Photo caption: Earth as seen by the MESSENGER spacecraft as it flew by our planet on August 2 2005.

This post is a Dr. Jeff Speaks Out.

This is crossposted at the Huffington Post HERE and at the Space Tweep Society Blog HERE.

Don’t let your seemingly vast experience as an inhabitant of this world fool you. It’s easy to be lulled into a false sense of self-importance. Let me explain.

You likely live in a house or apartment on a street, and in a community that’s part of some town, maybe even some major urban area. Your community is likely part of a much larger state or province of one of the nations of Earth—which are themselves nothing more than imaginary constructs of human society. Your country is also likely assigned to one of the continental masses whose sum total of land area is just 29% of the planet’s surface. You are small and the Earth is seemingly vast, as if we humans to Earth are just so many micro-organisms scurrying about each day (each rotation of Earth), and following rules of social engagement that often defy logic.

It’s a story that at a most fundamental level defines your address. It may be all the address you need to ship a package to your friend across the ocean. But it won’t cut it with the intergalactic post office. As I said, don’t let your experience and perception fool you. It’s the rest of the address of which most Earthlings are unaware. For so many reasons it’s also the most important part of the address.

This seemingly vast Earth is but a tiny planet. (By comparison, over 1,000 Earths fit inside Jupiter.) Earth is one of eight planets orbiting the Sun—a tiny star by star standards—as part of a planetary System called the Solar System. The Sun resides in the Solar Neighborhood of stars, a small smattering of stars found in the Orion Spur—a nondescript little corner of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is a vast city of stars, with enough stars to give 50 to every human on Earth. Right now, you, your family, and the rest of your race are orbiting just one of those stars.

The Milky Way is one of two large galaxies in the Local Group of 25-30 galaxies. The other large one, Andromeda, is on a collision course with ours. And the cosmic debris-field that is the Local Group of galaxies resides not too far cosmically speaking from the Virgo Cluster of 1,300 to 2,000 galaxies. The Local Group and Virgo Cluster are just two of the 100 to 200 or so groups and clusters of galaxies making up the Local Supercluster of more than 50,000 galaxies. The Local Supercluster—a small supercluster—is one of MILLIONS of superclusters that are woven together to form the largest structures ever seen—Galactic Filaments. And all this comprises the Observable Universe—what we believe is a remarkably insignificant portion of the Universe that nature, by law, allows us to see. Beyond what is observable, the Universe may truly be infinite.

So using myself to summarize—

I live in a house on a street in a town in the State of Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC, in the USA, in North America, on Earth, in the Solar System, in the Solar Neighborhood, in the Orion Spur of the Milky Way Galaxy, in the Local Group of Galaxies, near the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, in the Local Supercluster of galaxies in the tiny corner of the Universe we like to call the Observable Universe.

That is our address. It makes the often human perception of our reality as the center of cosmic activity …. just laughable. You always know the most about your own neighborhood. But that also leads you to conclude your neighborhood is somehow important. In truth, it is only important because YOU live there. And YOU obviously think YOU are important. So please think about this … for vast numbers of humans, our perception, our daily life, is driven by self-importance, a remarkable lack of humility, ignorance of—even disinterest in—a greater context of existence which our machines of exploration have brought into crisp focus, and for many, a sense that embracing God is the righteous and comforting thing to do—but does not require taking time to look at the majesty beyond Earth. And while we burn precious, non-renewable calories watching “reality” television, following the lives of the rich and famous, acquiring lots of things, deciding which of us is better or more deserving or more moral, and buying into the distorted views of what our societies have our children embrace as heroes and role models, our world—the spaceship that affords us the view of majesty—is coming under attack.

The microbes called human kill one another because each group, each (bacterial) culture, thinks they are more important than the other. It is self-importance taken to the extreme. Their self-serving technology is modifying the environment of the planet, not only threatening their existence for generations to come (how do they do that to their children?), but puts at grave risk countless species that don’t have the gift of recognizing the majesty of the cosmos. Isn’t it ironic that the only species on Earth that does possess the gifts of intelligence and tool-making, does not collectively care about its world, and collectively squanders these gifts?

So watch the movie above, taken by the MESSENGER spacecraft as it flew by in 2005. Watch as the Earth recedes into the cold, black void of space. Imagine the nearly 7 billion humans scurrying around on its surface. How many of them recognize that the remarkable spaceship they are on is NOT owned by them? It never was. But because of their technology, they are now, by natural decree, stewards of this spaceship for good or ill. Do they understand their responsibilities to the spaceship, to all its occupants, and to themselves? For if this tiny blue world is laid to waste, the geologic Age of Self-Importance will be over, the rest of the Universe will surely not care … and I fear God will not come to the rescue.

A penny for your thoughts …..

Photo and movie credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington. For more information about the photo and movie visit the MESSENGER web site.

This is a Teachable Moment in the News and a Dr. Jeff Speaks Out.

This is crossposted at the Huffington Post HERE.

I had a day of meetings yesterday, with no connection to the outside world. When I got home a good friend stopped over and asked if I heard what Al Gore had said in Copenhagen, and the firestorm it created in the world media. I had not. So I made a beeline for the computer and sought out the circus-sphere passing for journalism these days. Here is what I found.

A Timesonline story titled “Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his north pole sums don’t add up”, may have been the focal point. Apparently Mr. Gore said, as reported by the Timesonline—

“These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

This led the Timesonline to conclude, that—

The embarrassing error cast another shadow over the conference after the controversy over the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, which appeared to suggest that scientists had manipulated data to strengthen their argument that human activities were causing global warming.

But this story did not add up to me. My problem was two-fold. First, Mr. Gore stated a dire prediction about the Arctic and attributed the prediction to Dr. Wieslaw Maslowski. Given Gore is not a climate scientist, citing his source was the right and prudent thing to do. Maslowski was apparently contacted by some organization or individual (I should assume the Timesonline but I won’t) and the Timesonline then quoted Maslowski’s denial. So here we have two individuals with differing stories, but with a distinction—Mr. Gore was attributing his statement to Dr. Maslowski. But Maslowski was not attributing anything to Gore. Clearly someone was wrong, whether by mistake or by design. But based on the story, I didn’t know which one. Which brings me to my second problem—Timesonline immediately assumed the problem was with Gore, the story was picked up globally, and quickly turned into “there goes Al Gore again, and this time we got ‘em!”

