Yet more science! A year-end update of amazements.

What drives leaps in technological innovation? Just posted on my secondary blog: I discuss how government-funded science plays a role in stimulating innovation. An ultimate refutation to the hypnotic incantation that all-government-is-useless-all-the-time.

And as a terrific example... The universe at your fingertips! This zoomable image from the James Webb Space Telescope lets you explore galaxies - and travel backward in time to see how these galaxies were long ago. 

== Marvels of our planet ==

In the secret world below Antarctic sea ice, salty frozen fingers descend. Called brinicles, they may be like hydrothermal vents. But creatures of the deep, beware: anything caught in the path of a brinicle will be frozen alive. So beware the Brinicles!

This drone video of whales is terrific!  As are the drone innovations by my friend Iain Kerr and Ocean Alliance, finding innovative ways to do non-invasive science on whales who might be key to reviving our oceans-in-peril. 

With only one-quarter of the sea floor mapped with sonar, it is impossible to know how many seamounts exist. But radar satellites that measure ocean height can also find them, by looking for subtle signs of seawater mounding above a hidden seamount, tugged by its gravity. A 2011 census using the method found more than 24,000. High-resolution radar data have now added more than 19,000 new ones.

== Environmental news ==

In my novel Existence I posited that we’ll face a severe crisis over Phosphorus. Illustrated by a plot point that men - yes, male human citizens - in 2040 will be called upon, by law, to pee in phos recovery urinals! Or else... onto the flower beds outside your house, in lieu of store-bought fertilizer – that’s okay too. 

Now a company (did they read the novel?) has pioneered a method to (perhaps) remove and recover phosphorus from solid municipal waste without adding chemicals, using ‘electromechanical devices.” And if we did this at high scale it would also help save small seas like the Med & Black and Caribbean from fertilizer death. 

This is the kind of thing that pops up almost monthly, where nerds may be saving the planet, and us all. Despite the mad cult-ingrates who have it in for ‘high IQ stoopidpeople.’

Only now this: Massive phosphate rock deposits discovered in Norway. Wow, lucky Norway: First beautiful fjords, then vast oil reserves, and gorgeous people... and now - it seems - large amounts of the phosphate rock that I fretted about, in Existence. If true, then maybe (male) men won't have to all pee into phos-recovery urinals by 2035. And the King of Morocco won't own the world, after all. A case of I'd rather be wrong.

Seeking new strategies... testing is underway to determine if sprinkling volcanic rock dust on farmland can help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  

== Earth History == 

Researchers have discovered that Earth’s tectonic plate movements cause sea levels to rise and fall in 36-million-year cycles, indirectly triggering biodiversity bursts, at least re: ocean life. These cycles, altering shallow sea and shelf habitats, are found to significantly shape marine life diversity over millions of years, challenging previous notions of species evolution.  “The cycles are 36 million years long because of regular patterns in how tectonic plates are recycled into the convecting mantle, the mobile part of the deep Earth, similar to hot, thick soup in a pot, that moves slowly.”

A fossil discovery shakes our traditional view of the Cretaceous Era as being all dinosaur domination and cowering mammal submission. It suggests a more complex ancient food web in which certain dinosaurs were prey and some mammals were predators.  

Finally, while we fret over the Anthropocene and humanity making this planet much less habitable… possibly leading to our own extinction… a recurring side topic is “are we leaving any lasting traces, that might be noticed by later – presumably wiser – archaeologists or paleontologists – either successors or visitors?"  

It’s a topic I weighed-into, when I was lead pundit for a popular History Channel show called “Life After People,” contemplating what might remain of our vaunted civilization, one minute, or a day, a year, century, millennium and eon after we – for some reason – vanished from the scene.

This article from Nautilus - Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth? - just the latest in a long series of such speculations… rightly concludes that our isotopic residue, if nothing else, would certainly blare that humans were here on Earth.  And thin but pronounced sedimentary layers of plastics. Our cities (covering just 1% of surface area) might be missed, but likely not the extensive network of roadways. But have fun speculating!

The likelihood of war

While nature flails at us - from hurricanes and quakes to solar flares - we all know that  we're in far greater danger from ourselves. (And, of course, we humans are responsible for some of nature's fury, too.)  So I feel compelled to use this soapbox yet again, drawing attention,  to the increasing likelihood of manmade hell, unleashed by an unbalanced leadership caste.

Elsewhere I discuss the deep-underlying syndrome of Republican Bipolar Disease -- generally a depressive determination to block every negotiation, obstruct all deliberation, ensure gridlock and castrate the mature, pragmatic society that the Greatest Generation built. For 20 of the last 22 years we've seen the laziest and least productive Congresses in history, holding fewer days in session, hearings or bills, while breaking records for fund-raisers. Indeed, Donald Trump himself - desperate for an accomplishment - has been attacking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose sole priority since 1995, along with Dennis (friend-to-boys) Hastert and Rupert (employer of perverts) Murdoch, has been to prevent the functioning of politics as a problem solving tool in the United States of America. In response, McConnell blames Trump's political inexperience that led to him setting "excessive expectations." 

