I quite agree Ron, that in the event of a global conflict, the eyes in the sky would be targeted.

China shattered any illusions on this when they blew up one of their own satellites in 2007.

The outcome would lock the gates to space, by filling the celestial realm with space junk.

I see our best bet for a space future is to secure peace on Earth.

I explored this in my 2006 document ~ 'Creating A Solar Civilization' ~ revised in 2012 and found in our website.

This could be achieved, along with winning back a safe Earth, by investing in a stellar economy that sends poverty into history.

In his 2009 book ~ 'Blueprint for a Safer Planet' ~ Nicholas Stern strongly asserts that we will not solve climate change, unless we also solve the poverty crisis, that one will not be fixed without fixing the other.

That is a tall order, which I can only see being met by launching a stellar economy, connecting to the unlimited energy-well of our star.

We could start designing this future now, if we want a future.

Kim Peart
http://www.islandearth.com.au/

My understanding about Magnetic Field Reversals is not so much the change in polarity, but the period in between when the magnetic field generally weakens, apparently over decades or even centuries, during which time the amount of radiation penetrating would substantially increase. Under those circumstances as well as increased UV radiation etc, the potency of normal solar activity would be such that virtually no electronic equipment unprotected could be sustained and certainly man made satellites, as they exist today would be totally unworkable.

It might heat up a bit too then would you say?

Sean. What I understand about the lack of an effective magnetosphere, and please understand I'm no scientist, is that the primary problem is charged particles in the solar wind. One of the consequences its suggested of having no magnetosphere or ionosphere is that the solar wind over a long period of time would gradually wear away the atmosphere...I'm talking perhaps hundreds of millions or billions of years. Of course it hasnt affected Venus, which has a negligible magnetosphere but a very dense atmosphere, so its obviously very long term.

But in the immediate world the problem would be the charged particles getting through the magnetosphere and overloading electrical components. Solar activity would overcharge satellites as well as Earth bound power stations, even cars I suspect, anything electrical would be overcharged. The magnetosphere and ionosphere protect us from much of this.

The magnetosphere does also protect us from some radiation, but most of our protection comes from the atmosphere itself, such as the ozone layer for example. Most high energy radiation is deflected, otherwise we would fry whenever there was a solar storm throwing out its plasma at us, not to mention gamma radiation from the Universe as a whole.

Ron Chinchen writes ~ "Of course it hasnt affected Venus, which has a negligible magnetosphere but a very dense atmosphere, so its obviously very long term."

I was fascinated to read that Venus once had as much water as Earth, but this was not original water, as both Earth and Venus began their planetary careers as bubbling cauldrons of molten rock.

The water of Venus and Earth came later, from asteroids and comets.

While Earth kept her waters, Venus became stressed out by heat, causing her water to vaporise, rise in the atmosphere and be blown away into space by the solar wind ~ thus leaving the passionate planet with an atmosphere of carbon dioxide and rocks that glow in the heat.

Professor James Hansen, who began his career at NASA with the exploration of Venus, before leaping into climate science, has issued his strongest warning yet ~ that with CO2 above 350 parts per million (now 400 and rising fast), we run the risk of a runaway greenhouse effect that will send Earth hurtling toward becoming a second Venus (the Venus syndrome, p.223 'Storms of My Grandchildren' 2009).

On the basis of the precautionary principle, I hope we citizens of Earth get serious enough to demand action to avoid that planetary prospect.

First we must overcome the GREED that drives the preference for cheap carbon energy and that is one monster of a challenge, as our whole civilization is built on the back of the filthy black carbon dragon.

Kim Peart
http://www.islandearth.com.au/

Ron, just a small correction to "charged particles getting through the magnetosphere and overloading electrical components"

The magnetic fields of planets deflect the charged solar wind, which is mostly protons running at 100k to 1 million mph. With no magnetic field, the protons just impact atmospheric atoms and knock them away. With a field, some particles just get bounced off into space, while others spiral around the field lines and get dumped downward toward the poles, ionizing the atmosphere, making aurorae and losing their energy harmlessly.

Since Mars' magnetic core solidified a few billion years ago, and its magnetic field and volcanism are almost non-existent, there's been nothing to replenish the atomic blasting from the solar wind for a few billion years.

For Venus, with its weak magnetic field, volcanism may still be active, so replenishing some atmospheric loss. However, it seems the magnetic field at Venus may be an induced field, due to the solar wind interacting with the very dense atmosphere, because satellite measurements have confirmed deflection of the solar wind around Venus.

To be continued!

