New Worlds: The Search Continues

Posted on June 2, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

There’s a huge telescope under construction in Chile: the E-ELT. When compete, astronomers using it plan on looking for new worlds, and observing the early universe.

We may have spotted a second super-Saturn. We’ll know more about that in September.

Galileo, Copernicus, and Proof

Telescopes have come a long way since Galileo repurposed the “Dutch perspective glass” for astronomical observation.

About Galileo, Copernicus, the sun, and the Church: it’s true.

Copernicus delayed printing of his “De revolutionibus….” Galileo was tried and condemned by the (Roman) Inquisition. “De revolutionibus…” was on the “Index Librorum Prohibitorum.”

The ‘heroic scientist ultimately triumphs against forces of superstition’ story is dramatic, and familiar. Reality is a tad more complicated.

I talked about Copernicus last month. (April 28, 2017)

Briefly recapping the Copernicus timetable, “De revolutionibus…” was published in 1543, placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1616, and taken off the Index in 1620.

The problem had been nine sentences that incorrectly reflected a view that heliocentrism was an established fact: not a hypothesis.

The process would probably take less time today. With 17th century information technology, I think 1616 to 1620 is pretty fast work.

“De revolutionibus…” was, and is, an extremely technical publication: suitable for top-rate mathematicians and astronomers, not folks with my abilities.

Scientists — they were called natural philosophers at the time1 — who could follow the math realized that Copernican equations were valid.

They also realized that there was no proof that the equations described a physical reality. One major objection was a lack of observable stellar parallax.

Aristarchus: a Good First Try

If Copernicus was right, they pointed out, stars would shift their apparent position slightly when viewed from opposite sides of Earth’s orbit. We call the change in position stellar parallax.

Folks reading “De revolutionibus…” weren’t stupid, at all, and knew about Euclid’s geometry. With their 17th-century tech, they could detect no parallax.

They also knew that if the stars were far enough away, they couldn’t detect stellar parallax. Again, not with their tech.

But that would mean that the stars are very distant, indeed. I suspect that some academics discounted the Copernican model because the cosmos it described was much larger than they imagined.

Aristarchus of Samos had worked out distance between Earth and sun about 23 centuries back. He thought maybe Earth goes around our sun, and that the stars might be other suns.

He was right, on both counts, but we couldn’t demonstrate it until recently.

Aristarchus figured that our sun was about 6.7 Earth radii away. The actual number is roughly 150,000,000 kilometers, 93,000,000 miles:  about 14,600 Earth radii. But I think it was a good first try.

The nearest star we’ve found is a bit upwards of 268,200 times as far away as our sun. Let’s see: 14,600 times 268,200? That’s a whole lot of Earth radii.

Telescopes: Big, Bigger, and the E-ELT


(From Cmglee, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Comparison: telescope lenses and mirrors; past, present & planned; 1893-2022.)

The first known optical telescope was made by someone in the Netherlands around 1609.

Middelburg spectacle-makers Hans Lippershey and Sacharias Jansen developed one. So did Jacob Metius. Folks also called him Jacob Metius of Alkmaar. His alternative personal names were Jacobus or James.

European family naming customs were shifting at the time, and most likely still are: but more slowly. (April 2, 2017)

Lippershey applied for, but wasn’t granted, a patent “for seeing things far away as if they were nearby.” He was, however, given a substantial financial reward for developing a practical telescope.

Dutch officials may or may not have realized the tech would revolutionize astronomy. They certainly were aware of the telescope’s value to merchants.

The Netherlands was the Dutch Republic then, a top world trade power. Amsterdam was the New York City of the day.

Spotting and identifying an incoming cargo ship’s house flag before it arrived gave its owners, or their competitors, an advantage. That knowledge let them make deals before everyone on the wharf knew what’s coming to market.

Still Learning

“…we are dwarfs astride the shoulders of giants. We master their wisdom and move beyond it….”
(Isaiah di Trani, quoted in “Standing on the shoulders of giants”
World Heritage Encyclopedia, via http://worldlibrary.eu)

The first telescopes used principles of refraction Ptolemy had studied in the 2nd century. We don’t know who made and used the first rock crystal lens.

Better technology gave astronomers more powerful telescopes, like Johannes Hevelius’ 46-meter/150-foot Keplerian telescope.

Ibn al-Haytham’s work laid groundwork for developing better lenses, and using mirrors in telescopes. Several Europeans, including Galileo, started discussing practical reflecting telescopes after Galileo’s work with the Dutch spyglass.

James Gregory published a design for the Gregorian telescope in 1663. Someone, the name depends on which account you read, successfully measured the distance to 61 Cygni. That was between 1812 and 1814.

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel arguably got there first, but all of them were building on a couple millennia of work and thought. More, actually.

Hand-held rock crystal lenses are portable, and handy for starting fires, provided there’s direct sunlight. My guess is that we’ve been using them since long before we looked the way we do now, and that’s another topic.

1. Coming Soon: the E-ELT, a Huge Telescope


(From ESO, used w/o permission.)
(“Artist’s rendering of the ELT in operation”
(ESO))

“First Stone Ceremony for ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope”
Press release, ESO (May 26, 2017)

“A ceremony marking the first stone of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) has been attended today by the President of the Republic of Chile, Michelle Bachelet Jeria. The event was held at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in northern Chile, close to the site of the future giant telescope. This milestone marked the beginning of the construction of the dome and main telescope structure of the world’s biggest optical telescope, and ushered in a new era in astronomy. The occasion also marked the connection of the observatory to the Chilean national electrical grid….”

We’ve learned a great deal since folks built Zorats Karer.

Someone, we don’t know who, built those ruins: after Lothal was a major trade center and before Phoenicians developed their alphabet. They used Egyptian hieroglyphs as a starting point. The Phoenicians, that is.

My language uses an alphabet based, indirectly, on their work, I mentioned that last week, and that’s yet another topic. (May 26, 2017)

We’re not even sure why folks built Zorats Karer. Some of the stones and holes line up with astronomical events like solstices and equinoxes. But we could be looking at what’s left of a city wall, or something else. We’re not sure about Stonehenge, either.

The first observatory in the current sense, a facility designed specifically for observing and studying objects in the sky, was probably built by folks funded by Al-Ma’mun, Harun al-Rashid’s son.

Observatories, those built for visual observation, need clear skies. Radio observatories are another matter. City lights weren’t much of a factor back in Al-Ma’mun’s day, or when Tycho Brahe had Uraniborg built.

Uraniborg included an observatory, plus an alchemical laboratory and research support facilities. There were even an aquaculture ponds. Overflow from the ponds powered a paper mill.

This was the late 1500s, when alchemy was still a serious discipline. (October 16, 2016)

Gaslamps and the Atacama Desert

Gas-powered street lighting started replacing link-boys around 1800.

Folks felt safer with illuminated streets, except after gas explosions, which may help explain why we switched to electric lighting.

There’s informed debate on how much — or whether — street lighting interferes with our wake-sleep cycle. What’s more certain is that astronomers can’t count on dark sky in or near cities nowadays.

That, and a need for very clear skies, has encouraged astronomers to build observatories on mountaintops; far from cities.

The European Extremely Large Telescope is, or will be, on Cerro Armazones, a mountain in Chile’s Atacama Desert, Earth’s driest non-polar desert. It will be the European Southern Observatory’s fifth observing site.

Why So Big?


(From ESO, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(The European Extremely Large Telescope, E-ELT; what’s under the dome.)

If it works as planned, the E-ELT will gather 100,000,000 times as much light as the human eye.

That’s 13 times more than the largest optical telescopes we had in 2014, about 256 times as much as the Hubble Space Telescope. Its images should be 16 times sharper than Hubble’s. Again, if the E-ELT works as planned.

Even if there is a glitch in manufacture or construction, fixing the problem should be easier than designing and installing Hubble’s corrective mirror.

Bigger isn’t always better, but collecting more light helps when you’re making telescopes.

The E-ELT’s main mirror is segmented, since there’s a limit to how big we can make precisely-ground mirrors. The twin 8.4 meter, 27 foot, Large Binocular Telescope’s mirrors are pretty close to that limit with today’s technology.

A big mirror is useless if it’s not the right shape. Eight-meter monolithic mirrors need active optics to keep variables like wind, mechanical stress, and temperature from warping them. The same goes for segmented telescope mirrors.

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star: Dealing With Scintillation

“Twinkling” starlight is the attractive, seemingly-random variations in starlight that has inspired poetry — and technology to handle the changes.

Astronomers can be as poetic as anyone else, but twinkling interferes with detailed observation.

That’s particularly true when an astronomer uses photography, or any other tech. Until a few decades back, the only solution was to wait for a very still night, and hope for the best. That’s still important, but new technology has made things easier.

Telescopes, particularly large ones, now have adaptive optics.

It’s sort of like active optics, but handles momentary distortions. Adaptive optical systems sense distortions in a wavefront, the “twinkling,” tweaking the telescope’s optics to keep the star’s image steady.

The system can use a bright star near the telescope’s target, or generate its own guide stars by shining lasers in the right direction. That’s what those bright lines in the ESO artist’s rendering illustrate. The E-ELT uses six artificial guide stars.2

Seeking Undiscovered Worlds


(From B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF), ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Protoplanetary disk around Elias 2-27, infrared image taken at the ESO’s Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.)

