Climate, Energy and ...oh... Trump vs the Rich!

First a quick political note: many of you will recall that long ago - before it even seemed plausible - I forecast a silver lining to Donald Trump becoming the GOP nominee. (There are several, actually.) Despite his maniacal unsuitability, Trump has one advantage, that of being completely detached from the standard and utterly failed "supply side" narrative that's been Holy Writ across the Bush-Murdoch era. He's the one Republican who has ever told Rupert to go chase himself.

And hence I foretold that The Donald would stun the nation, during the autumnal debates, by agreeing with his democratic opponent on some issues, thus wiping never-ever-true Supply Side off our national platter-of-insanities. Now it seems he is already preparing the ground: "Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Sunday that he’s open to raising taxes on the wealthy."

Watch this silver lining unfold. Remember, I do not want him and will work to prevent a Trump presidency. But watch for these debate shockers? Do you want another likely one? When the Republican nominee for president openly avows that the climate is changing and that we must take action about it. Will this 180 reversal damage his credibility? What credibility?  Remember who you're talking about. No, with a blithe shrug he will simply "change his mind"... and cite as his reasons some of the following...

== Face it - we have to cope with a sci fi future ==

Major ice-sheet melting in Greenland is exceeding even the "warmist" expectations.

OTOH it seems that the Paris Climate Deal is running ahead of schedule, so sanity may be on the rebound. (See link.) 

Pure fact for your crazy uncle. The first eleven months of 2014 were the warmest on record. 

Then 2015 overtook it, with an average global temperature of 58.62 degrees (F). 

And the first three months of 2016 have already surpassed marks set in 2015. See more from PolitiFact...

...which does not mention accelerating ocean acidification - two words that even denialists on Fox veer away from ever mentioning. Because they have no distraction, no narrative, nothing except the tactic of pointing offstage and shouting "squirrel!"

== Disturbing changes ==

Ground-shaking... "Induced seismicity" is when earthquakes happen more often and much harder, because of human activities like fracking and deep fluids injection.  

In particular, Oklahoma has seen the number of quakes go up by several thousand percent and risk of damage proportionately.  See the map issued by USGS - showing a geologic hot spot in the middle of the country. 

To be clear, this does not make me oppose all fracking, all the time! In this matter, I infuriate leftist friends. Freeing the U.S. from its addiction to Middle East oil has been a huge accomplishment that will have major, wholesome geopolitical consequences, and for our wallets and economy...

... though we badly need far better supervision and site-effects analysis and urgent surveys of illegal methane release! And fracking must be replaced ASAP by rapidly improving sustainables, augmented by some smart-new options in nuclear.  

No, what is pertinent about all of the above is that this proves yet again how always-wrong are the fox-propelled wagers of atomic-level war on science and hijackers of American conservatism.  How many times must these bozos - who said "tobacco is good for you" and "cars don't cause smog" and "women shouldn't vote" and "abstinence education leads to moral behavior" and "prohibition leads to sobriety" and "let's dump waste into streams" -- be wrong before you'll admit that maybe there's a fault in the root code?

== Rethinking energy use  ==

"The annual growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide... jumped by 3.05 parts per million during 2015, the largest year-to-year increase in 56 years of research," said a NOAA statement. 

Purely to illustrate how rapidly sea levels are rising, some scientists calculated how much seawater would have to be lifted and sprayed over wintry Antarctica to remove enough to keep sea levels constant.  Every millimeter of sea level rise is equivalent to 360 billion tons of ocean water.  

Okay, want some good news? A Renewable Energy Boom: The average global cost of generating electricity from solar panels fell 61 percent between 2009 and 2015 and 14 percent for land-based wind turbines. Renewables accounted for a majority of new electricity-generating capacity added around the world, last year.  All of this is far better than even optimists predicted and it puts the utter lie to the cynics who tried desperately to thwart investments in sustainables, ever since Ronald Reagan tore solar cells off the White House and disbanded all but one small federal program in the field.