It seems to me then, that a constant decline in strength of the magnetosphere - such as we have been experiencing for some time - might easily contribute in some small way to rising atmospheric temperatures. Just factoid 307 which climate scientists haven't thought to include in their modelling to distract them from their monomanic pursuit of carbon dioxide.

Strictly speaking this should go here:
Human role in climate change now virtually certain: leaked IPCC report : Comments on this article are now closed.

I presume this was at the insistanceStephan Lewandowsky, a psychologists who has the chutzpah to lecture everyone on what science is and isn't. He is also tightly bound up with the Skeptical Science group who are always demanding the climate denial be silence or removed.

It is impossible for climate science to deliver workable models of climate until they understand and quantify the correlation between observations of sunspot number and temperatures on earth. And no, for the umpteenth time, that is quite different from saying sunspots are causing global warming!

Sean Lamb ~

Are you factoring in the detail that the Sun is getting warmer, now 25% hotter than at the dawn of life 3.5 billion years ago and continuing to warm toward becoming a red giant 5 billion years from now, when our central power supply will expand to the orbit of the Earth?

Is anyone denying this fundamental serve of science?

Another fact of consequence is the detail that Venus, which is nearly the same size as Earth, once had as much water as our planet now possesses, but after entering upon a runaway greenhouse effect, the place got hotter, the water evaporated, rose in the air and was blown away into space by the solar wind.

Now the atmosphere of Venus is mainly carbon dioxide (CO2), which serves to maintain a sizzling planet where the rocks glow in the heat.

Earth and Venus began their careers as bubbling cauldrons, with all original water being lost and replaced later by incoming asteroids and comets.

The science of how more CO2 in an atmosphere serves to warm up a planet is pretty basic and most graphically demonstrated on Venus.

A slight increase in the carbon dioxide goes along with a warmer climate, as is the case from the last Ice Age to now.

Hang on a cotton pick'n minute, isn't our CO2 level now increasing?

So if CO2 during the last Ice Age was around 200 parts per million (ppm) and then rose to around 300 ppm for the balmy climate of the past ten thousand years, what will the cause and effect consequence be of CO2 now being 400 ppm and rising?

It is not so much climate change denial that is the problem, but basic science denial, matched with historic observations of what happens in reality, as with Venus.

James Hansen, who began his career at NASA with the study of Venus, warns us that with CO2 above 350 ppm, we run the risk of triggering a runaway greenhouse effect, which may prematurely turn Earth into a second Venus (the Venus syndrome, p.223 'Storms of My Grandchildren' 2009).

I say prematurely, because with our Sun getting steadily hotter and expanding, Earth will one day turn into a second Venus, with no water and a hot atmosphere of CO2.

Carl Sagan raised the hotter Sun problem with James Lovelock when he was employed at NASA on the exploration of Mars, which in part led to Lovelock's observation that Earth's life support system has been manipulating our temperature through the life processes and the natural sequestration of CO2.

Lovelock fears that because of the stresses that we are forcing on the Earth, including CO2 emissions, we run the risk of a rapid shift to a permanently hotter planet, one which is hostile to human existence ('The Vanishing Face of Gaia' 2009).

Changes in the CO2 level impact on biology and ocean chemistry and evolution cannot keep pace with this rapid rate of change, which is now resulting in the shell of sea creatures dissolving in more acidic water.

In this future, I read that algal blooms in dying oceans could release massive volumes of hydrogen sulphide gas, which can kill life on land and destroy the ozone layer, leading to more death from radiation getting through.

I read that this is what happened in the Great Dying 251 million years ago, when most of the life on this planet perished, only that event happened much more slowly than our current forced changes through burning naturally sequestered fossil fuel.

Climate change denial will die, just as the opinion of the Catholic Church that the Sun orbited the Earth did not survive overwhelming evidence that made them look silly.

I have a greater concern with a deeper form of denial, of how we brought on these planet-changing events, how we could have avoided the carbon crisis and what we can now do to fix the catastrophe that is set to overwhelm us.

The detail that the Arctic is now releasing greenhouse gases from the permafrost and has the potential to drive CO2 in the air through the roof and create a very hot planet, should send a chill down every spine.

Our survival is now on the line.

When I look the history of recent decades, I see that we were in a position to start building solar power stations in space (SPSS) in the 1970s ('The High Frontier' by Gerard K. O'Neill, 1977), but we chose to keep burning fossil fuel like there was no cause and effect process in the known Universe.

We could have begun the transition from an Earth trapped carbon economy to a space liberated stellar civilization, with unlimited expansion potential beyond Earth, using stellar energy.