My guess is that when news of the E-ELT’s construction starts cycling through the news, articles will focus on astronomers using it to search for extrasolar planets.

Finding new worlds is an important part of its mission. We’ll also be learning more about worlds we’ve already found.

Astronomers will be looking for water and organic molecules in protoplanetary discs, and studying the atmospheres of some exoplanets.

If an Earth-like planet orbits one of the nearer, brighter, stars; we could get images of it with the E-ELT.

We’ll also be learning more about worlds we’ve already found.

Astronomers will also be searching for previously-undiscovered exoplanets, and studying the atmospheres of some.

The E-ELT’s instruments use visible and infrared light, so scientists can study protoplanetary disks, giving us a better idea of how planetary systems form and develop.

Other research will study extremely distant galaxies, whose light has been heading our way since this universe was young. We’re hoping that the E-ELT will let astronomers directly observe this universe’s expansion.

Over the next several decades we may learn a very great deal about how this universe formed, and whether our current models the workings of matter and energy match reality. If they don’t, we’ll be learning even more.

2. Maybe It’s a Super-Saturn – – –


(From NASA, JPL-Caltech, Space Science Institute; via Scientific American, used w/o permission.)
(“Seen here backlit by the sun in this image from NASA’s Cassini orbiter, Saturn is our solar system’s most majestic ringed planet….'”
(Scientific American))

“Newly Found Exoplanet May Have Ring System Dwarfing Saturn’s”
Nola Taylor Redd, Scientific American (May 25, 2017)

“Although planetary rings are extremely common in our solar system—every gas giant circling our sun has one—they’ve proved harder to spot around worlds orbiting other stars. That’s a shame, because studies of ring systems around younger worlds could help clarify what the giant planets of our nearly five-billion-year-old solar system looked like in their first few million years.

“More than two decades of planet hunting have revealed just one ringed exoplanet—a super-size version of Saturn that researchers have only just begun to study using very large telescopes. But now they may have have found a second super-Saturn half-hidden in a disk of gas and dust surrounding a young star, a world readily observable even with backyard telescopes….”

This planet, or whatever it is, orbits PDS 110; about 1,100 light-years away in Orion. That would put in the general vicinity of, but not in, the Orion Nebula.

Scientists working with the Wide-Angle Search for Planets (WASP) say they may have found a huge version of Saturn and its rings.

What astronomers observed was a 25-day 30% dip in PDS 110’s brightness in November 2008 and January 2011.

A reasonable explanation is that something big passed between us and the star twice, and that it orbits the star every 808 days, give or take two days. That would put it about 2 AU out from the star, twice the distance between Earth and our sun.

It’s probably a planet, or maybe a brown dwarf, with a mass between 1.8 and 70 times Jupiter’s — surrounded by an enormous ring system, 50,000,000 kilometers across. That’s around 200 times as wide as Saturn’s rings.

One of the less-unlikely explanations for variations in light from “Tabby’s Star,” KIC 8462852, is a sort of super-Saturn with irregular rings. On the other hand, maybe — just maybe — someone’s building a very large ‘something’ out there. (December 2, 2016)

– – – or Something Else

Or maybe the PSD object is a less well-organize orbiting cloud of debris orbiting PSD 110.

Another possibility is that it’s clumps of debris in PSD 110’s circumstellar disk. That’s not as likely, since the dips were virtually identical.

At this point, all we’re sure about is that PSD 110’s light dimmed by the same amount, for the same duration, two times running. That might be a statistical fluke.

If it happens three times in a row, the ‘dumb luck’ scenario will be even less likely. We’ll know in September 2017.

Amateur astronomers could get in on the action with this one. Anyone with a modestly dark sky in Earth’s northern hemisphere, and decent backyard telescope, should be able to observe it. PSD 110 is an 11th magnitude star, at 05h 23m 31.008s by -01° 04′ 23.68″.

PSD 110 is a young star, most likely between 7 and 15 million years old. Planets should be forming around PSD 110 about now.

That’s assuming that the nebular hypothesis is fairly accurate. We’re pretty sure that moons of the large outer planets of the Solar System formed from rings like the ones which may have been observed.3

The nebular hypothesis has held up pretty well, with considerable tweaking, over the last few decades. My guess is that it’s not far from accurate: particularly since we seem to be observing planetary systems in the process of forming.

But I don’t know for sure, neither do scientists, and that’s why it’s called the nebular hypothesis. We’re still learning. And that gets me back to Galileo.

Galileo’s legendary confrontation with the forces of superstition and ignorance is real: in the sense that what he said, and how he said it, led to his trial and conviction. But like I said earlier, reality is a tad more complicated.

Putting Galileo in Perspective

I’ve talked about the Thirty Years’ War and Defenestration of Prague before.

The European conflict had a religious angle, but I’m quite sure politics and economics were in the mix, too. (March 17, 2017; November 6, 2016)

The Thirty Years’ war left us with about 7,500,000 dead bodies.

After decades of warfare, famine, and witch hunts, some Europeans started re-thinking old assumptions about authority and business-as-usual.

That, I think, was a good idea. Assuming that religion leads to warfare, famine, and death: not so much.

It doesn’t help that some folks have disturbed views of what God wants. (May 24, 2017; February 1, 2017; January 22, 2017)

The notion that ‘religion kills people’ is still with us. I think it makes about as much sense as assuming that thinking and democracy cause guillotines, mass beheadings, and state-sponsored toga parties. Or blaming Satan. (November 13, 2016; November 6, 2016)

About the Reformation and Thirty Years’ War — there really were problems in clerical practice. My culture’s roots are in the northern end of the mess, so we call the Church’s actions to fix those problems the Counter-Reformation.

The 1545-1563 Council of Trent was, and is, an important part of that process. I figure we’d have ‘countered’ anyway. I’ve mentioned the 910 Cluniac Reforms and 1962-65 Second Vatican Council before. (March 17, 2017)

Self-Confidence and Assumptions

The Thirty Years’ War was about eight years in the future when Galileo published “Sidereus Nuncius” in 1610. And no, I do not think Galileo started the war.

But decades of serenity-shattering peasant revolts in the north and reforms from the Council of Trent had already happened by the time he wrote it.

I strongly suspect current events and recent memory encouraged some folks to be skittish, at best, about new ideas.

Any new ideas.

I also suspect that Galileo could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he’d had a less abrasive personality, and had the good sense to say his heliocentric view was an opinion.

Instead, he insisted that what his “Sidereus Nuncius” expressed incontrovertible facts. There are times and circumstances which warrant that level of self-confidence. This wasn’t one of them.

Like I said earlier, it was decades — centuries — before we had proof that Copernicus and Galileo were on the right track.

Galileo might have had trouble, anyway. He seems to have had a talent for alienating his allies, and infuriating his enemies.

And, as I said, folks who didn’t like new ideas had some reason to be nervous in 1610. Being nervous isn’t, I think, an excuse for acting badly; neither is saying “I meant well.” But I try to understand motives. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1750, 1789)

Galileo’s trial and conviction could have had worse results. He was sentenced to house arrest, and a legend was born.4

Oddly enough, Galileo’s trouble with sunspots isn’t part of the ‘science against the forces of superstition’ story. Not often, anyway.

Galileo observed sunspots, publishing his work in 1613. Depending on who you read, Francesco Sizzi spotted them first, or Christoph Scheiner. Galileo said he was first, which led to another interpersonal spat.

That’s the European sunspot connection. Over in China, some folks say Shi Shen was first, about 23 centuries back. Or maybe it was Gan De. Or someone else.

3. TRAPPIST-1h: It’s Real


(From ESO/M. Kornmesser/spaceengine.org, via Sci-News, used w/o permission.)
(An artist’s impression of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system.)

“Seventh TRAPPIST-1 Planet Confirmed”
Camille M. Carlisle, Sky and Telescope (May 22, 2017)

“The modest M8 red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 became famous after astronomers discovered seven small exoplanets in orbit around it. At the time the discoverers made the announcement in February, they couldn’t say much about the outermost world, labeled h: The astronomers had seen the planet — or, at least something they thought was a planet — pass in front of the star only once.

“Rodrigo Luger (University of Washington, Seattle) and colleagues, including members of the original discovery team, have now confirmed planet h’s existence and some of its specs….”

The TRAPPIST-1 planetary system may have more planets, but b through h give us an intriguing look at what may be a pattern for other systems orbiting low-mass stars.

Now that we’ve filled in some of the blanks in our knowledge about h, the outermost of the seven worlds, I suspect we’ve got even more questions than before.

I’m guessing that scientists will start working on explanations for why their orbits are so similar to the Jovian system’s. (March 3, 2017)

Or we may learn that entirely different mechanisms produced similar results.

TRAPPIST-1h is about 75% as wide as Earth, 40% larger than Mars. It’s closer to TRAPPIST-1 than any of the Solar System’s planets, but that star is much dimmer than ours. The planet gets about as much warmth from its sun as objects in the Solar System’s main asteroid belt.

We’re pretty sure that means life-as-we-know-it can’t exist there. On the other hand, that’s what we thought about the outer planet moons, and now NASA is planning a ‘search for life’ mission to Europa.

Or we may learn that our protein-in-water biochemistry isn’t unique. Maybe some of the hypothetical biochemistries being discussed aren’t entirely hypothetical. (March 3, 2017)

Then there’s the TRAPPIST-1 system’s dancing planets.

