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Pure CO2 causation, the forced feedback in climate models and the machinations on the data that attempt to leverage a 400% CO2 rise into an extremely-slight-yet-lost-in-noise rise or flatline (depending on how you rearrange the noise) average global temperature... it has been like a bad dream that does not end.

Will the world end in ***FIRE*** or ***ICE***? Or will the world fail to end at all, that would be really embarrassing. It's time to put the steep rise in people-generated pure-CO2 and the observed not steep at all global temperature curve in proper perspective. As in, pure-CO2 causation is a non-starter yet worthy of study --- but it's time to focus on other aspects for awhile. Without all that 'climate denier' noise too.

Let's just talk about actual particulates and albedo. Stratospheric sulfur aerosols reflect more sunlight. In the Arctic, nearby soot may be a larger forcing than CO2. One effect would cause net cooling at the surface and the other a net warming as near-perfect blackbody particles settle on ice crystals. The photograph of a melt water canal with concentrated black carbon particles lining the bottom of the pool begs the question, does this melt channel owe its very existence to the presence of the carbon, or was it caused by other factors? I guestimate that the area of black is about 1/10 the size of the surrounding melt pit... so we are definitely seeing 'grey snow' in the Arctic here.

It has taken five years for the failed 'Glory' satellite mission to be re-launched as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. It is my hope that OCO2 will help to answer these questions by showing where pollution plumes originate and how they move, so that we know where to take samples and what to look for.

Politics demands simplified models and pure-CO2 causation so they can tax everybody without pissing off the coal industry. F*ck politics. It is my view that pure-science demands a balanced approach that will reveal the true impact of coal, among other manmade and natural causes.

And the folks in California would really appreciate a green-tax refund for the 29% of their pollution that is actually from Asia.

Some climb with commercial sponsorship, but most are doing it for their own purposes. "Today roughly 90 percent of the climbers on Everest are guided clients, many without basic climbing skills. Having paid $30,000 to $120,000 to be on the mountain, too many callowly expect to reach the summit. A significant number do, but under appalling conditions." Don't see a lot of logos in this picture of the summit: http://ngm.nationalgeographic....

I just typed it. But Slashdot simply "disappears" thorn characters, which is annoying.

Bárðarbunga is full of eye candy. I can point to abundant examples including no shortage of videos on Youtube / Vimeo.

As for pronunciation: Á is said "ow". BOWR-dthar-BOON-ka. The R is an alveolar tap or trill. If that's too hard for you, you can also call it Holuhraun (HOLE-ih-HROYN), Nornahraun (NORDN-uh-HROYN), THorbjargarhraun (THOR-Byardg-ar-HROYN), or a bunch of other names (the TH should really be a thorn, but again, Slashdot silently eats thorns). Among the many proposals for names was Holuhraunshraunshraunshraun, which was suggested because it would be fun watching foreigners try to pronounce it ;) It was never actually a serious contender, but I wrote an article poking fun at the concept on Uncyclopedia at one point ;)

This is not even remotely the same thing as modern gene-splicing. People have NOT, for thousands of years, implated jellyfish genes into food crops, and set them loose in the wild. Talk about comparing apples to oranges! You're comparing kittens to fireflies.

At first I downmodded you because this is very much an overrated and purely sensational statement, but I have a better idea; I'll just correct it.

You made two completely false points, but first I'm going to address the second one: None of these man caused gene splices have ever been "set loose into the wild." In fact not a one of them has ever been outside of a lab environment. This is all done just to understand how genes work in general, and isn't used for producing GMO food.

Now your first point has maybe about 25% truth to it, the rest of it is...well...bullshit. This been going on for a lot longer than thousands of years, perhaps billions actually. In fact you yourself are the result exactly the kind of splicing that you describe, and so am I, and everybody else. In fact the entire portion of our genome that gives women a placenta was embedded into our genome from some other animal. This happens in nature all the time, viruses are the main cause. The human genome contains some 100,000 gene sequences from viruses, making up some 8% of our total DNA.

http://phenomena.nationalgeogr...

Yet somehow in spite of that fact, the world hasn't ended.

