Intertidal Moment

One of the true joys in my life has been visits to the ocean shore. Standing on the beach and watching the waves roll in covering the sand and then fade away, is full of endless wonder to me. It is in that intertidal zone, the interface of the land and sea, that transitional edge of the land into the oceanic realm that I find fascinating.

I now see myself, (and the rest of the planet), in an intertidal moment. We are transiting from the old way of our lives, set in motion after the World War II, into an uncertain future full of dangers and challenges. The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 to 2023 was a door-stop to the old era. The images are still with me, the empty cities devoid of all traffic, the overcrowded hospitals, masks, vaccines, isolation and the furious babble of political deniers. The pandemic has given us the opportunity to reevaluate the next future steps that we must make in order to survive and thrive in the next 50 years. The problem is that we are being told that our lives and the way we live are in considerable danger. If recent TV and movies are any indication, the full-blown horrors of our dystopian future are not very far away. Zombies, civil war, pandemics, infertility, famine, ecological collapse, economic and political chaos, global warfare, climate change, asteroids and even volcanic eruption will destroy us all.

I think we’re tougher than we look. After all, we survived millennia of continual pulses of an ecology-breaking ice age that shaped us in ways we are now only just beginning to understand. We also out-survived all of those huge ice age mammals and developed a massive global civilization, from scratch, in just 10,000 years. Not bad for small, hairy, mid-brained creatures. The proof is in the pudding, (as my mother used to say, and I didn’t understand it then, much less now), and we will continue to advance and hopefully make the future better. However, we must kiss our old lives goodbye, now. Do we need to transition from energy production that pollutes our atmosphere and pumps mind-numbing amounts of climate changing CO2 into the air we breathe? Yes, and right now. Do we need to stop depleting and mindlessly exploiting our very limited natural resources on the land and in the ocean? Yes, and right now. Do we need to take better care of our human population, adjusting for famine, homelessness, health, equality and education? Yes, and right now. We are in that intertidal moment, we must decide which of the many ways to go, for better or worse.

(Me on the intertidal beach at Seaside, Oregon, it is one of my favorite places. In fact, the whole Oregon coast is amazing, especially for someone like me who basically lives in a desert.)

Dimethyl Sulfide

As a casual reader of science news wherever I can find reliable stories, I recently came across some interesting bits and pieces. ‘NASA has so far confirmed the existence of 5,602 exoplanets in 4,166 different planetary systems. And 200 of those classify as “terrestrial” and possibly “earth-like” according to the Space Agency.’ (And another tidbit.) ‘The closest we have come to discovering a hint of life is on exoplanet K2-18b, where dimethyl sulfide is possibly present, which is only produced by living things.’ Okay, what?

‘On Earth, dimethyl sulfide is produced by marine planktonic microorganisms such as the coccolithophores and so is one of the main components responsible for the characteristic odor of sea water aerosols, which make up a part of sea air.’ So there is the organic connection, and one would need a water world for this bit of life indicators. And, ‘K2-18b orbits the cool dwarf star K2-18 in the stars’ habitable zone and lies 120 light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. Exoplanets such as K2-18b, which have sizes between those of Earth and Neptune, are unlike anything in our solar system.’ K2-18b is one of those relatively unknown Earth-like planets that are much larger, (and in this case, 8.6 times larger then our Earth, these are called Hycean exoplanets). Observations show the abundance of methane and carbon dioxide, and the shortage of ammonia suggest that K2-18b may be a water world beneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere. These super-earths are now the subject of closer observations along with looking at smaller rocky planets in orbit around nearby stars.

As Kb-18b transits in front of its star, light passes through the exoplanet’s atmosphere where astronomers can study the nature of those gasses around the planet. With the newer and more sensitive Webb telescope, better observations have now been made. The most troubling thing about Earth-like planets is that they have been almost always found to be larger then Earth. One of the most Earth-like planets discovered is Kepler-452b, and it is about 60% larger, giving it a gravity of 1.6 times Earth. At 1,400 light-years distant it is somewhat difficult to get good observations. One of the more interesting star systems is Kepler 62, it may contain 4 Earth-like planets, (all larger then Earth). Why this is so may be the subject of a future blog.

(Mathematically, there may be millions of Earth-like planets in our galaxy, understanding these worlds and how they work, may lead to the discovery of life beyond Earth. Below, a very old painting of mine showing an exploration of a massive water world.)

Total Eclipse of the Brain

I have begun to dislike those days when we experience natural phenomena such as a solar eclipse. There is always a bunch of morons who simply enjoy publishing certifiable stupidity just to get under the skin of those who would otherwise enjoy watching a wondrous free show put on by mother nature. Though, there is a small part of me, (a very small part of me), that is severely disappointed that the world did not actually end as predicted. It would have been nice to miss all of the massive electoral idiocy that we will now have to endure for the next seven months. Or even being annoyed that the Rapture did not elevate those other fools and leave the rest of us down here in peace. I am already surrounded by religious zealots who, without any provocation, will always insist on telling me that what I believe is so completely wrong that I will never ascend into heavenly bliss. I am so unhappy that this did not occur and that all of those self-righteous saints are still left down here with us happy sinners.

Of course, there was also an earthquake a few days ago, (hundreds every day someplace on the planet), that alone set off a wild feeding frenzy of end of times believers. Then there are the QAnon pizza parlors used to sex-traffic gay Republicans who will be sent to invade Ukraine for the Russians. Add in a conspiracy by Taylor Swift to infiltrate the NFL and also to overturn the presidential election and another to destroy all the bridges on the East coast by container ships, and of course the coming massive plague of locusts, (cicadas actually), then it is plain for those of us too stupid to see the signs and portents, that we are living on borrowed time. Oh yes, and your taxes are due next Monday.

It has to be that some really enjoy playing the fool, that they love to tell the rapidly declining majority of us regular people that we are way too stupid to understand the real nature of the universe. Perhaps the reason nothing happened to us and the world did not actually end is because that these events are not world ending in themselves, a very easy concept to grasp, if you are normal enough in the head. However throw an asteroid at the planet or keep putting CO2 in the atmosphere in massive amounts then perhaps we will see something actually occur to cause some real problems. And then maybe, all those squeaking, mewing idiots will actually be right for the first time in 65 million years.

(I am sure that I missed mentioning Big Foot, UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster, oh well, next blog. There has to be some other world-ending event coming soon to a planet near you. Below, me attending to a telescope during the 2017 solar eclipse where it was only 92% of totality where we were. Thank goodness it wasn’t a 100%, I might have gotten sucked up into a vortex.)