A Complex Dance


(“A Resonant Dance of the Seven TRAPPIST-1 Planets,” NASA’s Ames Research Center (no audio) (May 22, 2017) via YouTube)

Some, at least, of the Jovian moons are in Laplace resonance orbits. Europa, for example, goes around Jupiter twice for each orbit of Ganymede’s.

TRAPPIST-1 planets are in a more complicated dance. Every two laps of planet h is matched with three of planet g – – – but not quite. The number is exact, but it’s not an integer.

Math geeks, I’m not one, may enjoy working through the relationship: x/P1 – (x+y)/P2 + y/P3 = 0 — where x and y are integers and P1, P2, and P3 are the orbital periods of planet 1, planet 2, and planet 3 in whichever trio you’re looking at. Enjoy.

I wouldn’t know about that equation, but Camille M. Carlisle included it in her article.

We’re a bit less certain about TRAPPIST-1’s age. We know the star’s mass, about 8% the sun’s. The Kepler2 mission’s data gives us its rotation rate, too. TRAPPIST-1’s sunspots go past every 3.3 days. Probably.

That number has changed before, and may again when we have more precise data.

Mass and rotation rate match what we’ve found in most average ultracool dwarf stars. The nearby ones, at any rate.

TRAPPIST-1 had one notable flare while being observed. That lets scientists make an educated guess about the star’s level of activity. All that adds up to a likely age of between 3,000,000,000 and 8,000,000,000 years.

Carlisle is a scientist by training, which explains how she closed her article:

“…That permits all sorts of speculation about habitability and alien life, but given how much remains unknown about this system, I prefer not to dabble in such musings.”
(Camille M. Carlisle, Sky and Telescope)

Not Quite Earth 2.0


(From NASA/JPL-Caltech, used w/o permission.)
(TRAPPIST-1 and Solar planetary systems, habitable zones in green. TRAPPIST-1 system enlarged for clarity.)

The Solar System is about 4,500,000,000 years old. That’s right in the middle of a reasonable estimate for TRAPPIST-1’s age. Its seven known planets are most likely rocky, like the Solar System’s inner worlds.

TRAPPIST-1f is almost exactly the same diameter as Earth, and g is roughly one and an eighth times our planet’s size. TRAPPIST-1f is smack in the middle of the star’s habitable zone, g is in the next track out.

I don’t have a professional reputation to maintain, and I’m not as a scientist, so I can dabble with minimal risk.

Let’s say that TRAPPIST-1 is only 1/4,540th older than the Solar System.

I’m in my mid-60s, so someone one and one 4,540th times older than I am would have been born a few days before I was. For most purposes, that’s practically the same age.

For the Solar System, that’s a million years. Still nearly the same age, on a cosmic scale.

On a human scale, the story’s a bit different. (December 16, 2016)

Speculation

Let’s say that life started on TRAPPIST-1f at exactly the same interval after the star’s formation as life on Earth.

About three and a third million years back, people there developed their equivalent of Oldowan stone tools.

A million years ago, they learned that other stars had planetary systems like theirs, only not quite. They began sending radio messages, getting no replies, toward several promising planetary systems.

A few thousand years later, they developed fast(ish) interstellar travel. Let’s say they’re a bit more risk-averse, on average, than humans. I suspect that wouldn’t take much.

Even after they developed fast interstellar travel, they never visited the Solar System in person.

This star’s high-energy radiation was, they had learned, far beyond what any known or hypothetical form of life could endure. As far as they had learned at that point.

We use some of that radiation, specifically UVB, to synthesize vitamin D. That may, or may not, be why folks whose ancestors lived where mine did look the way we do. We’ve been away from home a long time, and that’s yet again another topic.

These not-human folks did, however, eventually begin sending robotic probes to the Solar System. That’s what we’ve been doing here in the Solar System. I think it’ll likely be our strategy as we begin exploring this part of the galaxy.

Eventually the probes detected life on the third planet. Their scientists confirmed that it wasn’t a sensor glitch, and re-thought their ideas about biochemistry.

The probes also reported statistically-improbable heat concentrations consistent with small fires were often close to one particular sort of critter. That had an obvious, if somewhat unbelievable, explanation. The critters were people. Using fire.

That was about a million years back. Here’s a list of milestones I used when concocting that tale:

The numbers are years-before-now. Back to my imaginary tale.

Taking the ‘we’re all gonna die’ attitude, I could say that they destroyed themselves by waging war and eating too much fatty food — right after they discovered us.

Instead, I’ll assume that they didn’t. If that was all true, why aren’t they here now?

More Speculation

Maybe they’re not as incurably chatty as we are. Maybe they are here, in the form of AI orbiting far out of the ecliptic.

Maybe they want to see what we’ll do next. Maybe they’re trying to figure out why we didn’t become extinct during one of this planet’s temperature/climate changes. (May 26, 2017; January 20, 2017)

Or maybe they’ve spent the last half-million years meditating on the whichness of what and unscrewing the inscrutable, and lost interest in us.

If we do have neighbors who aren’t human, I very strongly suspect we’ll learn that — they’re not human. (December 23, 2016; December 16, 2016)

If you’re a regular reader, you know why I don’t see a conflict between seeking God and seeking truth. I’m not even disturbed by the idea that God’s creation is bigger, older, and filled with more wonders, than some of us thought, a few centuries back.

If you’re new here, no worries. I’ll get back to faith, science, and SETI: after looking at what a scientist-monk said recently.

4. “An Act of Prayer”


(From Zenit – HSM, via Zenit, used w/o permission.)

“Interview: ‘If There Is Faith, to Study the Universe With Science Is An Act of Prayer,’ Says Guy Consolmagno”
Sergio Mora, Zenit (May 9, 2017)

“‘At the beginning of time, God spoke to us through Creation, says the Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. Therefore, to study the universe with science, is an act of prayer, a way of encountering God.’ However, to do so, ‘it is necessary to encounter God first as Father, as Abba, otherwise God cannot be encountered with science.” In other words, “faith must be there first, if one wishes to see God in Creation.’

“Talking with ZENIT, astronomer Guy Consolmagno explained this on the sidelines of the meeting held yesterday, May 8, 2017, in the Holy See Press Office, where the Scientific Workshop on black holes, gravitational waves and the peculiarity of space-time, which will be held in the Vatican Astronomical Observatory in Castel Gandolfo from May 9-12, was presented….”

I’m not sure which “peculiarity of space-time” they’ll be discussing. I hope there’ll be coverage of the workshop.

Guy Consolmagno wasn’t, in a way, saying anything new here; although I like the “act of prayer” quote.

As I keep saying, God gave us brains: pretty good ones. Using them is what we’re supposed to do.

Being curious, thinking, learning how this universe works and using that knowledge, is part of being human. Studying the beauty and wonders around us is one way we learn about God. (Catechism, 31–32, 35–36, 301, 303–306, 311, 319, 1704, 2293–2296)

Or we can decide to ignore the whole thing. As Brother Consolmagno said, science doesn’t force us to believe. But it works with faith, if we let it.

Me? I like learning more about this vast and ancient cosmos. I see scientific discoveries as opportunities for “greater admiration” of God’s work. (Catechism, 283, 341)

About extraterrestrial intelligence? Folks like us, free-willed creatures with physical bodies? I hope we have neighbors. But I will leave that level of design decisions about the universe to God.

God’s God, I’m not. I figure part of my job is appreciating God’s work: not telling the Almighty how to run this universe.

Touch-Tone Telephones and Tradition

I’m a Christian, and a Catholic. Some Catholics apparently think our faith means desperately trying to live as if it’s still 1950, or earlier.

I don’t see it that way, obviously.

I’ve been asked how I can make my faith relevant to life in the 21st century. That was a reasonable question, given the way some of us act. The short answer is that I value Tradition, but don’t try following all traditions.

I take our Tradition, capital “T,” very seriously. I follow some traditions we’ve developed over the ages, but not all. I’d be surprised if one person could, there are so many.

I don’t try living as if the ’60s never happened, or think that touch-tone telephones and Batman doomed civilization. That’s not what Tradition is.

Our Tradition is the living message of the Gospel, maintained and passed along through the millennia.5 (Catechism, 75–83)

Our Tradition is important. It mattered in the 1st century, it still does in the 21st. Unless the Last Judgment comes a lot sooner that I think it will,6 it will matter in the 41st, and 61st, and for the rest of time.

Some are our traditions are important, too. They’re useful habits we’ve developed and adapted to different places and times. Lower-case-“t” traditions are kept, changed, or dropped, as our needs change. This is okay. (Catechism, 83)

Desperately clinging to customs that don’t make sense any more seems like a waste of effort, at best.