But the pesky distinction between the two was an obvious pathway for me to explore—Gore cited Maslowski, so was there any formal record of Maslowski’s past statements about Arctic sea ice coverage? I found no evidence that anyone reporting the story had bothered to look.

Is this what journalism passes for these days? No need to check sources carefully? Forget due diligence? Gore caught twisting the truth—even lying—is good for sales and readership? And it doesn’t matter whether he did or not, because perception is reality today, not truth?

Earth to journalists. Let me clue you in. I’m not a journalist but I’ll do your due diligence for you. It’s REALLY easy in the age of the internet. Here, let me show you how it’s done.

Dr. Wieslaw Maslowski is a Research Professor in the Department of Oceanography at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California. All this is from his bio on the NPS website. His research includes: arctic oceanography, numerical ocean and sea ice modeling, and climate change—again from the NPS website. He sounds like a qualified expert to me. Apparently the media has thought so too. Here is what Dr. Maslowski told the New York Times, October 2, 2007 (just 2 years ago)—

“Experts say the ice retreat is likely to be even bigger next summer because this winter’s freeze is starting from such a huge ice deficit. At least one researcher, Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., projects a blue Arctic Ocean in summers by 2013.”

Want him in his own words? Here, at Beyond Zero Emissions, is Dr. Maslowski interviewed by Matthew Wright, with a post date of March 24, 2008 (less than 2 years ago.) Read the transcript of the interview, and by all means download the podcast.

“We speak to Wieslaw Maslowski about his prediction that by the summer of 2013, we will have completely lost ice cover in the Arctic. Dr. Maslowski says that the complete loss of summer ice may actually happen sooner.”

Wright: “Ok. So now, it was reported in The New York Times that you said that 2013 was a possibility, and perhaps you’d actually projected this some years ago, that we could lose the summer sea ice extent – that’s in the summer solstice is it?”

Maslowski: “That is correct.”

Maslowski (later in the interview): “There are some model simulations, single model simulations, that are suggesting that it could possibly occur as early as 2050 or maybe even as early as 2030. Comparing those models simulations predictions with the satellite observations of the Arctic sea ice extent actually shows that most of those models are too conservative predicting the current and the past ice extent changes in the Arctic as has been observed. So the idea is that the climate models – they’re underestimating, they are too conservative in their prediction.”

Maslowski is on the record stating he thought it possible that we’d lose all summer ice cover in the Arctic by 2013. Let’s do some math. That is 3.5 years from now.  Gore said 75% chance in 5 to 7 years based apparently on personal conversations with Maslowski. You know what? Gore’s statement was a CONSERVATIVE estimate relative to what I found Maslowski has said on the record.

Does anybody care that journalistic integrity is important in the midst of a contentious debate? Will ‘journalists’ like Hannah Devlin, Ben Webster, and Philippe Naughton (see Timesonline) apologize to Mr. Gore for not doing their jobs? Will anyone give the guy any credit for standing up for what he believes in? Mr. Vice President, hang in there. I know you know how Galileo felt.

And a note to the Timesonline. Should I believe your quote from Dr. Maslowski? If so, then shouldn’t someone ask Dr. Maslowski why his quote is inconsistent with what he has said on the record? Dr. Maslowski, your credibility as a researcher is on the line.

Let’s debate the quality of the data and the interpretation of the data. Let’s do it in the context of science. As a planet, let’s explore and debate the global courses of action that can and should be considered based on what these data are telling us. And let’s do it with journalists recognizing the important role they play in keeping us all informed, and the sacred trust that that entails.

Finally, aside from the spitting back and forth on who said what (which could have been avoided if journalists did their jobs) does anybody care that complete loss of sea ice coverage in the Arctic, even if by 2050, would represent a dramatic climatic change in a geological instant in time?

For an understanding of rapid climatic change in the context of geologic time, and the correlation to human activity, see A Day in the Life of the Earth, here at Blog on the Universe.

Photo caption: CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere in parts per million over the last 400,000 years. Credit: NOAA.

This post is a Teachable Moment in the News and a Dr. Jeff Speaks Out.

This is crossposted at the Huffington Post HERE.

Here’s how the argument goes—and do it justice by reading it out loud, and kinda yelling whenever you see words in CAPS.

“Hey, you’re worried about CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere going up because of human activity and causing an increase in global temperature?! GIVE ME A BREAK! It’s only a TRACE gas, currently making up only 0.038% of the atmosphere, or 380 parts per MILLION!!  SO WHAT if we increase it to a WHOPPING 1,000 parts per million (ppm) by 2100. Then it would ONLY comprise 0.1% of the atmosphere. BIG DEAL!! There is NO CONCEIVABLE WAY that changes in such a miniscule amount of CO₂ could have any significant impact on the global environment. You’re preaching the sky is falling, and ANYONE WITH HALF A BRAIN can see that this is just SILLY! YOU must be part of some Scientists-in-Need-of-Federal-Funds—Green Business—Government (SiNoFF-GB-G) conspiracy that’s bent on destroying everything that is good. TAKE A WALK YOU ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST IN NEED OF A CAUSE. Why … you’re likely a paid operative of the SINoFF-GB-G machine!”

Ummm.. has anybody else heard this argument, or is it just me? Here’s my rebuttal (and you’re still using the CAPS-means-shouting thing.)

