While I sympathise with any effort to make scientific data more accesible, the deluge of questions were long ago answered by the philosophy and method of science, ie: train oneself to think critically.
On the contrary, the size is PROOF we have found Atlantis!
Read the exlusive interview with Plato in TFA, he clearly states he got the location from the Egyptians. This photo gives an indication of the size of Egyptian condo's one would expect to find in Atlantis. In fact the combined weight of that many Egypitian condo's is the very reason Atlantis sunk into the ocean!
"Surely cost means nothing compared to a limitless source of immense energy."
If cost means nothing in the quest for limitless energy then why not skip the punny space collectors and elevators and go directly to a Dyson sphere? - My answer to these type of questions is the same as the argument against "clean coal", it's acedemically interesting but totally impractical for the forseable future. A much deeper question is why do certain governments and captains of industry ignore the obvious existing solutions?
"A focused global space race style effort could put a space conveyer belt up."
Or we could build giant statues that stare out into the void like they did on Easter island, ie: cost is proportional to labour, it is not proportional to utility.
"What else are we going to do with our resources?"
My guess is we will continue to fight wars for the right to squander/hoard them.
I was hoping people could read between the lines but let me spell this out for you....
1. Victoria is basically made out of coal.
2. Anti-environment minister is in the pocket of the coal industry.
3. Anti-environment minister spots small contingent of NIMBY's and large wind farm investment.
4. Anti-environment minister attempts to kill off a competior of said coal industry by over-riding state planning process.
5. When asked to explain himself, anti-environment minister makes transparent attempt to blame greenies by lying about non-existant protesters and mis-representing environmental impact studies.
6. Anti-environment minister feels political heat and after costly delays to wind farm investors, is forced to back-flip.
7. Australian people kick the living shit out of anti-environment government in a landslide election.
Incidently, what was the point you were trying to make?
Interesting article, it hadn't occured to me that Toyota also stand to benifit from the bail-out because of the incestuous nature of the major players in the auto-industry. I think Toyota's biggest fear is right there in your quote, ie: someone like Tata will buy up a bankrupt GM and offer stiff competion in the low-end mass market. It is in their strategic interest to keep a weak competitor afloat, especially if they can get the taxpayer to foot the bill.
"Hey, I'm a Libertarian."
Don't worry I won't hold that against you, I'm a "greenie" and I appreciate factual arguments regardless of where I find them.;)
"My issue with spending for infrastructure is that the infrastructure has to be NEEDED and WANTED by the public."
You mean things like dykes to protect New Orleans, bridges that aren't falling down, health-care and education that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? - Now is the time to purchase those things and re-employ the tsunami of unemployed auto-workers that are on the near term horizon.
"Yes, yes, us geeks would LOVE to see a maglev train in North America"
I believe that those companies want GM and Chrysler to get saved because not saving them would put suppliers out of business. Honda, Toyota, etc. use many of the same suppliers as GM. Without those suppliers, it will be very costly for them to restore operations in the US.
Well that explains why the Japanese finance minister described the auto-bailout as absolute evil./sarcasm
Subsidy is another word for protectionisim and it is generally accepted by the world's economists that protectionisim exacerbated and prolonged the great depression, not to mention many of those economists are pointing at Greenspan and saying "I told you so". Sure the credit freeze requires radical action to avert catastophic bank runs and those home owners affected by the subsequent crash in asset values deserve some relief, but dinosaurs went extinct because they could not adapt fast enough to their new environment.
I've been a "greenie" since I was a teenager in the 70's. The last time I heard of birds being used as an excuse to stop a wind farm was here in Australia. It was not the greens who objected but rather a right wing anti-environment minister who went "nuts" and cancelled a $200M wind farm because it would kill (on average) one orange-bellied parrot every 1000yrs.
As for Greenpeace I admired their stance on atmospheric testisng and a few other issues when they first formed but they have been infested with Ludites for at least the last decade or so and many of the original founders have subsequently quit in disgust.
Please stop conflating ludites with environmentalists even if they label themselves as such, it makes you appear just as ill-informed and foolish as Greenpeace's eco-warriors.
You seem to think controlling our emissions means turning off civilization. This is simply not true, the Stern Review clearly enumerated the costs and benifits of reducing our emissions to SUSTAINABLE levels (as opposed to zero). Nobody in their right mind belives this can be done in a few years but it is obvious that EVERY coal fired plant in existance today will need to be replaced within the next 4-5 decades, regardless of wether it is replaced with coal, nuclear or renewables.