Doing what is right, no matter what’s currently popular: that, I think, is worthwhile. (February 5, 2017; August 14, 2016; July 24, 2016)

Seeking strange new worlds, recent developments:

1 My take on natural philosophers, plus some history and science:

2 An excessive number of links to information you most likely don’t need:

3 More about planetary systems and the nebular hypothesis:

4 Galileo, the Reformation, and sunspots:

5 Definitions:

  • “BIBLE: Sacred Scripture: the books which contain the truth of God’s Revelation and were composed by human authors inspired by the Holy Spirit (105). The Bible contains both the forty-six books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament (120). See Old Testament; New Testament.”
  • “MAGISTERIUM: The living, teaching office of the Church, whose task it is to give as authentic interpretation of the word of God, whether in its written form (Sacred Scripture), or in the form of Tradition. The Magisterium ensures the Church’s fidelity to the teaching of the Apostles in matters of faith and morals (85, 890, 2033).”
  • “TRADITION: The living transmission of the message of the Gospel in the Church. The oral preaching of the Apostles, and the written message of salvation under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Bible), are conserved and handed on as the deposit of faith through the apostolic succession in the Church. Both the living Tradition and the written Scriptures have their common source in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ (75–82). The theological, liturgical, disciplinary, and devotional traditions of the local churches both contain and can be distinguished from this apostolic Tradition (83).”

And see Catechism, 95, 113, 126, and 174.

6 I take the Last Judgment seriously. What wannabe prophets say are End Times Bible Prophecies, not so much:

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“The Federation of the World”

Posted on May 28, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

Tennyson said “Locksley Hall” expresses “…young life, its good side, its deficiencies, and its yearnings.” I’m inclined to believe him, partly because I was young when I first read the poem. A half-century later, these are still among my favorite lines of poetry:

“…For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
“Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;…
“…Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d
“In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
“There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
“And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law….”
(“Locksley Hall,” Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

I still think building something like Tennyson’s “Federation of the world” is a good idea. I’m quite certain that it will be a long, hard, process.

But we’re already making some headway.

Something like the Svalbard Global Seed Vault would have seemed like ‘science fiction’ in my youth. (May 26, 2017)

It’s not just the technology. Norway runs the vault, but it is part of an international effort. So far, 71 sovereign states signed the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture,”

Even more hopeful, I think, 193 of the world’s 200 or so sovereign states are in the United Nations.

Four Millennia of Empires

International cooperation isn’t new.

We’ve had leagues, alliances, and treaties for longer than we’ve had nations.

Sargon of Akkad achieved a measure of stability by conquering his neighbors.

Sargon’s empire, established about 4,300 years ago, lasted just shy of two centuries.

Ur-Nammu was the first of many folks following Sargon’s example. The empire-collapse-recovery cycle continued for about four millennia.

These days, Ur-Nammu is chiefly known for the Code of Ur-Nammu, the earliest known law code.

The last I heard, Hammurabi’s is the earliest complete code we’ve found. (March 30, 2017; October 30, 2016; September 25, 2016)

Making a serious effort to unite all nations as almost-but-not-entirely-equal members of a global entity: That is new.

Working With What We Have

The United Nations is no more perfect than America’s Congress.

But for all their faults, they’re what we have to work with. Today.

John Rarick’s “spider flag of the United Nations” slogan of 1968-69 is largely forgotten, happily. The attitude hasn’t entirely disappeared, however.

Some Americans still seem uneasy about ‘foreigners:’ or other Americans who don’t look and act pretty much like them.

Others seem willing to try establishing a ‘Pax Americana.’ I’m not. The Pax Romana was an improvement on the Final War of the Roman Republic, but we can do better.

I’ve talked about Roman history, Icarus, and getting a grip, before. (May 26, 2017)

On the whole, I like being an American. I think my nation has much to offer the world.

But humanity has tried maintaining stability and security with empires. They don’t last. Not more than a few centuries. It’s time to try something else.

The UN has fallen far short of my hopes. However, as an alternative to another global war: I think it’s the more reasonable option. (October 30, 2016)

Unseemly Optimism

I know that our world is a mess, and has been since long before we started recording our blunders and achievements.

“For mischief comes not out of the earth, nor does trouble spring out of the ground;
2 But man himself begets mischief, as sparks fly upward.”
(Job 5:7–7)

“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”
(Murphy’s law)

“Murphy was an optimist.”
(Otoole’s commentary on Murphy’s law)

I suspect that the ‘gloominess is next to godliness’ attitude, and its secular analogs, have roots in fashionable melancholy. (May 12, 2017; August 12, 2016)

I think seeing this as the best of all possible worlds, or a hopeless and doomed one, are both — incomplete perceptions. And that’s a metaphysical can of worms I’ll leave for another day.

Seeing the future as bleak is something I understand. Feeling hopeless was my default state for decades, thanks to undiagnosed depression. (October 14, 2016)

Feelings, emotions, are real. Mine, however, are highly unreliable guides. I’m better off if I think. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1730, 1778, 1804, 2339)

Learning to do that is a work in progress. (January 11, 2017; October 5, 2016)

I’m not cautiously optimistic because I feel hopeful. I occasionally feel hopeful because I think there is reason for cautious optimism. (October 30, 2016)

Hope, in one sense, is a psychological or emotional state. It is also a virtue. Feeling hopeful is okay, but not necessary. What counts is what I do, not how I feel. (Catechism, 1762–1770, 1817–1821)

“A Civilization of Love”

As I said Friday, I think the Svalbard seed vault is a good idea.

I also think building Pope St. John Paul II’s “civilization of love” makes sense.

I’m sure that at least until there’s a “sufficiently powerful authority at the international level,” some of us must be ready to defend innocent lives.

“…As long as the danger of war remains and there is no competent and sufficiently powerful authority at the international level, governments cannot be denied the right to legitimate defense once every means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted….”
(“Gaudium et Spes,” Pope Bl. Paul VI (December 7, 1965))

“…The answer to the fear which darkens human existence at the end of the twentieth century is the common effort to build the civilization of love, founded on the universal values of peace, solidarity, justice, and liberty….”
(“To the United Nations Organization,”5 Pope St. John Paul II (October 5, 1995))

Part of my job is contributing “…to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom….” (Catechism, 1928–1942, 2239)

I think that includes suggesting that learning to sort out conflicts without war is a good idea. (Catechism, 2307–2317)

I don’t think the United Nations will become Tennyson’s “Federation of the world.”

But I think it is a good start. It’s already lasted longer than the Second Continental Congress’ Articles of Confederation. (February 5, 2017)

If we keep working with all people of good will, I think we can develop a close approximation of Tennyson’s “Parliament of man … Federation of the world.” Eventually.

It won’t be easy. There’s an enormous backlog of unresolved issues. But I think we can succeed. I am certain that we must try:

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More Than a 3-Day Weekend

Posted on May 28, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

Tomorrow is Memorial Day.

It’s equivalent to Dodenherdenking in the Netherlands, or Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations.

The holiday’s original purpose was to honor those who have been killed while serving in our nation’s military.

That’s still the holiday’s official purpose. Recent generations have used the three-day weekend as an unofficial start of summer vacation season. That’s not, I think, entirely inappropriate. I’ll get back to that.

Memorial Day began as many local and regional ceremonies in the former Confederate States of America and the Union. The CSA’s attempt at independence failed, so we call it the Civil War.

Quite a few folks, glad to see that conflict end, made efforts to rebuild this nation — and families. (May 14, 2017)

Local and regional observances called “Decoration Day” started being called “Memorial Day” in 1882. That moniker didn’t become common until after World War II. It’s been the official name since 1967.

The American president will probably lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns again this year. It is a long-standing tradition: but not, I think, essential to my nation’s survival.

Avoiding War

Avoiding war is a good idea. War kills people and breaks things.

But sometimes being nice and reasonable won’t keep innocent folks alive. I’ve said that before. (January 22, 2017)

I see human life as precious, sacred, because “…it involves the creative action of God….” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2258)

Seeing myself as “human” isn’t particularly difficult. Neither is thinking of my family as people, although the kids have frayed my nerves occasionally. I’ve had the same effect on them, and that’s another topic.

Here’s where it gets — interesting.

Staying Alive, Defending Lives

I’m obliged to see everybody as ‘people.’

Each of us has equal dignity. Where we are, who we are, or how we act, doesn’t affect that. (Catechism, 360, 1700-1706, 1932-1933, 1935)

I could, seeing all human life as sacred, decide that I must not endanger the life of another person — even if the other is trying to kill me. Strict pacifism is possible. I think pacifists will thrive, as long as there are enough non-pacifists to protect them.

Over the decades, I’ve run into many assumptions about pacifism and religion: Christianity in particular.

Some folks see religion as an excuse to hate people. I don’t, but have encountered enough venom-spitting “Christians” to understand the attitude. (November 15, 2016)

Others apparently assume that a Christian must also be a pacifist. That’s also, I think, understandable.

Honoring Those Who did not Return

Reality isn’t quite that simple.

Like everyone else, I’m obliged to “serve the human community.” That’s why public authorities should have non-military service options for pacifists. (Catechism, 2239, 2311)

However, defending myself from a lethal attack is okay; even if it results in my attacker’s death. But I must use the least possible force. (Catechism, 2263-2267)

That’s because my life is precious. So is my attacker’s. My intent should be saving my own life, not killing another person: even if that is the unintended effect of my action. (Catechism, 2258, 2263–2269; “Summa Theologica,” Thomas Aquinas, II-II,64,7)

This principle also applies to societies. Leaders may authorize military action when defending the lives they’re supposed to protect. War isn’t a preferred option, but sometimes it’s less bad than the alternative. (Catechism, 2307-2317)

We live in a world where some folks prefer killing others to rationally discussing conflicting interests. Some of them are better-organized than their American counterparts,1 so military force is occasionally needed.

I am grateful to those who have decided to risk their lives for the sake of others. Honoring those who did not return is, I think, appropriate.

