Forget About Global Warming and Concentrate on Carbon Dioxide.

Global warming is a contentious debate. There is more political debate then there is scientific debate: most scientists accept that human activity is, in fact, changing the climate. Among scientists, there is much greater scientific debate about just how much of an effect humans have than there is on whether or not humans are, in fact affecting the climate.

Put aside political, ideological and religious disagreements for a moment and consider this. The atmospheric level of carbon dioxide I(CO2) has been rising since the industrial revolution began more than 150 years ago. Tree rings, ice cores drilled from glaciers, fossil sea shells and other forms of evidence tell us what concentration of CO2 existed in the past compared to today. We have now reached 400 parts per million, a level that has not existed on Earth for nearly a million years (see for example http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2013/05/09/400-ppm-carbon-dioxide-in-the-atmosphere-reaches-prehistoric-levels/?WT_mc_id=SA_CAT_EVO_20130513).

It is a simple, proven scientific fact that CO2, methane and other greenhouse gasses trap infrared radiation, or heat. It is a simple, provable scientific fact that CO2 levels in our atmosphere are increasing, and the rate at which it is increasing is accelerating exactly in lock step with our burning of fossil fuels. There is legitimate scientific debate about where that excess carbon in our atmosphere may eventually go if anywhere. Can the oceans absorb some of it? The answer seems to be “Yes,” but at the expense of acidifying the oceans waters and killing many species which can’t handle that excess acidification. Does it make plants grow faster? There is mixed evidence for this, but one thing is certain: one of the main sources of CO2 uptake is the planet’s rainforests, and we’re depleting them rapidly so we can raise more beef cattle, which, by the way, is one of the main sources of methane, and even more potent greenhouse gas.

My point is this: whether or not you believe that the temperature of the planet is actually warming, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is growing and at an accelerating rate. Doesn’t it at all worry you that we are pumping tons and tons of this stuff into our atmosphere every single day without the simplest thought about what it MIGHT do? Doesn’t it make sense that we try to NOT change the atmosphere of the only planet that we know of that can sustain life when we can’t yet predict all the consequences of that change?

Forget about what we may or may not be doing and concentrate on what we KNOW we are doing: increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere of our planet to a level not seen virtually since the dawn of humans.

That alone should be cause for concern.

Kimmy Finds Her Key

A TV program about homeless kids made Kimmy sad. Her mother suggested that she should look for the key to her happiness. She sets out with her friend Emily to find her key.

Along the way, Kimmy and Emily admire the tree in Kimmy’s front yard. They begin to appreciate all the things trees provide, including shade and oxygen for us to breathe. The see a baby bird fall out of the tree, and put it back just as the mother bird arrives with lunch.

The pair pick up some trash laying on the street, Later they plant flowers in an empty spot in an empty field on their block where they often play with their friends. With each task, they realize the importance of treating our planet and all its inhabitants with love.

They run into a schoolmate, Ashley, walking to the library. Realizing how far away it is, they ask why she doesn’t ride her bike. Ashley explains that since she lives with her mother in a homeless shelter, she has no bike to ride.

Kimmy decides to help by donating her old bike,the one that she prefers to ride, to the shelter to help homeless kids.

Kimmy realizes that her Key to Happiness is helping other Earth and all the creatures who call her home.

Coming soon from 4RV Publishing.

My Next Big Thing: The Heart Happy Bubble

The “Next Big Thing’ is a blog hop for writers working on their next book. I have been following several writer friends as they post a description of their Next Big Thing. I was tagged by Brandi Barnett. See her Next Big Thing at http://brandibarnett.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-next-big-thing-lucky-charm.html.
Here’s my Next Big Thing! Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts and questions.

1: What is the working title of your book?
The Heart Happy Bubble

2: Where did the idea come from for the book?
This story came from trying to help my then four-year-old who was having some issues in her pre-school class in that she was bringing home emotions and attitudes from other kids in school. I invented this story on the way to driving her in and decided it should be my next children’s book.

3: What genre does your book come under?
Picture book

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I think my book would be best made into a movie as animation.

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
When Emily goes to school, she often takes on the emotional state of other students and comes home sad or grumpy, sometimes being mean to her little brother, so Emily’s mother tells her that she has to figure out some way to avoid these situations.  One night, in her sleep, Emily is visited by the Rainbow Fairy who informs Emily that she, the fairy, is really a part of Emily’s spirit and is there to show Emily how to gather some of her heart muscle (the strongest in the body), some of her love and happiness (positive emotions) and some thoughts (her best mental abilities) and roll it all together, letting the light of her spirit shine on it until it becomes a bright, clear, shiny bubble that goes over Emily– her own Heart Happy Bubble.  Emily’s Heart Happy Bubble not only protects her from taking on the emotional state of the other children, it reminds her to use her own calm state to help other kids overcome their own overpowering emotions.

