Current Events Species Threats
Number 1:
Accidental or Otherwise Caused Nuclear
War Between the US and Russia
Number 3: Climate change
Species Threat Number 2:
Strike from an asteroid or comet
4-23-14 - Asteroid impact risks 'underappreciated' - B612 Foundation report. Sending satellite up in four years to better discover and track potential major threats to earth. The fact that this is being done not by governments but by concerned citizens of earth is another example of our species scant, yet mature, ability to confront major dangers that aren't part of our immediate game. The B612 Foundation was founded by former Apollo Nine astronaut Russell Schweickart.
2-15-13 - Meteorite falls in Russian Urals - 1000 injured
A Russian official said we don't have the technology to shoot these down. That's a common idea and it's ignorant. The science on this is is to change the orbits of meteoroids approaching earth. Everything out there has an orbit and there are various ideas about how to nudge them into a harmless path. People working on this issue are seeking a relatively modest amount of money to develop these methods and to thoroughly scan the skies to identify such threats well in advance, decades. There is no excuse for the global community not to be prepared. So far we'd rather fight and prepare to fight each other. Check below for past comments and links and search the Web for other info on this. There's plenty. - dc
3-06-11 - Clay's grandpa Rusty op ed in NYT from Planetary Defense Blogspot and an article on the New Yorker, Vermin of the Sky, featuring his concern over preparedness for NEOs, near earth objects.
12-05-08 - World must tackle Space Threat - a BBC science article which mentions The Association of Space Explorers (ASE) roles in encouraging the nations of the world to get it together and deal with this threat which can be averted using present technology (and some R&D to get it down) and costing a fraction of what we spend on random violence. Rusty Schweickart (see below) is a founder of the ASE.
5/05/04 - The B612 Project and Foundation
3-16-07
-
The Sky is Falling. Really, an editorial in today's New York Times by
Russell L. Schweickart (Apollo 9 Astronaut, founder of the B612
Foundation, and
Clay's
granddad). Nine bows (as they say in Zen) for your work on this Rusty.