“…Live Out My Years….”

Oddly enough, I also think celebrating Memorial Day with the civilian equivalent of rest and recuperation is appropriate.

Taking a vacation during Memorial Day weekend isn’t a traditional approach to honoring our nation’s dead.

But I think it makes sense. Enjoying the comparative freedom and peace we have within our borders is arguably taking this inscription’s advice:

“‘Immaturus obi; sed tu felicior annos vive meos: Bona Republica! vive tuos.'”

“‘I died before my time, but thou O great and good Republic, live out my years while you live out your own.'”
(Inscriptions on Meriwether Lewis memorial, via National Park Service.)

Meriwether Lewis wasn’t killed in military action. He died of multiple gunshot wounds, and the money he carried was missing. Psychological evidence, and a lack of 21st-century forensic science, led to the assumption that he killed himself.

I think it’s good advice, anyway.

More of my take on life, death, and decisions:

1 Being reasonable, or not:

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Climate Change, Whirligig Icebergs

Posted on May 26, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

Climate change is still in the news. Don’t worry, I won’t rant about impending doom, or say that Earth’s climate isn’t changing.

This planet’s climate has been changing for several billion years. I’d be astounded if it stopped changing now.

How much we know and understand about our own past, and Earth’s, is also changing. I’ll be talking about that, and why I’m not upset that we’re learning.

I’ll also take a look at (real) climate change, why I think we are not doomed, and choices we must make soon. “Soon,” in this case, is somewhere in the next millennium or so. My opinion. We really do not want to make these decisions hastily.

The Once and Future Ice Age

The coming ice age1 was a moderately big deal for science geeks, back in the 1950s and 60s.

Journalists talked about “global cooling” in the 1970s, based on data collected since the 1940s. The data was real, the analysis was dubious. Apparently most scientists figured global temperatures had been falling, on average, and would continue doing so.

Maybe some journalists figured “Coming Ice Age” made a cooler headline. I don’t know.

I’d missed the first “global cooling” scare, in the 1920s and 30s. The National Geographic Society sent someone to check on glaciers, and at least one scientists opined that Earth would cool off again: eventually. I agree, and I’ll get back to that.

If we’d known more, earlier, we might have had pre-20th-century ‘ice age’ scares.

As it is, Pierre Martel noticed oddly-paced boulders in 1742. A couple years later, he wrote that they might have gotten there when glaciers got bigger, and then melted.

He was right, but maybe scientists were still getting used to the idea that Aristotle might have been wrong about the universe. I’ll get back to that, too.

Anyway, other folks made similar educated guesses to explain rocks that had been shoved out of their original positions.

Eventually, Louis Agassiz did some field work, analyzed the results, and published “Study on Glaciers” in 1840. Several decades later, most scientists agreed: Earth’s glaciers and polar caps had been a whole lot bigger than they are now.

Meanwhile, Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” had started giving some folks conniptions, and I’ve talked about that before. Often.

We’ve learned that the ice age Agassiz studied is the most recent of several major ones:

The Manure Crisis, 1894

We had the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894 next. Folks at a 1898 international urban planning conference in New York City couldn’t find a solution.

I don’t know why they didn’t think of using Bollée’s steam-powered trolleys.

They’d been in production since 1873, and England’s parliament had been passing and repealing Locomotive Acts since 1861. (February 5, 2017)

I don’t think steam power and automobiles saved civilization, or that they’ll destroy it.

I give humans credit for having some practical intelligence. Not that we consistently seem eager to use our brains. I’m reasonably confident we’d have worked out some way of digging out of the manure crisis.2

The problem of manure disposal isn’t a problem any more, exhaust fumes are. So, apparently, is global warming. Because, we’re told, of the exhaust fumes. And it’s not “global warming” any more. We’re supposed to call it “climate change.”

Icarus, Lord Kelvin, and Aerial Navigation

I talked about Earth’s atmosphere and one of Lord Kelvin’s famous mistakes last month. (April 14, 2017)

He was wrong about heavier-than-air flight, too. When the Royal Aeronautical Society, formed in 1896, asked him to join, he didn’t see a point in their research:

“I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of.”
(William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, in a letter to Baden-Powell (1896)) via Wikipedia)

He had a point. Folks have wanted to fly for millennia. Our story of Daedalus and Icarus goes back to Publius Ovidius Naso, we call him Ovid.

Ovid was born a year after Roman Senators tried to save the Republic by killing Julius Caesar. Their Senate had mismanaged the Republic beyond repair by then, so their efforts ended with the Final War of the Roman Republic.

Augustus sorted the mess out about a decade later. He was a tad more successful, by at least one measure. The Pax Romana lasted over two centuries. The Roman Empire kept going, and that’s another topic. (February 5, 2017; October 30, 2016)

Otto Lilienthal wasn’t the first to build a working glider. But he was the first to make one that flew more-or-less successfully, document his results, and survive the process.

Lord Kelvin would have known about Lilienthal’s work, and his final flight in 1896. It ended when Lilienthal’s glider crashed, fatally injuring Lilienthal.

Evening Post: the July 30, 1898 Saturday Supplement

The other famous Kelvin quote, that “there is nothing new to be discovered in physics now,” didn’t happen.

It’s close to something Albert A. Michelson said in 1894.

I’m not sure why or how Lord Kelvin got a reputation for having the imagination of a rock and a talent for not seeing what’s coming next.

Being a high-profile public figure who talked to journalists probably didn’t help.

William Thomson’s early scientific work showed that Carnot’s analysis of heat and mechanical work was was right, partly.

A whole bunch of other scientists eventually defined the second law of thermodynamics, and that’s yet another topic.

Someone asked Thomson to look at how Faraday’s experiments related to the proposed transatlantic telegraph cable.

Thomson came up with results that didn’t match what Whitehouse, the project’s chief electrician, said.

Thomson’s analysis discussed the cable’s potential data rate, how that would affect profitability, impressed quite a few folks, and upset Whitehouse.

William Thomson got elected to the board of directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Eventually he became Lord Kelvin, 1st Baron Kelvin, and helped define what we hadn’t learned yet about physics. We’re still working on that.

Lord Kelvin didn’t invent 20th-century physics, but he helped make it possible. That’s why a material, water dropper, wave, instability, a few theorems, and the SI unit of temperature, are named after him.

Lord Kelvin’s analysis of Earth’s oxygen supply and industrial use of fossil fuels was accurate, as far as it went.

If we’d learned everything there is to know about photosynthesis and the oxygen cycle in 1898, we’d now have a bit less than three centuries of breathable air left. That would be a real crisis.

We’re not seeing a more-or-less-continuous stream of “Oxygen Crisis” and “Save Our Air Protest” headlines because we didn’t know everything there is to know in 1898. I’m quite sure we still don’t.3

We have, however, learned quite a bit.

What’s the Point?

The point is not that we will live in a utopia, just as soon as everyone’s properly educated and starts using solar power: or whatever the cool new tech is.

I don’t think we’re living in the last days of humanity, either. I also think we’re dealing with issues that didn’t exist a few generations back, and many more that we’ve had from day one.

This is nothing new. The manure crisis wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t been learning how to keep our cities from burning at intervals. New agricultural tech and improved medical practices helped: or doomed us, according to disciples of Malthus.

I don’t see avoiding famines and plagues as a bad idea, but realize that not everyone shares my views.

I think the now-unfashionable notion that science and technology will solve all our problems was as silly as fearing that we’re doomed because we’re smart. (October 30, 2016; November 18, 2016)

That quaint idea may get trotted out again, probably when another international “climate change” conference is in the news.

Fear that our brains will kill us is based on facts. And whacking great assumptions.

Our brains have been getting bigger over the last few million years. They’re not just bigger.

The basic architecture is the same as other primates, but our wiring is significantly different at microscopic levels. (February 3, 2017; January 13, 2017; September 23, 2016)

Today’s human brain takes up about 2% of our total body mass. Right now, my brain is burning about 25% of my glucose, 20% of my oxygen, and uses around 15% of my heart’s output; assuming I’m about average. Let’s call it 20% net energy consumption.4

My guess is that a species as big as we are, with our metabolism, and brains the size of ours, might not last long if the critter’s brain was wired like, say, a kangaroo’s.

Our brains don’t just burn energy. We’ve been using them to find and process food, and develop technology.

That’s arguably what’s kept us alive over the last couple million years. Earth’s climate has has been even less stable than usual, ever since the current ice age started.

I don’t see using our brains as a problem, or a threat; and I’ll get back to that.

1. “The Apocalypse is Still Ticking Along Nicely”


(From AP, via Gizmodo, used w/o permission.)

“The Doomsday Vault Isn’t Flooded But We’re All Still Going to Die”
Rhett Jones, Gizmodo (May 20, 2017)

“It was a story that was too good to pass up. The Svalbard ‘doomsday’ seed vault had flooded because of global warming-induced high temperatures melting the surrounding permafrost. But according to one of the vault’s creators, the reports are pretty overblown and everything’s fine. Well, the vault’s fine. The apocalypse is still ticking along nicely….”

Gizmodo is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. They’ve got political content, too, but I don’t know if they’re conservative, liberal, or something else.

Their slogan is “We come from the future.” I’m quite sure that’s not strictly accurate, but their writers do seem rather more interested in what’s coming than average: and surprisingly free from the panic and despair I’ve come to expect from “serious” thinkers.