OK, so it’s 3 sentences. Best I could do…

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?
Shopping for an agent after 5 other books published through a small publisher

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Two weeks, but I have been tweaking it for a year. I’ll probably keep tweaking it until I sell it or get an agent.

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Everything I See is Part of Me, by Chara Curtis Without You by Sarah Weeks.

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book?
My five-year-old daughter, Azuranna

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
It’s a spirituality-based with the theme that we are all connected via our higher selves to everyone and everything else. We can use those connections to help ourselves when we have problems. This is a self-help book for children who need tools to get along with others in life. It gives them a tool to use so that the negative emotions of other don’t drag them down to that same level.

For next week’s hop, I tagged Gayleen Rabbakukk, Patty Stith and Kristi Ayers. Read about their Next Big Things Friday, March 1.

A Unique Astronomical Event

Last week, a hunk of space rock 50 feet across slammed into our planet in Russia. No one was hurt directly from the meteorite as it exploded about 12 miles up. But the shock wave shattered windows and falling glass sent more than 1000 folks to the hospital for treatment.

Is this unusual? NASA scientists say an impact of this magnitude is a once-a-century event. The last impact from an object in that size range occurred in 1908, also over Russia. One has to wonder what Russia has done to anger the universe.

The last time any object from space hit Earth was about a second ago. Whoops, there goes another. And another. Truth is, 50,000 pounds of stuff from space comes to Earth every year. At night, we see them as shooting stars. During daylight hours, we don’t see them at all, unless they happen to be big enough to glow brighter than the daylight sky. And they occur over land. Where there are people living. Since most of our planet is oceans, most such events occur over water. Most of the land of Earth is uninhabited, so most meteorites go completely unseen by humans.

That’s the normal state of affairs for a planet, nothing unusual abut it. In fact, our Moon formed when a rock so large we call it a planetoid slammed into Earth 4.5 billion years ago. The debris from that massive collision coalesced into our moon.

Yes, these things can be very dangerous. Just ask the next dinosaur you meet. But big ones, ones that generate significant damage, are quite rare. The little ones, the ones we can experience every clear night, are common.

Would you like to see an absolutely unique astronomical sight, one that no one has ever seen or ever will again? You can, and it’s not the least bit dangerous.

Wait until it gets dark tonight. Go outside and look at the night sky. Look carefully. Do you see it? It is unique in all of the history of the universe.

It is tonight's sky.

As the planets move in their annual dance around the sun, as our sun orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and as other stars move under the various gravitational influences that direct their motions, the sky is eternally changing. The sky has never looked exactly as it does tonight and will never do so again.

This is the true magic of astronomy. You never get reruns. Each night remains unique. So, enjoy this night sky, because it will be different tomorrow.

Take a Look at the Night Sky

What would it take to get you to look at the night sky, seriously look? A naked-eye supernova? Last time that occurred was 1987 and it was only visible from the Southern Hemisphere, and then it wasn’t really all that bright. The supernova of 1054 that created the Crab Nebula in Taurus the Bull was visible in the daylight for 2 weeks and visible at night whenever it was up for more than 2 years.

How about a major comet? We have one of those coming. Well, maybe, and that’s the problem with major comets. The brightest are first-time visitors to the inner solar system, or at the least one of the very few times they have come in this close. Young comets –ones that have made few, if any, previous visit to the inner solar system – have lots of fresh ices covering them. As these approach the sun, the tremendous heat vaporizes the ices (technically, the ices are sublimated, but the differences are subtle) and solar wind and magnetic field blow the gas dust off of the comet, creating a long, bright tail easily visible from Earth. They become brightest if they pass quite close to the sun to feel more of its tremendous heat.

And there’s the rub. The brightest young comets are those that pass closest to the sun, and therefore generate huge tails to reflect sunlight to create a dazzling display from Earth. But many comets are rather fragile, like a loosely-packed snowball. Passing close enough to the sun to create a brilliant display may also shatter them. On coming around the sun, to the anticipation of sky watchers on Earth, they instead become a major cometary dud. This is not uncommon in the astronomical world.

What if you woke up tomorrow and learned that a 50-mile-wide asteroid was streaking straight towards Earth. Remembering that an asteroid a “mere” 6 miles across wiped out the dinosaurs, do you becomes a sky watcher or do you bury yourself and your family as far underground as you can?

That’s not really a useful scenario for the purposes of this blog. I want to know what will make you become a lover of the night sky, not fearful of it.

How about a diamond bigger then our entire planet? That you can see in the night sky, right now? Would THAT pique your interest?

