Sequiturs

I think greenhouse warming is a serious problem to be addressed over the coming years. Nonetheless, some of the proclamations of environmentalists, and even scientists, make me want to throw things at a TV screen, monitor, or journal (though this last option lacks the satisfying smash of the others). Among the worst offenders in this category is the use of hellish surface conditions on Venus as a worst-case-scenario, allegedly demonstrating what can happen when greenhouse gasses get out of control. In honor of these alarmists, here are a few of the ways we could make Earth a little more like Venus:

• Add CO2 to the atmosphere (this is the one they mean). Maybe everyone could breath out at the same time?
• Move Earth 40,000,000-odd km toward the Sun. I think this could be done by getting everyone to stand on the light side of the world and throw rocks over the horizon. Later, the rocks would land, and everyone would go home, but the net effect would be to briefly increase the tidal force of the Sun upon the Earth (since the total mass would be spread out more along a vector from the Earth to the Sun), slowing the planet’s rotation and increasing the radius of its orbit, in accord with the conservation of angular momentum. The resulting cooler conditions would make everyone come in from the beach and work on science, so we could invent technology to move Earth 40,000,000-odd km toward the Sun.
• Destroy all life. (They think they mean this, too.)
• Increase the pressure of the atmosphere by about 9300%. Maybe we could all blow out really hard…

The latest edition to the blogroll is the excellent Planetary Society blog, which currently features in depth discussion of MER rover Opportunity’s ambitious 12-km trek to it’s next target of study, the crater Endeavour. I think there are two sound reasons to embark on such a mission. First, setting a long-term research goal (just getting to Endeavour might take a year) makes it harder for NASA administrators to kill funding for continued operations of the rovers, which, for reasons that perplex me, they otherwise might well do. Second, Endeavour is far away from territory previously covered by MER rovers, both geometrically and geologically. When using tiny robots to chart vast terrain, I think it’s best to keep moving, investigating as wide a variety of sites as possible. The rovers are partly designed to study scientific issues identified well in advance, like my work on dust devils, but the overriding goal of space exploration is to be in a position to observe the unexpected, the unimagined. Sending Opportunity on a potentially dangerous, but bold trip like this gives us an even better chance of stumbling upon something new. Kudos to Dr. Squyres and the MER team for this decision!

There’s nothing quite like sunset before a hurricane. Cirrus laden skies bronze, and 20kt gusts make the trees bow beneath them.

I’ll likely be out of touch for the next couple of days, since power and phone service will be interrupted by Ike. There’s nothing to worry about though, with plenty of food and water stored away, and far enough from the coast to escape the storm surge and any wind damage. I’m actually kinda looking forward to a nice overnight gale, followed by cooking fried rice over a gas stove. See you next week.

UPDATE: What’s as cool as sunset before a hurricane? Tossing a glowing frisbee after sunset before a hurricane.

As is usually the case when you see a panel of “independent voters” on television, ABC has a curious definition of that phrase.