An unimpressive #sunrise on the U.S. #southern#EastCoast this morning. I fell asleep early, like 5 or 6 pm so I was up about 3 am, a good time for #Stargazing. I am not ready for the daylight. But the #NightSky was equally unimpressive this morning. The #clouds were so thick I couldn't see a single star. Even the #moon was obscured by clouds. I would love to live in one of the few places on Earth where the sun didn't shine for long periods of time. Can't wait for the sun to become a #RedGiant.
But until the sun becomes a #RedGiant, it is my hope that humans will go extinct soon (*in Earth years) so that the ecosystem can recover. Let the rest of life on #Earth survive, thrive, and #evolve without us, I say.
Only after the last tree has been cut down.
Only after the last river has been poisoned.
Only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
On the cover of Nature, an artist’s impression of the engulfment of a planet by its Sun-like star — an event that awaits Earth and the other planets of the inner Solar System in about 5 billion years.
Energy flows through (in from sunlight and then radiated away into space some time later - Earth is just a temporary stop-off)
Stuff/atoms/matter goes round and round
Every decision we make about a sustainable future should bear those in mind. We can’t change these rules, so we have to choose what we do to work within this system, like the rest of nature does. And this illuminates a lot of issues (see following posts). #climate#Earth#Energy
The first rule (about energy flowing through) shows us what climate change really is: the slow accumulation of energy in the Earth system, because greenhouse gases are slowing down the flow of energy away into space. Animation here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08xy3tj
This is a problem because it puts two of our three life support systems (Earth and the infrastructure of our civilisation) into conflict with each other. The third life support system that each of us has is our own body. #Earth#Climate
The second rule shows us why we fundamentally need to treat our resources like nature does: we need to START with the poo (or the “waste” material). All the atoms in nature used to be something else - part of the atmosphere, the soil, various forms of life etc.
Nothing should be considered “waste” - there is no place called Away to put it. Everything has to come round again. We might need to extract things from rocks sometimes, but the framing must be recycling. #climate#Earth#recycling
A dying bur #oak believed to be one of the oldest #trees in Chicago was cut down yesterday after reaching the end of its lifecycle. While this is a sad end to a beloved #Chicago#landmark, the oak's legacy will be preserved by a nearby arboretum.
The current record heat in Portugal and Spain is linked to hot air coming from the south-west, which is linked to a wave in the jetstream (blue). It goes anti-clockwise around a low pressure over the Atlantic, sitting above the cold patch in the North Atlantic sea surface. 1/x
Today I'm remembering one of the coolest space things ever: Voyager 2's S-band radio receiver has been broken for 44 years, and yet we can still talk to it.
Back in 1978 the primary receiver failed, and the team discovered the backup receiver had a faulty capacitor in the PLL circuit that adjusted for Doppler shift. Since then, Voyager 2's receive bandwidth has been much narrower, and the band-pass window wanders back and forth by a few hundred Hz with temp changes.
@danderson The JPL team over the entire span of the voyager project deserve accolades. But what stands out is the philosophy of of making use of limited resources. Back here on earth, continuous improvement bloats software, which obsoletes hardware, which drives sales and creates e-waste. If only we treated the earth as a limited resource? #earth#resources#software#bloatware#e-waste