We could have kept a safe Earth, shifted to a more gentle lifestyle on this planet and assured our cosmic survival.

In the light of the massive heat blow now being released into the air by Nature, with the release of Arctic greenhouse gases, our only hope for survival may be to lift our game and invest in SPSS, simply to gain access to the level of energy needed to extract excess carbon from the air, to win back a safe planet.

Stellar energy could also be used to reprocess extracted carbon back into a useful resources, for use in Earth and space industries.

We would also get ourselves into a position to deal with the next asteroid that arrives to hammer the Earth, but pushing it aside, or mining the beast into oblivion for the resources for space industries.

If we are not acknowledging the primary cause of our current carbon strife, in failing to lift our game to space, then I am concerned that we are now lumbered with a deeper form of denial.

If we are not considering that the solution to the carbon crisis will be through using stellar energy gained via SPSS, then I am left wondering if we have a deeper level of denial that now puts our survival in the cosmos at risk.

When I consider that 7 million tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam, is there any doubt that we had the resources available to start building SPSS?

We have access to far more resources and a higher level of technology now.

We appear to be stuck and lack the will to act on investing in our cosmic survival.

Kim Peart
http://www.islandearth.com.au/

Very true, Brett -- the way in which a mass ejection heads out makes all the difference. The Spaceweather site includes a tool to see those paths when ejections occur.

One coming the right way will give us some hours to wrap all our goodies in foil. Fortunately, newer grid transformers have low frequency & DC detection & shutdown systems.
;]

Brett Carter ~

As humans we make unusual decisions.

Imagine if the 7 million tons of bombs and all the energy related to delivering the means to exterminate a couple of million Vietnamese, had been directed into building solar power stations in space?

Rather than lose a war at great expense, we would have launched industry beyond Earth and developed much more advanced technology, which of necessity, would be hardened against radiation by one means and other.

As humans, I wonder if we will wake up and decide to catch up to the future that we dropped on Vietnam.

Hopefully, we will awaken and act on investing in our cosmic survival, before a solar flare melts our capacity to be civilized.

Kim Peart

Alex et. al., a Carrington event (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859) about now would go some way towards mitigating our carbon footprint for a while, as advanced 'Western' civilisation would come to an untimely halt. An EMP great enough would fry all our electronic doo-dads, from my LED torch, to the computer I am using right now, up to the largest of our power generation plants.

Not only would everything electronic be fried, but all the technology we would use to repair the mess would be similarly affected.

If electronic circuits globally were zapped by a solar storm, or an EMP, how are we going to rebuild the factory robots that build our gadgets, when the equipment we would use to test and repair the robots has also been fried?

We would be back to rubbing sticks together to make a fire and people would only be able to communicate by talking to each other face to face - gasp!.

Imagining all the effects is beyond my mental scope, but our high-tech civilisation would be vaporised. Back in 1859, we did not rely on the internet, or credit cards, or computer-managed cars, or electronic banking, or pumped sewerage, or GPS for navigation, or electric shavers, or radio, or television, or public transport (other than those using the power of sails by sea and horses by land), or ... - the list is endless.

Not only would the electricity distribution network be down, but so would all the vehicles we would deploy to fix the network and all the electronic communications needed to coordinate the repairs.

'Greenies' who have gone off-grid would be no better off unless they are emulating a hunter-gatherer lifestyle: solar electricity panels would be fried, backup generators would be fried, every switchboard and control panel in existence would be fried.

City dwellers would be hit hard, with emergency services and food distribution networks immobile. If it hit during a Northern winter, the death toll would be horrendous.

How on Earth do engineers design for safety and service continuation, in the face of such wholesale loss of technology? Makes living in a cave and being able to cook over an open fire seem almost appealing, dunnit?

Doug Hutcheson ~

All very chilling and thanks for the link to the 1859 event.

I know it is more fun to end the world in a grand disaster, but it's a bit more challenging to figure out and describe how we could get ahead of the game, whether a magnificent solar flare, a monster asteroid strike, a tsunami caused by the collapse of a volcanic peak such as in the Canary Islands, or a good old fashioned super-volcano, like that bubbling away beneath Yellowstone.

Considering the fragility of our civilization at present, it would be great to read a description of how we could get ourselves into a position of surviving any given catastrophe.

Assuring our cosmic survival, especially in the knowledge that the Sun is getting hotter and will in 5 billion years expand to the orbit of the Earth as a red giant, our future must include expansion into space and developing industry beyond Earth, so we will be able to construct adjustable shields to protect the home planet and keep the nest safe.