From that day to this, the American right has been associated with obstruction of R&D and advancement of TWODA… or Things We Ought to be Doing Anyway, even if global climate change turned out to be a myth.  Just the raw cash in consumers’ pockets - billions - from increased fuel efficiency has proved TWODA to be the right thing to do, even if (unlikely) it is found that 99% of scientists and smart folks are all 100% wrong.

“In sunny parts of the world like India and Dubai, developers of solar farms have recently offered to sell electricity for less than half the global average price. In November, the accounting firm KPMG predicted that by 2020 solar energy in India could be 10 percent cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal.”

Let’s be clear.  We could have had this ten years ago, but for obstruction by a denialist cult whose underlying purpose was to keep us suckling coal and middle eastern oil as long as possible. But science and innovative tech entrepreneurs are delivering, despite that obstruction. Perhaps in time to save the planet! But not Florida. That ship has left port. 

So let's all promise, when half a billion climate refugees come knocking - many of them Americans - the first recourse will be to give them the houses (or at least guest bedrooms) of the cultists who made re-housing necessary.

== And finally... follow the money ==

The new Gilded Age: Close to half of all super-PAC money comes from 50 donors. “Thirty-six of those are Republican supporters who have invested millions in trying to shape the GOP nomination contest — accounting for more than 70 percent of the money from the top 50.Donors this cycle have given more than $607 million to 2,300 super PAC.” That’s so far.  And it is early, yet.

The good news. TV ad buys have proved worthless, this year. So where will all the money go? Initial signs point to Chinese style social media boiler room operations, paying thousands of shills to head online promoting an image of huge support for a candidate... or more thousands of trolls assigned to commit sabotage in the other side's ranks.  Watch it unfold and beware.

In this separate piece: “Meet the wealthy donors who are funneling millions into the 2016 elections -- with a list of the top fifty donors and "ghost corporations" (backed by individuals who can not be identified.)

What a climate.

Moving the Goalposts -- Refusal to Negotiate

Impoverishment?  The latest denialist buzzword for refusal to negotiate

The key trait - if you want a job at Heritage or Fox or one of the outfits stoking the New American Civil War - is agility. The incantations that keep GOP ground troops fiercely loyal must be constantly refreshed. It's a lot like the tactics used by the brilliant confederate cavalry general Nathan Bedford Forrest, or Persian horse archers who harried the Roman legions of Crassus. Keep changing direction! Never let your lumbering foe grapple with you, bringing to bear his devastating advantage in artillery -- called "facts."

Elsewhere we've seen how the climate denialist movement has dodged and weaved, with roots in the same advertising firms that declared: "tobacco is good for you" and "cars don't cause smog," and "what Love Canal?"

When it came to global warming, we first saw: "You scientists were predicting an Ice Age in the 1970s!" (A complete lie. There was one paper; the actual consensus at the time was seen in the flick Soylent Green, already deep concern about warming.)

What was the next incantation? It went -- "What warming? Glaciers are growing!"

This fell apart when clear satellite images were augmented by the stunningly beautiful and frightening film, Chasing Ice. And if you have not seen it yet, don't you dare call yourself an open-minded citizen.  I am serious. You are a dogmatic fool, if you cannot bring yourself to spend a dollar and 80 minutes seeing what's actually going on... and how Heritage and Fox lied to you.

Oh, but did I mention agility? As those smartypants science lovers ponderously brought facts to bear, the confederate cavalry did a sudden swerve to: "Of course it's getting warmer! Climate is always changing...naturally! But there's no evidence that humans are causing it."

This time, the sciencey types were quicker... as they got better in earlier phases of the Civil War. Charts of the extremely mild and stable Holocene Era, in which humanity was able to build civilization in a very calm and mild period... have been devastating the "it's always changing" hypnosis chant.  Anyway, if climate is "changing" away from Holocene Era stability, then it's time to take things really seriously, take reasonable precautions, maybe get ready.  Possibly even follow expert advice.

One might imagine this would corner General Forrest, at last. Oh, but never underestimate the agility of the panderers and pushers of Ailes-heimers disease.