The point of the VAST MAJORITY of climate scientists is that the trace level of CO₂ in the atmosphere DOES play a critical role in the global environment. But before addressing why such a concept IS NOT PREPOSTEROUS, let’s get the obvious out of the way first. The myth makers and myth propagators use the word TRACE to belittle poor CO₂—to render its level WHOLLY INSIGNIFICANT. But anyone with just a touch of basic science education knows that—CO₂ IS VITALLY IMPORTANT FOR LIFE ON EARTH. It is both used and produced by life. If its level were so small to be a worthless consideration, then, hey—let’s take it ALL away, drop it to 0%, AND WATCH THE MAJORITY OF LIFE ACROSS THE PLANET CEASE TO EXIST. That TRACE gas seems pretty important to me. It powers a little thing we like to call PHOTOSYNTHESIS which is fundamental to the food chain. For all those that do not want to pay homage to CO₂, I say—STOP EATING. Or at least STOP throwing around the expression TRACE GAS so loosely.

Now for those that espouse the mythical view at the top of this post that “a little more of nothing amounts to nothing” is a rational argument for why CO₂ cannot dramatically alter the environment, my first tendency is to go into a discussion of climate change modeling and the importance of even trace gases held within acceptable ranges. A complex biological system like THE ENTIRE PLANET EARTH reflects a finely tuned balance, with regulating systems that keep conditions within acceptable limits for life—EVEN AT THE LEVEL OF TRACE GASES (barring catastrophic events like an asteroid impact, or super volcano, or say humans popping up in an instant and burning everything they can find in just 150 years). If specific trace gas concentrations are pushed beyond narrow limits the entire global system goes out of balance—even past a tipping point where it moves to a new equilibrium position not conducive for vast numbers of species currently inhabiting the planet.

You could also point out that in fact life operates within narrow acceptable regimes for, e.g., temperature. Absolute zero is -460 °F (-273 °C). The surface of the Sun (exceedingly cold by cosmic standards) is 10,300 °F (5,700 °C). That’s a temperature range of 10,800 °F (6,000 °C)!  But a human—YOU—has to exist within a temperature range of just 100 °F (55 °C). Here’s a way to look at it. If you represent the range in temperature from absolute zero to that of the solar surface as a 10-foot ruler, you’re existence is constrained to the width of 1-inch (for you metric types, if the larger range is represented by one meter, then you’re assigned just one centimeter of living space.) YOU LIVE ON THE HAIRY EDGE. YOU JUST AREN’T AWARE YOU LIVE ON THE HAIRY EDGE. You depend on Earth’s regulatory systems to keep you in the happy place.

But alas, I can’t use these arguments, because folks often can’t get past the it’s just a trace gas thing. Detailed global observations over time, careful analysis of the geological record, sophisticated climate models projecting into the future, and still you hear—”it’s all voodoo, it’s just THEORY, it’s a [VERY LARGE] percentage of [CLIMATE] scientists that don’t know what they are talking about. And there’s a [VERY SMALL] percentage of scientists that AGREE WITH ME so THEY must be right.”

Ok, fine. So let’s do this far closer to home. And see if there isn’t something strangely familiar about this.

1. The amount of alcohol in the blood is defined by the Blood Alcohol Level (BAC.) If someone has just a little to drink, and they’re BAC is between 0.01% and 0.029%, they will appear outwardly normal. What does this mean? It means that the alcohol content in the blood is between 95 and 270 PARTS PER MILLION. It is a TRACE chemical in the blood.

Now you increase the BAC to 0.11% to 0.20% and this person looses gross motor control, staggers when walking, and their speech is slurred. What does that mean? You’ve increased the alcohol concentration to at least 1,050 PARTS PER MILLION. Just by increasing this TRACE chemical by a factor of 4 (THAT’S FOUR) leads to system-wide imbalance in a human being—A COMPLEX BIOLOGICAL SYSTEM.

What? The alcohol shouldn’t have been there in the first place? That’s different than CO₂? Well this is a ROCK-SOLID example of systemic imbalance due to a 4-fold increase in a TRACE chemical. But fine, let’s go to example 2.

2. Say … hypoglycemia. We should all be able to agree that glucose is absolutely essential for body function. A normal glucose level averages about 1,500 PARTS PER MILLION in the blood. Now this one is really dramatic. If you DECREASE blood glucose by a factor of 10 to about 150 PARTS PER MILLION—then … COMA, and possibly …. well you get the picture.

ANYONE who thinks that changes in TRACE chemicals cannot impact complex biological systems—after just these 2 of TRULY COUNTLESS examples—is not reachable through reason and logic.

Now—BY LOGICAL EXTENSION—back to Earth. JUST BECAUSE CO₂ IS A TRACE GAS DOES NOT IMPLY IT CAN’T CAUSE A GLOBAL-SCALE IMBALANCE IN CLIMATE. This myth is busted.

Take a look at the graph at the top. It tracks CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere. Over the last 400,000 YEARS, CO₂ concentration never went above the dotted line. It was typically 230 parts per million, and maximally 300 parts per million (ppm). But just since 1950, it has gone from about 280 to 380 ppm!

In the graph below, climate models indicate by the year 2100 the concentration will increase to 550 to 1,000 ppm! If we assume the average climate model projection, the Industrial Age (Age of Fossil Fuels) by 2100 will have increased CO₂ concentration by a factor of 2.5 over the highest levels seen in the last 400,000 years, and by a factor of 3.5 over what was typical over the last 400,000 years!

Surely worry is warranted. We know we are changing the atmospheric composition, we know that global warming is real, and the vast consensus of scientists that specialize in this field feel that it is highly likely the global warming is due to how we are changing the atmosphere.

I’ve finished my rant. I hope many reading this have some new ammunition. But those that don’t want to accept global warming as human induced will now take the argument to the next level—increased CO₂ does not lead to increased global temperature. Sounds like I’ve got the topic for a new post. Stay tuned to this same Bat Channel. Alfred … have you been standing over my shoulder the whole time?

-dj

ps- You want more PERCEPTION-CHANGING posts on Climate Change and Global Warming? Your wish is my command: HERE

Photo Credit: Past and future CO2 atmospheric concentrations, United Nations Environmental Programme, cartographer/designer Philippe Rekacewicz, Emmanuelle Bournay, UNEP/GRID-Arendal

Photo Caption:

This is a Teachable Moments in the News QuickLinks Post. It connects a news story with this Blog’s existing powerful library of Posts and Resource Pages. The cited Posts and Pages provide a deep understanding of concepts in the earth and space sciences relevant to the news story. Teachers—the Posts and Pages are also designed for use as lessons, allowing you to easily bring current science into the classroom as a teachable moment. Each cited Post is outlined in the Teachers Lesson Planner, which includes the Post’s essential questions, concepts, objectives, and math skills.