Unintentionally, this reveals a clash of syndromes. While Donald Trump is in a perpetual state of narcissistic mania along with the alt-right media that support him, for most Republican voters and politicians the normal condition is a glowering stew of indolent depressive torpor. 

These lengthy depressive phases are crippling. But far worse are the inevitable-recurring manic phases, when Republicans turn their suddenly frenetic eyes to war.

== It's off to War we go ==

While the actual President of the United States of America spouts purple threats that exactly mirror those of Kim Jong Un, we tend to forget that there's a much more plausible way that war may come. 

Any attack on North Korea will be so precipitate and escalate so quickly that the likely consequences should daunt even a narcissist-solipsist. Even if every single nuke and missile is taken out -- and remember the N-Koreans have been digging, like mad, for 60 years -- there are still something like 10,000 artillery tubes in sunken, reverse slope revetments aimed straight at Seoul.  With or without nukes, the entire city will be crushed or in flames, within minutes of any order from Pyongyang.

 

Now mind you, there is a potential upside here. China has chortled and enjoyed its position in all this for a long time, knowing that the U.S. can't do much about it. But When Trump makes noises just like Kim, the subtext is: "Hey, I'm just crazy enough to do this!"

No, this is not the conflict that "Trump wingman" Steve Bannon and his ilk have been itching for. Elsewhere I’ve described how an unholy alliance is conspiring together to push for a hot war between the U.S. and Iran. 

Consider history. Republican presidents always seek a foreign crisis to distract from domestic troubles. And boy, does Donald Trump need a big distraction. The Saudis - who co-own the GOP - want Tomahawks pouring into Persia, as do the less-smart folks in Israel. Steve Bannon and the American Dominionists view this as their beloved, biblically-ordained crisis. 

The Iranian Mullahs themselves would love such a limited "war," giving them an excuse to crush their own fast-rising, educated and moderate citizenry, while knowing that Russia will step in to prevent any real (as opposed to symbolic) damage from U.S. strikes. Of course the biggest winner would be Vladimir Putin; getting Iran as a Russian dependency has been a dream going back to the Czars. Oh, and the Saudis and Russians would get higher oil prices. A win-win-win-win for the anti-democratic cabal.

The search for pretexts is in full swing. The Trump administration is demanding access to Iran's military bases, which satellite and radiation and traffic surveillance show zero sign of being involved in Uranium enrichment. (Can anyone spell "nonexistent WMDs?")  No sovereign power will let a likely adversary onto its bases without strong cause. But all Trump needs, to satisfy his core supporters... and Vladimir... is the sound of a saber rattling. And the mullahs, wanting the same outcome, are sure to supply just enough insults to ensure the desired outcome around Christmas or a bit after -- several hundred Tomahawk missiles going pippety-poppety, with lots of flash and little real effect.  Except to raise oil prices and give Putin his chance to "protect" the Iranian people.

I’m not the only one who’s noticed this scenario. Read here how a combination of Trump Administration adults — Mattis, McMaster, Tillerson, Kelly and the Joint Chiefs have managed — so far — to thwart a U.S.-Iran conflict.

Notice that it is our senior military officers who are foremost in striving to prevent war. Ditzty-romantic lefties who rave obsolete warnings about the “military industrial complex” miss the point. That’s not where today's war profiteers reside. Boeing and Lockheed benefit by building and upgrading deterrents. They don't benefit much, or at all, when the machinery is actually used. Indeed, money flows away from investment in new systems to logistics and support of casualties. It's Bush-Cheney family logistics-companies like Haliburton, Bechtel and Blackwater who raked in billions from the Iraq Wars, via secret, no-bid “emergency” contracts. But even they know the American people have no stomach for another ground war.

The American left needs to get over their reflex loathing of crewcuts. The women and men of the Officer Corps may be our salvation, when Washington has been seized by cranky-confederate toddlers.

On a related topic: I am no fan of Kentucky GOP Senator Rand Paul, but his recent efforts to get Congress to rescind the 2001 and 2002 War Powers acts deserve praise.  Joining him were Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine and Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, who said it was "way past time" for a vote. (Note that Flake has been a top hate target of Donald Trump, lately.) 

Congress should never give the President such a blank check, to throw us into endless wars at the stroke of a pen. But the danger of reckless abuse is now far greater than ever, with that cranky toddler-in-chief in the Oval Office. Alas, the effort to rescind and replace this carte blanche license-to-attack-anybody in our name failed.