== Moving the goal posts ==

There is nothing lower than a cheater... except a cheater who tries to pretend he never cheated.  The process I described, above, is called "moving the goal posts." And many of you out there have participated in this calumny. 

In fairness, it also happens all the time on the far left! Take the recent indignation over President Obama's "glacial" one-year transition toward rescinding the policy known as "don't ask, don't tell."  Those who decried that U.S. military policy toward gay service members were right to call the policy obsolete.  These goal posts needed moving! 

Still... does progress demand amnesia? That these very same activists  wanted and praised "don't ask, don't tell," as a huge reform over the discrimination that came before? Let me reiterate: "You adored "Don't ask, Don't tell," back in the 1990s.  Sure, push forward, but must you be so grouchy and bereft of memory or perspective?

This sort of thing happens all the time, on the left. Only with this difference. That shifting immediate goals can often be part and parcel of making necessary progress. It is the churlish refusal to admit that there's been progress, that makes this dishonest and a bit of a cheat.

Goal-moving cheaters on the right have no such excuse. For the Fox-crowd, it is simply a way to shift to the next propaganda lie, as soon as the last one proves untenable. Moreover, if you do this, it proves you are not a climate "skeptic," because genuine Skeptics ask questions with a receptiveness to getting actual answers.

They set a standard by which they would be willing to change their minds. Want an example? Richard Muller of UC Berkeley was a climate change gadfly for years, and a hero to denialists... until the mound of accumulating evidence rose to a level where he announced "all right, I am satisfied. Human activity is changing the climate and we need to adjust policies to mitigate the harm." 

At which point folks at Heritage and Fox who had been lionizing Muller abruptly denounced him as a member of the lemming-herd, "grant hugging" conspiracy of pointy-headed science conformist drones.*

== A huge, glaring example ==

For years, politicians wanting to block legislation on climate change have bolstered their arguments by pointing to the work of a handful of scientists who claim that greenhouse gases pose little risk to humanity. Faux “academic” institutions like Heritage and AEI have put forward offers of major grant money (originating with the Kochs and others) for eminent scientists to defect and become denialist shills. Very few have accepted, but here is one example.

“Documents show Wei-Hock Soon, a scientist who attributes global warming largely to variations in the sun’s energy, has accepted more than $1.2 million from the fossil-fuel industry but failed to disclose that in most of his scientific papers. He has often appeared on conservative news programs, testified before Congress and in state capitals.”

“Historians and sociologists of science say that since the tobacco wars of the 1960s, corporations trying to block legislation that hurts their interests have employed a strategy of creating the appearance of scientific doubt, usually with the help of ostensibly independent researchers who accept industry funding.”

Oh, be proud.

== The goal posts move again! ==

So what's the latest incantation? The new climate-denialist incantation making the rounds is "impoverishment." And it goes to the heart of the American red-blue divide.

Even if we suppose that the scientists and the 99% of folks who actually know stuff turn out to be right -- that polluting human industry is rapidly changing the climate we all rely upon -- we should still do absolutely nothing about it!

Why? 

Because the only option being offered by the smartypants types is to forsake all power, all industry, trash our standard of living, and thereafter sit and shiver in the dark...

...until the final days of Armageddon end it all, so why suffer, when it's all gonna get used up, anyway?

Yep, that's what we want -- impoverishment. 

Amid the fastest rising prosperity the world has ever seen, with ever-greater fractions of the world's children going to school and coming home to electric lights, a fridge and sanitation, we "lib'ruls and libertarians" want to end all that progress and instead make everyone squat in chill-dimness.

Uh-huh. Riiiiight.

In fact, there are maybe a few thousand frenzied Earth-Firster types who want exactly that.  Dismal, fanatical cretins who remind us that the left contains some loonies, too. A ratio and a level of craziness almost one percent of what we see on today's mad right. (Yes, that numerous and that crazy!)

