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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


U.S. formally begins exit from Paris climate agreement

On Monday the Trump administration fulfilled one of Trump’s campaign promises and formally began the year-long process to exit the Paris climate agreement.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the move in a statement. “President Trump made the decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement because of the unfair economic burden imposed on American workers, businesses, and taxpayers by U.S. pledges made under the Agreement,” Pompeo said. “The United States has reduced all types of emissions, even as we grow our economy and ensure our citizens’ access to affordable energy….The U.S. approach incorporates the reality of the global energy mix,” he added, arguing “innovation and open markets” will drive emissions reductions.

There is ample data that indicates the U.S. is beating the targets of the Paris accord, even though Trump made it clear very shortly after taking office that the government would no longer require its implementation.

The article is amusing in its biased effort to provide a soapbox for every special interest (from environmentalists to Democrats) to express their horror at Trump’s decision. Like most
mainstream outlets, it devotes practically no effort to give the whole story.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

2 comments

  • Phill O

    This agreement was meant to stifle American economy in favor of China, India and other 3 world countries. Also, it allowed countries to increase the tax base.

    Science has shown the idea of AGW is idiotic.

    The solar powered climate change model shows this. The Canadian farmer that is close to the Rockies has experienced it the last two years!

    I can not express the frustration I feel when combating the AGW camp.

  • Edward

    Phill O wrote: “Science has shown the idea of AGW is idiotic.

    There has been surprisingly little science in the coming-ice-age/global-warming/climate-change/climate-weirding/whatever field. As it turned out, in order to continue getting funding for the climate science field, a scientist has to be willing to draw predetermined conclusions, whether or not they are supported by the data. Drawing different conclusions results in rejection by publishers and rejection by funding organizations. This is no way to perform actual science.

    Science has failed to show any anthropogenic global warming, much less any significant contribution to warming. This is not quite the same as AGW being idiotic, but the application of the science has certainly been idiotic. Just because science has yet to show AGW being significant does not mean that it is not. As I mentioned, not much science has yet been applied to this field of study.

    The main problem is that the data that we use to indicate climate is very noisy, and contributions by any source, including man, natural CO2 releases, solar output, etc. are lost in all that noise. Pulling signals of each contributing phenomenon is difficult, especially when there are so many competing phenomena in the noise.

    The only real evidence of some sort of correlation is with sun spots and temperature as seen in the past grand minimum of sunspots a few centuries ago. However, as Robert has noted, we really don’t have much scientific evidence that there is a relationship rather than this being a coincidence.
    https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/sunspot-update-sept-2019the-blankest-sun-in-decades/

    During past grand minimums there is evidence that the Earth also cooled, though the link between the two phenomenon remains circumstantial and unproven. If we see another grand minimum, and the Earth once again cools, then we might be able to finally tie these two phenomenon together.

    We do know, however, that the models that are used to predict future climates have failed to predict the current climate. These models have assumed that AGW is real and significant, but the lack of skill in these models suggests otherwise (do not confuse a suggestion with a conclusion). The models also assume that temperature increases follow CO2 increases, but past scientific investigation has shown that it has long been the other way around, that historically CO2 increases have followed temperature increases. Other science has shown that CO2 bound up in soils is released into the atmosphere when temperatures increase. A valid conclusion is that these models fail to properly account for factors that make up climate, whether these factors are AGW, sunspots, cosmic rays, or whatever.

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