(To be clear: while this vote was not along party lines, blame clearly falls that way. Former President Barack Obama sent Congress a proposed a reduction in his own blanket war powers, in 2015, though neither the GOP controlled Senate nor the House voted on the measure.)

== Glancing back at Korea ==

In the Washington Post, David Von Drehle writes: “regardless of what foreign leaders may think about Trump and his reckless rhetoric, the United States has its own track record in the Asian Pacific. While North Korea has necrotized under the Chinese protectorate, South Korea has flourished beyond any reasonable expectation. The contrast between Eastern and Western influence is as stark at the 38th Parallel as it was at the Berlin Wall, and countries pursuing their own interests will have no trouble choosing sides.”

It’s a very cogent and perceptive piece that you should read.

== Reiterating the point ==

This excellent reporting explores the three former officers Trump calls "my generals" -- Mattis, Kelly and McMaster -- who by any measure are the adults in this administration. Yes, they were from the moderate right wing of the US Military Officer Corps, politically.  But every sign (e.g their erudition, education, science friendliness and fact-using careers) suggests that the USMOC is our best hope for sanity to kick in, when it's needed most.

There are moderate and even liberal wings to the USMOC, though I expect that few are Bernie Bros. No matter. That is where I've long said the Democrats should recruit.  Not just candidates for swing congressional districts, but as many as 5000 retired officers to run in every deep-red state assembly district.

 And you can do your part, by pondering... "do I know such a retired officer I can arm-twist into serving, yet again?"

== Always do the opposite == 

There’s zero science behind the administration’s effort to dump the higher gas mileage rules called CAFÉ standards. Even the auto industry’s opposition to CAFÉ is tepid. The standards save consumers tens of billions at the pump, cleaned the air, and propelled American cars to the highest levels of quality we’ve ever seen.  Today’s vehicles are packed with spectacular amenities and comforts, are more efficient and last many years longer (saving additional tens of billions for consumers.) There are no reasons to do this except…

Except the one that motivates Donald Trump above anything else, other than narcissism. And that is reversing anything done by Barack Obama. European leaders even made a game of it!  They found that they could sway DT in one direction or another, dependent on their answers to just one question: “Did Obama favor this?” They found that Trump’s reflex was perfect. Always do the opposite.

He has succeeded in one way.  According to Gallup's historical data, the 44th president's approval rating stood at 56 percent this week in Obama's first term, while just 37 percent disapproved—in other words, almost exactly Trump's approval ratings, but reversed.

==  Take on the cult ==

The Climate Denialism Cult is not only stupid and treasonous, it hasn't worked well. Solar power has grown by 100 fold in the last 13 years, Ramez Naam says. It’s averaged around 35 to 40 percent annual growth over the last 20 years. Wind was a footnote in the energy mix 10 years ago, he says. Today, it makes 6% of all electricity in the US. In the sunniest parts of the world, unsubsidized solar is becoming the cheapest form of energy. Lately a deal in Dubai was signed for 2.4 cents a kWh—less than half US natural gas prices and lower than natural gas in the Middle East or Africa. See what my friend and colleague Ramez has to say about this. 

Storage and batteries are still key to making all this work with resilience and reliability, and they are often pointed to as the sticking point. The sun doesn’t always shine, even in sunny places. And for less-than-sunny places and at night, batteries are the vital link, storing away sunlight for later use.

But batteries, Naam says, are also improving faster than you might expect. “Over a 15-year slice of time, the energy capacity of lithium-ion batteries tripled, and the energy cost per unit of energy you could store, dropped by a factor of 10,” he says. And there are a number of other more “exotic” battery technologies on the horizon.

(Side note: a “vaccine” against climate denialism?  No joke.)  

To be clear: 

(1) I do not diss climate SKEPTICS who challenge this or that part of the problem. My friend Freeman Dyson drew undeserved ire for poking at a number of studies and "premature conclusions" for technical or procedural or logical faults, as did Berkeley Prof. Richard Muller. I defended them, because science thrives on adversarial accountability. Despite Fox-slander that scientists are conformist lemmings, most are among the most competitive humans our species ever produced.  

What these genuine skeptics have done is carefully distinguish themselves from the denialist cult's insanity, saying many of the things that I recommend here. If YOU want to claim you are a genuine "skeptic" - not a cultist - then you need to read that piece and ask yourself some questions.

(2) Notably, genuine skeptics do not move their goalposts! Muller laid down a set of falsification tests that were clear and achievable.  Later, when those test goals were achieved, he proved his honesty by announcing: "Okay, I am now convinced that human-generated effluents are changing the climate in dangerous ways."

