I got tagged by Peppermint on my Townhall blog (http://phoenix-rising.townhall.com) and had to come up with six "weird" things about myself, as well as tag six other folks. That was fun! Not only that, but it certainly got the attention of fellow bloggers about me and my work on space development and settlement, because I borrowed Don Davis' painting showing the interior of a Stanford Torus and posted it in that entry.

 

Meanwhile, the debate over Kim Peart's proposed campaign to educate large numbers of Earth's population about the value of space development and settlement continues apace at the SSAC online. The problem was that Kim is gravely concerned about Global Warming and its likely effects on the world economy. I inadvertantly sparked a "loud" discussion about just how serious the threat from Global Warming actually is. My take is that a.) climate change happens, b.) while humankind probably has contributed something to the process, our contribution is tiny compared to non-human controlled contributing factors such as the Sun's energy output, the shape of Earth's orbit, and the angle and direction of tilt of the Earth's rotational axis. And c.) we'd be far better off to plan on adapting as needed, using the free market to encourage human ingenuity, than to struggle to freeze things to a steady state by killing the economic freedom of the US. Global warming may or may not be real in the scientific sense, but as a political movement, it is both real and very dangerous because it's a badly disguised excuse for socialism. The Chinese and Indians can pollute all they like because they're exempt from the Kyoto Accords, but the US is supposed to destroy its economy in a draconian effort to return our output of greenhouse gases to pre-2000 levels? What's wrong with this picture?

 

Be that as it may, the fire fight seems to be dying down some, for the moment. I made the comment fairly late in the debate that I'd love to see everyone on both sides put as much energy and passion into why we should settle space as they did into whether global warming is real and dangerous or nothing but a lot of hot air. We'll see if anyone takes me seriously.

 

Al Globus, chair of the committee, made an interesting comment to me in a private email that space development doesn't actually have any short term answers to the problem of global warming. I told him it didn't need to have short term answers because what it does provide is hope of escape, not only from global warming, but also all the other conflicts in the world. It is the third alternative, and if presented as such, in a positive manner, has the potential to cut off debate on almost every other problem in favor of working together on this bigger challenge.

 

I believe it was Albert Einstein who pointed out that nothing seen as a problem can be solved on its own level of logic. You have to move up to the next level of logic in order to see solutions to any given problem. All of the major conflicts in the world are a consequence of the need for a frontier. The third alternative to the wars in Europe during the 15th and 16th Centuries was the exploration and settlement of the Americas. The third alternative to the wars and threat of nuclear warfare in this century is the exploration and settlement of the Solar System. It's this message that we need to share with all the passion in us.

 

And Bart Leahy, another member of the SSAC, proposes to do just that with a book called "A Shining City." I expect to be providing a lot of encouragement and commentary to him over the next few months as he works on this project. I'll keep everyone posted on his progress from time to time.

 

Meanwhile, I recently got a Casio WK8000 88 key keyboard workstation and can now do some serious music composition and development. I've already started developing a couple of my space songs into pieces that can form the cores of music videos once I get my super system rebuilt so I can do the video development. It's my hope to have at least one of these two songs, preferably both, available for ISDC '07 in Dallas, after which I plan to make them available for download from Phoenix Lady's Nest, along with my novels. Who knows, maybe there's a new career for me in multimedia productions.

 

So far, 2007 shows every evidence of being a very interesting year for me and for space development and settlement. Keep checking this space for more updates.