Please oh pease let me take a break from our insane politics! Starting with...
...Me & Morgan! Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman - one of the most successful popularized science series ever, featured me in an episode "Is Privacy Dead?" It recently aired in the U.S. on the Science Channel. The questions I was asked were solid… as were my answers… but I do tend to speak in whole paragraphs so expect me to be “clipped.”
In this case, my concepts were simplified a bit... but basically faithfully conveyed, with an excellent final thought. I'm pretty pleased. (Though my feelings about Edward Snowden are more mixed than they implied.)
Anyway, it’s an important topic. And no I will not officially provide any bypass (illicit) links to the show! Commenters may provide some... but I encourage using the show's prescribed approach. Enjoy!
...Me & Morgan! Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman - one of the most successful popularized science series ever, featured me in an episode "Is Privacy Dead?" It recently aired in the U.S. on the Science Channel. The questions I was asked were solid… as were my answers… but I do tend to speak in whole paragraphs so expect me to be “clipped.”
In this case, my concepts were simplified a bit... but basically faithfully conveyed, with an excellent final thought. I'm pretty pleased. (Though my feelings about Edward Snowden are more mixed than they implied.)October will be busy for me. I'll be speaking at Oregon State in Corvallis (the center of human civilization, in The Postman). Then for GE's Whitney Symposium near Albany NY. Then at the great big World of Watson convention for IBM, in Las Vegas. And a Skype-in for MIT's Media Lab on December 3. And one for India's Tata Industries. Phew!
== Science blips! ==
Curious about those Siberia fires and other calamities? Well, just hold on. I have some good - (or at least interesting) - news for you, first.
Posed to leading scientists: Scientific American offers Twenty big questions about the future of humanity, including Can we avoid a "sixth extinction"? to "Will brain science change criminal law?"
Good news. Another source of helium has been found in Tanzania’s Rift Valley. Till now, the world's dangerously dwindling supply was nearly all sourced in Texas… till the Republican majority in the US Congress commanded that much of the U.S. Helium Reserve be sold - cheap - to their own cronies. An act of corrupt betrayal that, alas, is both typical and tangentially related to the War on Science.
Now bad news… science is revealing how many substances in a modern, urban environment might alter life for infants. Add to that… apparently (and verify!) … Tylenol.
Petra
was already an archaeological wonder. Now drone surveyors have found a newly discovered platform, which measures about 56 x 49
meters, appears to be a unique feature that has "no parallels at Petra or
in its hinterlands at present.”
== Tech Marvels ==
Scientists have created a system a system that (it's claimed) uses solar energy plus hydrogen-eating bacteria to produce liquid fuels with 10 percent efficiency, compared to the 1 percent seen in the fastest-growing plants.
Outdoing nature... new 'Bionic" leaf is approximately ten times more efficient than natural photosynthesis.
Outdoing nature... new 'Bionic" leaf is approximately ten times more efficient than natural photosynthesis.
Current breath-analysis devices are bulky and costly. A new radio frequency “nose” may be compact and affordable, allowing many gas-based diagnoses to come via a cheap add-on for a smart phone… or the new (XPrize) Tricorder when it comes out.
One of our 21st Century Edisons is Dean Kamen, most famous for the Segway but creator of a vast array of medical devices and founder of the FIRST Robotics League that has made nerdliness a macho sport on 10,000 high school campuses. His new water purification systems are being sent to villages all over the globe by CocaCola. Now Kamen is ready to produce and deliver the LUKE (Life Under Kinetic Evolution). This prosthetic arm has been in development for ten years, starting when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) looked for innovative approaches for a whole new generation of replacement limbs for future amputees.
The U.S. Army’s new exo-armor and amplification suit system is not quite at Iron Man levels, yet. But it is pretty impressive.
The first new nuclear reactor in decades in the US just went on line, reinforcing the fact that “techno-liberals” have willingly shifted on this issue, a flexibility supported by growing science, technical skill, and the imperative to fight climate change. And the Obama Administration has been putting real money into new kinds of safer reactor design. And if this does not fit your stereotypes? Get used to it. Reality probably doesn’t either.
The first new nuclear reactor in decades in the US just went on line, reinforcing the fact that “techno-liberals” have willingly shifted on this issue, a flexibility supported by growing science, technical skill, and the imperative to fight climate change. And the Obama Administration has been putting real money into new kinds of safer reactor design. And if this does not fit your stereotypes? Get used to it. Reality probably doesn’t either.
And no, nuclear is not the long term solution. Sustainables are coming online faster than anyone (especially cynics) ever imagined! (Indeed, traitors tried hard to delay it.) But this is going to take a mix.. especially citizens willing to dump dogmas and relearn the skills of ethically-grounded pragmatism.
A hedge fund that bets there is no global warming. Hey cultists! Put your money into it and (maybe) win bigtime! Every sane person who sees this has visions of shorting it, of course. Just go for long horizons. Stupidity has short term advantages
This veggie-burger looks, tastes and smells like beef — except it's made entirely from plants. It sizzles on the grill and even browns and oozes fat when it cooks. This is of more than minor interest. If hundreds of millions can be weaned to much-lower meat use, it could save so much land and especially water, and provide so much nutrition that the balance may tip in our favor. Oh, you'll live longer.