(3) Denialist Cultists do none of those things.  They see nothing hypocritical about spending one decade screaming "there's no warming! We're heading for an ice age! Glaciers are increasing!" Then the next jeering "there's been no net-overall warming since 1997!" using as their baseline the then-hottest year in human history. (Some of the worst are still spewing that outright, bald-faced lie, despite the fact that each of the last 5 years was hotter than all previous ones.)

Then it shifted to "All right, it's warming. But humans can't be causing it!" Only - despite efforts to sabotage satellites, fire scientists, slash research and ordeing NASA and NOAA to look away, counter-proof towered into a mountain, and so...

... and so now GOP senators are seriously pushing the line that human-generated Climate Change is real and huge... but a gooood thing! 

Often the same imbeciles and/or shills will bounce around among these varied incantation-riffs and back, in the same day. Occasionally the same speech. Now why would they do that?

Simple. They are not about the facts or science, they are about policy. Specifically, preventing science from affecting national policy. That is why Newt Gingrich banished the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). It's why Trump has appointed no science advisor and almost zeroed out the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)... and why Ryan and McConnell have their sights on the Congressional Budget Office. 

If facts are allowed to affect policy, then the interests of the GOP's owner-oligarchy will be threatened. And hence we understand the underlying reason for the Fox-Limbaugh-Jones-Breitbart campaign to turn the ire of ill-educated white males away from their class enemies and real oppressors, over to hating "smartypants." All the folks who know stuff. All of them. It worked when a million confederate white males marched to die for their oppression plantation lords. It seems to be working now.

But then:

 (4) they didn't count on real America fighting back. Along with the world, innovating and sending the price of sustainables plummeting. A little help from Clinton and Obama went a long way, giving solar, wind etc a momentum that's now unstoppable, offering real hope of saving the world... and now the Kochs' sunk costs in coal mines are vanishing, as if in smoke.

== The war on fact is a war on you ==

"In the battle between facts and fake news, facts are at a disadvantage. Researchers have found that facts alone rarely dislodge misperceptions, and in some cases even strengthen mistaken beliefs.” 

But there is hope. Research suggests that strategic inoculation with tools of critical thinking  could create a level of “herd immunity” and undercut the overall effects of fake news. When about 100 study participants were presented with the misinformation alone, their views did further polarize along political lines. But when another group of participants were first warned about a general strategy used in misinformation campaigns the polarizing effect of the misinformation was completely neutralized.

Read about the methods, because you — yes I mean you — are an important agent in this struggle to retain a scientific or at least rational civilization.

And be prepared to hold on tightly, as the Idiocrats try to foment war.

Facing Climate Change Challenges

I am about to show you, on one simple chart, the essence of how giga-liar denialists have lured some of you into buying their toxin. At just a glance, you'll see why they claim "there's been no warming for 17 years."  And when you sane-conservatives out there grasp how it was done, you will spit and swear at the hijackers of your movement.

But first:

Recently observed on the Pacific coast: a spike in methane bubble plumes. Researchers have seen an increase in the release of methane gas, released from frozen methane hydrates deep in the ocean.  The warming ocean is releasing greater quantities of this powerful greenhouse gas. Note: this is the only aspect to climate change that I deeply fear across the near future, because the effects might possibly be runaway and nonlinear. And if they are, there will be no place for denialists to hide.

== Climate Change Challenges ==

Here's the chart that makes utter-clear how deceitful and stunningly evil are Ted Cruz and Rupert Murdoch and every single shill who used the "no warming in the last 17 years" talking point.  

Did none of you ask: "why SEVENTEEN years specifically?"  Of course you didn't. But the explanation for that specificity is easy. Just look at the chart. 

They chose precisely seventeen in order to peg the "before" comparison on 1998, the hottest year in human history....

... that is, till this year.  And yes, El Nino years like 1998 are spikes.  But a sapient person would look at the chart and let its overall trend lines speak...

...then listen to the brilliant men and women who have successfully modeled climate on six Planets. And those other brainiacs who transformed the old 4 hour weather report into a 14 day wonder. They are smarter than you and me and a whole lot more honest than your cavalcade of liars, on Fox. And they all are deeply worried.

Oh I can't let this go. Look at that 1998 peak again and again, knowing that those who deliberately used "seventeen years" as the before marker for their slopes aren't just arguing.  They are knowing liars who should be repudiated as evil men, not worthy of being considered for political power.

== Did a lurid sci fi flick predict? ==

A cold blob in the Atlantic: Oh the world is heating up all right, especially the oceans, exacerbated by an El Nino year. (In fact, by one measure, this wicked El Niño is the strongest ever recorded.) 