Our cosmic survival strategy must include the prospect of a nearby star going nova, with a burst of radiation that could really floor us.

The most immediate survival concern we face is from our choice of energy, as burning fossil fuel is making the planet unsafe by driving dangerous climate and environmental changes, even turning the oceans acidic and this nightmare has only just begun.

Should we ignore the potential for algal blooms in dying oceans releasing toxic hydrogen sulphide gas that can kill life on land and destroy the ozone layer?

I ses a robust space expansion as the only way for us to get ahead of the game and into the cosmic survival stakes.

If every parent with a child, or grandchild, thinks this through, they should burn with the determination to make the impossible our history and create a future for the children of the Earth.

The claim that space action is expensive is a rather nasty smoke screen, when considered all the energy, resources and human life that went into dumping 7 million tons of bombs on the people of Vietnam.

Rather than lose that war, directing that effort into space would have opened the high frontier and made us a much more advanced society by now, with a space-hardened technology that could weather a solar storm.

We were in a position to start building solar power stations in space in the 1970s, but our greed fro cheap carbon energy has left us all in a pickle and now a survival predicament.

I remain concerned that the greatest threat to our survival will now be from an economic decline, which simply removes our ability to pursue space development and leaves us trapped on Earth, at the mercy of any catastrophe, including a solar flare.

If we were to rally in numbers and demand action on our cosmic survival, there is still hope that we could get back to the future and start building a stellar economy without poverty, founded on the unlimited energy-well of our star.

The people of Australasia could play a leading role in this future, not just making world-class Hobbit movies, if we are not too dorky to figure out the needs of survival.

Kim Peart
http://www.islandearth.com.au/

Kim, you are correct that the best way to ensure survival of our species is to break our dependence upon the life-support systems of Earth.

As you point out, the world economy is not in good shape to support the kind of species-wide project needed to implement an interstellar capability.

In addition, the science required to build space-hardened habitats capable of supporting life indefinitely, independently of Earth, let alone propel those habitats towards other stars, is in its infancy.

Finally, the resources and materials needed to build such a super ship will not be cheap. It would take a global commitment to fund such a project, because no single country could afford the dedicated treasure and effort required.

Sadly for our communal future, I expect the effects of global warming will disorganise our society long before any interstellar project could have a chance of being successful.

The way we have fouled our nest and are continuing to do so at an increasing rate, does not give me confidence that we have the right to go to the stars and pollute their planets as well. I think humanity will become a 'could have been' species, living on an increasingly inhospitable planet and regretting its ability to despoil Eden.

If we cannot sort out our mess, we will become just another failed experiment in evolution. Maybe another species will arise and leave Earth, before old Sol turns into a red giant, but the evidence is that we humans do not deserve the opportunity.

DougH, indeed, we've overextended in many dimensions. The 1859 solar event appears to happen about every 150 years or so -- oops!

Here in Calif. we have the Mammoth Lakes caldera, which now has fresh magma rising yearly. Last time it went off ~760,000 years back, it did a fine job on half the US...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Valley_Caldera

Then there was Yellowstone, which was bigger, much more recent, and making rumblings...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/09/120920-yellowstone-supervolcano-prediction-volcanoes-science-environment/

So, plenty of aluminum foil will help your iGadgets in a solar event, but not much recourse for supervolcanos. Another Carrington Event is estimated to damage power grids to the tune of $trillions, requiring a decade to repair.

Edison was wise when electrifying the first 'grid' in NYC -- he put his wiring through old gas-lamp pipes and generated DC.

Alex, thanks for the links. I knew a little about Yellowstone, but Long Valley is news to me. Thousands of feet of ash would certainly spoil our party.

When we look at all the ticking time-bombs around the planet, we could be excused for becoming a little apprehensive, I guess. Our urbanised existence has insulated many of us from dealing with Nature in the raw, but a decent-sized volcano, or damaging earthquake, seems to happen only often enough for us to say 'tut tut', as we sip our lattes while reading our newspapers.

The "it couldn't happen to me" response must be the only thing keeping us going, in the face of all the dangers that surround us. Perhaps that ability to ignore threats we cannot actually see in front of us, is what underlies the way some people can ignore the evidence for global warming: they just assume that something that big couldn't happen to them.

Let's hope for a safe and earthquake/asteroid/volcano free New Year.