Earth Science Week takes on a rather unique importance in 2009. This year’s theme is Understanding Climate. On December 7-18. 2009, the entire world will meet in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, to hammer out the next international agreement on climate change and put in place new targets for greenhouse gas emissions. It may be humanity’s last opportunity to craft an agreement—AND get it ratified by the world’s nations—before the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 (and in force in 2005) expires in 2012. This seems to me to be a very big deal for the future of this planet, particularly in light of the latest projections for the impact of global warming—which indicate we need to act NOW or face irreversible consequences (see CNN, March 12, 2009)—and Copenhagen is the venue for that action.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has now issued 4 Reports, the last issued February 2, 2007:

On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is “unequivocal,” and that human activity has “very likely” been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years.

—New York Times, October 11, 2009

If we allow things to continue unchanged and we don’t take action today, it would destabilize human society.

—Rajendra Pachaurihead, Head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “Climate chief warns against ‘Tragic’ inaction”, CNN, August 21, 2008

Here are some relevant links:

Findings of the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, see Union of Concerned Scientists, February 16, 2007

June 16, 2009 White  House Report Global Climate Change Impacts the United States: coverage by USAToday (‘Game Changer’),  CBS (White House Sounds Alarm), CNN (Report Warns of Cimate Change Effects), ABC (US Climate Report Dire)

Assessment by U.S. Department of Defense on U.S. National Security, and on the grave scenarios that can play out from global warming: New York Times (August 8, 2009)

My point is that over the next few months, the world faces a unique and seminally important moment in time, and Earth Science Week 2009 should serve as a timely catalyst for education in the US. HERE is the countdown clock to Copenhagen.

To date I’ve created 5 Posts at Blog on the Universe—5 powerful lessons—on climate change and global warming that I’d like to share with you as resources to use in classrooms and in discussions at home this coming week.

First, what is Earth Science Week?

From the American Geological Institute website:

Since October 1998, the American Geological Institute has organized this national and international event to help the public gain a better understanding and appreciation for the Earth Sciences and to encourage stewardship of the Earth. This year’s Earth Science Week will be held from October 11-17 and will celebrate the theme “Understanding Climate.”

From the Geological Society of America website:

Earth Science Week, the second full week in October, is an annual celebration of the contribution geoscience makes to society. The resolution to establish Earth Science Week was initiated by the Association of American State Geologists and was read into the Congressional Record in July 1998 by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon.

GSA urges each of you to set aside at least one day during Earth Science Week to reach out to your community and promote the creation of a conscientious society committed to the responsible use of Earth and its resources.

From the NASA website:

The theme of this year’s Earth Science Week — “Understanding Climate” — promotes scientific understanding of a timely and vital topic: Earth’s climate.

The BotU Posts on Global Warming, Climate Change, and the Earth Environment

Below are the 5 powerful climate change lessons at Blog on the Universe. For each, I’ve provided the title, the essential question(s), and the conclusion relative to climate change and global warming. The information below is excerpted directly from the BotU Teachers Lesson Planner, which also includes for each Post, the key concepts addressed, lesson objectives, math skills required, and any special features of the Post. I invite you to get a cup of coffee or tea, go to the Lesson Planner, and from their explore these lessons.

The Business Trip 2009-05-19

Essential questions: How far is ‘Outer Space’? What does this imply for the thickness of Earth’s atmosphere?

Climate change point: we do not live under an ocean of air, but rather a slender fragile veil of atmosphere.

Apples and You 2009-05-21

Essential question: How thick is Earth’s atmosphere?

Climate change point: you can make a simple model that shows how thin the atmospheric layer is surrounding Earth, and it is shockingly thin. This model provides a new perspective on rhe atmosphere’s fragility, and the need to protect it.

Weekly Challenge 1: A Pound of Ants and the Capabilities of Intelligent Biomass 2009-05-26

Essential question: If humans are changing the environment on a global scale, then you might think the planet is overrun with people, and the human race must take up a lot of space. Does it? What can we learn from the answer?

Climate change point: the total volume of the human race is shockingly small. It is human technology that is changing the environment, which is the fundamental argument for a scientifically literate public that can make informed decisions about technology use.

Weekly Challenge 2: People People Everywhere 2009-06-02

Essential questions: How fast is the human population growing? What are the consequences?

Climate change point: world population is growing at a stunning rate, and the needs of increasing populations put severe stress on available resouces and services—particularly in the age of global warming.

A Day in the Life of the Earth: Understanding Human-Induced Climate Change 2009-06-13

Essential Question: What is the basic argument for Global Warming due to human activity?

Climate change point: global warming has the signature of a catastrophic event, and the introduction of  human technology on a global scale appears to be the source in plain sight.

From Dr. James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies concerning this post—

Public understanding of climate change depends on an understanding of time scales. Goldstein [Dr. Jeff] does a brilliant job of making clear the rapidity of the human-made intervention in the climate system, and the correlation of global warming with the appearance of technology powered by fossil fuels.

Photocredit: Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center.

Teachers and Parents: make sure to read about The Teacher’s Toolbox which is designed to help you put this Blog to work for your class and your children. If you’re new to Blog on the Universe read About this Blog.

This post is a Driving with Jordi.

This is crossposted at Huffington Post HERE.

Note to reader: click on the links in the text for the real data. This is not a work of fiction.

From Dr. James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies concerning this post—

Public understanding of climate change depends on an understanding of time scales. Goldstein [Dr. Jeff] does a brilliant job of making clear the rapidity of the human-made intervention in the climate system, and the correlation of global warming with the appearance of technology powered by fossil fuels.

“Daddy, how long is a billion years?”