As for GMO food...well...actual truth of the matter is that the genes "implanted" into plant DNA to make GMO food are synthetic. They usually consist of around 15 different nucleotides. They were developed under the study of proteomics, which is an entire field that is dedicated to understanding how proteins work, which includes knowing how to build them. The typical change is to prevent the plant cells from being able to absorb glyphosate, effectively making them immune to it.

Consider this: Given that there are around 15 (give or take) known and very specific nucleotides configured in GMO foods, when during natural reproduction, some hundreds of thousands of nucleotides are changed in unknown ways, why is it that you consider the GMO food to be more dangerous?

I mean that's an insanely stupid conclusion to draw. The only thing I can conclude is that the very wealthy, very high profit margin organic lobby is paying you an insane amount of money to go around telling people bullshit stories about frankenfood.

(Isn't drawing silly conclusions fun?)

That's FAR from even being remotely settled. Your article is from 2 years ago. This one is from earlier this year, and argues that Neanderthal DNA was the single biggest influence ON skin and hair color. http://news.nationalgeographic...

The Neanderthals didn't become "extinct" -- they simply interbred until their offspring ended up leaping ahead of BOTH. It's probably not a coincidence that everything we think of as "civilization" began to emerge right around the time the African early humans ran into the European Neanderthals.

Some argue that "only" 2.5%-4% of the modern human genome is of Neanderthal origin. That doesn't sound like much, until you consider that the DNA of a human and a gorilla only differ by about 4%. A difference of 2-4% represents nearly the entire range of genetic diversity found among the entire human race. It's a HUGE difference. The only thing that likely saved the purely non-Neanderthal sub-Saharan Africans from meeting the same fate as the original Neanderthals at the hands of their mutual offspring was basically good luck and distance. Had European colonialism persisted in Africa long enough for the British to have started building skyscrapers in central Africa, there likely wouldn't BE any such thing as a human without any trace of Neanderthal DNA, even in Africa.

You live in a fantasy world.

http://www.nationalgeographic....

http://www.quora.com/What-happ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...

So why exactly do the known sunken reactors then leak plutonium and caesium and other stuff if it is 'chemical' impossible as you claim?

I didn't say it was "impossible". You said sunken reactors caused "ecological disaster" because seawater "dissolves the nice elements in a nuclear reactor". In fact, water dissolves only small quantities and does so very gradually, hence no "ecological disaster". The factors responsible for serious radiation dangers for land-based reactors, meltdowns, dust dispersal, liquid nuclear waste, and enrichment in ground water, don't happen when reactors sink in the ocean.

http://www.nationalgeographic....

Wow, up for a noble price in chemistry?

No, just basic high school chemistry. Science, you should try it some time.

Clean(er) coal is still mostly an idea, not yet commercially implemented (at least when talking about carbon sequestration in the US). A pretty good article is at National Geographic. It mentions that there is a plant under construction in Kemper County, Mississippi, that should capture more than half of its CO2 emissions and redirect them to an oil field. The project has suffered from cost overruns and delays (new tech, not horribly surprising). Besides sequestration, there is work being done on "gassification" (turning coal into a gas and cleaning it before burning it) and improving the combustion process itself.

Of course, you still have to get the coal, which can be nasty (see mountaintop mining and this article about environment impacts of coal mining).

Even as we are trying to sequester half of the carbon we generate when generating power from coal, the permafrost is melting, and according to that article, this could release about 190 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

So, yeah, we can use coal better, but it will cost a lot of money, which probably isn't going to happen without regulation and, subsequently, the recovery of any investment via higher prices for energy. Higher energy prices will doubtless generating much gnashing of teeth during an economy that, at least in the US, seems stuck in a slow, very slow, recovery. With the US Congress very likely to go to a Republican majority next month, the chances of any kind of CO2 regulation are slim.

These new images look more like what kids would make when they first discover what happens if you toss pigment on your hand. Not a lot of art going on but it's fun.

The cave paintings in France are definitely art and were created around the same time.