The “Apocalypse” op-ed isn’t as thoroughly tongue-in-cheek as the lead paragraph suggests. Jones took the trouble to get some facts. So did Popular Science, which Mr. Jones uses as his source.

Basically, the Svalbard ‘doomsday’ vault is at the end of a hundred-meter tunnel that slopes uphill most of the way. The front door isn’t watertight, and isn’t meant to be.

Water gets under the door pretty routinely, which is why there’s a short downhill slope just inside. Water flows down the slope, collecting where the tunnel starts sloping up again. Two sump pumps then take the water back outside. They were supposed to, that is.

I don’t know if they’re the sort you find at Home Depot.

When humans came to check on the vault last year, they found frozen water inside.

It’s a “crisis,” since the vault is supposed to be completely autonomous, and apparently the water froze before the pumps removed it. The folks who operate the vault say they’re working on an upgrade, but maybe they’re really stumped and won’t admit it.

And we’re all gonna die.

See? Panic is an option. Not a sensible one, though. I’m pretty sure about that.

2. Svalbard Global Seed Vault: No Damage


(From Getty Images, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“The Svalbard Global Seed Vault took 12 months to build and opened in February 2008”
(BBC News))

“Norway to boost protection of Arctic seed vault from climate change”
BBC News (May 20, 2017)

“Norway is boosting the flood defences of its Global Seed Vault on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard after water entered the entrance tunnel last year.

“The storage facility, deep inside a mountain, is designed to preserve the world’s crops from future disasters.

“Unseasonably high temperatures last year caused the permafrost to melt, sending water into the access tunnel.

“No seeds were damaged but the facility is to have new waterproof walls in the tunnel and drainage ditches outside….”

About “unseasonably high temperatures,” I’ll repeat what I said earlier. Earth’s climate is changing. At the moment, it’s warming up.

I think paying attention is a good idea.

The Svalbard globale frøhvelv, Svalbard Global Seed Vault in my language, is on Spitsbergen, an island in the Svalbard archipelago.

The Nordic Gene Bank, NGB, has been storing seeds there since 1984. As of February of this year, the vault holds 930,821 seed samples. Each sample is 500 seeds from a particular plant.

The idea is to be a backup for national gene banks. That’s a good idea, since accidents happen. Also mismanagement, funding cuts, natural disasters, and wars. Flooding damaged the Philippines seed bank, followed by a fire that wiped out the rest.

Afghanistan and Iraq had seed banks before some folks started running terrorism headquarters on their territory. Folks in other parts of the world, including my country, didn’t approve. I can’t say that I blame them. Us.

I’d like to live in a world where St. John Paul II’s “civilization of love” existed. Small wonder that informed Catholics and the Catholic Church scare some folks spitless. All this talk about competence and love threatens a great many status quos:

“…As long as the danger of war remains and there is no competent and sufficiently powerful authority at the international level, governments cannot be denied the right to legitimate defense once every means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted….”
(“Gaudium et Spes,” Pope Bl. Paul VI (December 7, 1965))

“…The answer to the fear which darkens human existence at the end of the twentieth century is the common effort to build the civilization of love, founded on the universal values of peace, solidarity, justice, and liberty….”
(“To the United Nations Organization,”5 Pope St. John Paul II (October 5, 1995))

We’re not there yet, but we’re working on it. Maybe we’ll have the job done by the 42nd century. Sooner, if enough folks decide it’s important. (January 22, 2017; November 29, 2016; October 30, 2016; September 25, 2016)

Spitsbergen: Good Place for a Seed Vault


((C) British Broadcasting Corporation, used w/o permission.)

Svalbard Global Seed Vault started as a coal mine, and is a reasonably good location for a seed bank.

Spitsbergen is geologically stable at the moment, and well above worst-case scenarios for high sea levels if Earth’s polar caps melt.

The area’s permafrost makes maintaining cold storage easier, and the vault is refrigerated. Since the vault’s main function is to keep backup copies of seeds from other vaults safe, being halfway between Norway and the north pole isn’t an issue.6

If the vault’s purpose was giving humanity a fighting chance to recover from a global catastrophe, I’d be concerned.

At the moment, Spitsbergen is habitable: by polar foxes and bears, reindeer, tough birds, and humans. we tried stocking the island with arctic hare and muskoxen, but apparently the foxes, bears, and cold, were too much for them.

Island life can’t be all that difficult, though. At least one luckless southern vole arrived in 1960, hitching a ride with a hay shipment to Grumant.

The town was established in 1912. Humans abandoned the site in 1965, but descendants of the voles are still there.

Where was I? Glaciers, oxygen, seeds, Svalbard. Right.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault is about 1,300 kilometers from Earth’s north pole, well north of the arctic circle.

With today’s technology and economy, it’s quite accessible.

If we were dealing with a global or regional catastrophe, I’m not so sure. Even today, with a moderately healthy global economy, Spitsbergen is a tad remote.

Reducing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide: What if We Succeed?


(From Lisiecki and Raymo (2005), via Wikimedia Commons; under GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later; used w/o permission.)

Journalistic enthusiasm for the ‘doomsday vault’ angle started me thinking about what we could be facing, if the ‘coming ice age’ of my youth had panned out. And was imminent.

I don’t think it’s an immediate threat, but a little speculation shouldn’t do any harm.

Svalbard’s fjords, valleys, and mountains, owe their shape to massive ice sheets that form during each of the current ice age’s glacial periods.

The current cycle of continental glacial advance and melting started about 2,580,000 years ago. The most recent interglacial cycle started roughly 12,000 years back.7

The warm spell won’t last. There’s no reason to panic, though.

We don’t fully understand what starts ice ages, why they end, and why glacial periods come and go during an ice age — but we think we’ve found some of the answers.

How much carbon dioxide is in Earth’s atmosphere is almost certainly one factor.

Remembering the Killer Fog


(From Robert A. Rohde, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere: the most recent 400,000 years.)

Carbon dioxide is the carbonic acid gas Lord Kelvin mentioned. That graph shows a pretty good match between how much carbon dioxide is in Earth’s atmosphere, and how small Earth’s polar caps are.

I’m a bit dubious when someone plots data from a complex system, and one end looks like an asymptotic curve.

In this case, though, I figure the curve is fairly accurate.

As for how we know exactly how much carbon dioxide was in the air before we were taking measurements: we don’t.

Not exactly. But we have increasingly-accurate estimates, based on analysis of rocks, fossils: and, of course, coal.

That spike in carbon dioxide levels corresponds pretty well to when we started burning coal and oil in wholesale lots. London’s killer fog doesn’t, I think, tell us that technology will kill us all and we should stop using it.

It’s the sort of thing that happens when we forget that part of our job is taking care of this place. (February 10, 2017)

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, so we’re pretty sure that Earth gets warmer when there’s more in the air. It’s not that simple, though.

Estimates and the Little Ice Age


(From Robert A. Rohde, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(A reconstruction of recent temperatures, from tree rings and other data.)

I don’t know where the scientific consensus is today on Milankovitch cycles and how they relate to long-term climate change.

I’d be mildly surprised if fluctuations in Earth’s orbit didn’t affect our planet. The connection(s) aren’t particularly obvious, though. Not yet.

Earth’s continents keep shifting around, which affects ocean and air currents. There’s a pretty clear correlation between the Tibetan plateau growing and the current ice age.

Having a large land mass over one of the poles is almost certainly a factor, too.

Volcanoes, a major source of effluvia, aren’t going off at a constant rate. A single eruption might not have a big effect. But lots of eruptions, over geologically-significant periods, probably would.

As if all that wasn’t enough, our star is slightly variable.

It may be pure coincidence that the Maunder Minimum happened during the Little Ice Age’s coldest years. My guess is that there’s a connection, and it’s hard to imagine that a prolonged cold spell on Earth would affect our sun.

Current estimates are just that: estimates. We’ve started learning what makes Earth’s climate work, and we have a very great deal left to learn.

It looks like we have between about 15,000 to 50,000 years before the next round of glaciers starts. How long we have is partly up to us.

The low estimate assumes that we succeed in pulling carbon dioxide in the atmosphere down from its current 400 parts per million (ppm) to 210 ppm.

The high estimate assumes boosting the number to 750 ppm.

Nobody seems eager to push atmospheric carbon dioxide up to what was normal 100,000,000 to 200,000,000 years ago, perhaps understandably.

Or maybe that’s what it it’ll take to keep continental glaciers from grinding over Europe, Siberia, and North America.

Doomsday Vaults: A Suggestion


(From Robert A. Rohde, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)

Since earnest folks say they want to drop carbon dioxide levels, 1,300 kilometers from the north pole is not where I’d want a “doomsday vault.”

Happily, that’s not what NGB has in mind.

My choice, if we were looking at either melting ice caps or onset of the next glacial period, wouldn’t be just one location.

Either way, I’d want the vaults to be above the highest predicted shoreline, easy to reach, and on fairly stable ground. Earthquake-prone locales like coastal California or Nepal would be poor choices. And, in the case of Nepal, one of the first places we’d lose.

If we were closer to the next glacial period, I’d say our best bet would be to put vaults in Tanzania, India, Brazil, and China. Setting something up in North America would probably be a waste of resources.

A major design issue, I think, would be making the vaults self-contained and self-maintaining on a scale of centuries to millennia.