You went for hyperbole when you misunderstood another post of mine. I do not want you to stop driving your SUV, nor do I want you to sit in the dark. What I want is for you to switch on your brain and understand that the best science available says that our emmissions are at least 3X what the biosphere can absorb and that "business as usual" is in fact a global experiment we cannot afford.
The only reasonable way to overcome this problem is via CAPITALISIM. A comprehensive international cap & trade scheme where the coal, oil, gas and concrete industries are required to compete for emission rights in exactly the same way they currently compete for mining rights is absolutely vital to countering a clear and present danger.
Regardless of what you read in the opinion columns, the political reality is that such a system will be more or less in place by 2012.
What is wrong with you people lately? Why the hell is the GP modded troll?
This project is an orbiting white elephant that would take an enourmous amount of energy to build, would supply only a tiny fraction of what we need at a ridiculously high cost per watt, and could easily be percieved as a space based weapon by other nations. If I didn't know better I would have to assume TFA is a lame attempt to discredit the viability of earth bound renewables.
Here is the sales pitch on costs: "The biggest challenge for SBSP is making it work on a commercial level in terms of bottom line," said Sage, "i.e., putting together a business case that would allow the enormous infrastructure costs to be raised, the plan implemented, and then electricity sold at a price that is reasonable. I say 'reasonable' and not just 'competitive' because we're getting into a time where selling energy only on a price basis isn't going to be the criteria for purchase.
This is total bullshit, cost is the ONLY criteria for commercial electricity generation, the fact that the costs to the environment are not accounted for in our current economic system is the problem.
Seat-belts (1970), random breath tests(80's), proper child restraints(80's), kids under 7 in the back seat (80's), industry regulations enforcing "better brakes, better handling, better tires, slower speeds" (ongoing).
How very tiny is that risk (note that we have pressure-sensitive switches under the passenger seat)...
Why do you think those pressure switches were installed? The risk of death/injury is meaningless until you actually have the crash, in such an case having the (under 7) kid in the front seat significantly increases the risk of never being able to talk to him/her again. It will make no difference if the kid is decapitated with an air-bag, strangled by an adult restraint, or has to be cut out of the dashboard by the fire brigade. Don't take my word for it, just ask the local fire-brigade, an ambulance driver or anyone at the casualty department of your local hospital for that matter, these are the people who see it every day.
"...how great is the reward of sitting up front?"
The reward of having the kid up front is purely an emotional one and your post is an attempt to rationalise the physical risk by ignoring it.
BTW: My brother severly burnt his eye-ball with a "tom-thumb" when he was a kid. This does not mean I want to ban firecrackers, but allowing a child to play with them unsupervised will end in tears (out of one eye in my brothers case).
"What are we aiming for, the average 1940's temperatures, earlier, later ?
We are not aiming for a specific temprature we are aiming to stop influencing tempratures with our GHG emmisions (ie: stopping our current "climate control" experiment).
To do this we must first calculate how much of our excess GHG can be absorbed by the planet. IIRC this figure works out to be ~3Gt/yr, currently we produce ~10Gt/yr.
"In the end (or even the beginning) the only reasonable thing to do is to keep an eye on the current scientific situation yourself...[snip]...Relying on the mass media for accurate conclusions is stupid at the best of times."
Well said, although I a prefer to make/modify my own conclusions based on available evidence. I have followed the science for at least 25yrs, at first out of interest, then out of disbelief, and now out of concern for my soon to be grand-child. I have found this site to be extremely informative, particularly wrt the paleo-climatology assumptions you are making in your post.
"And we certainly do not know enough to experiment with that [using technology to change climate]. Even if we could do it safely, do we really want to live in a world where commercial interests control whether your region gets rain today, this month, this year ?"
Well no, but that is exactly what the coal industry has been doing for the last 200yrs, albiet in an uncontrolled manner.
"I wish my kids could ride in the front seat with me, like I was able to with my father. Great father-son time. But noooooooo... A "few" kids die, and so every child gets pushed into the back seat"
I grew up in the 60's in Australia. My dad had a 50's VW and on occasion we would cram 7 people into it, no seat belts, no speed limits. It was great fun for all of us!
There are now 4-5 times as many cars on the road yet the the road toll in my state has dropped from ~1100-1200/yr in the 60's to ~300-400/yr.
"Over-emotional fools who "think of the children" and focus on absolute numbers ("if it saved even one child, it's worth it!!!") instead of the big picture."
Yeah right, and I suppose risking decapitating your son with an air-bag for "great farther-son time" is not "over-emotional"? You are his dad not one of his childhood mates!