The Sulawesi art is very definitely representational art not just "tossing pigments" around. The cave paintings in France have those same hand print patterns you try to dismiss as "not art". Your bias against this artwork seem unsupported by facts.

Well, ten days ago, these guys were saying it could never spread beyond the original source patient, because this is America.

Who said that? And it hasn't spread beyond the original source patient, so if anyone actually did say that (which is unlikely), they're correct for now.

Are you kidding me? You are saying that it won't spread in your very fucking post. Look below at what you fucking wrote. And yes, it has spread, due to exposure to the first guy.

Ten days before *that*, these guys were the ones saying it could never even reach America, because... I don't know.

Who said that? I never heard anyone in an official position say that. In fact, I heard some say that it could, and probably would reach America, but that it would be contained. E.g., this article from back in July 29: "Why Deadly Ebola Virus Is Likely to Hit the U.S. But Not Spread"

The media in general earlier this year was playing it down, saying shit would never reach America due to airport screening, how it's not very infectious, how Americans don't drink water used to wash the dead, or roll around in shit, etc. They were doing anything and everything to paint a picture that portrayed the affected countries as slop pits with people wallowing in disease and filth.

Well, ten days ago, these guys were saying it could never spread beyond the original source patient, because this is America.

Who said that? And it hasn't spread beyond the original source patient, so if anyone actually did say that (which is unlikely), they're correct for now.

Ten days before *that*, these guys were the ones saying it could never even reach America, because... I don't know.

Who said that? I never heard anyone in an official position say that. In fact, I heard some say that it could, and probably would reach America, but that it would be contained. E.g., this article from back in July 29: "Why Deadly Ebola Virus Is Likely to Hit the U.S. But Not Spread"

The Vikings did get as far as Baffin Island. But I haven't foiund any evidence of them remaining there later than the 14th century.

Untrue.
http://news.nationalgeographic...

There is nothing preventing photons of different wavelengths from being entangled, allowing one wavelength to expose an image, while another scans the subject-- As demonstrated by the above article. This is vastly different from normal photography.

Similarly, there shouldnt be any real reason why different polarizations couldnt be entangled.

A very sophisticated compositing scanner could be constructed that uses entanglement + interaction with a subject with simultaneous measurement to break the entanglement at the sensor. There is a great deal of benefit to having the exact same light hit many sensors.

Even in regular photography, you can get HDR this way.
http://www.wired.com/2010/09/c...

Here's an example of such "Interesting" photography.

http://news.nationalgeographic...

Having detectors for the many different properties of the photon, rather than just "IS/isNOT entangled", (which is why there needs to be many CCDs with a single aperture), could reveal a wealth of information about a photographed object.

I wouldn't necessarily rank whales higher (or lower) than octopi. As we've learned from corvids (crows, jays, ravens), absolute brain size and organization isn't a particularly good indicator of intelligence. Crows (who have brains the size of a large peanut) score very similarly to great apes.

http://news.nationalgeographic...
This is the battery you need. To bad its the size of a Mcdonalds franchise with extra large playplace.

You seem to think it's about sex and race.

Not sex and race.
Exploitation of perceived image which goes with certain sex, race, ethnicity...

Why do YOU think that helps them the most?

Because if you are a "first world" multibillion dollar behemoth, it is good for your image to offset some of the connotations that come with that territory, making you look like a big brotherish soulless corporation.
By presenting yourself as aligned with those on the opposite part of that spectrum.
I.e. The poor, the powerless, the weak... through exploitation of well known tropes.

Weaker sex.
Poor minority.
Multiculturalism.
"Do no evil." Scout's honor.

Here's one for you.
Why is this photo of kids winning a science fair, "better" than both this one and this one?
And I'm not talking about technical details like resolution or a nicer stage someone threw more money on.
I'm talking about kids.

What is it about them that makes them more appealing?
Here's a hint.
It has to do with the image of both the army and corporations in general and while it is a part of the two not-Google-fair images it is utterly obliterated from the Google's photo of kids.

Another hint - it's not the gender or the race of those kids. Some or all of those elements are in all the photos.

Rainforests 28%, oceans 70%, other 2%.

http://education.nationalgeogr...