Once that’s done, I’m not sure how we’d make them safe from folks looking for a quick meal and nothing more: and not so secure that folks with no power tools couldn’t get in.

Finally, making durable records shouldn’t be difficult. Baked clay and stone carvings are very stable. The trick will be to have the records in languages that folks can understand, a few millennia after literacy is a nearly-lost skill.

I’d suggest something along the lines of a picture-story, carved onto a rock at least ten meters on a side. That way it’s not likely to get lost or buried.

Based on what happened in the last glaciation, the Old South would have some of North America’s best climate: taiga. Hunting and trapping would probably be the best bet for folks who couldn’t get out.

In any case, we’ve got a long time to get ready. Considering how much we need to learn and set up, that’s probably just as well.

I’m not terribly serious about this, but it was an interesting exercise in planning. I strongly suspect that we will decide that preventing the next glaciation makes sense by the time it’s an issue. We may know how to do it safely.

3. Antarctica’s Glaciers: (still) Cracking


(From T.Ronge/AWI, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Ice giants of Antarctica: The Polarstern research vessel is almost 120m in length”
(BBC News))

“Decoding Antarctica’s response to a warming world”
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (May 19, 2017)

“A tangle of tubes, cables, and actuators – Mebo looks as though it could morph at any moment into one of those Transformer robots from the movies.

“The 10-tonne machine is in fact a seabed drilling system, and a very sophisticated one at that.

“Deployed over the side of any large ship but driven remotely from onboard, it’s opening up new opportunities to take sediment samples from the ocean floor….”

I don’t think the Antarctic ice cap is about to slide into the sea, triggering city-killing tsunamis, flooding Uckfield in East Sussex, and loosing mere anarchy upon a doomed world.

I talked about a cracking Antarctic ice shelf in January. At the time, I thought it was interesting. Also that moving Halley base made sense. (January 20, 2017)

Getting flustered by a recurring natural phenomenon doesn’t seem reasonable. Learning more about how Earth’s climate works does.

Like I said, I don’t think we’re looking at an impending global catastrophe. Glaciers have been sliding into the ocean since before fire was the latest thing in domestic technology. But there’s no sense in ignoring what’s happening.

Aristotle, God, and 1277

From Eric Gaba, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.Aristotle — I said I’d get back to him — wasn’t wrong about everything. He wasn’t always right, either.

He argued against the possibility of a void, for example, in “Physics.”

He had a point, given his views about the nature of reality. And he was wrong. But not entirely.

We produced the first artificial vacuum in the 1600s. The Magdeburg hemispheres are still shown in physics textbooks.

On the other hand, we’re learning that a vacuum state isn’t empty, and quantum fluctuation is yet again another topic.

Book VIII of “Physics” argues, quite reasonably, that the universe must have always existed. Again, that made sense, given what Aristotle knew and how he thought reality worked. He figured matter must have always existed.

Otherwise matter would have come into existence and begun to move, or have existed in an eternal state of rest before beginning to move. Aristotle thought either option was impossible, because he defined coming into existence as a “motion.”

About a millennium back, the Church reminded overly-insistent academics that God decides how the universe works: not Aristotle. Proposition 27/219 of 1277 is among my favorite examples of common sense. (May 5, 2017; December 2, 2016)

Reassuring as a steady-state, unchanging, eternal, universe might be: that’s not what we’ve been discovering.

Sampling a Climate Archive


(From T.Ronge/AWI, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“An operator onboard the Polarstern directs MeBo’s actions at the seabed”
(BBC News))

“…The goal was to retrieve seafloor sediments that would reveal the behaviour of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) in previous warm phases. To read the future in the past.

“‘Has the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed before? Is that the scenario we should expect in the next couple of hundred years?’ pondered project leader Karsten Gohl from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI).

“‘Perhaps in some of these warm periods it has only partially collapsed, just a few portions of it. Or maybe the WAIS was hardly affected in those times. We hope we can understand this better by collecting samples because basically the sediments are a climate archive.’…”
(Jonathan Amos, BBC News)

“We hope we can understand this better” expresses what I think is a healthy attitude.

I’m a Christian and a Catholic, so I don’t worship nature. That’d be a bad idea. Recognizing nature as something we can study, learning more about our home is a good idea. It’s part of being human. Or should be. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 282–283, 2112–2114, 2293–2295)

I don’t “believe in” climate change, global cooling, or isostatic rebound. Not in the sense that I expect any natural process to give me meaning and purpose. I do, however, think that reality is real: and that using our brains is better than the alternative.

4. Whirligig Icebergs


(From Atlas of Submarine Glacial Landforms, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Ploughmarks formed by unusually flat-bottomed icebergs in the central Barents Sea (Red is 240m water depth; purple is 248m)”
(BBC News))

“Iceberg ‘doodles’ trace climate history”
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (April 25, 2017)

“It is as if a child has been doodling with large coloured crayons.

“What you see are actually the great gouge marks left on the seafloor when the keel of a giant block of ice has dragged through the sediments.

“The arcs and loops record the movement of the berg as it turns about, caught in the wind, currents and tides….”

Is this atlas the work of more than 250 scientists from 20 countries, as BBC News claims?

Or is it a cunning snare for the unwary, yet another plot by the shape-shifting space-alien lizard-men who rule the world?!!!!!

Sorry about that. I haven’t been sleeping well this week, and it’s catching up with me.

I’ve talked about conspiracy theories, space-alien reptilians, and getting a grip, before. And no, I do not think England’s royal family are aliens. (May 14, 2017; December 23, 2016)

Still, those squiggles look a (very) little like some Asian scripts. Gouges on the Barrent Sea floor reminded me of crop circles, and that’s still another topic.

Seriously, Though


(From Atlas of Submarine Glacial Landforms, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“An iceberg ploughmark showing rotation, from the central Barents Sea (Red is 240m water depth; purple is 252m)”
(BBC News))

“…’We now have a critical mass of high-resolution imagery, of the imprints left by the action of ice,’ explained Dr Kelly Hogan, one the collection’s editors from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

“‘We can see where the ice has been and what it’s done, and this allows us to compare and contrast. Looking at what has happened in the past can help us understand what may happen in the future with modern ice sheets as they respond to climate change.’ …”

“…And flicking through the book, it is clear that not all ice action has been constrained to today’s polar waters…..”
(Jonathan Amos, BBC News)

I think Dr. Hogan is right. This is some of the most detailed imagery of Earth’s seafloor we’ve made. I’m sure that studying it will “…help us understand what may happen….”

Some images show features made during the most recent glaciation. At least one set, in Libya’s Murzuq Basin, are about 450,000,000 years old: made when what’s now north Africa was over Earth’s south pole.

The BBC News article has more pictures from the atlas. Quite a part from their scientific value, I think they look cool.

Literacy: a Luxury for a More Civilized Age


(From Lommes, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(The Late Bronze Age Collapse: destroyed cities and refugees, about 32 centuries back.)

We don’t know what triggered the Late Bronze Age Collapse.

Theories include climate change, volcanoes and drought.

Ironworking, a new technology, may have disrupted traditional economic and military systems. Infantry equipped with mass-produced bronze weapons may have made military chariots obsolete.

Illiteracy became common, which may help explain why tales of the Trojan War are a mix of fact and imagination.

Like I said, we don’t know what went wrong. My guess is that there wasn’t just one cause.

Whatever happened, the results were catastrophic. Unburied corpses littered the burned-out ruins of once-thriving cities. Survivors were on the move, hoping to find new homes. Trade routes were abandoned.

Troy was destroyed at least twice. My guess is that we have so few records from that era, and before, because most folks were busy trying to not die. Literacy was a luxury for a more civilized age. (April 30, 2017; November 4, 2016)

A genetics study of subsaharan African populations showed that quite a few folks moved there around that time. I think it’s likely that quite a few refugees didn’t stop running until they’d gotten past Egypt, and either couldn’t or wouldn’t go back.

We haven’t endured anything quite like that since, happily.

Change and Frost Fairs

I strongly suspect that coping with the unexpected depends on a willingness to drop the ‘we’ve never done it that way’ attitude, and use our brains.

The Little Ice Age, about five centuries back, could have have been very bad news.

As it was, folks in China changed Jiangxi Province’s agricultural practices, and life went on.

Europeans decided to have fun ice skating, making events like the River Thames frost fairs possible.

It wasn’t all fun and games: but we adjusted without a civilization-breaking collapse. We didn’t have the social and political issues plaguing the Roman Empire, a thousand years before that.

Those were the ‘good old days’ when barbarians — an ancient-Mediterranean view of folks like me — moved east and south. We had really bad weather during 535-536.

My ancestors may have been among the barbarians who took over Roman land. More likely, they were the folks pushing them south.

The “barbarians” eventually started building Gothic cathedrals, steam engines and spaceships, and I’m wandering off-topic again.

Another climate shift, the 4.2 kiloyear event, wreaked havoc. So did the 5.9 and 8.2 kiloyear events.

Getting back to the Late Bronze Age collapse — It was – – –

– – – the End of Civilization As They Knew It

Quite a bit changed after the Late Bronze Age collapse. Mostly for the better, I think, on average. And after much rebuilding.

I’m pretty sure many folks weren’t happy about the changes. Not at the time.