And yet there is one glaring – and frightening – exception. In the North Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland and Iceland, the ocean surface has seen very cold temperatures for the past eight months.  If that region sounds familiar, it should be.  That’s where the “gulf stream” or North Atlantic Conveyor current terminates and plunges to the depths, so that more warm water can keep heading north to keep Europe temperate. (Rome is at the same latitude as Chicago.)

In the garish-exaggerating movie The Day After Tomorrow the disaster was based on exactly this climate scenario… that greenhouse warming sends so much melted freshwater from Greenland that it ends the Gulf Stream's salinity-driven conveyor.  In fact, no one expects results that are movie-sudden. “But if the trend continues, there could be many consequences, including rising seas for the U.S. East Coast and, possibly, a difference in temperature overall in the North Atlantic and Europe.”

More? Watch Greenland melt!  Freshwater pouring into the N. Atlantic at prodigious rates that are actually changing salinity in the North Atlantic, potentially shutting down the Atlantic Conveyor and putting Europe into an Ice Age.  While sea levels rise everywhere. Right. Ignore the folks who know stuff.

(Oh, but again, it could be movie-sudden, if the methane in hydrate ices starts flooding upward, in a torrent of greenhouse bubbles.  And you'd willingly risk that?)

Go look at the map in this article. Those who would dismiss this as “just coincidence” are the same crazy delusionists who deny there’s any meaning in the steady    or the fact that all the humans who can parse the Navier Stokes Equations and make fine gas-vapor predictive models (can you?) agree that we’re endangering our grandchildren and ought to start behaving like adults, gifted with reason and foresight.

== And so many pieces, coming together ==

Among the dozens of consequences that our loony neighbors and crazy uncles desperately ignore?  Revivied ancient diseases. Scientists who discovered a prehistoric virus called Mollivirus sibericum in the Siberian permafrost plan to give the virus its first wakeup call since the last Ice Age (after first verifying that it can't harm humans and animals, thankfully). It's hoped the study could shed insight into ancient dormant viruses that could, it's feared, get another chance at spreading as permafrost retreats due to climate change. 

Alaska’s huge wildfires not only are correlated with climate change, and help to drive it.  They may also presage release of permafrost gases that make things much, much worse.... as ocean acidification may bring us to a tipping point, releasing methane-hydrate ices. The U.S. Navy is scurrying to prep for an ice-free Arctic.  The American West is baking. 

Scientists say California, in its third year of severe drought, hasn’t been this dry in 500 years. And August smashes global heat records as a giant El Nino builds in the Pacific. As oceans warm, some marine species, such as lobsters, are pushing their boundaries poleward. 

Even if nations stick to the pledges they've already made to battle climate change by cutting emissions, the earth would still heat up by more than 6 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, according to new climate models.

Should all of this make any sane-conservative look up? There are such beings, even today!  They mostly dwell, nowadays, in the US military, where officers cannot afford delusion. A conservative temperament cannot trump science, not when you have a nation and civilization to defend. And so, the US Navy is desperately planning to deal with 12 new Russian bases rimming the often ice-free Arctic, as Chinese fleets have started patrols... 

== And the capper that always sends them fleeing ==

These days I always finish my climate jeremiads with a simple chant: 

Ocean acidification,  ocean acidification,  ocean acidification,  ocean acidification,  ocean acidification...

It is blatantly happening, accelerating and can only conceivably be caused by human generated CO2. And not one denialist-cultist I have met has ever been able to answer. Fox supplies no nostrums or counter-incantations, because none are possible. 

Instead, denialists always, always change the subject, pointing suddenly offstage shouting "squirrel!" Then running away, with hands over ears shouting "scientists are commies!"

Try it on your crazy uncle.

== And finally... ==

Let me finish with something positive... indeed, something that moved me close to tears.

Three elephant bulls’ lives were saved when, after they were shot with poisoned arrows, they made their way to a place they remembered could help them: the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT).  Even more interesting, while the one elephant who led the others to DSWT had never been a resident at the sanctuary, he knew other elephants who had. Suggesting real communication and memory.

Amazing in so many ways. But we've seen it at sea, too, where whales will flee whaling ships but approach other types of vessels, in hope that kindly humans will cut away tangled fishing nets.  

It suggests that many creatures in nature see us for what we are... sometimes killers! But also sometimes helpers. Always powerful! But maybe -- as I depict happening in EARTH and in the Uplift Series -- capable of choosing to be powerful for good.

For now, Earth has only one protector, who might save her from savagely rapacious and shortsighted humanity.  That savior will be calmly logical and far-seeing, courageously science- (and science fiction)-loving humanity.

Animals believe in our potential.  Shouldn't we?