"It shows that Global Warming is being treated just a religion. Bring out anyting that supports your position, ignore anything that shows the flaws. Slap names on those who oppose you (deniers, non-believers, heretics). Idolize your leaders (Algore, etc.). Until actual science is used to study this, instead of blind faith, nothing useful is being done."
This message was brought to you by the church of anti-science and ignorance.
"Actually, that last bit is in dispute, if you RTFS."
Well gee-wizz, a breathless slashdot summary contradicts 100+ years of research, lab experiments and field observations. It's pityfull (but unsurprising) you were modded insightfull on a nerd site.
The science here concerns a particular data set, it is NOT the only data set. There is nothing in this beat-up that says the Artic ice is is NOT melting. 30-40yrs of sattelite pictures are just one alternative and independent line of evidence amoung many. What the scientists are doing is applying genuine skepticisim to narrow the error bars as to how fast it is melting.
"If you feel comfortable doing linear extrapolations on a highly nonlinear system, anyway."
Who said it was linear? - (other than the voices in your head)
I'm not saying that it didn't happen that way but this is actually contrary to the medical proffesions credo of "first do no harm".
"That is far from certain."
We are about a certain as science can be that increased CO2 means increased ground tempratures (below 5km), we are much less certain about feedback mechanisims dampening or enhancing the RATE of warming.
Reducing CO2 emmissions is an example of the medical credo, it is not an attempt to "do something" it's a call to STOP "doing something".
I interpet the Pink Floyd quote in my sig as refering to ideological cages rather than physical ones. "Left leaning greenie" is how others would usually describe me (particulaly on a US centric site such as this one). OTOH I have also been described by fellow "enviornmentalists" as a captialist pig and an environmental rapist because of some of the following actions and opinions that are offensive to the dogma held by many in the green left.
I spent a year working in an old growth sawmill, some of the trees were 350yo, 12-14 feet in diameter and took two log trucks to carry. As you can see from this link the forest is still there almost 30yrs later. It is still being logged in a responsible/sustainable manner and I see no reason why it cannot continue to provide jobs and timber in perpetuity.
I spent another year working on fishing trawlers - somehow this makes me a dolphin killer even though it's impossible to catch dolphins with a scallop drag unless they lay on the seabed and commit suicide.
I think culling kangaroos and using them for dog/human food is more humane than letting them starve due to over-population.
I think we (Australia) should dig up our vast uranium resource and sell it to nations where renewables are impractical. If it wasn't for the embarrasing wealth of renewables in Australia I would also argue we use the uranium at home.
Probably the biggest herasy I have is that I belive trees are valuable in their own right and should NOT be included as a credit in a CO2 cap & trade scheme. The science of the matter is that CO2 uptake by vegetation is too difficult to quantify on anything but a global scale and even then there are large error bars. The idea is ripe for corruption and will have the opposite effect to that desired by it's advocates (re: biofuels and Indonesian palm oil plantations).
Anyway I wish you well in your efforts to chip away the dogma from the inside, but whatever you do, don't let the bastards put you in a cage.:)
"This allows many students to goof off and do practically whatever they want."
Speaking of failing, you have failed to take Japanese culture into account. In Japan a failing student brings shame not only to himself but also to their family and teacher. It's that kind of social pressure that puts Japan so high in the educational rankings.
I don't claim that this would work anywhere else but the fact that US schools feel they need to have cops and gaurds patroling their hallways speaks volumes about US culture.
At the molecular level the distinction between life and non-life is arbitrary (re: prion, virus). As a cursory glance at the replies to this article will show, any discussion of life on Earth like planets naturally brings up the subject of intelligence and our ability to recognise and/or communicate with it.
It works well for human intelligence but would tend to imply the biosphere is in some way intelligent, evolution being the process of generating new information from that which was previously generated. This is known as the strong Gaia hypothisis, personally I'm a fan of the weak Gaia hypothisis but the ants nest example make one wonder...
I have been a left-leaning "greenie" since I was a teenager in the 70's. The older I get the more I'm amazed at how easily people from all sides of politics can disengage their brain and drink their particular brand of ideological kool aid with gusto.
I applaud your willingness to put science before ideological dogma and find myself in total agreement with your "ultra-right-wing capitalist" post.
Slashdot Mirror
While I sympathise with any effort to make scientific data more accesible, the deluge of questions were long ago answered by the philosophy and method of science, ie: train oneself to think critically.
On the contrary, the size is PROOF we have found Atlantis!