As soon as we got in the car this morning, and buckled up, I said “so Jordi, I need some help. I need more material for the blog.” “Daddy, what do you mean by ‘material’?”  “That’s what writers call the stuff they use to create stories”, said daddy.

It was a beautiful, sunny morning, so he started talking about … the Sun. He had lots of questions—where did it come from, what’s burning on it to make it so bright, how old is it, what will happen to Earth when it stops burning? The last one was particularly cool. I asked him if he thought the question “what will happen to the Earth when the Sun dies?” is something lots of kids might ask. He said “yes!!” I asked him who he thought was the first person to actually figure it out. He didn’t know. I told him it was me.

When I was a grad student at Penn, one of the undergrads in the class I was teaching asked that question. I didn’t know the answer, so I told her I’d find out. I tried but I couldn’t. Nobody had done it before. So I decided to be the first. I didn’t know if I could, and I didn’t know what I’d find, but it was incredibly exciting—and that’s science. Here’s the result. (And it was far from the end of the story.)

Jordi said, “YOU DID?” I looked at his surprised face in the rearview mirror and said “yup, your daddy.” Then he said, “that’s sooo strange! That’s sooo cool! I asked a question that YOU figured out!!” He was very proud. I felt so connected to him. (We’ll see later if he told his friends.) And I promise that I’ll make this story into a blog post, because now YOU’RE waiting for the rest of the story.

By the time we arrived at the school 20 minutes later, I had a month’s worth of ‘material’ for Driving with Jordi (stay tuned). The conversation was incredible. At one point though, Jordi ran into a conceptual wall when I was talking about the Sun’s lifetime being 10 billion years, and that it’s now half way through its life. He said “Daddy, how long is a billion years?”—which is why I wrote this post.

It is actually such an important question, and I thought about it all the way home. It’s at the heart of a key recurring problem in science education in that the VAST majority of humans truly don’t understand lengths of time that are far longer than our lifetimes. No wonder that folks don’t understand global warming as due to human intervention, and think it reasonable to interpret the data as explained by natural variation in the environment over long timescales. No wonder that folks don’t understand the timescales for evolution of species.

So here now is a novel way to look at it. Thanks Jordi! I think this will help lots of folks understand something they’ve never understood before.

Humans and Time

We humans now live on average about 75 years (in the developed world; in Africa the life expectancy is frighteningly low at 32 to 55). I’ll assume that 75 years is the life expectancy of a human in the absence of devastating diseases like AIDS, and with availability to modern medicine.

We humans also like to perceive the passage of time in units of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. We’ve created these units because they are comfortable, connected to the rhythms in the sky and in our bodies, and each is used to make sense of events both short and long. Here’s the critical point for the rest of the story—

One of our average humans sees 75 years x 365.25 days/year =

27,394 days in their life

That’s amazing. That’s 27,394 days of getting up in the morning, eating, working, playing, relaxing, and going to bed. Put this way, the length of a single day is absolutely inconsequential relative to a human lifetime. Agreed? Good.

A Really Cool Diary

So let’s say I had this really cool diary with one page for every day of our average human’s life. It’s a single book with 27,394 pages. I could give it to you at birth and ask you to record your life one page—one day—at a time (with some help from a friend in your early and possibly later years). Like I said, one cool diary.

A Day in the Life of the Earth

Let’s say planet Earth was this large cosmic creature. She’s got a life expectancy of about 10 billion years, from her birth with the Sun nearly 5 billion years ago, to her ultimate fate when the Sun is in its waning years some 5 billion years from now (nope not telling).

Earth obviously has a lot to say, and SHE’s been keeping a diary since she was born. But she’s got it in far too many volumes, since each didn’t come with many pages, and they’re all old and worn out. Hey, I think a new diary is a perfect gift for her! I’ll give her one of my really cool diaries with 27,394 pages. I’ll help her move all her old diary entries into the new one so it will truly record her 10 billion year life. Why don’t we call each page a GEOLOGIC DAY (a Dr. Jeff made-up term.) And every Geologic Day is absolutely inconsequential relative to Earth’s lifetime. After all, Earth has 27,394 of them.

Every Geologic Day, Earth will write in her diary the comings and goings for that day. Here’s the next important point—

Every one of the 27,394 pages in Earth’s diary—each Geologic Day—

is 365,000 years long

enough time for 14,600 human generations

How come? Easy: 10 billion years divided by 27,394.

Take a minute to process that.

I hope this gives you a new perspective for spans of time for Earth—called geologic time—relative to the time span for our fleeting lives.

So I give my friend the Earth one of my cool diaries. She likes it—her life all in one book. I also happen to be very close with Earth, and she’s letting me look at her diary. So here we are in the middle of her life and she just now finished her entry for day 13,697. She’s already written the first 13,696 pages (I helped her transfer the entries from her old diary with Apple Time Capsule.) Here now is her page 13,697—

Dear diary-

To Teachers:

You can really make this a powerful visual demonstration in class. The life of Earth recorded on 27,394 sheets of paper is a challenge to demonstrate. But if you can borrow some cartons of xerox paper, with each carton containing typically 10 reams, then here is what I’d do. Each ream contains 500 sheets. So you need 5 full cartons (that’s 50 reams = 25,000 sheets) + 4 reams (another 2,000 sheets) + 394 sheets.

Without telling the class anything about what you are doing, have them take the reams out of the boxes (without opening them) and lay them out on the floor. Have them open one ream to see how many sheets are in it. In fact, have them count the sheets in the ream and take out the 394 sheets you need. Then:

• walk them through the concept of a single diary for an average human lifetime: they should calculate how many diary pages they would need if there is one page per day; then have them calculate how many sheets are on the floor—”oh, the number of days in a human lifetime!  WOW!!  That’s a lot of days for a human!”

• let them in on the idea of giving this diary to Earth, and assuming a lifetime of 10 billion years, have them calculate how many years of history are on EACH sheet—”365.000 years! No way!!” Then have them calculate the equivalent number of human generations on one sheet assuming 25 years per generation (a reasonable time from parent birth to child of parent birth)—”Can that be right? 14,600 generations!?”