DougH, we not only put threats out of our minds here, we build where they'll doi the most damage -- our Calaveras Fault is due to go any time now, with hospitals, schools, universities, etc. all right atop it. The Calif. School for the Deaf is on it too -- they, at least, won't hear all the commotion.
;]

Alex, denying threats seems to be a whole industry! Isn't half of California due to slide into the sea at some point? Harking back to other conversations we have had, I googled 'fukashima fault' and found a Tokyo Times report that a number of faults have been 'found', or re-examined, near Japanese nuclear plants. Of course, Japan is so small and active that it must be hard to find somewhere NOT close to a fault. http://www.tokyotimes.com/post/en/2321/Utilities+research+finds+14+fault+lines+near+Japan+s+nuclear+plants.html

Yes, Doug, we have lots of faults, not all centered in Orange County politics or Hollywood behavior.

However, we have mostly strike-slip faults -- little vertical movement, so houses aren't lifted off foundations, etc. The few vertical faults under our coastal mountains have indeed done more damage, so are to be avoided. And, when undersea, these make tsunami, as the Japanese must always worry about -- 3 such faults come together SE of Tokyo -- not good, since an event there was made more likley when the Tohoku quake released its stored energy.

By the way, these plate-boundaries are where carbon is naturally recycled to depth, via limestone from sea life detritus being subducted. Tsunami are, in a sense, our long-term friends, which is why Sendai plains should never have been built upon, as Japanese ancestors warned hundreds of years ago.

It pays to understand Nature.

Are you guys still at it? Why not sit back and enjoy the sky?

I understand the Comet Ison coming in October-December is going to knock your socks off (Kahoutek all over again...hope not). But they reckon especially in the northern hemisphere it will be the best comet sight in living memory.

Mind you, portend of disaster perhaps?

Doug Hutcheson ~

Our problems on Earth at present are a direct consequence of seeking to do all our business on one planet.

By building solar power stations in space, we will have access to the unlimited energy-well of our star and will be able to use stellar energy to extract excess carbon from the air and sea, to win back a safe Earth.

With a view to unlimited stellar energy, we can begin the work now on designing a stellar economy without poverty.

This simple vision will lead to a more peaceful Earth, as we will be able to offer all children a healthy and creative life.

The industrial presence in space will initially be mainly robotic, automated and with remote control systems.

Only when we can build space environments that are safe for human habitation, will the high frontier open for normal human activity.

The most critical detail of all in space futures, is that we can look to a time when no more resources will be needed from Earth, when the return to Earth on the investment will be infinite.

We should not lose heart because we have been tricked by the greed of the carbon energy industries to limit our sights to Earth.

It is unfortunate that the environmental movement failed to see the benefit of expansion beyond Earth, because the future I write of could exist now, if the Earth and space lobbies had joined forces in the 1970s, instead of allowing the carbon energy industries to have a free ride at the expense of life.

Seeing the cause of the carbon crisis and all the problems we face on Earth, we can now be empowered to join the fight for a safe Earth and a stellar economy that will send poverty into history.

The hope generated by this vision will inspire action.

Kim Peart
http://www.islandearth.com.au/

Alex Cannara ~

I wonder if we should be more concerned about the deeper level of denial that I raise in my response to Sean Lamb.

If I am right, then climate change denial may be no more than a smoke screen that hides our view of the deeper level of this problem and the pathway to winning back a safe Earth.

This smoke screen serve the carbon energy industries well, as they press onto to fracking and drawing on the shale oil deposits.

In the light of Nature's hammer blow from Arctic greenhouse gases, we do not have the luxury of endless debates, before we get serious about investing in our cosmic survival.

When we have a solution to the carbon crisis that is actually going to work, then all climate change and science denial will be swept aside in the race for survival.

Kim Peart

Kim, the problem is that the combustion folks have already won, decades ago.

Having swamped the natural carbon cycle by a factor of about 30 for decades, we're now committing our descendents to thousands of years of extraourdinary challenges.

We had the solution in hand in the '60s & '70s, and blew it in several ways -- here's one example that would have eliminated combustion power by 2000...
http://tinyurl.com/6xgpkfa
http://tinyurl.com/73p7ler

To understand how we've let the combustion folks trash the Carbon Cycle, and the future, just read a few of the published pieces here and at the UCB DePaoulo group site...

http://energyseminar.stanford.edu/node/461

And, here's our 'best' US effort now...

www.nationofchange.org/senator-boxer-creates-first-us-climate-change-caucus-1355582707

Yes, our descendents will spit on our graves, if they can be found.

PS, humanity was reduced to a few thousand poor souls hiding in caves on the south coast of Africa, about 130,000 years ago, in an ice age and massive drought -- our narrowed genetics show that.

