Gored to Death

I'm over Al Gore, and I'm over climate change.

I've been over it all for a while, but watching the first half of the Academy Awards last night (because who aside from filmmakers could possibly sit through the whole thing!), I've decided I'm really over it, in a huge way. There's nothing quite like Hollywood sycophancy to create that sick feeling in the stomach, so here's to Leonardo DiCaprio for making (I hope) millions of sick-feeling sceptics across the world with his fawning butt kissing (I wasn't aware one could fawn and butt kiss at the same time, but now I've seen it, I know it is). And there's nothing that convinces me more of the need for scepticism than a movement that insists that scepticism is dangerous. Thus, when a movement creates a term like 'climate change deniers', with all the evil subtext implied, they immediately create a new enemy -- me.

The difference between a denier and a sceptic is very important, and it's a classic propagandist tactic to blur the line between the two. A 'sceptic' implies someone who has not yet been convinced either way, because he's keeping an open mind, and refuses to jump to conclusions simply because the surrounding mass hysteria insists that he should. A 'denier' implies someone who has a closed mind, because he denies an obvious truth. The problem, of course, is that in very few complex global issues, particularly in something as mind boggling complex and evolving as the science of planetary weather systems, does there exist anything that could be called 'obvious truth'. There is plenty of scientific scepticism out there still, if you care to look (and despite the efforts of many to insist it doesn't exist), just don't expect to see it publicised in the current hysterical mood. In previous eras, 'obvious truths' have included the earth being flat, the earth being the center of the solar system, and the earth having been made in seven days. Just because everyone believed these truths in their day didn't make them any more true. Thus, to try and crush open minded scepticism with the rhetorical tactic of branding all questioners as 'deniers' is pathetic, and should be opposed by free thinking people everywhere -- and by climate change believers most of all. I'm equally sceptical of claims of big corporate polluters that all that carbon released into the air doesn't do any harm. But just because I'm sceptical about that, doesn't mean I have to abandon scepticism of the opposing extreme.

In the pursuit of knowledge, scepticism shall always be more important than belief. Too many well intentioned climate change believers have forgotten that.

UPDATE: Janet Albrechtsen puts it more buntly here.

UPDATE 2: My pal and fellow Pyr author David Louis Edelman seems to agree.

UPDATE 3: On Dave's blog, a commenter casts doubt on my suggestion in comments that scientists in the '70s were warning of a coming ice age. This article from The Guardian in 2001, from Dr Alison George of the British Antarctic Survey makes interesting reading on that subject.

Library Journal Review of Breakaway

Here's my first American review of Breakaway, this one in the Library Journal:

In this action-packed sequel to Crossover (2006), Australian author Shepherd revisits the far-future multiracial capital city Tanusha, where two factions, the League and the Federation, war over the future of the planet Callay, and the enigmatic android heroine, Sandy, gets caught in between.

The personal complicates the political as the League sends a delegation, and Sandy, as ex-League, worries that they want her back even as the Tanushans fear that she'll suddenly switch sides. As the Federation and the League struggle for ascendancy, Sandy must learn to trust Ari and Ayako, a covert ops team looking for the Tanushan underground. Lurching from crisis to crisis, Sandy, for all her abilities, must learn to depend on others, even as she finds that her struggle is more than just a job-she now has something worth fighting for.

Beneath the glitz of snazzy weaponry, unstoppable heroes and byzantine political machinations is a very real struggle about the nature of humanity and trust. (Apr.)

George RR Martin on HBO

I'm pretty excited about the news that George RR Martin's fantasy series "A Song of Ice and Fire" is being made into an HBO series along the lines of one of my favorite TV series, Rome.

The best thing is that I'd already imagined something like this might happen, because as Martin says on his website, any attempt to make the series into a movie would have forced them to cut out eighty percent of the characters and plotlines. In some ways the books have been written like a TV series (which makes sense, given Martin's previous experience with TV), with one big world created, which contains numerous seperate plotlines, revolving around various characters who frequently never meet. You can't do that in films -- aside from the simple fact that there's not enough screen time in movies to portray all this stuff, all the characters must revolve around a central plotline for the film to make sense (unless you're making avant guard stuff, which this clearly isn't). So I'd already had the thought 'wouldn't it be cool if they made it into a TV series instead?' And the best TV series are at HBO.

A few things will be interesting to observe in development... like what the budget is. There are some scenes that will need to be cut back, of course -- Rome gets around the big battle scenes by largely skipping them, but I'm not sure you can do that in 'Ice and Fire'. Certainly they'll have to cut back a bit though. Seeing what they do for casting is always fun. Also, filming in Europe, or New Zealand? I'd guess NZ has better landscapes, and is cheaper... but you really need castles for 'Ice and Fire', so much of it takes place in castles. And that means Europe, probably France. The series is really based on feudal French culture anyway.