• re-arrange the paper with half of it on one side of the floor to represent Earth’s history that is already recorded,and the other half on the other side of the floor representing Earth’s future history.

• then pick the single sheet of paper that represents the last 365,000 years of history, so that on this sheet, the final diary entry is the present. Lay it between the two groups of paper representing the past and future history of Earth.

Ask the class to think about this sheet of paper as a 24-hour clock. So at time 0:00:00, you’re at the beginning of the sheet, 365,000 years ago. At time 12:00:00 you’re in the middle of the sheet 182,500 years ago. At time 24:00:00 you’re in the present moment, where you all happen to be sitting in class.

Ask them to calculate the time on the clock when human civilization began (10,000 years ago, answer: at time 23:20:19); when the industrial age began (the age of fossil fuels; 150 years ago, answer: at time 23:59:25).

Have them look at world population growth noting what’s happened during the age of fossil fuels, the carbon dioxide level over the last 650,000 years, and the world temperature over the last 2,000 years. What is the data telling you?

• have them figure out how many sheets ago the dinosaur extinction took place.

• have them research Earth’s geological history, and figure out which sheets contain other milestones or important intervals in Earth’s history.

This should be MIND BLOWING! It is an experience your students will likely remember for a lifetime.

Photo caption: Earth from MESSENGER spacecraft as it flew by Earth on August 2, 2005. MESSENGER goes into orbit around Mercury on March 18, 2011.

Image courtesy NASA, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and Carnegie Institution of Washington.

This post is a solution to a Dr. Jeff’s Weekly Challenge.

Have you figured out how many new human beings will be on the planet a year from now? It was Weekly Challenge 2 that I posted last week. (Actually one week has already gone by.) I hope you’ve not been staring endlessly at the World Population Clock.

But if you haven’t yet read Weekly Challenge 2, DON’T LOOK AT THE SOLUTION HERE JUST YET! First read Weekly Challenge 2, or I’ll deduct your existence from the World Population Clock (like that will make a difference.)

A word from our sponsor—

What Can I do with a Humongous Sheet of Xerox Paper?

Weekly Challenge 3 to be posted Monday, June 15, 2009

And now the answer—

How many new human beings will be on the planet a year from now? In just one year, will the increase in world population be the equivalent of a new big town? Or maybe a new medium-sized city? How about a large city?

And think about this—

What resources will these new folks need, and where will they get them?

The answer:

All you need to do is use the World Population Clock to figure out how much the world population increases in a known period of time, e.g., over the course of a few hours or days. That gives you the rate at which the population increases. Wait. I hear a question from Cleveland. Yes the Clock records the net increase in population, which reflects the difference between new births and deaths.

Here’s how I did it. Last night (June 8, 2009) I recorded the population at 10:30 pm EDT. This morning I recorded the population at 6:02 am EDT. That’s a span of 7 hours 32 minutes, or 452 minutes. My results:

10:30 pm June 8:     6,785,315,076  humans

6:02   am June 9:     6,785,382,952

THE POPULATION OVERNIGHT INCREASED BY: 67,876 PEOPLE!!

That’s 2.5 people per second! Try recording this increase in population by counting it out 2.5 people per second, and see how far you get. You’re doing fine if you’ve counted to 150 in a minute, and 9,000 in an hour. See if you can keep it up for a day, a week, a month, a year. Don’t stop, don’t sleep, don’t eat, or you’ll miss all the new people coming aboard on spaceship Earth.

2.5 new people per second is the same as—

9,000 in 1 hour

216,000 in 1 day

1.5 MILLION in 1 week

6.6 MILLION in 1 month  AND

78,900,000 in 1 YEAR!

That’s a bit larger than the population of a new big town, or a medium sized city, or a large city in 1 year.

I’ve come up with some interesting ways to look at this using tables for the population of the world’s largest cities, the population of countries, and the population of U.S. states. Here are some statistics I’ll use—

Cities

Most populous city on Earth: Mumbai, India  13,922,000

Two most populous U.S. cities:

New York City (ranks 13th worldwide)  8,310,000

Los Angeles (ranks 47th worldwide)  3,849,000

Most Populous U.S. States

California  36,756,666

Texas  24,326,974

New York  19,490,297

Population of Countries

U.S. (ranks 3rd worldwide)  306,625,000

Germany (ranks 14th worldwide)  82,062,000

Egypt (ranks 16th worldwide)  76,753,000

Turkey (ranks 17th worldwide)  71,517,100

France (ranks 20th worldwide)  65,073

With this information, the increase in human population can be thought of as:

A new New York City every 38 days

A new Los Angeles every 18 days

A new Mumbai every 2 months

Every year, an increase in human population by roughly the current population of California, Texas, and New York COMBINED.

Every year, an increase in human population by more than the current population of Egypt, or Turkey, or France, or by almost the population of Germany. Think about that—more than a new France every year.

Finally, how long would it take for the world population to increase by an amount equal to the current population of the U.S.—the third most populous nation on the planet? Just 3.9 years—about the time it takes to put your child through college. They start as a freshman, learn about the world, graduate in 4 years, and enter a global job market that’s increased by the entire population of the U.S. while they were in class.

A parting thought

Where are all the resources needed to support these new people—water, food, shelter, energy, transportation, infrastructure  for waste management—going to come from?  And at a time when global warming is reducing fresh water supplies, and impacting agriculture through changes in regional climates. And at a time when it is imperative that the world rapidly convert to non-fossil fuel energy sources to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emission—if our children and their children are to inherit a livable planet.

Teachers and parents

Help your class or children use the World Population Clock to figure out the rate at which the human population is growing.

Then have them research the population of their town, their state, and countries of interest. Ask them to figure out how long it would take for the population of Earth to increase by those amounts.

Teachers

Have your class research a particular country, determining  the current population, the expected population growth over the next 10 years, and the challenges that country faces from limitations on resources and services resulting from global warming and the need to address it. Then hold a mock meeting of the Prime Minister’s or President’s Cabinet, with ministers of agriculture, transportation, housing, energy, health, defense, and any others that are relevant. Have the Prime Minister or President ask his/her Cabinet to lay out the near-term challenges they face, and discuss and debate solutions. Have them compare their solutions to what’s actually being debated and proposed across the world.