Mmmmm. Dirt cookies.

Note that 3 days after you wrote that, the U.N. specifically had to revise the target number upwards to 11 billion in 2100, because (surprise, surprise) the optimistic predictions of tailing-off growth have not been happening on the ground.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140918-population-global-united-nations-2100-boom-africa/

I'm no archaeologist, but I doubt most archaeologists would claim this discovery ranks that highly. The person making the claim is an expert on the Franklin expedition, so he's bound to be a bit biased. It certainly sounds interesting, but we know a lot about Britain in the 1840s. I think the bigger archaeological discoveries involve civilizations we don't know much about.

True, I'd rate this wreck much higher. It told us a wealth of things about ancient trade routes, the nature of cargo, how it was stowed, ship design in 3400BP, ... the list goes on, and they were all things that were mostly just make educated guesses at before. Then there is this a 1500 year old Roman transport just sitting there perfectly in tact. It makes you wonder what else is sitting there on the bottom of the Black Sea perfectly in tact: A Greek or Roman trireme, still sitting there with the oars in place and two Ballistas still standing on the deck? A Phoenician transport with it's cargo of perishables still in tact? A bronze, copper or even neolithic period merchant vessel? Something much, much older?

There is a lot of scientific reasons to doubt the Solutrean hypothesis, and very little scientific reason to back it. For instance, the lack of DNA or linguistic similarities. As of now, it is a theory mostly supported by the Discovery channel and such.

40 thousand years of contact, with no evidence to show for it? It seems very unlikely. There's been pretty good written records in Europe for more than 2,000 years, surely if there was constant contact with the New World there would have been some kind of record.

Leaving the Solutrean hypothesis aside for a minute some of these 'crazy' ideas that our ancestors were more mobile than we give them credit for have been stigmatized by the great egos in the scientific community in the past to the point where putting serious effort into investigating them was the equivalent of professional suicide. Even so sometimes, not always, but sometimes, they deserve better than to be ignored. In fact there is a written record that goes back at least a thousand years about contact between Europe and N-America:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_of_Erik_the_Red
These records have been well know for a long time but nevertheless until the discovery of L'Anse aux Meadows was rubbed in their faces some scientists thought accounts of Viking travel to the Americas were folk tales that should not be taken seriously. Since then Native American DNA has been found in Icelanders and that DNA is thought to be the result of pre-Columbian contact. Basically there is now genetic evidence that at least one Native American woman was brought to Iceland where she married a local man resulting in a group of living descendants:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/11/101123-native-american-indian-vikings-iceland-genetic-dna-science-europe/
This is not really so surprising if you think about it. If the Vikings, who count among the greatest navigators and seafarers in history, could find America. Why is it unthinkable that some Native Americans could not have gone back with them to Europe? There is no mention of this in the Sagas or contemporary annals but does that mean it didn't happen? The DNA seems to tell a different story. Another good example is that there is a growing body of evidence that Native Americans had pre Columbian contact with Polynesians which was considered laughable not so long ago. In retrospect it seems pretty ridiculous to think that scientists once considered it obvious a people who are arguably the greatest navigators on earth and who were capable of sailing for thousands of miles over open ocean between tiny islands with primitive technology would have missed what are by far the two biggest islands in the Pacific but that's sicentists for you. In the end they are only human and it takes a change of generations for the thinking to change.

the hiatus? that scientists now think is being caused by heat being sent to the deep oceans? where we're now seeing significantly increased methane seeps?

The hiatus? What hiatus?

You mean the Inconvenient Truth that falsified all the major climate models of the "settled science" of global warming? Oooopsie. The dog ate all extra heat. I mean he buried it in the yard. I mean the ocean. Yeah, that's the ticket. The ocean. Yeah.

You see, that's the way science is supposed to work. You make a model. And claim the science is settled, and only "denialists" don't believe it. And then when reality proves it's wrong, you rationalize why it was wrong. Even though it was settled. And is settled. Forever and ever. Amen.