Egypt’s Twenty-second and Twenty-third dynasties were immigrant families. New smelting tech made iron tools and weapons affordable, King Wu of Zhou founded the Zhou dynasty, and Saul became the first king of of a united Israel.

Folks on the Aegean peninsula re-learned writing from the Phoenicians, They eventually formed self-governing communities which would give us Plato, Socrates, and the Peloponnesian War, although not in that order.

Folks running the Roman Republic got fed up with Greek politics, starting around the time Empress Lü Zhi set off the Ying Bu rebellion by having Han Xin killed.

Greece would have become part of the Roman Empire shortly after Rome ended the Third Punic War by obliterating Carthage, but Rome was still the Republic.

Carthage was on a good site for a city, so Romans built a Roman Carthage, and other folks built Tunis, currently home to about 2,700,000.

Augustus sorted the Roman Empire out of a mess made by the Roman Senate, my view. The Empire dissolved about fifteen centuries back, that brings me back to today.

About the Late Bronze Age Collapse, the eastern Mediterranean was a mess for some time.

Kaskians, Phrygians and Arameans roamed and raided where the Hittite Empire had been. Great cities like Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit in ruins. It’s no surprise that many farmers moved back to Africa, and stayed there.

The University of Cambridge’s Dr. Andrea Manica says that about a quarter of the folks living in East Africa back then were immigrants: mostly from western Eurasia.8

Weather Modification: Uncertain Results


(From National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.)
(Black Hills Flood of 1972: jumbled cars.)

In the early 20th century, some “experts” were sure that weather modification was a foolish waste of time — or a fraud.

I can see their viewpoint. They hadn’t learned how to make it rain when they got their degrees. How could these young whippersnappers and bunko artists possibly be right?

Objections weren’t entirely of the ‘not invented here’ variety. Folks like Wilhelm Reich and his cloudbuster made weather modification seem less than plausible.

Around 1960, even “experts” started acknowledging that cloud seeding might work. Large-scale weather modification in the near future was a real possibility when I went through high school.

Living in the upper Midwest, I took notice of plans that focused on bringing rain to growing crops — and keeping the fields dry during planting and harvest.

Then the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences tested a newish cloud seeding technique on a storm west of Rapid City, South Dakota.

The experiment’s results were — legally unverified.

The storm grew. Torrential rain filled Rapid Creek and other waterways past their banks. Water backed up behind the Canyon Lake Dam: which underwent catastrophic failure during the night of June 9, 1972.

Rescue and recovery teams eventually found most of the bodies, and the debris has long since been cleared away.

The flood killed 238 people, injured 3,057, destroying more than 1,335 homes and 5,000 automobiles.

It wasn’t all bad news. We reviewed what happened, and why.

That led to new disaster response procedures, and today many municipalities won’t let folks build houses or motels where a flood will eventually happen.

Another bit of good news: Nobody hunted down and lynched the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences folks.

The last I heard, there wasn’t enough evidence that their cloud seeding experiment made the storm get nasty. It was a remarkable coincidence, though.

As I recall, public discussion of weather modification stopped — rather abruptly. Understandably, I suppose. It didn’t help that the earlier unthinking optimism about science and technology was rapidly morphing into the current angst.

Not Lords of Creation: Stewards


(From Adam Varga, via DeviantArt.com, used w/o permission.)

I think both unconsidered optimism and its morose opposite are unreasonable: and a bit silly.

That’s partly because I remember the ‘good old days,’ and have been living in ‘the future’ for quite a while.

The ‘world of tomorrow’ is not nearly as shiny and perfect, or dreadful and brown, as some folks hoped or feared.

But for all the unfinished business we deal with, I would rather live now than in some earlier era.

We have learned a great deal. Many are eager to learn more.

I think this is a good thing.

We’re rational creatures whose nature includes curiosity. We’re supposed to notice the world’s beauty and order, learn its natural laws, and use that knowledge: wisely. (Genesis 1:26–27, 2:7; Catechism, 16, 341, 373, 1704, 1730–1731, 2293)

Part of our job is managing this world and its resources: for our reasoned use, and for future generations. (Catechism, 2415–2418, 2456)

Some folks, at least from the 19th through early 20th centuries, acted as if we were the ‘lords of creation,’ able to do what we like with the natural world.

The attitude had a tiny measure of truth.

“4 What are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them?
“5 Yet you have made them little less than a god, crowned them with glory and honor.”
(Psalms 8:4–6)

but “little less than a god” isn’t “God.”

Our “dominion” is not ownership.

God owns this place. We’re stewards. We have the authority — and responsibilities — attached to that position. (Genesis 1:29, 2:15; Catechism, 306–308, 2293)

Increasingly-effective tools made the Green Revolution possible: and killer fog.

Like I said, we don’t know if a weather control experiment caused the lethal 1972 Rapid City flood.

We don’t know that it didn’t, either, which I think has led to a sensibly-cautious approach. We haven’t given up on weather modification, which is why several international agreements made since then deal with sharing research results.

We’ve learned quite a bit about weather, and Earth’s long-term climate changes. We have a very great deal left to learn. I suspect, and hope, that researchers will remember that we’re living on the only planet where we can field-test climate modification technology.

Miscalculating the effects of climate modification tech could, in principle, cause a lot more trouble than the Rapid City storm.

However — fearing science and technology isn’t reasonable. Learning wisdom is. (February 10, 2017; January 20, 2017; August 5, 2016; July 22, 2016)

We have much more to learn:

1 Earth’s ice ages:

2 The manure crisis:

3 Still learning:

4 Brains and energy:

5 A civilization of love:

6 The “doomsday vault” and Spitsbergen:

7 The current ice age, and Earth’s atmosphere:

8 Ancient refugees:

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Death in Manchester

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Brian H. Gill


(From European Press Agency , via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Thousands attended a vigil in Manchester earlier”
(BBC News)

Manchester is England’s second-largest urban center, in terms of population.

At around 10:30 Monday night, something like 21,000 folks — preteens, teenagers, adults — were leaving a music concert at the Manchester Arena. Someone with a bomb set it off in or near the arena’s foyer.

He’s dead. So are more than 20 other folks.

Except for the chap who killed them, the dead had been enjoying an Ariana Grande concert. The youngest victims I’ve read about were eight years old.

Quite a few others are injured. Some are missing.

I am not happy about this, putting it mildly.

Some Guy With a Bomb

The UK’s government raised their terror threat level to “critical,” the highest it’ll go.

That’s apparently because they can’t be sure that last night’s attack was a one-man show.

Under the circumstances, that seems reasonable.

It looks like the bomber had been born in Manchester, went to the city’s Salford University, supported Manchester United football team, and worked in a bakery. He’s Libyan, in the sense that his ancestors lived in Libya.

A trustee of the Manchester Islamic Centre said the bomber probably had been there. That’d hardly be surprising, since that’s where his father goes.

The trustee also pointed out that his mosque was, as BBC news put it, “a moderate, modern, liberal mosque, and he is a member of an organisation liaising with police, the Independent Advisory Group.”

Based on what’s in the news, I do not think that England should lock up all bakery workers, outlaw universities, and banish folks with Libyan ancestry.

My guess is that many or most most Libyans and Muslims living in England are as upset about what the now-dead ex-student did, as I was back when the IRA was giving “Irish” a bad name.

Manchester, 1996: IRA Bombing

I’m a Norwegian-Irish-Scots-American. My ancestors don’t define me, but without them I wouldn’t be here.

The point of that reminiscence is that news from the UK had a personal angle for me a few decades back. I was disgusted by what some folks were doing to my ancestral homeland’s reputation.

On June 15, 1996, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, or IRA, set off a truck bomb in Manchester.

Nobody was killed; thanks partly to the IRA telephoning ahead with a warning, and partly because the powers that be helped with an evacuation of about 75,000 folks.1

The IRA wasn’t always that careful. Or lucky. In any case, although I am not happy about what English monarchs have done to my ancestral homeland, I don’t think bombing English cities is a reasonable response.

That sort of thing is not even close to matching the criteria for legitimate defense. I’ve talked about that before. (September 20, 2016; September 11, 2016)

Love and Justice

I don’t know anyone in Manchester, and I’m not an Ariana Grande fan. I have nothing against her music: I simply don’t know much about it, or her.

Why should I care?

I’m a Christian, and a Catholic. Part of my job as a citizen is contributing “to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom.” (Catechism, 2239)

My country and people, like the UK, are part of a big world. We are one of the places folks try to reach, when they flee death and poverty. I don’t mind. I’ll be worried if folks ever stop trying to come here.

Like I said, I’m a Christian and a Catholic.

Since I take our Lord seriously, I think loving God, loving my neighbor, and seeing everybody as my neighbor, makes sense. (Matthew 22:36–40, Mark 12:28–31; Matthew 5:43–44; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 10:25–30; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1825)

“Everybody” means everybody.

I keep saying this: I think human beings are people, all human beings. Each of us has equal dignity: no matter where we are, who we are, or how we act. (Catechism, 360, 1700–1706, 1929, 1932–1933, 1935, 2334)

Since I think respecting the “transcendent dignity” of humanity makes sense, I must work for justice — “as far as possible.” (Catechism, 1915, 1929–1933, 2820)

In my case, that’s pretty much limited to writing these posts, and suggesting that justice should not be all about “just us.”

And that’s another topic, for another day.

More, mostly about acting like love matters:

1 Manchester in the news:

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