This post is a Dr. Jeff’s Weekly Challenge.

We explored humanity’s ability to impact the entire planet last week in Weekly Challenge 1, and this week I’d like to continue the theme. We’ll be moving out beyond Earth pretty soon (promise.)

Here now the challenge—

How many new human beings will be on the planet a year from now? In just one year, will the increase in world population be the equivalent of a new big town? Or maybe a new medium-sized city? How about a large city?

And think about this—

What resources will these new folks need, and where will they get them?

Your assignment—if you choose to accept it—is to solve the challenge by ONLY using the (now famous from Weekly Challenge 1) World Population Clock at the U.S. Census Bureau.

Hint: Be creative because you don’t have time to wait for the clock to tick out a whole year. You only have a week!  (I’m beginning to sound like Ruff Ruffman. Should I hand out bonus points?)

Answer now posted here!

This post is a solution to a Dr. Jeff’s Weekly Challenge.

For those of you that read last week’s Weekly Challenge 1 and are now waiting on the edge of your seats for the answers, well here they are. For those of you that haven’t yet read Weekly Challenge 1, DON’T LOOK! Go directly to the challenge and read it first, do not pass go, and do not collect $200.

And now the answers—

1. How many ants in a pound of ants?

Hint: there is no single answer because there are lots of different species of ants. So do some research on ants, figure out an answer, and see if your answer falls in the range I’ll give you next week.

The answer:

1.5 MILLION ants in a pound of ants! (Great question Jordi—it stunned your daddy.) This assumes an average-sized species of ant, and that we’re talking about worker ants. (Isn’t there always a disclaimer for an answer to a simple question?)

Depending on the ant species, there are anywhere from 190,000 to 7.5 MILLION ants in a pound of ants! See the ”How did I come up with the answers?” section below.

2. How much does the human race weigh?

Hint: you’ll need to know how many humans are on the planet. Here you go, courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau.

The answer:

With about 6.8 billion of us on Earth, here is the weight of the human race—

english system: 440 million tons (1 ton = 2,000 lbs)

metric system:  410 million metric tons (1 metric ton = 1,000 kg)

See the “How did I come up with the answers?” section below.

WOW!!  I think I’m impressed. But … wait a second. That’s just a BIG number. I have NO CLUE what that big number means. If I’m to truly understand it (you too in cyberspace), then I need to build a bridge to the familiar. So let’s go on to the third part of our challenge.

3. Wait, I hear Ellen in Detroit saying, “but Dr. Jeff, I’d rather know the total volume of the human race, in other words, how big a volume of space would you need to just fit the entire human race?” Good thinking Ellen! That’s another great way to look at it. So let’s make this a third part of the challenge. Once you calculate 2 above, figure out the total volume of the human race.

Hint: you can assume that we humans are made mostly of water, and every 1,000 kg of water takes up 1 cubic meter of space. For those of you who like to conceptualize using the English system of units, 1 ton of water (2,000 lbs) takes up 32 cubic feet of space.

The answer:

The entire human race—the species that can change the environment on a planetary scale—can comfortably fit into a box just 1/2 mile on a side (0.75 km on a side). See the ”How did I come up with the answers?” section below.

If you know Washington, DC, that’s about the volume of space equivalent to the size of the National Mall filled to the top of the Washington Monument.

If you know New York City, that’s a about the volume of space equivalent to the size of Central Park filled to the top of the Flatiron Building.

Isn’t this just so unbelievable SMALL? Can you figure out an equivalent volume in a city near you?

THE IMPORTANT LESSON THIS WEEK

In this box of humanity is—mostly water. Also in this box is a species that is self-aware, intelligent, and driven to know and do anything and everything, and a species that has the capability to imagine, design, and BUILD tools. How does such a small box of intelligent biomass change the planet? TECHNOLOGY. With hydraulics and explosives we can move mountains. With power plants and engines to create energy from fossil fuels we can heat the entire planet, raise the oceans, and change weather on a global scale. I CANNOT think of a better argument for the need for science and technology education. We as a nation, we as a world must make informed decisions about how we use our technology so that we can be good stewards of the planet.

And now—how did I come up with those answers?

The secret piece of information is the weight of a single ant. You might do your standard google search and find an answers-to-everything web site. This is probably how you got your answer. Let’s compare it to mine.

I’m always careful to make sure information I research is accurate. I usually don’t even trust Wikipedia, but often use it to point me in the right direction. At the bottom of a Wiki page there are often references to formal publications by scientists and engineers that have been reviewed by …. other scientists and engineers. We call these “reviewed” or “refereed” publications, and are where you typically find the best available information on a subject.

So here is the magic publication I found by Michael Kaspari, published in 2005 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Michael carefully studied ant colonies at 49 different sites with different climates, and found 434 species of ants. I think we can assume he is an ant expert. He wrote this article to tell other scientists about what he found. If you look at what he wrote it seems pretty technical, but it’s amazing that he describes the breadth of his research in beautiful detail using two very powerful languages–english and mathematics. Scientists and engineers need to be great communicators if their research is to be known by others. But no need to read the article, I’ll translate for you.

Michael found that the weight of a worker ant was anywhere from 0.06 milligrams to 2.34 milligrams. (A milligram is one thousandth of a gram, and a gram is one thousandth of a kilogram. A kilogram is 2.2 pounds.) The worker ant for the largest species he studied was 40 times the weight of the worker ant for the smallest species! The average was about 0.3 mg, which is what I’ll use. So here we go—

Weight of a single ant is 0.3 mg

The number of ants in a pound of ants = 1 pound divided by the weight of a single ant

To divide you need to use the same units: since we have the weight of an ant in milligrams, let’s do the math in milligrams.

Convert 1 pound to milligrams: 1 pound = 0.45 kilograms = 450 grams = 450,000 milligrams

Now divide: 450,000 milligrams / 0.3 milligrams = 1.5 MILLION ants!