Read the exlusive interview with Plato in TFA, he clearly states he got the location from the Egyptians. This photo gives an indication of the size of Egyptian condo's one would expect to find in Atlantis. In fact the combined weight of that many Egypitian condo's is the very reason Atlantis sunk into the ocean!
The interview with "top philospher" Plato is proof positive that this time it's the real deal!
"Surely cost means nothing compared to a limitless source of immense energy."
If cost means nothing in the quest for limitless energy then why not skip the punny space collectors and elevators and go directly to a Dyson sphere? - My answer to these type of questions is the same as the argument against "clean coal", it's acedemically interesting but totally impractical for the forseable future. A much deeper question is why do certain governments and captains of industry ignore the obvious existing solutions?
"A focused global space race style effort could put a space conveyer belt up."
Or we could build giant statues that stare out into the void like they did on Easter island, ie: cost is proportional to labour, it is not proportional to utility.
"What else are we going to do with our resources?"
My guess is we will continue to fight wars for the right to squander/hoard them.
I was hoping people could read between the lines but let me spell this out for you....
1. Victoria is basically made out of coal.
2. Anti-environment minister is in the pocket of the coal industry.
3. Anti-environment minister spots small contingent of NIMBY's and large wind farm investment.
4. Anti-environment minister attempts to kill off a competior of said coal industry by over-riding state planning process.
5. When asked to explain himself, anti-environment minister makes transparent attempt to blame greenies by lying about non-existant protesters and mis-representing environmental impact studies.
6. Anti-environment minister feels political heat and after costly delays to wind farm investors, is forced to back-flip.
7. Australian people kick the living shit out of anti-environment government in a landslide election.
Incidently, what was the point you were trying to make?
Interesting article, it hadn't occured to me that Toyota also stand to benifit from the bail-out because of the incestuous nature of the major players in the auto-industry. I think Toyota's biggest fear is right there in your quote, ie: someone like Tata will buy up a bankrupt GM and offer stiff competion in the low-end mass market. It is in their strategic interest to keep a weak competitor afloat, especially if they can get the taxpayer to foot the bill.
;)
"Hey, I'm a Libertarian."
Don't worry I won't hold that against you, I'm a "greenie" and I appreciate factual arguments regardless of where I find them.
"My issue with spending for infrastructure is that the infrastructure has to be NEEDED and WANTED by the public."
You mean things like dykes to protect New Orleans, bridges that aren't falling down, health-care and education that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? - Now is the time to purchase those things and re-employ the tsunami of unemployed auto-workers that are on the near term horizon.
"Yes, yes, us geeks would LOVE to see a maglev train in North America"
Obligitory simpsons reference.
I believe that those companies want GM and Chrysler to get saved because not saving them would put suppliers out of business. Honda, Toyota, etc. use many of the same suppliers as GM. Without those suppliers, it will be very costly for them to restore operations in the US.
/sarcasm
Well that explains why the Japanese finance minister described the auto-bailout as absolute evil.
Subsidy is another word for protectionisim and it is generally accepted by the world's economists that protectionisim exacerbated and prolonged the great depression, not to mention many of those economists are pointing at Greenspan and saying "I told you so". Sure the credit freeze requires radical action to avert catastophic bank runs and those home owners affected by the subsequent crash in asset values deserve some relief, but dinosaurs went extinct because they could not adapt fast enough to their new environment.
I've been a "greenie" since I was a teenager in the 70's. The last time I heard of birds being used as an excuse to stop a wind farm was here in Australia. It was not the greens who objected but rather a right wing anti-environment minister who went "nuts" and cancelled a $200M wind farm because it would kill (on average) one orange-bellied parrot every 1000yrs.
As for Greenpeace I admired their stance on atmospheric testisng and a few other issues when they first formed but they have been infested with Ludites for at least the last decade or so and many of the original founders have subsequently quit in disgust.
Please stop conflating ludites with environmentalists even if they label themselves as such, it makes you appear just as ill-informed and foolish as Greenpeace's eco-warriors.
"We'll be black," saith the Governator.
Thank you, best laugh I've had all week.
You seem to think controlling our emissions means turning off civilization. This is simply not true, the Stern Review clearly enumerated the costs and benifits of reducing our emissions to SUSTAINABLE levels (as opposed to zero). Nobody in their right mind belives this can be done in a few years but it is obvious that EVERY coal fired plant in existance today will need to be replaced within the next 4-5 decades, regardless of wether it is replaced with coal, nuclear or renewables.