                                      

Looking ahead...Signs of change

The Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UCSD held "The Physics of Free Will" a panel discussion on August 6^th. Astrophysicists Brian Keating, Andrew Friedman and David Brin discussed what modern physics – including “entanglement” and the time-history of inflation and the Big Bang -- has to say about the concept of free will, including perspectives from the foundations of quantum mechanics, cosmology, and speculations about the role of of conscious observers in the cosmos.  Now the whole event is available on YouTube!

Stay tuned for a smorgasbord of cool items. But first...

Is Science Broken? No. But some science journalists are deeply dishonest

“Is Science Broken?” Certainly there are those who proclaim that from the rooftops, seizing on every anecdote of misbehavior by individual researchers as evidence that science itself cannot be trusted to keep its own house. Elsewhere, we discuss the varied reasons for a “war on science.” But certainly some problems originate within. Over at Five-Thirty-eight, a recent article by Christie Aschwanden describes why some of the very same statistical methods that were developed to separate cause-effect from mere coincidence make it very hard to prove particular conclusions – especially in social science. The essay is worthwhile and offers up some cool interactive demos of statistical tradeoffs… 

… and yet, the author unwittingly exemplifies her own complaint, to a stunning degree, in her very first example, an interactive that purportedly shows how the same data can be manipulated to show either democrats or republicans are better for the economy. Either or neither.  How interesting that she would have chosen that as her first case.  And how convenient, since that lesson is the one readers will take away.

In this case, the tendentious effect is easily exposed, as the “party effects on the economy” graphic only lets you compare raw, yearly figures for GDP or employment or inflation, when these all react sluggishly to changes in policy, especially if it takes six years to drag the nation out of a pit the previous administration created. It is the direction and rate of change of those metrics that actually reflect outcomes from policy moves. For example, if one party takes inherited surpluses and leaves the nation diving into steepening deficits, and the next one starts to pull us out of the dive, it is idiotic or else deeply dishonest to make Total Current Debt the metric.

Even more telling is the second derivative of economic factors like public debt. The rate of rate of change has much more immediate effects, far more blatantly attributable to a party’s policies during its span in power… as I show here. And when you use such metrics all ambiguity vanishes. One party is responsible and effective while the other is absolutely and always devastatingly harmful.  

Let’s give the author the benefit of the doubt.  Perhaps she is simply finger-wagging scientists, while falling for mistakes they’d catch as freshmen.  

== Looking ahead -- signs of change ==

See this: 13 ways that Science Fiction's Vision of the Future is Closer than You Think -- with innovations in space habitation, teleportation, touch screens, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, autonomous cars... and more!

The next candidate for “flying car”? The Terrafugia TF-X is – or maybe will be -- capable of vertical take-off, thus negating the need for a runway. Wings furled, it’ll squeeze into a standard single garage, thus negating the need for a hanger. Riiiiight. 

While the Tricorder X Prize tools along toward creating an inexpensive – Doctor (McCoy) in a Box… the Chinese firm Baidu hopes to provide a service letting folks anywhere interact with AI and assess 520 different diseases, representing upwards of 90 percent of the most common medical problems nationwide. 

Take a look at: Twenty-five fascinating mega projects taking place across the globe, including the Panama Canal expansion, the Three Gorges Dam, the underwater Marmaray Tunnel in Turkey, Jubail Industrial City in Saudi Arabia, Liuchonghe Bridge in China and other bold projects!

Six people shut themselves inside a dome in Hawaii and plan to stay for a year. It's a mission funded by NASA to explore what it's like to send manned missions into deep space.

Artificial photosynthesis could power homes in a few years, mimicking plant-based photosynthesis by using solar energy to convert water into hydrogen. If cheap nickel catalysts can be used… and 22% efficiency holds up… then toss it onto the pile of potential game-changers. Ah, but that pile had better be producing, big-time, soon. 

Because. The latest report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has determined that globally, July was the hottest month since record keeping began in 1880. And ocean acidity -- which CAN only have one cause -- is rising.  See the shrinking of Arctic ice through years of National Geographic maps. The Himalayan glaciers that slake the thirst of a third of the world’s population are rapidly retreating. And the denialist cult keeps getting more frantic.

Just a few years ago, one of the cult incantations was that solar and sustainables were “pipe dreams.” Now? The world now gets over 1% of its electricity from solar power! Currently, global solar capacity is 178 gigawatts Crossing the Threshold The world now gets over 1% of its electricity from solar power. Currently, global solar capacity is 178 gigawatts. The U.S. now ranks second worldwide in wind power…

One of the major talking points of opponents of sustainable energy is that if you include fixed manufacturing costs, solar and wind are not competitive with fossil fuels. These opponents used this rhetoric to stymie investments in sustainables R&D during the first decade of this century.  But rates of efficiency have been skyrocketing and costs plummeting.  One of the big solar module manufacturers, Trina Solar, said costs had fallen 19 per cent in the past year alone(!), and would continue to fall by at least 5 per cent to 6 per cent a year in coming years as efficiencies were improved.  This study shows that renewables turn out already to be cheaper than fossil fuels.