But we again were depleted after the giant Samoan eruption, larger than Krakatoa or Yosemite, and climate change about 78,000 years ago.

At least those weren't our fault.

Alax Cannara ~

In The Conversation of 30 October Bert Roberts wrote that the Toba super-eruption in Indonesia around 73,880 years ago served in, "reducing the population to such a small size than our ancestors were squeezed through a genetic bottleneck?"

Bert also suggests that the Toba eruption caused the beginning of the last Ice Age.

We very nearly didn't survive.

Threats today in addition to another super-volcano, include asteroids, solar flares and the potential of a volcanic outcrop in the Canary Islands sliding into the ocean sending a vast tsunami crashing onto coastal regions around the Atlantic.

In a mundane way, I remain concerned that our greatest threat immediately could be from an economic slide that takes away the cutting edge of space technology, leaving our species trapped on Earth and at the mercy of any terrestrial or cosmic event.

Who are the "combustion folks"?

Why blame a couple of carbon zillionaires, when we all participate in burning fossil fuel and therefore, we are all guilty of the carbon crisis.

We are collectively responsible for our total failure to keep a safe planet, let alone prevent the extinction of so many species of life, geologists are now declaring the dawn of a new epoch ~ the Anthropocene.

We must all take responsibility to understand the causes of the carbon crisis, how it could have been prevented and also the solutions ~ and collectively demand a new survival direct for our civilization.

With clear-headed and determined action, I have no doubt that we can win back a safe Earth, assure our cosmic survival and create a stellar economy without poverty.

Do we ant to?

If we continue to cling to the Earth, I fear we are doomed.

If we lift our game to cosmic expansion, we will be running with the natural force of Nature for expansion and gain access to the level of energy from the Sun that will enable us to win back a safe Earth and launch a celestial future.

In the 1970s it was possible that an Earth-only sustainable future might have been created, but it should be bleeding obvious now that this was a total fantasy.

The rot set in when NASA budgets were slashed after the assassination of President Kennedy and before the Moon landing, with resources being redirected into stupidities such as the Vietnam War.

A new environmental movement was born when the Earth was seen rising above the Moon in 1968, but the conservations promptly forgot where the image came from.

If space and Earth lobbies had joined forces in the 1970s, we could now have a safe Earth and the foundations of a stellar civilization, with much of the fossil carbon left in the ground.

It has been the focus of environmentalists on Earth-only futures, that has been the best friend ever for the carbon energy industries, who want nothing more than the whole world to be totally addicted to the Earth, so that they can drill ever deeper into the belly of our planet.

When stellar energy collected in space was ignored by the Earth lobbies in the 1970s, the carbon energy industries had the biggest win of all, which allowed them to keep pumping, digging and now fracking with a vengeance.

We will not solve the carbon crisis by continuing to trudge along in the same direction that created this crisis.

We need a radical new direction, which happens to be the one that could have prevented the crisis in the first place.

In his 1977 book ~ 'The High Frontier' ~ Gerard K. O'Neill wrote of solar power stations in space, "If this development comes to pass, we will find ourselves here on Earth with a clean energy source, and we will further improve our environment by saving, each year, over a billion tons of fossil fuels,” (p.162).

Are we back to the future, or are we continuing to gamble with our survival?

Kim Peart
http://www.islandearth.com.au/

Got you going, eh Kim!? Yes, "we are all guilty of the carbon crisis." -- some much more than others. And the solution isn't moving to other imagined worlds to continue to display the sad difference between humans and people.

Alex Cannara ~

Would we be "moving to other imagined worlds" by developing human society beyond Earth?

When I look at the vast shopping malls in our cities and suburbs, I see an environment that could just as easily be located in space.

It could have an Earth gravity, by the environment being located in a wheel in space that rotates and we would think we were on Earth, if it were not for the curve in the floor of the wheel.

If the warning about dying oceans releasing toxic hydrogen sulphide gas comes about, we will need vast enclosed environments, if we wish to survive, where will be forced to live on Earth more as if we were in space, to survive an angry planet.

Even now our cars are like small spaceships and trains have airlock doors.

I look around and I see the basics of a space society being built on Earth now, so I don't need any "imagined worlds".

I simply need to see how our society would be shaped in space.

When I undertook the research for my document ~ 'Creating A Solar Civilization' ~ found on my website, I discovered that we can solve all problems on Earth, by investing in a stellar civilization.

It is only because we cling to the Earth that we are driving all problems into a perfect storm of catastrophe.