You went for hyperbole when you misunderstood another post of mine. I do not want you to stop driving your SUV, nor do I want you to sit in the dark. What I want is for you to switch on your brain and understand that the best science available says that our emmissions are at least 3X what the biosphere can absorb and that "business as usual" is in fact a global experiment we cannot afford.
The only reasonable way to overcome this problem is via CAPITALISIM. A comprehensive international cap & trade scheme where the coal, oil, gas and concrete industries are required to compete for emission rights in exactly the same way they currently compete for mining rights is absolutely vital to countering a clear and present danger.
Regardless of what you read in the opinion columns, the political reality is that such a system will be more or less in place by 2012.
From +1 to +3 insightfull and then down to 0 - troll in 10 minutes.
*me* - checks for full moon...
What is really ridiculous are the words you are putting in my mouth.
What is wrong with you people lately? Why the hell is the GP modded troll?
This project is an orbiting white elephant that would take an enourmous amount of energy to build, would supply only a tiny fraction of what we need at a ridiculously high cost per watt, and could easily be percieved as a space based weapon by other nations. If I didn't know better I would have to assume TFA is a lame attempt to discredit the viability of earth bound renewables.
Here is the sales pitch on costs: "The biggest challenge for SBSP is making it work on a commercial level in terms of bottom line," said Sage, "i.e., putting together a business case that would allow the enormous infrastructure costs to be raised, the plan implemented, and then electricity sold at a price that is reasonable. I say 'reasonable' and not just 'competitive' because we're getting into a time where selling energy only on a price basis isn't going to be the criteria for purchase.
This is total bullshit, cost is the ONLY criteria for commercial electricity generation, the fact that the costs to the environment are not accounted for in our current economic system is the problem.
"At what cost?"
Seat-belts (1970), random breath tests(80's), proper child restraints(80's), kids under 7 in the back seat (80's), industry regulations enforcing "better brakes, better handling, better tires, slower speeds" (ongoing).
How very tiny is that risk (note that we have pressure-sensitive switches under the passenger seat)...
Why do you think those pressure switches were installed? The risk of death/injury is meaningless until you actually have the crash, in such an case having the (under 7) kid in the front seat significantly increases the risk of never being able to talk to him/her again. It will make no difference if the kid is decapitated with an air-bag, strangled by an adult restraint, or has to be cut out of the dashboard by the fire brigade. Don't take my word for it, just ask the local fire-brigade, an ambulance driver or anyone at the casualty department of your local hospital for that matter, these are the people who see it every day.
"...how great is the reward of sitting up front?"
The reward of having the kid up front is purely an emotional one and your post is an attempt to rationalise the physical risk by ignoring it.
BTW: My brother severly burnt his eye-ball with a "tom-thumb" when he was a kid. This does not mean I want to ban firecrackers, but allowing a child to play with them unsupervised will end in tears (out of one eye in my brothers case).
"What are we aiming for, the average 1940's temperatures, earlier, later ?
We are not aiming for a specific temprature we are aiming to stop influencing tempratures with our GHG emmisions (ie: stopping our current "climate control" experiment).
To do this we must first calculate how much of our excess GHG can be absorbed by the planet. IIRC this figure works out to be ~3Gt/yr, currently we produce ~10Gt/yr.
"In the end (or even the beginning) the only reasonable thing to do is to keep an eye on the current scientific situation yourself...[snip]...Relying on the mass media for accurate conclusions is stupid at the best of times."
Well said, although I a prefer to make/modify my own conclusions based on available evidence. I have followed the science for at least 25yrs, at first out of interest, then out of disbelief, and now out of concern for my soon to be grand-child. I have found this site to be extremely informative, particularly wrt the paleo-climatology assumptions you are making in your post.
"And we certainly do not know enough to experiment with that [using technology to change climate]. Even if we could do it safely, do we really want to live in a world where commercial interests control whether your region gets rain today, this month, this year ?"
Well no, but that is exactly what the coal industry has been doing for the last 200yrs, albiet in an uncontrolled manner.
"I wish my kids could ride in the front seat with me, like I was able to with my father. Great father-son time. But noooooooo... A "few" kids die, and so every child gets pushed into the back seat"
I grew up in the 60's in Australia. My dad had a 50's VW and on occasion we would cram 7 people into it, no seat belts, no speed limits. It was great fun for all of us!
There are now 4-5 times as many cars on the road yet the the road toll in my state has dropped from ~1100-1200/yr in the 60's to ~300-400/yr.