But WAIT! Let’s do this for the species he studied with:

• the smallest worker ant, only weighing 0.06 milligrams.

You get 7.5 MILLION ants in a pound of ants!

• the largest worker ant, weighing 2.34 milligrams.

You still get 190,000 ants in a pound of ants!

Here’s a cool question to lead us to the next part of the challenge. If you had as many ants as human beings on Earth, how much would all those ants weigh?

(6.8 billion ants) x (0.3 milligrams per ant) = 2,000 kg (or if you like the English system, about 2 tons)

2. How much does the human race weigh?

Courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau I see that right now there are about 6.8 BILLION humans on the planet. Now for the guess—I’m going to assume the average human being weighs about 130 lbs (60 kg). It sounds reasonable when I consider children, the difference in weight between men and women, and that most humans live in impoverished conditions.

The weight of the human race is then:

english system:   6.8 billion x 130 lbs = 880 billion pounds =

440 million tons (1 ton = 2,000 lbs)

metric system:    6.8 billion x 60 kg = 410 billion kg =

410 million metric tons (1 metric ton = 1,000 kg)

WOW!!!!  Or maybe not.

3. How big a volume of space would you need to just fit the entire human race?

Hint: you can assume that we humans are made mostly of water, and every 1,000 kg of water takes up 1 cubic meter of space. For those of you who like to conceptualize using the English system of units, 1 ton of water (2,000 lbs) takes up 32 cubic feet of space.

Yup, we are mostly water. In fact even water treats us like water. If we’re in a pool and we go underwater, we’re pretty close to neutral buoyant—which means we don’t sink too fast or rise too fast. We’re about the density of water.

So here is the volume of the human race:

english system:   440 million tons x 32 cubic feet /ton = 14.1 billion cubic feet

metric system:    410 million metric tons x 1 cubic meter per metric ton= 410 million cubic meters

NOW FOR THE FUN PART.

Let’s assume that we put the human race in a box with the volume above. And let’s assume that the box is a cube where the length = height = width. How big a box would contain the volume above?

Volume of a cube = (length of side) x  (length of side) x (length of side)

= (length of side) ³

To get the length of a side you therefore take the cube root of the volume, and you get:

• english system:  cube root of 14.1 billion cubic feet

length of side = about 2,400 feet = 0.45 miles!!!

• metric system: cube root of 410 millio cubic meters

length of side = about 750 meter = 0.75 kilometers!!

I started this blog to share exciting stories of exploration with those that teach the next generation—parents and teachers. I hope it can help you inspire our children. More generally, these stories are for anyone who gets joy from learning, and aspires to know.

If you really want to get a sense of where I”m coming from, read my Resource Page The Nature of Our Existence. I hope it moves you. And if it does, share it by leaving a comment on the bottom of the page.

It’s a story—a philosophy—reflecting programs developed and delivered over 19 years at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, and across the nation—to families, teachers, and the public.

I’d like to see this blog continue for quite a long time. I’ve got lots to share. But that requires us to build an audience. So please let parents, teachers, and friends know about this blog so we can make a difference together. Send out a tweet or some emails!

You might also like to read other Resource Pages in the section called Dr. Jeff on Stuff (see the column at right.) And subscribe for e-mail notification to stay up-to-date with new Posts.

To all those teachers finishing their year and feeling exhausted, you could probably use a reaffirmation right now about why you went into teaching! I think reading The Nature of Our Existence might help. It’s a good way to start your summer!

—Dr. Jeff

This post is a Dr. Jeff’s Weekly Challenge and a Driving with Jordi.

A day late because of Memorial Day in the U.S.

I’m proud to post my first Driving with Jordi, so here we go!

Two weeks ago I was driving Jordi to school. We started down the road with 5 minutes of quiet contemplation, both of us just getting our heads wrapped around the new day, me with a cup of coffee in hand. Then, out of the blue came the question, “daddy, how many ants in a pound of ants?” I had to ask, “where did that come from?” So he explained that the day before he was hanging out in our big vegetable garden (he loves doing that), picked up a rock, and found lots of ants scurrying for cover. They were really small, and there were lots and lots of them. So he came up with this question to help him get a sense of their scale relative to a familiar ‘ruler’. He picked a pound. He came to me for the answer. I had no clue. So I decided to post this as part of this week’s challenge (see below.) You’ll be happy to know that I now have the answer and have already shared it with Jordi. But he promised not to tell.

Every time we drive together, his question launches a whole conversation. This time was no different. I remembered that in my presentations I sometimes liken the human race to a colony of ants scurrying around the surface of the planet. It’s a great teaching tool given kids know ants, and know ants are part of a ‘society’ in which each ant has a job.

So we talked about the human race as a colony of ants. We humans are all over the planet. We’re changing the environment on a global scale. I told Jordi about the term “biomass” which is the mass (equivalently the weight) of living things. You can imagine the biomass of all living things on the planet—the Earth’s biomass. You can also imagine the biomass of the entire human race. Surely with humanity’s ability to change the entire planet, its biomass must be huge!  Let’s see. Let’s make this the second part of your challenge this week, though this one is a little tougher (for, e.g., good for middle and high school students.)

Here now the challenge—

1.  How many ants in a pound of ants?

Hint: there is no single answer because there are lots of different species of ants. So do some research on ants, figure out an answer, and see if your answer falls in the range I’ll give you next week.

2.  How much does the human race weigh?

Hint: you’ll need to know how many humans are on the planet. Here you go, courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau.

3. Wait, I hear Ellen in Detroit saying, “but Dr. Jeff, I’d rather know the total volume of the human race, in other words, how big a volume of space would you need to just fit the entire human race?” Good thinking Ellen! That’s another great way to look at it. So let’s make this a third part of the challenge. Once you calculate 2 above, figure out the total volume of the human race.

Hint: you can assume that we humans are made mostly of water, and every 1,000 kg of water takes up 1 cubic meter of space. For those of you who like to conceptualize using the English system of units, 1 ton of water (2,000 lbs) takes up 32 cubic feet of space.

Ok, get to work!

Answers are now posted here!