• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Texas lawmaker proposes changing the Moon's or Earth's orbit to combat climate change

Forget the political side here, we ditched that sub-forum. This level of stupidity is gobsmacking and worthy of a deep and long yet soul crushing laugh.



Source

Washington (CNN)Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas made an argument about climate change at a House subcommittee hearing Tuesday that appeared to elicit confusion from a government official and ridicule on Twitter.
During the Natural Resources Subcommittee hearing, Gohmert appeared to draw a connection between the moon and Earth's orbit and solar flares to climate change. In questioning US Forest Service Associate Deputy Chief Jennifer Eberlien, Gohmert asked if the National Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management could change the orbits of the moon and Earth, making a comment that some saw as an attempt to argue that climate change should be viewed as a natural phenomenon rather than man-made. "I was informed by the immediate past director of NASA that they have found that the moon's orbit is changing slightly and so is the Earth's orbit around the sun," Gohmert said.


"We know there's been significant solar flare activity. And so, is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM (Bureau of Land Management) can do to change the course of the moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the sun? Obviously, that would have profound effects on our climate," the congressman asked Eberlien.
Eberlien responded that she "would have to follow up with you on that one, Mr. Gohmert."

My word that lady held her composure, getting fired or not I would have just answered with manical laughter for 5 minutes straight.
 

Soodanim

Member
He has to be joking. He has to have given up caring about his job, and felt like being particularly mischievous when he woke up that day. There’s no way any human would say those words and mean them.

Well done Louie Gohmert, that was expertly done.
 
Yeah, sure, that sounds like a great idea! I just have a tiny little concern over the amount of energy needed. I'm sure it's nothing though. Not like it is more power than all of humanity has produced over the whole of human history or anything. Nah.
 
Yeah, sure, that sounds like a great idea! I just have a tiny little concern over the amount of energy needed. I'm sure it's nothing though. Not like it is more power than all of humanity has produced over the whole of human history or anything. Nah.

I love how it's just so matter of fact. What could go wrong with altering orbits that have been stable for billions of years? You have to laugh at people like this that are our so called elected leaders and officials.
 
I love how it's just so matter of fact. What could go wrong with altering orbits that have been stable for billions of years? You have to laugh at people like this that are our so called elected leaders and officials.

Probably watched a bit too much science fantasy and thinks it is a realistic idea.
I was curious actually and ran the numbers, probably off here but it is around several million years of our current energy production to alter the Earth's orbit by a measly 1 m/s. So yeah... that's not happening. :)
 

TonyK

Member
He has Netflix for sure.
hTcGkRj.jpg
 

llien

Member
He has Netflix for sure.
hTcGkRj.jpg
Liu Cixin is an amazing sci-fi author, remembering his "3 body problem" still gives me shivers.

Conservatives could calm down though, we are not even remotely-remotely-remotely close to even remotely doing it.
 

HoodWinked

Member
its pretty ridiculous but it does come from being intellectually curious about its feasibility.

it's alot like the nuke a hurricane which sounds ridiculous but what if we had a nuke that didn't have fallout and we set those off while they were just a low pressure system; enough to disrupt it from becoming a cat 5 based on some future tech where we had precise weather modeling.
 
Last edited:

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
And these are the people in charge of running cities and states. Amazing. I can understand politician being dumb as rocks when it comes to business and budgets since they have bottomless pockets of spending. But add science to that too.

On the other hand, just call Superman.

 

Rest

All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
Someone get this senile geriatric out of the government.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
You guys realize the earth is already drifting out of orbit due to climate change correct? Here, a study by NASA.


The spinning of earth out of orbit, is worsening the climate change effect acting like a recursive force that feeds itself in steering us towards a worse climate.

What the guy in the clip is asking for is not crazy, and it is already being studied as a potential solution to climate change. It doesn’t require nukes or any other major trigger, in fact it can be accomplished by us focusing on the climate change combat efforts that directly correlate with the earth spinning out of orbit. And yes, even the forestry department could help in these efforts.


This guy in the video is probably more informed than any of the posters mocking him on this thread.

I have a friend ex-NASA who won multiple awards on fluid dynamics and did some climate studies. The theories that he has regarding our climate challenges are the kind of shit that make it to 4chan and nobody wants to discuss. According to the climate models he studied, the gravitational pull of the planets being aligned will have a healing effect on our planet’s climate due to the concentration of gravitational forces. However he wouldn’t share that with uninformed people because it sounds like some sort of astrology bullshit on its face, but it is actually a very sound theory.

Fuck, I hate the current state of information sharing and political (us vs them) bullshit. I bet a million redditors are laughing at this dude without realizing he brought up a valid point.

edit: I just realized this is CNN. No wonder.
 
Last edited:

MastaKiiLA

Member
You guys realize the earth is already drifting out of orbit due to climate change correct? Here, a study by NASA.


The spinning of earth out of orbit, is worsening the climate change effect acting like a recursive force that feeds itself in steering us towards a worse climate.

What the guy in the clip is asking for is not crazy, and it is already being studied as a potential solution to climate change. It doesn’t require nukes or any other major trigger, in fact it can be accomplished by us focusing on the climate change combat efforts that directly correlate with the earth spinning out of orbit. And yes, even the forestry department could help in these efforts.


This guy in the video is probably more informed than any of the posters mocking him on this thread.

I have a friend ex-NASA who won multiple awards on fluid dynamics and did some climate studies. The theories that he has regarding our climate challenges are the kind of shit that make it to 4chan and nobody wants to discuss. According to the climate models he studied, the gravitational pull of the planets being aligned will have a healing effect on our planet’s climate due to the concentration of gravitational forces. However he wouldn’t share that with uninformed people because it sounds like some sort of astrology bullshit on its face, but it is actually a very sound theory.