By clinging to the Earth we have become a cancer on the planet, because we are continuing to grow but have no place to grow to, other than to consume the natural world.

We are a juvenile species that keeps growing and cannot mature, because we have locked ourselves into a cage on Earth and cannot run with the natural laws of expansion.

In space there would be no limit to expansion, where we can develop into a mature society without poverty.

Hopefully, we will wake up and decide that survival is worth the effort and the Earth is worthy of our care.

To succeed, we need a plan that will succeed.

Kim Peart
http://www.islandearth.com.au/

Sorry Kim, I'll be staying down here -- it was quite fine up until a hundred or so years ago!
;]

Alex Cannara ~

It is not what we do personally, but what we fight for.

We have been the criminal in collusion with the carbon energy industries.

Now we must become the collective surgeon to heal the Earth.

The operation will need to be swift and radical to minimise further damage.

In 1969 it was as if the planet was pregnant with new potential and ready to give birth.

Now we have caused a stillbirth, putting both mother and child at great risk.

We must open the womb and release the child, to save our species and the Earth.

Much of the initial work in space can be with robots and via remote control systems.

When space is safe for a smooth flight to a radiation hardened environment offering an Earth gravity, then space will be open for any number of participants.

Knowing that we will survive will inspire hope in the hearts of many, to fight for a safe Earth.

With stellar energy enabling unlimited potential, we will also be able to send poverty into history and this will lead to a more peaceful world.

I hope we will all choose to fight for survival and the life of the Earth.

Kim Peart

I guess who really knows what the future of humankind is to be. I dont think its predestined so it can probably take many roads, some to disaster others to as yet unknown and undiscovered wonders.

Certainly at the moment we seem to be making a serious mess of things and there are many, especially in positions of power, who would prefer to keep their head in the ground and not see what approaches.

As I see it there are so many potential options. Kim's movement out to the stars is obviously one serious avenue to consider. I suspect there are many compatible worlds out there we can terraform or merely adapt to. I suspect that's hundreds of years hence but its seriously possible. I doubt that there are intelligent life forms out there who have achieved our technological level, or even serious self awareness, on planets around more than one in a million stars so there's plenty of room to grow. Who knows in millions of years there may be many variant species of humanity throughout this corner of the galaxy.

But humanity's present civilisation may also collapse, population reduce to a fraction of a percentage of today's level, a new dark age and another slow return to civilisation only this time without the benefit of as much carbon based fuels available thereby establishing a civilisation based on an alternative power source.

The again the next Ice age may change us over the next hundred thousand years into a slightly different human.

Or we may give way to the next opportunity for a creature to reach sapience and technological proficiency.

In the end I think natural processes will determine our fate more than human decision making, though sensible human decision making may help our cause.

Been doing that for years, Kim. You?
;]

Alex Cannara ~

We can share that which we have been doing for years.

Unfortunately, the end result of all our efforts is currently a planet in peril.

We need a plan that will actually deliver a safe Earth and human survival.

We need to share and improve that plan.

Kim Peart

You already know "the plan" Kim. It's late, but it's still the best plan... http://tinyurl.com/6xgpkf

Alex Cannara ~

The link offered goes to the MySpace music site of Meatdraw.

I don't see a plan there to win back and maintain a safe Earth.

Kim Peart

"Sean Lamb says "the magnetosphere" is in "constant decline" -- really, Sean? Why show your lack of science & understanding so freely?"

Golly, well the fact is I had no idea I could charge for it. Anyone thanks for the heads up about my handlers, my performance appraisal is due a few months, so its good to be prepared.

Although from the context is should have been obvious, perhaps I should have said the strength of the magnetic field has been in continuous decline for the last 150 years or so? Does that make it easier to grasp? I have seem some graphs of global estimates, but someone has kindly put up a graph from the observation station at Boulder Colorado
http://digitaldiatribes.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/geomagnetic-decline.jpg
Although I should add, declining magnetic field strengh could only, according to my principal components analysis, be only a relative minor explanatory factor. The principal factor would be cosmic rays/solar magentic activity/sunspots, which ever part of the elephant in the climate change room you want to grap hold of. That is the variable that seems to rise and fall in relation to temperatures.
Other minor variables would include CO2 concentrations, sulphur dioxide air-borne particulates and declining ozone with the consequent greater penetration of a high energy radiation m- those last 3 in probable reverse order of significance.

Where to start, Sean!? You provide so many opportunities!

"my principal components analysis" -- high-falutin' terms for someone who seems to ignore real scientific data.

