrifice accuracy in favor of advocacy,
have come across very well in dealing
with these stories. One side predictably
claimed that both of these developments,
as well as the recent heavy snows in the
northern hemisphere, each independently
represented the exposure and hopeful
end of the “global warming hoax.” The
other side claimed there’s “nothing to see
here” and that the recent snows were in
fact expected under catastrophic climate
change. Attempts from both advocate
extremes to pass these statements off as
reality are insulting, and it’s disappointing
that mainstream American media hasn’t
made a better effort to provide people with
the tools to make informed judgments
about these kinds of misrepresentational
claims.
To be clear, when I refer to the
extreme sides in the climate change debate
above and below, I’m not lumping the
informed skeptics in with the “climate-
deniers” on one end, nor am I equating the
climate scientists and others who believe
destructive anthropogenic climate change
is a likely enough concern to support
action, but who don’t feel comfortable
misrepresenting the state of the science
to the public in order to spur that action,
with the alarmists.
While both extremes have been
making foolish statements, there’s no
doubt the recent months have played far
worse for the alarmist camp. Recent polls
of Americans have shown a significant
increase of those who don’t consider
climate change a serious issue, though it’s
important to note that this is probably due
to a combination of reasons. The ongoing
economic crisis and the failed Copenhagen
summit in December as well as other
factors could be important players in the
changing public opinion as much as the
recent news. Whatever the reasons, faith
in those advocating strong and immediate
action on climate change through a cap-
and-trade scheme (the mechanism used in
the House’s Waxman-Markey climate bill)
has been falling sharply, to the point where
Lindsay Graham, one of a group of three
senators expected to present the Senate’s
version of climate legislation in the coming
weeks, recently said, “Cap-and-trade, as
we know it, is dead.”
While this decline in public support
has visibly dismayed the extreme in the
public debate that pushes climate change
catastrophism and cap-and-trade as the
only solution, and has made many of those
who object to any kind of political action
almost giddy, some others have looked at it
with a peculiar kind of cautious optimism.
In the climate change discussion,
there’s a vast middle space between the
two disproportionately exposed extreme
camps, mostly unseen under the partisan
and ultimately unproductive public
circus. This middle ground is populated
by a largely silent (at least as represented
by the mainstream media) collection
of groups and individuals comprised of
climate scientists, economists, political
scientists and interested and informed
lay people. While these people may have
greatly differing views on specific issues
within the science, and divergent beliefs
on what proper climate and CO2 policy
should be, they generally share some
common traits: an annoyance with the
oversimplification and misrepresentation
of climate science coming from both
extremes; an acknowledgement of the
profound uncertainty still existing in our
understanding of earth’s climate systems;
a conviction that scientific integrity must
come before any other concerns such as
the promotion of certain environmental
policies, even if they happen to agree with
such; and a deep frustration with both
See CLIMATE, page 6