== and... ==

Researchers from MIT revealed they've produced a "better, cheaper, more user-friendly" printer that can print using 10 different materials at the same time. "Multifab" self corrects by watching its own actions. They claim it can scan case around an iPhone you place in the printer

Building materials from CO2? 

We keep reporting “possible game changing” technological breakthroughs. This one sounds a bit less plausible than some.  Yet potentially cool. Imagine that the trend toward using carbon fiber as a construction material – from planes and ships to cars and even buildings – creating a huge demand for the stuff.  Now envision that we get the carbon feedstock from Carbon Dioxide taken out of the air.  Hmm, well breaking oxygen bonds takes real energy. And a team at MIT thinks they have the problem licked, using lithium. Their novel electrochemical process sequesters carbon in the form of a versatile building material. 

Alas, even if this works, it would only put a dent in atmospheric CO2, as shown in this appraisal, which shows “that capping global warming at 2 degrees Celsius requires removing 1.8 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere yearly from now until 2100—a tall order that exceeds the capabilities of current technology.” 

  

Boston Dynamics is at it again, creating robots that walk with creepy-amazing skill through natural obstacle courses… only this time it’s a biped!  

Batteries for a new age? MIT and Samsung researchers have developed a new approach to achieving long life and a 20 to 30 percent improvement in power density (the amount of power stored in a given space) in rechargeable batteries — using a solid electrolyte, rather than the liquid used in today’s most common rechargeables. The new materials could also greatly improve safety and last through “hundreds of thousands of cycles.”  

Researchers at CERN find that within about one part per million, antimatter and matter behave in the same way with respect to gravity. And have the same charge-to-mass ratios. Okay, check that off my list of worries.

Finally...a recent typhoon hit Taiwan with winds that lifted a 747 off the ground. 

Moving the Goalposts: Part II

Last time, I laid down seven fundamental points that you folks should arm yourselves with, and then sally forth to help save your planet. Rhetorical weapons that are far more confrontational and in-yer-face than the denialist cult is used to hearing from us science-loving egghead types.

And that's fine.  They are waging war against not only science, but our children's future. They think enlightenment types are wimps, with our "facts" and our "evidence" and "reason."

It's time, indeed, to prove that we aren't wimps, but just slow to anger. As our side has been slow to anger in every other phase of the American Civil War.  Slow, but ponderously determined, once roused.

And now... let's reiterate and expand upon the biggest and most important of the seven points. The paramount proof of insanity. Get up to them, nose-to-nose, and ask:

         WHY WON’T YOU NEGOTIATE? 

To you and your fellow denialist cultists, it is all-or-nothing!  Either you bravely hold the line and allow zero measures, even teensy ones, to increase energy efficiency… or else those dang smartypants libruls and sciencey types will shut down every power plant and deliberately ruin the economy, forcing us all to shiver in the dark and starve!   

Um.  Find me the librul or scientist who wants any of that? One. Just one. Even one? If you have spouted that poison, could you at least cite a single actual example?

Okay. I admit. There are a few crazy lefties who might push for more puritan measures than the average citizen or scientist would accept. But who is crazier? Them? Or guys like you who are comfy portraying all blue types and scientists as raving PETA-Greepeace-starve-in-darkness-EarthFirsters?

== TWODA ==

I’ve long spoken of Things We Ought to be Doing Anyway — measures that we could be negotiating, that will do us all good, even if 99% of scientists prove to be wrong and cretins like James Imhof prove to be right. 

Win-win investments in energy efficiency would save consumers billions, even if climate change is a ruse!  Measures that would also help a lot, if it isn’t.  

One example?  The new CAFE auto mileage standards that a briefly-democratic Congress passed in 2009, after 26 years of GOP delays, has resulted in far better cars, many billions more in consumers’ pockets, and healthy auto companies. Oh, and countless fewer barrels of oil sent up as smoke.

But you won’t think about TWODA.  You refuse to sit down and negotiate, because negotiation itself is declared to be a vile sin, by your cult. (I do not exaggerate: look up Tom DeLay and his GOP-must-never-negotiate rule. Newt Gingrich saw his political career destroyed because he dared to negotiate with Bill Clinton, in the miracle year, 1995.)

Let me make that point double-underlined for emphasis. You… and I mean you members of the denialist-ailesheimers cult… refuse to put anything on the table, not even capitalist-friendly measures that would promote energy efficiency and lower emissions through market forces, in ways that do no harm to the economy and that would be win-wins for all…

… well, they would be win-wins for all except just one group of folks. 
    Your masters. The coal barons and petro-sheiks who do not want efficiency or lower-emission energy -- for obvious reasons.  They are the only folks who would not benefit from such a win-win… and they just happen to co-own the very same “think tanks” and advertising agencies and cable propaganda outfits that furnish your daily fix of science-hating outrage.

