What this scientist thinks of NASA’s 2035 mission to Mars…
The 2035 Mars space mission is said to cost an estimated US$1.5 trillion.
What are my thoughts on this? That sounds like an aweful lot of money to me — to keep four to six people alive on another planet— in my view it’s money that could be put to far better things, like keeping 7 or 8 billion alive on this one.
To put things into perspective, it’s the equivalent of spending 94% of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product… for what? A dozen or so people to have the trip of a lifetime… at the most? That’s one hell of an expensive postcard!
If I personally had US$1.5 trillion dollars to play with and I wanted to ENSURE the future surivial of the human race, why, do you know what I’d do? I’d buy up all the wilderness areas up in poorer countries. I’d abandon that silly space mission. That’s what I’d do. And this is coming from someone that liked reading Carl Sagan’s cosmos… [Read more…]
Open letter to climate change skeptics (from a scientist).
Do you notice the terminology “global warming” is somewhat detached from the humanity that caused it? As if it were the planet’s response to our domination, but not directly our own fault.
For me, the notion that this is all some part of a repetitive ‘prehistoric cycle’ which man has nothing to do with is preposterous. It just happens at the same time man enters the industrial age, and is happening 10x quicker than anything before. Hello! coincidence!! The words rate of change have very strong meaning in the scientific community. Grand geological transformations don’t just happen over a matter of years or even decades. They are supposed to take millennia, or longer. So now that the average global sea & air temperature has risen a degree already, I think we’re already in deep shit my friends.
Deforestation today proceeds at 55,630 to 120,000 square kilometres each year. At this rate, all tropical forests may be gone by the year 2090.
You might be one of the smart ones & think that the Earth’s volume is vastly superior to what we could possibly be doing on the surface. But the surface is paramount; everything that happens here depends on it. Yes, the atmosphere has the capacity to change the temperature of the entire planet and it has done so before. Still don’t believe it? The temperature and composition of the atmosphere are dynamic factors; they do not remain constant. Note I deliberately used the term “the atmosphere” because it is most definitely NOT “our” atmosphere! Look at the atmosphere of Venus: it’s completely hostile. Look at the atmosphere of Mars: there is none. No one said to us “The Earth is going to remain habitable/hospitable for as long as you lot are around you know”.
I think the real reason why some people continue to deny global warming is taking place (subconsciously or not) is that they can’t deal with reality. So if they convince themselves that it would’ve happened anyway, they can simply carry on life as normal, and not have to worry about it.
So I think the very least people can do is to accept that they’re responsible for it. Anyone who doesn’t think it is happening is worse than the flat-Earth society. Honestly. Just go bury your head in the sand somewhere, ostrich style. (see that’s what I like about a blog, I can use stronger language than a scientific paper and not have to be so damn subtle in writing and then have someone edit out my carefully chosen words)
Be the change you want to see in the world.
There’s a lot of pessimism at the moment about our long term future. Will we still be here in a 100 years’ time? 1,000? 10,000?
It’s clear that we need some pretty significant changes if we’re going to survive as a species for that amount of time…
What do most people do about it? They go home and watch TV because they’re depressed about the whole predicament. I’m not even going to label the problems. But my point is that most people distract themselves any way they see fit. They fall into the trap of hopelessness. They end up doing jack shit. In short, they don’t change. [Read more…]
Wouldn’t it be cool if this became a reality?
This new petition is gathering a lot of momentum right now…
Why should people sign? Because it’s the little things like plastic bottle tops that are easily blown around in windy weather… and these small items are also the most easily mistaken for food by marine animals.
Most plastic floats and now an area of plastic waste that is twice the size of Texas has already accumulated in the Pacific ocean and it even has its own name… the “Pacific Garbage Patch”.
I’m sure that PepsiCo already knows this. The question is, what are they doing about it? I think it’s time they were held a little more accountable. They should be more responsible and invent a completely new bottle opening system, so that the bottletop will not (or cannot) physically separate from the rest of the container. That way, they can be recycled together as once piece (as it should be) — with a smart redesign, plastic bottle tops won’t ever end up in the ocean again!
How come the plastic bottle tops last a thousand years longer than the actual drinks inside? [Read more…]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- …
- 70
- Next Page »