Cerium Requirements to Split One Billion Tons of Carbon Dioxide, the Nuclear v Solar Thermal cases.

[defacto7]

2. Fascinating II

The detail in your entries always fascinates me. It's not just the mass of information but the layers of depth that most don't dig into, and in that depth lie answers that make the difference between what's real and what's popular. It's almost like there's a layer of propaganda that meets the needs of the semi-intelligent progressive layered just above the life and death reality of science like a wall people fear to pass. Half-baked information looks good, feels good, it meets the needs of the hopeful and the pocketbooks of the entrepreneur but what lies below is the realm of those who want to really know what is ahead of us and how to proceed (a purposeful split infinitive).

I was hiking yesterday in Arches National Park in a section called The Fiary Furnace. It's a labyrinth of geological fins of colosal purportions, quite dangerous and has a most delicate ecology. There are very limited markers and getting lost is almost part of the adventure. There is a limit to the number allowed in and it requires a permit and a lecture by a park ranger to enter. While hiking, I met a man who looked like me, about my age, but who was probably my exact opposite. I noticed he had no permit. He was lost fumbling through the maze and complaining that there were no directions. I told him how to follow certain markers that would lead him out and to be careful of the delicate growth. He sneered and said he wasn't going out and that no one "can tell him what to walk on" and he went the wrong way. I didn't get to tell him that if he steps on the black-crusted cryptobiotic soil going in that direction he could slip and fall down cliffs in several places. Sigh...

Sorry for getting philosophical and a bit off topic, but I just wonder sometimes how a person of experience and intellect like yourself views hope. You know of science what I can only trust. I would like to hear how you see the path we're on as a species. Some of us look for the way out of a dilemma while some are stubbornly stupid. I hope I'm the former.

D7