You conservatives out there -- (and I know there are many of you in my community, who are wise enough to come here now and then, despite the pain) -- please dig this now, carefully. And I look you in the eye as I tell you the bald truth...

... that when you claim us blue-sciencey types want "impoverishment" you are not only spreading an outright lie. You also thus make clear that you know no scientists.  Most of us, in fact, quite like modern comforts. Heck we invented most of the ones you like best.

In fact, almost no one is asking for "impoverishment" or to "shiver in the dark." That incantation is an excuse for what the Kochs and Saudis and carbon barons really want, which is utter refusal to negotiate.

== The absolute crux matter in climate change ==

I lay it on the line. This is not about whether or not there's warming.  This isn't even about whether or not humans are causing some, or all of the change in Earth's climate. Those are all distractions. 

The matter at stake here is purely and absolutely this --

--  refusal to even discuss practical, interim, moderate measures that we might take, just in case the warnings prove correct.

Think about it. If you received a warning about any other danger -- from lung cancer to an approaching asteroid -- you would take at least some reasonable, modest precautions early, just in case the worried experts turn out to be right. Even while seeking a second, third, fifth, hundredth opinion, you would heed advice and do something. You might cut down your smoking, or have NASA send out some investigating probes. You would at least support taking further tests and widening their scope.

But that is diametrically opposite to what's happened re: climate change. While demeaning science and moving goal posts, the right's adamant position has been to never put anything on the table. No increases in climate research. (Funds were slashed under the Bushes, satellites cancelled and NASA forbidden to look Earthward.)  No investments in energy efficiency.

Let's make this perfectly clear. Instead of draconian "impoverishment," most of what we need to do falls into the category of TWODA - or Things We Ought to be Doing Anyway... efficiency measures that would help us all, by saving billions off our energy bills even if it turns out that all the smart people are wrong about climate change.

Now ask yourselves this. Who, in their right minds, would oppose TWODA?

Only one group of individuals on this planet are benefiting from the relentless delaying tactics. From a propaganda campaign to rile up millions of Americans -- and Australians and Canadians -- to oppose even a hint of negotiation over moderate, just-in-case precautions that would also lower all our energy bills. Care to guess who those people are?

Why the very same carbon barons who own Heritage and AEI, who own Fox, and who get rich by delaying energy efficiency and tapping into your wallet, every single day.

=========

Addendum: 

*I love the "grant-hugging" bit! Have you ever seen Heritage or Fox back up this incantation-assertion - as journalists do - by listing the "climate change grants" that are supposedly bribing thousands of the smartest folks on the planet into conforming with a lib'rul party line?

Hint, no such list is possible, Indeed, many of the finest experts need no such piddling, five-figure "climate grants." They are already hugely well-funded, doing weather analysis and billion dollar, ten day forecasts that insurance, agriculture and other industries pay vast sums for. Oh, another funny thing; as we just saw in the case of Wei-Hock Soon, Heritage and AEI offer major grant bribes for any prominent scientist to come over and say whatever the Kochs and Saudis want them to say. Only a few, second rate takers, so far. So much for "Grant-hugging."

I reiterate, the folks who are dissed by folks as being clueless are the very same geniuses who can parse the Navier-Stokes equations and create brilliant cellular gas-vapor models, that transformed the old 4 hour joke of a "weather report" into today's ten-day miracle forecast..... can you do that?)

I know those folks. Plus others who have successfully modeled the climates of six planets!  They are smarter people than me and smarter than you too. 

Climate: Have we reached the tipping point?

With climate change still a political minefield across the nation despite the strong scientific consensus that it's happening, some community leaders — even in Red States — have hit upon a way of preparing for the potentially severe local consequences without triggering explosions of partisan warfare: Just change the subject. See: Red State Cities Find Euphemisms to Prepare for Global Warming.

==Denialism continues== 

When you encounter anti-science climate denialists, say two words -- "Ocean... acidification." It is clearly and unambiguously happening. It is clearly dangerous and harmful. And it cannot possibly have any other cause than increased absorbed CO2 from human activity.