""the strength of the magnetic field has been in continuous decline for the last 150 years or so?" --yes, Sean, and do you know why? Do you know what happens every 70,000 years or so? Hint: look up Earth magnetic-field reversals.

But you conclude, from your PCA, that: " declining magnetic field strengh could only, according to my principal components analysis, be only a relative minor explanatory factor. The principal factor would be cosmic rays/solar magentic activity/sunspots, which ever part of the elephant in the climate change room you want to grap hold of. That is the variable that seems to rise and fall in relation to temperatures" -- good, so you realize more than one source influences earth;s climate.

You might also look up Milankovitch Cycles, the latest one being poised to return us to ice age, except that our CO2 emissions have thwarted that and trashed the natural carbon cycle by a factor over 30.

So, yes, Sean, if you actually look at facts, such as the Vostok & Greenland ice-core data, the sedimentary and fossil oceanic data,etc., you'll see that not only is Earth's climate influenced by many factors, human emissions have trumped some of the strongest.

PS, slow your typing a bit, which might allow more think time too.
;]

Wow, Kim! Your provider must have a trashed DNS server somewhere along the line. Here's the full link...
http://energyfromthorium.com/pdf/CivilianNuclearPower.pdf

"- high-falutin' terms" - no its an eigenvector-vector based multivariate statistical method. Basically it provides a method to assess the likely contribution of a number of variables to an output.
"Hint: look up Earth magnetic-field reversals." - a rather odd remark since this only sub-discussion arose when I asked what would be the effect of a magnetic field reversal. Even odder, it seems a non-sequiter, since no matter how it arises has no bearing on whether or not it might result in a degree of warming.
"You might also look up Milankovitch Cycles" I am well aware of Milankovitch, to the extent it would seem to me the height of insanity to use them to look at decade on decade variation. I am only trying to assess the change in climate over the last 100 years!!!
"you'll see that not only is Earth's climate influenced by many factors, human emissions have trumped some of the strongest."
Actually looking at these ice cores convinced me of the reverse, human emissions are likely to be of little significance. I have a model that suggests a level of 650 ppm CO2 might produce about 0.72 degrees in warming, but I think I might have over-estimated that since I hadn't factored in a possible warming effect from the decline in the geomagnetic field.

Sean, you seem to think you can use terms you obviously don't understand, maybe to snow others and push a phony argument through.

All you do is expose your lack of understanding. If you were a statistician, you'd know the assumptions underlying PCA don't support your claimed use of it. I teach stat. I've an advanced degree in stat. You're no statistician.

You're also no scientist or engineer, no matter how you fluff up your massive prose here to mislead others.

Mr Cannara, there are few things I am more in awe of than a publications list that finished in 1975 with a thesis concerning experiments in computer use by children.
Leaving aside your apparent lack of recognition of the term PCA, you are right in one thing - I did bodge one aspect.
The problem with CO2 is it not only it influences climate, its level is influenced by climate - this is probably more an issue with paleoclimate than the recent decades. Was this what you had in mind?

My solution, not perfect, was to work out the first principal component with including CO2 and then to assume that everything not explained by the first principal component will be due to CO2. This will tend to exaggerate the influence of CO2, but I am not looking for a perfect model, just a better model.
Mr Cannara I have never claimed to be a scientist or an engineer (Hint: Science Denier) - and if you are asking directly can I reassure you I am neither. I am just correct that is all.
You have a bit of a track record here of saying things are absurd or laughable that are in fact absolutely true. You do accept now that the geomagnetic field strength is declining?
If I may jog your memory:"Sean Lamb says "the magnetosphere" is in "constant decline" -- really, Sean? Why show your lack of science & understanding so freely?"

I await your apology. No hurry, Mr Cannara, in your own time.

Aha, Sean, you've discovered a key component of spying & computer security -- the "honeytpot"!

So you went off, unsuspectingly, and found some info about me, to use, because your arguments are vapid.

Good! Now we all know you'll go after the carrot, unquestioningly, and report back as if you've discovered a great truth.

See, what you found out about me, and where, allows me to discover your integrity.

Now, you were given plenty of links to scientific papers on climate, oceanic chemistry, etc. But you come back with a honeypot entrapment, and the 'profound' guess that climate affects CO2, as well as the other way around.

If you'd actually studied the physics & chemistry of the many inputs to, and feedbacks from, climate change, you'd have already known that not only has CO2 been an actor in past ice-age cycles, but so have other GHGs, such as methane, from exposed tundra, seabed ices, etc.

How about some study, Sean. It'll work much better for you that getting your feet stuck in Internet 'honey'.