It's like the Pope, you see. Pope's are infallible. But sometimes they were wrong in the past. But they're always infallible now.

the hiatus? that scientists now think is being caused by heat being sent to the deep oceans? where we're now seeing significantly increased methane seeps?

we're worried about dying from Global Warming . . . getting hit by an asteroid . . . an Ebola epidemic . . . but nobody seems concerned that maybe the Earth could bust apart at its seems.

You're kidding, right?

Just after people's terror of word-ending asteroids wore off, the media was pushing the Yellowstone Supervolcano (very hard) as the thing we should all be pissing our pants about. And they really never gave-up on it, either:

http://www.inquisitr.com/10848...

http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/30/...

http://news.nationalgeographic...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt04...

Nutrient pollution causes dead zones.

But seals are sooooo cute!

Not all seals are cute. If you have a close encounter with a hungry leopard seal, you will not think it is so adorable.

Most of the heat is going into the oceans and causing the sea level to rise due to thermal expansion. Much of the rest of the heat is continuing to melt the ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctic.

The best picture we currently have of an exoplanet is about 6x6 pixels.
The closest black hole is heck of a lot further away.
Any observation we have of a black holes are extrapolations from gathered data.

Discoveries of stellar bodies are often presented as facts in the news but the discoveries themselves are little more than "This example would explain the data, together with a hundred other possible scenarios."
Next time you see a headline about discovering a star made entirely out of diamond or whatever, remember that the only proof they have is that no-one has bothered to find out why the signal they got can't possibly be caused by that.

I don't understand how this is news, or the darkest material.
Ex. http://www.popsci.com/technolo...

They have one that absorbs 99.970% of light (ie. allows 0.030% to pass), and it was created in 2007 (7 years ago). NASA was also working on one at that time using the same VACNT (vertically aligned carbon nano tubes) process, though NASA only reached 99.5% absorption.

There's been others before this as well. I recall my physics teacher back in '94 talking about some really expensive jars of really black stuff, though I can't recall the name of it. It has similar properties as far as the human eye is concerned (it just looked like nothing).

Here's some more examples:
http://news.nationalgeographic...

IE:
2003 guiness world record holder is a nickel-phosphorus alloy (reflects 0.35% of visible light).
2008, Rice University + Polytechnic Institute folks made a VACNT that reflected only 0.045% of light.

Your links don't substantiate your claims of misinformation.

Hurricanes will increase in number and intensity.

The article you link claims increases in intensity, but doesn't mention number. This page indicates that researchers are divided on the question of number, but strongly united on increasing intensity: http://www.skepticalscience.com/hurricanes-global-warming-basic.htm . Do you see evidence indicating hurricane intensity is not increasing?

Tornadoes will increase in number and intensity.

Your link on tornadoes is of research modeling increases in warmth (energy) in the atmosphere producing higher likelihood of severe thunderstorms in the eastern U.S., and that tornadoes can be associated with severe thunderstorms. Not much of a claim that tornadoes will increase, more of a possible implication, but if you had some more evidence of such a claim, then again would come the question of whether those increases are truly happening. What evidence do you see for/against that?

New York will be under water.

"[...]projects a four foot rise in sea levels during storms[...]

(emphasis added). The article predicts increased likelihood of reaching 100-year flood levels. It also claims 3 feet of sea level rise by 2100. This is backed up by other reporting, like: http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-sea-level-rise/ . The evidence I see doesn't dispute that sea levels are rising, and might be on-pace to reach those claims, if the rates of increase are themselves increasing. Do you see evidence otherwise? I wonder if much of your notion of these claims comes from interpretation, possibly misinterpretation, of what researchers are actually finding?

Britain will never see snow again.

You didn't provide a link, but I would guess it would be something like this: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html . Researchers painting what is perhaps an exaggerated picture of a possible future isn't unusual, but tends to decrease people's confidence in their research when, some years later, they are not all commuting in flying cars. This might be a more informative and realistic picture, and less imagination-based: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/08/potential-impacts-climate-change-uk .

Record low Hurricanes, Tornadoes, New York still hasn't flooded, and Britain just had record snowfall this last winter.