Every Distraction-Gambit concocted by AEI and Heritage Foundation and Fox - at the behest of coal barons and middle eastern petro princes - falls apart. Not sunspots nor "faked hockey sticks" nor any of the other incantations will work, this time.

Watch! As your crazy uncle suddenly points to the left and yells: "squirrel!"

But you can come back with another word. "TWODA"... or Things We Ought to be Doing Anyway.... All sorts of moderate, reasonable work on efficiency that would help address climate change and that would help us all anyway, even if climate change were a myth. Only one class of people would be hurt by us all becoming more efficient and saving money on energy, via TWODA.

Coal barons and middle eastern petro princes... who own today's GOP. Huh, funny about that. So ask your uncle... "Is there ANY degree of investment in Rand D and moderate science and other TWODA, that you will admit would NOT "destroy the economy" and you would be willing to negotiate, just in case 99% of the people who actually know a thing or two about weather and climate happen to be right?  AnyTWODA at all? Anything?"

Those of you out there who are fuming right now, consider.  If you do NOT want to be viewed as a member of a fanatical denialist cult, there is one thing you can say: 

"I am willing to negotiate moderate precautionary measures and funding for initiatives that would increase energy efficiency and alternatives, just in case I am wrong and most scientists prove to be right.  I will negotiate hard and insist that the measures not be "economy wrecking" and that they have benefits to the consumer other than just reducing carbon emissions.  I will also insist, as part of the deal, that some basic questions and doubts about the "warmist" consensus be addressed, asap, and I will help back urgent increases in funding for a broadly competitive range of scientific research to settle this important matter."

"I will also establish a set of achievable and reasonable milestones for the "warmist" case and if those milestones are met, I will accept that the 99% of atmospheric and climate scientists who believe that more urgent action is needed are probably right. In that case, I will 'up' my support for efforts to save my children's planet and I will "down" my respect for those who talked me into calling 99% of atmospheric scientists fools.  What I will NOT abide is moving the goal posts... when my skeptical questions are satisfied, I will actually change my mind."

THAT is reasonably stated and exactly what a reasonable, rational "Skeptic" would say, in the face of the fact that 99% of scientists who actually know the Navier Stokes equations and cellular gas balance models disagree with the fox-sources that provide your science. It would also end the hypocrisy of the American right, shouting "we need more research!" ...while savagely cutting it every chance they get.

 If you can bring yourself to say -- and act upon -- those two paragraphs above, then maybe you are the rational "skeptic" you proclaim yourself to be!

Otherwise, look in a mirror.  Cultist.

== The fizzing sound of a tipping point ==

This is what we had all feared -- those of us who aren't ostrich-people. The possible tipping point. Methane plumes are emanating from at least 570 seafloor cold seeps on the outer continental shelf and the continental slope, Mississippi State University reported. A potential disaster that I warned about in EARTH (1989).

"Warming of ocean temperatures on seasonal, decadal or much longer time scales can cause gas hydrate to release its methane, which may then be emitted at seep sites," said Carolyn Ruppel, study co-author and chief of the USGS Gas Hydrates Project.  "Such continental slope seeps have previously been recognized in the Arctic, but not at mid-latitudes.  So this is a first."

To be clear, methane is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2… and rising ocean temps will cause icy methane hydrates to fizz, all over the globe, causing a runaway effect.

Okay, I began this missive all-reasonable and trying logic and argument. That is why -- above -- I offered a simple exit strategy for those "skeptics" who truly want to earn that term.  If you can recite the paragraphs I offered, and intend to live by then, then please leave now and thanks.  The following does NOT apply to you!

 But truly? Do I any longer expect that approach to work?  During phase eight of the American Civil War? Of course not.  Which leaves me with this to say to you others -- the science-hating fools, drooling before “hypnotize-me!” Fox-Nuremberg rallies and neo-confederate rant-fests against all big-city-university “smartypants” types.