"Over-emotional fools who "think of the children" and focus on absolute numbers ("if it saved even one child, it's worth it!!!") instead of the big picture."
Yeah right, and I suppose risking decapitating your son with an air-bag for "great farther-son time" is not "over-emotional"? You are his dad not one of his childhood mates!
"It shows that Global Warming is being treated just a religion. Bring out anyting that supports your position, ignore anything that shows the flaws. Slap names on those who oppose you (deniers, non-believers, heretics). Idolize your leaders (Algore, etc.). Until actual science is used to study this, instead of blind faith, nothing useful is being done."
This message was brought to you by the church of anti-science and ignorance.
"Actually, that last bit is in dispute, if you RTFS."
Well gee-wizz, a breathless slashdot summary contradicts 100+ years of research, lab experiments and field observations. It's pityfull (but unsurprising) you were modded insightfull on a nerd site.
The science here concerns a particular data set, it is NOT the only data set. There is nothing in this beat-up that says the Artic ice is is NOT melting. 30-40yrs of sattelite pictures are just one alternative and independent line of evidence amoung many. What the scientists are doing is applying genuine skepticisim to narrow the error bars as to how fast it is melting.
"If you feel comfortable doing linear extrapolations on a highly nonlinear system, anyway."
Who said it was linear? - (other than the voices in your head)
3. We have to "do something".
I'm not saying that it didn't happen that way but this is actually contrary to the medical proffesions credo of "first do no harm".
"That is far from certain."
We are about a certain as science can be that increased CO2 means increased ground tempratures (below 5km), we are much less certain about feedback mechanisims dampening or enhancing the RATE of warming.
Reducing CO2 emmissions is an example of the medical credo, it is not an attempt to "do something" it's a call to STOP "doing something".
I interpet the Pink Floyd quote in my sig as refering to ideological cages rather than physical ones. "Left leaning greenie" is how others would usually describe me (particulaly on a US centric site such as this one). OTOH I have also been described by fellow "enviornmentalists" as a captialist pig and an environmental rapist because of some of the following actions and opinions that are offensive to the dogma held by many in the green left.
:)
I spent a year working in an old growth sawmill, some of the trees were 350yo, 12-14 feet in diameter and took two log trucks to carry. As you can see from this link the forest is still there almost 30yrs later. It is still being logged in a responsible/sustainable manner and I see no reason why it cannot continue to provide jobs and timber in perpetuity.
I spent another year working on fishing trawlers - somehow this makes me a dolphin killer even though it's impossible to catch dolphins with a scallop drag unless they lay on the seabed and commit suicide.
I think culling kangaroos and using them for dog/human food is more humane than letting them starve due to over-population.
I think we (Australia) should dig up our vast uranium resource and sell it to nations where renewables are impractical. If it wasn't for the embarrasing wealth of renewables in Australia I would also argue we use the uranium at home.
Probably the biggest herasy I have is that I belive trees are valuable in their own right and should NOT be included as a credit in a CO2 cap & trade scheme. The science of the matter is that CO2 uptake by vegetation is too difficult to quantify on anything but a global scale and even then there are large error bars. The idea is ripe for corruption and will have the opposite effect to that desired by it's advocates (re: biofuels and Indonesian palm oil plantations).
Anyway I wish you well in your efforts to chip away the dogma from the inside, but whatever you do, don't let the bastards put you in a cage.
"This allows many students to goof off and do practically whatever they want."
Speaking of failing, you have failed to take Japanese culture into account. In Japan a failing student brings shame not only to himself but also to their family and teacher. It's that kind of social pressure that puts Japan so high in the educational rankings.
I don't claim that this would work anywhere else but the fact that US schools feel they need to have cops and gaurds patroling their hallways speaks volumes about US culture.
At the molecular level the distinction between life and non-life is arbitrary (re: prion, virus). As a cursory glance at the replies to this article will show, any discussion of life on Earth like planets naturally brings up the subject of intelligence and our ability to recognise and/or communicate with it.
It works well for human intelligence but would tend to imply the biosphere is in some way intelligent, evolution being the process of generating new information from that which was previously generated. This is known as the strong Gaia hypothisis, personally I'm a fan of the weak Gaia hypothisis but the ants nest example make one wonder...
I have been a left-leaning "greenie" since I was a teenager in the 70's. The older I get the more I'm amazed at how easily people from all sides of politics can disengage their brain and drink their particular brand of ideological kool aid with gusto.
I applaud your willingness to put science before ideological dogma and find myself in total agreement with your "ultra-right-wing capitalist" post.