If you are talking about storm-related flooding in New York, rather than slow sea level rise, I seem to recall something like that happening... :) http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/superstorm-floods-new-york-city/ . Keep in mind, also, that weather is a very complex system of (sometimes very large) chaotic fluctuations that occur atop a base of climate. No snow, some snow, lots of snow; in the short term, these stem much more from weather than climate. Over decades, climate will show trends, though.

Of course, I am no expert in such matters, just reading what I read and trying to come to reasoned conclusions, so I could be completely wrong. I haven't yet seen compelling evidence of that, though... :)

Just off the first page of a Google search.

Hurricanes will increase in number and intensity.

Tornadoes will increase in number and intensity.

New York will be under water.

  Britain will never see snow again.

Record low Hurricanes, Tornadoes, New York still hasn't flooded, and Britain just had record snowfall this last winter.

Not even largest flying bird wingspan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentavis was 7m.

Most of the articles get it wrong, but http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140707-bird-biggest-flight-ancient-wings-charleston-science/ notes largest seabird.

Regardless of the clever implementation, Aereo behaved like a subscription cable service. How it collected and stored programming was not relevant to this.

Appearances can deceive: The elephant bird may have looked like an ostrich but it's not related to ostriches. It's actually related to kiwis.

From the article: "Launched a year ago in New York and then extended to 10 other U.S. cities, it allows customers to watch over-the-air TV programs on a smartphone, tablet, or computer for as little as $8 a month."

Here's how Aereo [works | worked]. Redirecting a free over-the-air product over the web is a clever idea. It would seem to me that it would give advertisers a broader reach.

I don't think this tech is going to go away. This ruling merely consolidates the power of the existing media companies over the broadcast medium. Which, in my opinion, is regrettable. They already have too much power IMO.

Later this year the CERN Collider will work for the first time at 100% power:
http://news.nationalgeographic...
Perhaps, we will meet God at last.

And then the new, 100 km in diameter, Collider will be constructed at CERN.

Of course we killed a few in Iraq and Afghanistan...

"A few." snort

because you know. "Terrorists".

Not "terrorists," it is terrorists. They earned the label in the eyes of most people, minus the fringe, fever swamp, and nutters that have to be addressed.

If certain people had their way, there would be numerous OWS casualties as well.

You're assuming the mantle of OWS too? Mercy.

The magnetic north pole had moved little from the time scientists first located it in 1831. Then in 1904, the pole began shifting northeastward at a steady pace of about 9 miles (15 kilometers) a year.

In 1989 it sped up again, and in 2007 scientists confirmed that the pole is now galloping toward Siberia at 34 to 37 miles (55 to 60 kilometers) a year.

Imagine how many quadrillions of intelligences exist in a galaxy the size of the milky way. Imagine how many of them will be destroyed by relativistic jets

200 foot is 60.96 metres, while a praying mantis is 1.2 to 15 cm, or 0.012 to 0.15 metres (source). To get to 200 foot, you need to scale the mantis up by 406.4 to 5080 times, or 22.7^1.924 to 22.7^2.733 times. So, the only possible integer power is 22.7^2 = 515.29 times the original.

Working backwards, that means you'll need a praying mantis of 11.83 centimeters, or 4.66 inches.

> Frankly i think the fight against most invasive species simply creates jobs for public employees.

Tell that to Guam

They're already working on the solution of a runaway mammoth population:

http://news.nationalgeographic...

Here we go again, with the same idiotic line of thinking that brought us "Blackfish". I wonder if these people are trolling or just really this ignorant.

Activist claim: Working with captive cetaceans endangers trainers.
Reality: Cell tower technicians fall to their death all the time (who knew LTE had to be paid for with blood?). Can we at least agree advancing our understanding of marine mammals and inspiring future generations to give a damn might be worth at least as much blood as being able to Tweet about Miley Cyrus twerking? Also, it's probably possible to be accidentally killed in just about any line of work.

Activist claim: Captive cetaceans would have a better life if freed.
Reality: Not even close. Over 300,000 whales, dolphins, and porpoises are killed each as a result of by-catch. Also, pollution.