No evidence will change your opposition to negotiating even moderate, sensible, precautionary interim measures to increase energy efficiency or do basic RandD. You sabotage TWODA (Things We Ought to be Doing Anyway.) When the US Navy shouts concern about a warming arctic, you simply move the goal posts.

Worse. You help to denigrate and geld the smartest, most knowledgeable, competitive and wisest human beings whom our species has ever produced, and thereby you declare yourselves to be brave authority questioners and skeptics! 

Millions of science loving moderates (like me) have been willing to negotiate ways to (win-win) simultaneously boost economic activity while taking basic precautions against the (perhaps slim) possibility that smart people aren't stupid. But fanatics show no willingness to make a deal. Their New Civil War has reduced the world’s most scientific and future-oriented nation in history to dysfunction, unable to perform politics at even a basic level.

You refuse to look at actual outcomes, by which measure your “side” has proved insanely incompetent.  Everything to you is “right versus left” — a loony metaphor that allows you to ignore the fact that Adam Smith … today… would be a Democrat.

See also: A Brief History of Climate Change -- from the BBC.

== Ahem... ==

Rant mode off.  Only dig this.  The earlier phases of the Civil War featured this same syndrome.  A re-ignited confederacy, riled up on hate toward urban-educated-industrial-blue Americans who create all the wealth and progress. Each time it failed.  Blues were (as Sam Houston predicted, during the 1860s phase) slow to anger and seemingly soft as mush... till each and every time we proved tougher than we had seemed, and ponderously unstoppable when pushed too far.

Right now, you are threatening the very lives of our grandchildren and our planet and the republic that we love.  And we will stop you from ruining any of them.

== Final Item ==

Before moving on, let's do a chilling side segue... that's very interesting. Eric H. Cline, in his recent book 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, portrays a time when bronze age empires of the eastern Mediterranean were riding high… then went into a simultaneous tailspin due to drought and their own inability to adapt.

Sifting the skies for "others"

Let’s talk sci and tech! So much cool stuff and so little time… so we'll start by looking upward for this posting.

First… the Wall Street Journal reports that Google is planning to spend more than $1 billion on satellites that will offer internet access worldwide from space. My contacts at ViaSat confirm that something is in the works. People familiar with the project say the devices Google intends to use will weigh less than 250 pounds. The WSJ's sources say the costs for the venture could top $3 billion. Among many other aspects, this could be the jiu jitsu move that allows Earth citizens to evade the censorship of national governments. And many other good things! But of course, there's always a cost.

Wow.

== NIAC announces bold new projects ==

I serve on the board of advisor of NASA's Innovative and Advanced Concepts (NIAC) group, which doles out grants to highly speculative endeavors at the very far edge of the usefully plausible... like self inflating and laser-manipulated optical mirrors, or spelunking robots to explore lunar and martian lava tubes, or new kinds of radiation shielding. We often have to stretch hard to evaluate these proposals, which often forge well beyond my background in comets and asteroids... or the work I did with Calspace or for Hughes Aircraft, in other days. But the advisory board has a wide range of complementary skill sets: we learn from the applicants and from each other.

Anyway, drop by to look at the latest round of way-cool projects that NIAC (the group charged with taking real chances) has chosen for next round.  

(I hope soon to be able to post some of the talks and consultations I've given recently for the Atlantic Council, the Mitre Corporation, Google, and the Internet Society.  Sorry, the Pentagon stuff won't be available.)

== Sift the skies for “others”! ==

 My paper on the search for - and worries about - alien contact is one of a dozen in the latest issue of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society - a special volume that is formatted as a debate over the controversial matter of beaming "yoohoo messages to ET." It is a serious matter that should be discussed openly by humanity's greatest sages, before a fascinated and participating world populace! Instead, a dozen or so zealots want to make the decision on our behalf, without a scintilla of consultation. The debate is here… though (for now) at a small fee that goes to a good cause…

… getting out there, ourselves.

 How We'll Talk to Aliens: Now available from NASA for free download (print also available) is "Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication" edited by Doug Vakoch, with articles about a wide range of non-astronomical aspects of contact with ExtraTerrestrial Civilizations.