Then head outside tonight. Look to the east to find Cancer, the Crab. The shoulders of Orion point eastward more or less to it. See the main star chart. After locating Cancer in the east, go to the detailed star chart centered on Cancer. Using this chart, locate 55 Cancri. You’ll likely need binoculars, and you may need to go to a darker location then your backyard.

February 1, 2013, 10:00 pm.

55 Cancri has 5 known planets. The smallest one, designated 55 Cancri e, is abut twice as large and 8time more massive than Earth. Earth’s crust is dominated by oxygen, comprising 46.6% of the elemental composition, mostly in the form of oxides of silicon, aluminum, magnesium and other metals. Carbon makes up a mere 0.03% of Earth’s crust.

But 55 Cancri was born in a different environment than was Earth. Its crust contains a very high proportion of carbon, the stuff of life, of carbon dioxide, of graphite – and of diamond. Scientists estimate that one-third of this planet, as much as three Earth masses, may be solid diamond.

Would a diamond planet get you outside to look at the sky?

Close-up of Cancer and finder for 55 Cancri

Why I Write Books for Children

I write books for young children.

Actually, I write a lot of stuff, but the books I have published (1) and the books that have been accepted with a scheduled release date (4) are all books for young children.

I have been a BIG sci-fi fan for as long as I have read and watched movies, so many people who know me assumed that my first book would be in that genre.  I am an astronomer by training and many folks thought perhaps my first book might be a non-fiction astronomy book.  Since I have written an astronomy column for nearly 30 years, that perhaps wouldn’t be hard to do; just collect the best of those and format them into a coherent book.

I have several answers to the question of why I write books for children.  Writing an adult-length novel takes a long time. My ADHD brain makes it hard for me to focus on a book of that length for long periods of time. I have started several sci-fi and fantasy novels, but since I know how the stories end, I tend to lose interest before they get done.

I have heard from many people (who have never written a children’s book) that because they are shorter, they are easier to write.  That couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Think of it this way: a writer can have, say, 2% of the book be not so good writing before the reader loses interest.  In and adult sci-fi novel of 80,000 words, that’s 1600 words. In a child’s picture book of 400 words, that’s 8 words of weak writing.  That’s the equivalent of ½ to 1 page. In a 24-page book, that’s a lot and the bad writing will really stand out. The shorter the piece, the more critical each and every word is!

I don’t for children because it is easier. I write for children because it is more urgently needed. Children in the 2- to 6-year-old range are at their peak of the capacity to absorb information, to learn. They are at their most vulnerable, too. They can’t always understand why life happens the way it does, or why they act the way the do. I have/am raising 4 kids, so I feel like I have some handle on the psychology of children. What I want my kids to learn, to understand, well, there are not so many books out there that cover those aspects of growing up.

I write children’s books. Not because they are easy, and no, not “because they are hard.” I write for children because I believe that to be the biggest need in literature.

An Apology to my Children's Generation

This is an open letter to my kids and to all others in their generation, and indeed to all creatures and plants of Earth.

I’m sorry. My generation and too many generations before us didn’t appreciate what a special place our planet is, how precious the cargo it carries and how fragile are the environments that support this living cargo.  We stripped the planet of the resources it needs to be healthy.  We altered the genetic mix of plants, preventing the nourishment of the soil and to compensate for this we dumped tons of fertilizers and pesticides. We now measure in hundreds of square miles the size of the “dead zones” at the mouths of major rivers as they carry these poisons into the oceans.

We stopped heating a healthy diet and to support the demand for our unhealthy eating habits, we concentrated the animals needed to make those foods, causing a concentration of wastes the further that depleted the land and water’s ability to clean itself, and that flows into the rivers and aquifers that we ourselves need to survive.  We pumped these animals full of hormones and antibiotics, so they would grow faster but at a cost of the worsening health of the human population and the very real threat of super bacteria that may well be the death knell of the human race.

We built bigger and faster vehicles for personal transportation and the byproducts of the fuel needed to power them is warming our planet, destroying entire ecosystems and threatening all life forms on Earth.  And when we ran out of the fuel, instead of creating better vehicles, we went to war to obtain the fuel from other countries.

We enslave children to create the products they we buy, not because they are superior to other products, but to be “cool,” so we can, for a while at least, imagine that we are like some other human artificially inflated in status because they can run faster or jump higher or throw harder than others.

We have so mechanized all the apparatus that make all these foods and products that people have flocked to the cities at rates that our construction and infrastructure and services can’t support.  We are crowding ourselves together so tightly that our species, not having evolved for this type stress, is creating individuals who vent the pressure of their sorry lives by killing dozens of others.

I apologize to all of your generation, Josh, Rhiannon, Ethan and Azuranna.  My generation, and those before mine, screwed up our world. The heritage we leave you is a sad one.   

I only hope that you can learn from our mistakes and, before it’s too late, fix the mess we’ve made.