We’re used to thinking of California as quake-endangered. But geologists see an upper limit to CA’s “big one." Less frequent but potentially far more powerful is the long delayed “very big one” that might hit the Pacific Northwest. You folks in the beautifully moist Oregonian and Washingtonian and Columbian paradise… read up. Get foundation and water heater bolts and go bags. Live life… but be prepared.
We’re used to thinking of California as quake-endangered. But geologists see an upper limit to CA’s “big one." Less frequent but potentially far more powerful is the long delayed “very big one” that might hit the Pacific Northwest. You folks in the beautifully moist Oregonian and Washingtonian and Columbian paradise… read up. Get foundation and water heater bolts and go bags. Live life… but be prepared.
== Environmental impacts ==
Yes, I'll get to the Siberia Calamity in a moment, but first...
Thirty years scientists warned Congress on global warming: In June of 1986, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public
Works held two days of hearings, convened by Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.),
on the subject of “Ozone Depletion, the Greenhouse Effect, and Climate Change."
“This is not a matter of Chicken Little telling us the sky is falling,” Senator Chafee said at the hearing. “The scientific evidence … is telling us we have a problem, a serious problem.”
A sane, grownup Republican senator. So what has changed? Everything the testifying scientists predicted has come true - though in fits
and starts, as our planets oceans adapted. Ocean acidification skyrocketed,
as expected. No. What has changed is something simple. The kind of human being and the kind of American you see being called a "Republican Senator."
Carbon dioxide has been
steadily rising since the start of the Industrial Revolution, setting a new
high year after year. There’s a notable new entry to the record books. The last
station on Earth without a 400 parts per million (ppm) reading has reached it.
Continued impacts of the monster El Nino of 2015-16: "Carbon concentrations
at Mauna Loa rose 3.76 ppm between February 2015 and February 2016; the single
largest jump in recorded history. The previous record rise, of 2.82 ppm,
occurred during the 1997-1998 El Niño. In both cases, scientists believe that
emissions spiked due to a combination of warming and drying in the tropics,
which can accelerate soil carbon decomposition, and large, drought-fueled
fires," writes Maddie Stone in Gizmodo.
== Denialists are hiding under the bed ==
2013 then 2014 broke all records for heat and drought on the planet, but 2015 is now officially the smashing record-holder… except for the first half of 2016, which seems on pace to top all of them. So what has this done to the cult’s narrative?
Actually, all of this is viewed as GOOD news by the denialist religion! Let me explain.
Until 2013, their standard cheat was to peg the “before” on 1998 - the previous record holder (a huge El Nino) - and shrug off the fact that every year after 1999 was hotter than the one before. An uneven but steadily rising secular trend! Too complex a concept… I know.
Until 2013, their standard cheat was to peg the “before” on 1998 - the previous record holder (a huge El Nino) - and shrug off the fact that every year after 1999 was hotter than the one before. An uneven but steadily rising secular trend! Too complex a concept… I know.
So now what? “The 2015 State of the Climate report examined 50 different aspects of climate , including dramatic melting of Arctic sea ice and glaciers worldwide. A dozen different nations set hottest year records, including Russia and China. South Africa had the hottest temperature ever recorded in the month of October: 119.1 degrees Fahrenheit (48.4 degrees Celsius).”
And there is ocean acidification. Repeat it to your crazy uncle because even his crazy web sites have no answer. They just change the subject. Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification.
Oh and once-in-a-century and even per-millennium storms are now happening every…single… year. Many times per year! As in the recent humidity crisis in the US northeast and record-breaking flooding along the Gulf Coast.
And there is ocean acidification. Repeat it to your crazy uncle because even his crazy web sites have no answer. They just change the subject. Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification.
Oh and once-in-a-century and even per-millennium storms are now happening every…single… year. Many times per year! As in the recent humidity crisis in the US northeast and record-breaking flooding along the Gulf Coast.
But do not despair, denialist cultists! 2015-2016 was an El Nino and probably there will be slight dips in 2017 and 2018… along a general, secular climbing trend. In other words, you’ll get your cheat back! Just peg your “before” on 2015-2016, and you’ll be able to rant “there’s been no warming!”
Don’t get it? No? Don’t worry. Fox will massage the talking points for you into nice, spoon sized chunks. Open wide.
== Siberia is burning... and you never even heard ==
Don’t get it? No? Don’t worry. Fox will massage the talking points for you into nice, spoon sized chunks. Open wide.
== Siberia is burning... and you never even heard ==
Wildfires have been roaring out of control there since spring, and won’t stop until covered by snow. A disaster about which media are completely silent, and absolutely a result of climate change. This link shows the region in question, “covered by enough smoke to obscure the entire US east of the Mississippi.” Moreover, this creates a positive feedback loop. And one more reason never to let denialist cultists near even a burnt match, ever again.
Yes, alas. Try to talk science and things wind up circling back to politics. It is not the fault of science. It's our fault, for letting politics be steered by the mentally ill.