Anyone with two neurons left to use in independent thought would look at that fact and go “Huh! That IS rather suspicious! The only beneficiaries of Doing Nothing and Denialist Delay just happen to be the guys feeding me the propaganda I suckle every day.”

But you won’t do that. Nor even glancingly consider the thought that maybe… just maybe… you have been the one who’s led astray.

== A perfect example ==

Ah... Keystone XL.  The Great Cause of Today's Right!  The one and only positive and assertive item on the Republican agenda.  Let me reiterate, it is the only positive thing on the GOP wish list. (Infrastructure repair? Putting half a million US men and women to work fixing failing bridges that will have to be repaired anyway? Absolutely not! That would make the economy look good under a democrat!)

Ah, but what is the real motive for Keystone XL?  To feed more oil into a glutted US market? Nope. Now, pay close attention --

Canadian shale oil already has plenty of pipelines to US refineries. There are seven already.  Seven.

The sole purpose of Keystone XL is to take the very worst type of nasty shale sludge-oil right over our most precious aquifer, then bypass our refineries, taking the stuff to gulf ports so that Canadian petro moguls can sell it to China. We will get not one drop, not a cent, and very few jobs. So... um.... What possible incentive do we have to do this? That is, other than that those petro moguls own Congress?

It's like asking questions about "climate grants" or George Soros toppling foreign governments. (See part one.) The worst thing about Keystone XL is how incurious are the GOP ground troops, who will nod at any mantra spun out by the puppeteers. 

Hey, go ahead and be conservative!  We need conservatives!  But lobotomization? Why would you put up with what's been done to you?

== The Keystone Irony ==

The final thought about Keystone.  Congressional Dems have made it clear, repeatedly. Keystone is NOT on our top priority list." In other words... although we hate it and think it's stupid and corrupt and dangerous, there are some ways that we can nvision stepping aside and letting it happen. If good safeguards are in place. And, above all, if you offer something, in return.

Pause and consider how far politics have fallen, that even the possibility of getting this pipeline -- again, the only positive-assertive thing on the Republican agenda -- by negotiation, compromise and horsetrading, absolutely never occurs to them. They don't even bring it up. The thought is alien.

And that is why I say politics -- the art of negotiating our way into the future as adults -- is dead in the U.S., as it is always killed, during each phase of our civil war.  And it is the deliberate assassination of politics that is the true treason of the re-ignited Confederacy.  And the reason Goldwater and buckley are spinning in their graves.

== Assigning blame? ==

Why has so much money and clever-cynical manipulation kept denialism active?  Remember those "threatened assets" in coal and oil that the Bank of England report called doomed?

The Kochs and their royal petro-sheik partners have to play out the clock, in order to unload those assets favorably. You'll know when they have finally succeeded in finding Greater Fools to buy their mines and oil wells etc., when suddenly, Fox pundits proclaim: "who, me?  I never denied human caused climate change! I was only keeping them durn' scientists honest!"

You denialists? That's what you'll claim, too. Just as you now claim you always knew tobacco was bad! And you never supported the insane Drug War. Only, this time it won't work.  

We'll remember. Because the tort lawsuits for this one will make the Big Tobacco judgements look like nothing.  And half a billion refugees will take their lawsuits waaaaay down the blame ladder. Below Rupert Murdoch (who will wind up pumping gas at a Shell station) and below James Imhofe and below Sean Hannity...


...all the way to you. And when that day comes, don't look at us neighbors to stand by you. We who tried for decades to wake you up. Those climate refugees will get your house.  And rightfully so.

== And finally... when is religion relevant in politics? ==

... let's turn to the dominionists who make up a majority of the prospective Republican candidates for presidency, in 2016. (See their stances on climate change.)  May I offer a thought?

Now, normally, our value system proclaims that a person's private religious beliefs should not be politically pertinent.  But there comes a point when that reflex is absurd, even stupid. And this is one area where liberals are the ones who are dead-asleep. So let's make the wake-up call explicit.

Anyone who openly admits that they pray for the Book of Revelation scenario to come true soon, is explicitly stating they want 90% of Americans to die in horrid agony, then be consigned to perpetual damnation-torment...

...followed by the permanent end of all democracy and human ambition, and abolishment of the United States of America. 

Those things are utterly explicit consequences of the events that such people openly proclaim praying for, and no softening or denial is even remotely possible.

 At which point we have to admit that religious beliefs become relevant, especially when such a candidate is asking to be given a button for nuclear weapons.