I like space. Open space, yes, but what I mean is space as in the planets and stars. You could say it was a bit of an obsession growing up in my house My older brothers and I devoured anything that claimed to be food of the astronauts including copious amounts of Tang and something truly disgusting called “Space Sticks” as a regular treat. And when I would stumble home at 2 am after seeing the midnight showing of Night of the Living Dead or Tommy when I was in high school, my father was often found on the front lawn looking through a telescope. He would never ask where I’d been, just if I wanted to see Saturn. Apollo 13 makes me cry and I will never get bored watching 2001; A Space Odyssey. I am particularly fond of NASA. And I am particularly fond of NASA right now as they are taking on the climate science deniers. It’s fitting. After all, it was NASA scientist James Hansen that first testified about climate change before the U.S. Congress in 1986.

According to MSNBC, NASA scientists have published an article in the journal Nature this week which is the first study to demonstrate a direct link between humans, climate change and the impacts on the environment. Now for those of us that have been long time believers in science, the response may be ‘tell me something I don’t know’, but don’t underestimate the continuing denial of climate science. Just in the last few weeks a group called "We Get It" (tag line – Caring for the Environment and the Poor Biblically) is circulating a declaration which reads in part “Our stewardship of creation must be based on Biblical principles and factual evidence. We face important environmental challenges, but must be cautious of claims that our planet is in peril from speculative dangers like man-made global warming”. Not that NASA’s findings will have any impact on these folks, most of them probably believe the earth is 6,000 years old!

And then there is the founder of the Weather Channel who wants to Sue Al Gore, which is ironic since the Weather Channel now has a whole section of their website devoted to debunking climate change skeptics. Nonetheless, John Coleman claims to be getting lots of support to take Al Gore and other environmentalists to court for perpetrating what he calls “the biggest scam in history”. What is amazing is that based on the comments on the Telegraph website, Coleman does seem to have a lot of support. However, people that want to deny science and a credible case are two very different things. Plus, (Vice) President Gore has NASA in his corner.

According to the NASA Scientists:

Significant changes in physical and biological systems are occurring on all continents and in most oceans, with a concentration of available data in Europe and North America. Most of these changes are in the direction expected with warming temperature. Here we show that these changes in natural systems since at least 1970 are occurring in regions of observed temperature increases, and that these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone. Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on physical and biological systems globally and in some continents. -- Nature (Download full report here)

According to NASA, it’s just as Mr. Gore has been telling us. The NASA researchers also break down the impacts by continent including earlier planting seasons and declining mountain snow pack in North America, glacial melting and earlier bird migration in Europe, thinning of permafrost and lake ice in Asia, declining water levels in Australia and increasing plankton in our oceans. In essence, the results of the study are the same bad news we have been hearing for a long time. The result of the conclusiveness of the study, however, may be an end to the denial.