The really interesting thing will be to see if it's possible to bring fantasy, on TV, to a large audience. Rome isn't fantasy, but it tends to appeal to a similar audience, and it's apparently being cancelled after two seasons. Very expensive seasons, it's true, but I'm not sure 'Ice and Fire' will be much cheaper.

Weaponising Space

Here’s an interesting article by Rand Simberg on China’s anti-satelite missile test.

The first thing to notice about this whole affair is that any notion of keeping space demilitarised is silly. It’s a bit like someone in 1906, in the dawn of aviation, declaring that the skies should be kept free of military activity. In hindsight, it doesn’t seem that it was ever possible, and in the future, hindsight will inform us of pretty much the same thing in space.

Calls to demilitarise space are also a bit like calling to demilitarise Antarctica, in that they’re each based on the assumption that both places are extreme, inaccessible, and largely unnecessary to human civilisation. Because obviously, everywhere that has proven to be accessible and necessary (the skies, the oceans, most of the land) has been completely militarised, or at least potentially so. The thing that many people haven’t realised about space yet is that it’s only difficult to access today. Tomorrow is a different story.

Like Rand Simberg, I’m a believer in Newspace, the private space developments that will one day lower the cost of access to space enough that large portions of this planet’s population could afford to go. Now obviously, if individual citizens can afford it, the world’s various militaries will also be able to afford it. Space is already the ultimate high ground, invaluable for modern warfare of the kind currently practised by the USA, and increasingly elsewhere too. So what happens when the private space boom begins, and costs of access plummet for private and military sectors alike?

Okay just off the top of my head:

We’re already about to see an arms race in anti-satelite warfare, thanks to China’s test. Manoeuvring satellites will be countered by manoeuvring warheads, as each seeks to find a way to out-dodge the other. As Rand says, rapid replacement capability for satellites will be a must. Of course, it’s possible that someone could use a nuclear weapon in orbit to fry the circuitry of all kinds of satellites, but it would be unlikely a major power would do that, because a) they’d have their own satellites up there, and b) using nuclear weapons in a war, even in orbit, is a very serious escalation, and not very wise. But I guess it’s conceivable that a not-very-wise regime (North Korea, Iran, etc) with few of their own assets might try it. Or perhaps there will be EMP (electromagnetic pulse) weapons that could do the same thing, without the political ramifications of nukes. So what’s the defence against that?

Well, there’s the Star Wars missile anti-ballistic missile programs, which have now evolved into 'missile defence'. Today, they’re based on land, but conceivably you could base them in orbit, defending satellites. But then, it might just be cheaper to replace them once destroyed... no one’s really war-gamed these scenarios, and the technology’s not developed yet, so we really don’t know.

Then there’s the other applications. Popular Science has a story on the US Marines developing a sub-orbital vehicle that could insert a team of marines anywhere in the world within a couple of hours, thus avoiding overflight restrictions from uncooperative countries. Cool idea, but I don’t know that a spaceplane concept like the one illustrated would be practical -- how do you get them out again? A vertical takeoff, vertical landing vehicle like the one Jeff Bezos is making would seem far smarter, because it doesn’t need a runway, and can double as the extraction plan also. If the private space boom happens, this technology won’t remain the sole possession of America for long -- I’d put China, Russia and India on the shortlist to acquire similar technology pretty quickly.

If scramjets are fully developed, one day larger versions could transport whole infantry or armoured units to any location with an airstrip, saving half-a-day’s flight time if rapid reinforcement is required. As part of a transport fleet, such vehicles could reduce the amount of time required for a major build up like before Iraq Wars I and II. Other nations will likely wish to acquire the hypersonic missiles to shoot such vehicles down, and so it goes.

Then there’s the fun stuff. Imagine in the mid-future we have large space stations and moon colonies with quite a few people on them. They’d be ideal targets for terrorists, very visible, and quite vulnerable. You’d need teams of specially trained special forces troops who could retake such facilities, and rescue hostages. Yes, space commandos. I'm sure they'd be teased ragged by their ground pounder comrades, but there you go.

Lastly, there’s the longer-term future concept of nuclear powered interplanetary spacetravel. The thing with space is there's no drag, so acceleration is continuous, and velocity cumulative. The thing with nuclear powered spacecraft is that, like the nuclear powered warships of today, they'd only need to refuel every ten years or so (I think). So theoretically, if you burned its engines for a long time, you could make it go really, really fast. Maybe fast enough for a moderately-sized spacecraft to make a hole in the ground several kilometers wide, and bring on a nuclear-style winter. Something to think about, when figuring out the various control/navigation failsafes, and who has access to them.

I'm certain there will be plenty more. I just hope they all belong to the human species... at least in this solar system.