I haven't bothered writing about the
Inhofe 400, which has the dubious distinction of being probably the most complete list of climate change deniers ever compiled. Not only is it mostly composed of the same-old-same-old in the way of fake scientists (R. Courtney), non-scientists (E. Beck), and real scientists taken out of context (Landsea), it includes
T.V. gardener!
However, a number of bloggers have taken it upon themselves to do potted profiles of the various list denizens, which project kind of interested me, and I noticed that there were a
couple of late additions to it that nobody had mentioned yet. So here are a few notes on Dr. Klaus P. Heiss.
- Dr. Heiss' bit o' denying can be found
here, in a crappy google translation. It's the same old same old. The sun's causing it, and things will be fine when it's warmer, and so on.
- Mr. Heiss has a background in engineering and mathematics. He is currently Director of
High Frontier Inc., which is not a marijuana advocacy group, but
...the leading [U.S.] non-government authority on missile defense issues including missile defense, arms control, nuclear weapons, and strategic systems.
- Early in his career, Mr. Heiss worked for NASA, providing "conceptual work" on the space shuttle. (So already we have a career black mark. Mr. Heiss had a hand in designing the famous "space truck", an orbital vehicle that explodes more often than my old Datsun pickup from the same time-period).
- With High Frontier Inc., Mr. Heiss is up to his nose in the Bush plans for a Moon Base, which will eventually serve as a "stepping stone to Mars". He is especially concerned with preserving private property rights in outer space. High Frontier Inc. has generated a document entitled
"Rules of the Road for the Economic Exploration of Space: A Declaration of Principles and Property Rights". In it,
Fred Hayek's warnings against Socialism are invoked, and lunar colonization in particular is envisioned along the lines of the opening of the American West. Indeed, Mr. Heiss is quite enamored (perhaps obsessed) with the "property rights in space" issue. He has, for example, suggested that the first developments on the moon should follow
condominium rules.
- While denying certain aspects of Climate Change, Mr. Heiss is also
schlepping his moon condos as being suitable platforms for a solar observatory which might prove once and for all that CO2 emissions cannot be responsible for our current bout of global warming. On the other hand, he suggests
here and
here that space/lunar based solar power might serve as the "low emission" generation technology of the future.
So: a righty Libertarian with expertise, but not in the relevant fields, who has doubts but is nevertheless behind developing (somewhat exotic) renewable technologies. Actually fairly low down on the nutter dial, compared to some others.