Activist claim: But think of the animals!
Reality: Yes, think of the animals in the wild, you lazy sorry sack of shit. You know, like the ones in Africa being illegally poached. Oh sure, you might have to travel to a place that's a bit rougher of a neighborhood than Orlando or San Diego to protest that and put yourself at risk of being shot, but think of the animals, amiright?

Activist claim: Seaworld is just an evil profit driven empire, hell bent on the exploitation of animals.
Reality: Humanity has already fucked things up pretty bad for animals in the wild (warning: graphic content). We're past the point of taking a "hands off" approach and hoping things just go back to being peachy keen for our fine feathered and flippered friends. Seaworld exists to educate, inspire and inform people that they need to care about these animals today, or the only place we'll see them tomorrow will be in photographs and videos. They also (unlike most of these armchair activists), actually get off their ass and help animals.

Why is terrorism seen as such a threat in the US? According to this, 2600 americans were injured by air fresheners in 1996. Here's a list of injuries and deaths due to terrorism. If 96 was a good indication, it looks like air fresheners are BY FAR the bigger threat.

Politicians, law enforcement, and media sell fear. That's the real reason why NZ is ramping up anti-terrorism.

I'd really like to see a law requiring citizens to take a low dose of anti-anxiety medication. Everyone over the age of 16. We'd colonize mars by 2030, cure cancer, solve climate change, prevent overpopulation, and end most violent crime if we would just stop wasting so much fucking time, energy, and tax dollars in stupid illogical fear.

And yes, I have seen "Serenity" and I'm willing to risk it.

Nobody should build anything along the coast. At least any coast that is not at least 100m above sea level.

Push the button for the interactive map -
http://ngm.nationalgeographic....

How about a selfie at the bottom of the ocean? Where's the tourist market for that?

You mean something like James Cameron at the bottom of the Marianas Trench? There is also a pretty brisk business of people who are trying to get married on the deck of the Titanic.... literally. Note the selfie in that last link in particular.

There actually is a pretty brisk tourism market for that..... so what are you talking about again? That space tourism won't happen until the underwater deep sea market for tourism is penetrated? Already happened.

I disagree there is a climate of "anti-science"; global warming debate notwithstanding, where is this new eschewing of science? Religion? That was always around, that's not new. Look at the rash of scientific discoveries made just this year alone. And for last year, http://news.nationalgeographic....
I'd say science is moving ahead pretty well, though I too would like to see it get more funding, especially for experimental research.

Actually seems that waste from coal plants is even more radioactive than the ones from nuclear plants, and that waste goes to the environment instead of being restricted in small areas.

The editors note in the Scientific American article is qualifies itself by referring to reactors in normal operation and not the entire Nuclear industry, it's accidents or production byproducts from enrichment. Furthermore radioactive isotopes in coal ash are not enriched like those used in Nuclear reactors.

The actual state of affairs with Nuclear waste is much more serious than the S.A article would lead you to believe and this sobering article from National Geographic reveals the current state of Nuclear waste, at least in America.

Who's talking about terrorists?

The danger is another Carrington Event, which unlike your 500-mile tsunami and fire-breathing lizard examples could actually happen.

Half the planet's power transformers blowing out is hardly "nothing more than a power outage".

Such transformers can take a long time to replace, especially if hundreds are destroyed at once, said [Daniel] Baker, who is a co-author of a National Research Council report on solar-storm risks.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Cliver agrees: "They don't have a lot of these on the shelf," he said.

[...]

"Imagine large cities without power for a week, a month, or a year," Baker said.

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic...

Oh, I'd want the rednecks on _my_ team. Like these guys:

          http://channel.nationalgeograp...

"We absolutely, positively need petroleum right now in order to exist." - yes, but we need to act now to mitigate the climate change. As the population grows, more fossil fuels get used, rivers get more polluted due to over fertilisation e.g. http://news.nationalgeographic...

"The solution in the short term is to use the best methods to obtain petroleum based products, fracking, to keep costs down" - that may be also causing problems http://time.com/60045/ohio-geo...

We have to start now, there is no choice really.