See more on Shouting to the Cosmos: SETI vs METI. 

Meanwhile, we learn about planets! Like… Godzilla earth? Here’s an interesting discovery of a rocky planet which has a mass some 17 times that of Earth. Combining transit-eclipse size measurements from the Kepler telescope with mass-tug effects from a scope in the Canary Islands, researchers showed that Kepler-10c cannot be a gaseous world but must comprise very dense material. Interestingly, the age of the host star (a red dwarf) is about 11 billion years old, which is early in the evolution of the Universe when generations of exploding stars have not had long to make the heavy elements needed to construct rocky planets. Finding Kepler-10c tells us that rocky planets could form much earlier than we thought.

== Piecing together the puzzle ==

Gravitational wave discovery faces scrutiny: Inspiring to witness science at work, both collegial and relentlessly competitive and self-critical. In this case, the BICEP results reported in March -- suggesting that polarization in the cosmic background might reveal inflation patterns in the first trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of the universe -- might have contained some flawed image processing assumptions. We can all wait and see. But the process is fascinating to follow in this excellent NATURE article.

Modeling the universe, starting with the Big Bang, only became possible with the advent of supercomputers, fantastic software and the realization of the existence of mysterious dark matter. Combining all of these resulted in what may be one of the great scientific achievements of our time -- a model that portrays the Bang, then natural evolution into the cosmos we see today, with the same array of numbers of sizes and types of galaxies. If verified, it is a stunning validation of our current models and our growing ability as simulators… then creators?… in our own right.

See also this video about the simulation. I hope it's valid.

It used to be generally thought that our solar system's largest moon contained an ocean with ice on bottom and top. But crushing pressure on Ganymede could create up to three layers of ice, with different kinds in each layer. The densest and heaviest ice on Ganymede is called "Ice VI." Hence, Jupiter's moon Ganymede may have a multi-layered ocean of alternating ice and liquid water that resembles a "club sandwich," according to NASA.

== We need … more SPACE! ==

Elon does it again. Unveils version 2 of the Dragon Capsule... this one capable of carrying astronauts. The fellow's timing is amazing... just as the US and Europe are looking for a way to stop paying Russia for manned Soyuz transports carrying our astronauts to the space station.

And then…

The surprise donation to NASA of two identical space telescopes by the United States National Reconnaissance Office has put NASA in a bind. They are essentially brand new Hubbles… a super gift, but then comes the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to turn them into scientific instruments. Read about a petition to make use of these (potentially) amazing gifts for astronomy.

== Will OCO help cure madness? ==

NASA plans to launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)-2 mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on July 1, 2014.  The OCO-2 mission will be NASA’s first dedicated Earth remote sensing satellite to study atmospheric carbon dioxide from space.  I plan to be there! Additional information about the mission can be found on the NASA site. 

Why has it taken so long? There was an attempt to launch a climate satellite early in the Bush administration… a launch that mysteriously (even suspiciously?) blew up. After a second failure, budgets for climate science were slashed and satellites cancelled, while the GOP Congress passed measures eliminating Earth studies from the NASA mission and tried to do the same to NOAA! There were some interim sats and their work has universally confirmed global warming models, but at levels of accuracy that still allowed denialists to wriggle and squirm.

One can hope the new satellite will put doubts to rest and that mature citizens will rally behind whatever the science shows. One can hope.

Meanwhile, the most definitive climate change report so far has been issued by the US Government and it paints a serious-sobering picture… that climate change is already adversely affecting our lives and economy and picking up speed. The response? Not "maybe we should take prudent measures to prepare and ameliorate, just in case 97% of scientists prove to be right." (Look up TWODA.)

No, the response is hatred of scientists and all "government." Ponder that.

The question I have for (the recent, neo-crazy version of) conservatives is this: "Do you really want to base the entire credibility of your whole movement on obstinate rejection of science?" On a fabulated image that scientists know less, are dumber, more herd-like and less credible… than a hireling propagandist on Fox News?