Fuck, I hate the current state of information sharing and political (us vs them) bullshit. I bet a million redditors are laughing at this dude without realizing he brought up a valid point.

edit: I just realized this is CNN. No wonder.
Orbit and rotation are not the same thing. The articles aren't seem related to anything from the crackpot congressman.

A for your friend's theory, that is just a theory he'd need to prove to a very significant level of accuracy, before anyone would take it seriously. Consider that the planetary orbits have a resonance, and that add stability. Planetary alignment leading to some drastic changes in global climate is something that can be modeled. The orbital dynamics, anyway. Your friend has the ability to prove it beyond random conversation. However, I'm sure it's not something that will be easy to prove, given that there are tons of orbital studies on the solar system, and no one has really gone public with any of it with regards to climate change.

I'm fairly skeptical, especially if a scientist is too afraid to share with his colleagues when astrophysicists are actively holding TED talks on things like Planet 9.
 
Last edited:
You guys realize the earth is already drifting out of orbit due to climate change correct? Here, a study by NASA.


The spinning of earth out of orbit, is worsening the climate change effect acting like a recursive force that feeds itself in steering us towards a worse climate.

What the guy in the clip is asking for is not crazy, and it is already being studied as a potential solution to climate change. It doesn’t require nukes or any other major trigger, in fact it can be accomplished by us focusing on the climate change combat efforts that directly correlate with the earth spinning out of orbit. And yes, even the forestry department could help in these efforts.


This guy in the video is probably more informed than any of the posters mocking him on this thread.

I have a friend ex-NASA who won multiple awards on fluid dynamics and did some climate studies. The theories that he has regarding our climate challenges are the kind of shit that make it to 4chan and nobody wants to discuss. According to the climate models he studied, the gravitational pull of the planets being aligned will have a healing effect on our planet’s climate due to the concentration of gravitational forces. However he wouldn’t share that with uninformed people because it sounds like some sort of astrology bullshit on its face, but it is actually a very sound theory.

Fuck, I hate the current state of information sharing and political (us vs them) bullshit. I bet a million redditors are laughing at this dude without realizing he brought up a valid point.

edit: I just realized this is CNN. No wonder.

I love it, bringing up axis of rotation in an orbital chat. Feels like you brought a knife to a gun fight.

I'm dealing with a website outage at 5.30AM, so I'll give those things a read tomorrow. Always enjoying looking at some solid science, I hope your friend is indeed our Will Smith Errrfff science saviour.

EDIT: Yeah a 5 second look at the JPL work behind your link has zero to do with moving Earth's or the Moon's orbits, it's related to Polar Motion studies.

Theoretical basis
Redistribution of mass on Earth’s surface (e.g., ice melting, sea-level rise) or within its interior (e.g., glacial rebound, mantle convection) perturbs Earth’s inertia tensor, and hence polar motion. The methods to compute polar motion induced by glacial isostatic adjustment, environmental processes, and mantle convection are detailed in the Supplementary Materials of Adhikari et al. (2018).

Source

Sure similar topics of study could be what the lawmaker is referring to but when someone says, hey let us move the Earth or the Moon it's pretty fucking wild. Which one? Let us try both...why not what could go wrong. I can tell you there's a huge fucking difference between shifting the Moon's orbit and our axis of rotation. Tides alone would be one of them. Pretty crack pot unrelated science to the statement if you ask me.
 
Last edited:
Even if it was something that was feasible....why the fuck would he think the forestry service or the Bureau of Land Management would be the people to talk to about this? The space division of the US Forestry service?

You know, like the Navy has all these jets but you would think they would only be concerned with ships...Does he think that BLM is mostly concerned with public lands but has space ships too?
 
Last edited:

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Sure similar topics of study could be what the lawmaker is referring to but when someone says, hey let us move the Earth or the Moon it's pretty fucking wild. Which one? Let us try both...why not what could go wrong. I can tell you there's a huge fucking difference between shifting the Moon's orbit and our axis of rotation. Tides alone would be one of them. Pretty crack pot unrelated science to the statement if you ask me.

The video was edited by CNN to exclude the fact that this lawmaker had actually consulted with someone at NASA before throwing the question:

I was informed by the immediate past director of NASA that they have found that the moon’s orbit is changing slightly and so is the Earth’s orbit around the sun,” he continued. “And we know there’s been significant solar flare activity. And so is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM can do to change the course of the moon’s orbit or the Earth’s orbit around the sun? Obviously, that would have profound effects on our climate.”


Obviously, he could be more clear in his ask, but the question is not completely outlandish.

Orbit and rotation are not the same thing. The articles aren't seem related to anything from the crackpot congressman.

A for your friend's theory, that is just a theory he'd need to prove to a very significant level of accuracy, before anyone would take it seriously. Consider that the planetary orbits have a resonance, and that add stability. Planetary alignment leading to some drastic changes in global climate is something that can be modeled. The orbital dynamics, anyway. Your friend has the ability to prove it beyond random conversation. However, I'm sure it's not something that will be easy to prove, given that there are tons of orbital studies on the solar system, and no one has really gone public with any of it with regards to climate change.

I'm fairly skeptical, especially if a scientist is too afraid to share with his colleagues when astrophysicists are actively holding TED talks on things like Planet 9.

It is the lawmaker in question that is conflating orbit and axis spin drift, but that is an honest mistake, however, he had clearly consulted with a NASA official.

Also, my friend’s theory is not only his, but apparently the result of a lot of NASA studies. Apparently a lot of climate change is dependent on gravitational cycles that we cannot control. This information is not widely shared with the population because it promotes a defeatist attitude and we should strive to do as much as we can for the climate while we have an opportunity.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom