We Are One

From Carl Sagan, Nov. 9, 1934 - Dec. 20, 1996

Links:

The Carl Sagan Portal

Carl Sagan - Wikipedia

A Story Ken Burns and PBS Should Tell

I was at a friend's home for dinner last evening and I once again brought up the subject and idea that, as our Grandfather pointed out years ago, before he died, his generation saw more change in their one lifetime, their generation, than any other, very likely.

Sure, there was the generation that witnessed the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution and that was, admittedly, a ton of change, sure. Going from purely agrarian to big cities like London with all their brand new factories and machines was huge but this generation, those born at the end of the 1800s to the early 1900s saw humankind and the planet go from horse and mule drawn wagons and dirt roads to, literally, the moon, by 1969.

It think it could be an incredible story.

Before everyone had electricity. Before indoor plumbing and so, toilets, were common. Before cars. Before highways, the telephone, all of it. Lots of us can't imagine a world before all this.

Interview people all over the US, England and the world, before we've lost them all. Have them describe their lives and living conditions, their homes, transportation, all of it. Then go to, really, what we developed in the meantime. I think it could be riveting but it would also be quite an education for a lot of people, too, like so much of what, again, Ken Burns and PBS do and have done.

Here's hoping.

Link:  Ken Burns America - PBS

Those 60s and 70s We Had In February?

This article came out today based on a report just released:

Yes, February was too warm. Global climate is in ‘uncharted territory,’ group says

A little from it, some highlights:

More than 11,700 daily temperature records across the U.S. were broken in February, with the average temperature 7.3 degrees warmer than normal for the last full month of winter. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Arctic “witnessed the polar equivalent of a heatwave.” This spurred dangerous sea ice melting.

“Even without a strong El Nino in 2017, we are seeing other remarkable changes across the planet that are challenging the limits of our understanding of the climate system. We are now in truly uncharted territory,” World Climate Research Program Director David Carlson said.

Out of the 17 hottest years ever recorded, 16 occurred since 2000.

Prof Sir Robert Watson, a distinguished climate scientist at the UK’s University of East Anglia and a former head of the UN’s climate science panel.

“Our children and grandchildren will look back on the climate deniers and ask how they could have sacrificed the planet for the sake of cheap fossil fuel energy, when the cost of inaction exceeds the cost of a transition to a low-carbon economy,” Watson said.

“Arctic ice conditions have been tracking at record low conditions since October, persisting for six consecutive months, something not seen before in the [four-decade] satellite data record,” said Prof Julienne Stroeve, at University College London in the UK. “Over in the southern hemisphere, the sea ice also broke new record lows in the seasonal maximum and minimum extents, leading to the least amount of global sea ice ever recorded.”

Food for thought, for sure.

At what point do we humans do something, do more, about this?

Here's hoping we don't have Summers of 100 degrees and more and for long stretches of time.

Additional links:

Record-breaking climate change pushes world into 'uncharted territory

Nasa: Earth is warming at a pace 'unprecedented in 1,000 years

Entertainment Overnight -- A Brief Read (and video)

Another, different, Facebook friend sent me this today. I think it a great escape from the news and ugliness of the world, especially from our presidential election just now.

The Hidden, The Revealed 

And The Starry Night - NPR

When I was a kid, I looked to the stars for solace.

No matter what was hard or painful or seemed inescapable in my life, I only needed to go out in my backyard at night and tilt my head back.

I lived in the congestion of North Jersey, a few miles from Manhattan. That meant my skies were never dark. It didn't matter, though, the few stars I could see where enough. They reminded me of a truth I really needed back then. It was if the stars were saying: "Everything in your world is no more than a soap bubble. There is much, much more. We're here to remind you of that."

Over the last few days, the news has focused on things that come to light, truths not generally known suddenly revealed. I had the good fortune to be watching the nation's roller coaster ride unfold from a cabin up in the north woods where I'd retreated to work on my book. As the thin sliver of an Internet connection kept me linked to the unfolding drama, I had time to think a lot about what is true and what is hidden. But then, remarkably, every night I'd see what's hidden to most of us — and I remembered those experiences I'd had as a kid.

Miles away from cities and the "noise" of their light, I could see the stars — all of them visible to the naked eye. And, once again, I was reminded of their strange message of freedom.

The great irony of modern life is that while we know more about the universe than any of the 2,000 generations preceding us, most of us have no direct contact with the full emotional magnitude of the night sky. If we are lucky, we can get to a park or somewhere in the suburbs where a fraction of the usual light pollution is blocked.

But the true glory of a true dark night — that's something most of us only get a few times across our lives.

But the meaning of a dark night can't be hurried. You can't step out for a few minutes in your slippers, wrapped in a blanket and hear what the stars are telling you.

No, you have to prepare.

You have to give it time. And you have to be dressed for the quiet effort. It will take long enough just for your eyes to adjust so that you can see the all stars between the stars. Then you have to settle down in a chair or in a sleeping bag. You'll need wait for the boredom to rise and then pass again. Only when your monkey mind has worn itself down a little will the real change come. That's when the stars become 3-D. That's when they stop being pasted on a bowl overhead and you realize they are underneath you, too.

And that's the moment their message of expanse and endless possibilities beyond just today's news can reach you. That is when the stars can whisper to you: "Everything in your world is no more than a soap bubble. There is more, much more. We are here to remind you of that."

While I can't directly show you what I saw those nights, I can (again) share this amazing time-lapse video (see below) of the night sky over the mountains.

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

Of course we have to be engaged with the larger worlds of business and politics and the day-to-day realities of getting kids to school and ourselves to work. That world will always have its share of great sorrow and fear.

But we can also remember what has been hidden right over our heads. We can also find the time to try and reconnect with that truth — even if it's with the few stars wecan see from our backyards or our rooftops. It just takes a little time (say a half hour) and little effort (a blanket, a chair, some warm clothes).

Carl Sagan was right about us being star stuff. But what he said will only be a bunch of words if we don't take the time to look — to really look — up at what is always waiting to be revealed.

Fascinating NASA Study

Report today of a study by NASA on civilizations.

NASA claims: Dozens of advanced ancient civilizations collapsed before us

I know, right? I thought they just studied the stars.

Anyway, they studied why civilizations collapse, what takes them down. You'll find the entire study at the link below.

The study came to the conclusion there are two key social features that contributed to the collapse of every single advanced civilization from the past:

“...the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity”;

and “the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]”

These social phenomena have played “a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse,” in all such cases over “the last five thousand years.”

So I ask you, does any of this sound familiar, folks?

Link to original study: 

Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality

This Sunday Night -- One Busy Moon and Night Sky

This Saturday night, we will not only have what's called a "blood moon" but we are also to have a total lunar eclipse.

First, that blood moon:

Total Lunar Eclipse - Blood Moon

What is it?

A "blood moon" is a full moon that also goes through a total eclipse so that the shadow from the Earth, thrown on the moon makes that same moon turn rather red in the sky. If you've never seen one, it is, they are beautiful.

I remember there was one, once, on my birthday night, many years ago. The red is brilliant. It's a lot of fun and very different.

It's this Sunday evening.

NASA Scientist Sheds Light on Rare Sept. 27 Supermoon Eclipse 

The total eclipse will last one hour and 12 minutes, and will be visible to North and South America, Europe, Africa, and parts of West Asia and the eastern Pacific. Viewers can see the supermoon unmasked after nightfall. Earth’s shadow will begin to dim the supermoon slightly beginning at 7:11 p.m. CDT. A noticeable shadow will begin to fall on the moon at 8:07 p.m., and the total eclipse will start at 9:11 p.m.
Links:

Sunday's lunar eclipse will also feature a 'Supermoon'

Super Blood Moon 2015: When and Where to See the Eclipse

Super Blood Moon eclipse on night of September 27-28

Viewing Conditions: Supermoon to Coincide With Lunar Eclipse in Rare Celestial Event Sunday Night

When and Where to Watch This Weekend's Total Lunar Eclipse

These Are the Days, My Friends

It's actually a pretty incredible time to be alive.

Millions more Americans recently came much closer to having full equality here in their own nation.

Greece just got yet one more cash bailout from it's Eurozone members yesterday.

It was announced today, Tuesday, that a nuclear agreement between Iran and 6 other nations to keep them from getting nuclear weapons was reached, taking off economic sanctions.

And there's a flyby of our satellite near Pluto today.

Big times. These are incredible times, indeed.

We take things so for granted.

Happy birthday, Stephen Hawking

"Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious."

Stephen Hawking

Entertainment Overnight

Haunting. Fascinating. I think Stanley Kubrick would love it. He'd likely have put it to effect.

2015 Meteor Showers

Carl Sagan, On Humanity's Future

"In the past few decades, the United States and the Soviet Union have accomplished something that — unless we destroy ourselves first — will be remembered a thousand years from now: the first close-up exploration of dozens of other worlds. Together we have found much out there that is magnificent, instructive and of practical value. But we have found no trace, no hint of life. The Earth is an anomaly. In all the solar system, it is, so far as we know, the only inhabited planet.

We humans are one among millions of separate species who live in a world burgeoning, overflowing with life. And yet, most species that ever were are no more. After flourishing for one hundred fifty million years, the dinosaurs became extinct. Every last one. No species is guaranteed its tenure on this planet. And humans, the first beings to devise the means for their own destruction, have been here for only several million years.

We are rare and precious because we are alive, because we can think. We are privileged to influence and perhaps control our future. We have an obligation to fight for life on Earth — not just for ourselves but for all those, humans and others, who came before us and to whom we are beholden, and for all those who, if we are wise enough, will come after. There is no cause more urgent than to survive to eliminate on a global basis the growing threats of nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, economic collapse and mass starvation. These problems were created by humans and can only be solved by humans. No social convention, no political system, no economic hypothesis, no religious dogma is more important.

The hard truth seems to be this: We live in a vast and awesome universe in which, daily, suns are made and worlds destroyed, where humanity clings to an obscure clod of rock. The significance of our lives and our fragile realm derives from our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning. We would prefer it to be otherwise, of course, but there is no compelling evidence for a cosmic Parent who will care for us and save us from ourselves. 

It is up to us."

--Carl Sagan, who died on this day, 1995

Link:  Carl Sagan - Wikipedia

Entertainment Overnight -- And Overhead

Quote of the day -- on human and even national potential

"In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined."  

--Neil deGrasse Tyson

Let's be clear on this whole weather thing right now

Despite frigid temperatures in much of the US, January 2014 ranked as the fourth warmest since 1880, while many areas worldwide, including most of South America, Africa and Australia, had their warmest January in history. This NASA temperature rendering says it all. 

Yes, Virginia, that's why it's called "global warming" and not "Eastern USA warming."

More on this week's night sky

Light show Monday night

And now, a little perspective

Cool sky event this year

Big, annual sky event tonight

In case you didn't see the 4 minute freefall

Here you go, the video of "daredevil" Australian Felix Baumgartner and his 24 mile, 4 Minute, 834 mph freefall/jump, reduced here to a minute, 30 seconds:



My question--how did he stop the spinning?