If Covid-19 doesn't kill us, climate change will be 'environmental Armageddon', world leaders warn UN

 Few pledges have emerged at UN General Assembly this year, aside from China’s announcement it aims to have carbon dioxide emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060

If the coronavirus pandemic doesn’t kill us, world leaders warned the United Nations this week, then the climate crisis is “environmental Armageddon".

The dire warning at the UN General Assembly came from leaders in all corners of the world: In island nations where they are at risk of being submerged by rising sea levels to central Africa where temperature increases are expected to be 1.5 times higher than the world average.

The annual meeting of world leaders is taking place largely virtually this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Along with the global health criss, ministers pointed to the increasing red alerts from nature.

“We are already seeing a version of environmental Armageddon,” Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said, citing wildfires in the American west and noting that the Greenland ice chunk was larger than a number of island nations.

This was meant to be the year “we took back our planet,” he said. 

Instead, the coronavirus has diverted resources and attention from what could have been the marquee issue at this UN gathering. Meanwhile, the UN global climate summit has been postponed to late 2021.

That hasn’t stopped countries, from slowly sinking island nations to parched African ones, from speaking out.

“In another 75 years, many ... members may no longer hold seats at the United Nations if the world continues on its present course,” the Alliance of Small Island States and the Least Developed Countries Group said.

In 2015, the majority of nations signed the Paris Climate Accord with the aim to limit global temperature rise to well below 2C (3.6F) above the pre-industrial age. However climate scientists say that with current global trends, the planet is on track to soar past that.

A new study found that if the world warms another 0.9C (1.6F), the West Antarctic ice sheet will reach a point of irreversible melting. It has enough water to raise global sea levels by 5 metres (16 feet).

World powers cannot shirk their financial commitments to fighting climate change during the pandemic, Remengesau said, even as economies are battered.

But few pledges have emerged at the UN gathering, aside from China’s announcement that it aims to have carbon dioxide emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

The pandemic has muted the UN meeting, with world leaders speaking not from the podium in New York but via video from home. That has sapped the urgency of diplomacy and left nations wondering just how many people are listening.

Amid concerns that the world is distracted, it was perhaps no surprise that the student-led movement Fridays for Future returned to the streets this week for the first major demonstrations for climate action in months.

Still, island nations have seized on the unusual circumstances to show off what’s at stake.

The prime minister of Tuvalu, Kausea Natano, delivered his UN speech with a vista of turquoise waters and swaying fronds behind him that instantly fired the imaginations of house-bound viewers.

But the prime minister quickly shattered any dreams. While Tuvalu is free of the coronavirus, the pandemic struck as the island nation was recovering from a pair of tropical cyclones — storms that scientists say are likely to become wetter as the planet warms.

Tuvalu’s highest point is just a few meters (yards) above sea level. The pandemic’s effect on the movement of goods exposed food insecurity as local agriculture becomes more difficult with rising sea levels, Natano said.

“While COVID-19 is our immediate crisis, climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and well-being of the Pacific and its peoples in the long run,” the prime minister said.

From the Marshall Islands, also free of Covid-19, President David Kabua used the virus’s example to plead for more help now.

“Change relies on protecting the most vulnerable, because those on the frontline – whether healthcare workers battling the pandemic or small island nations sounding the alarm on climate change – are critical to the survival of us all,” he said.

“Small island and atoll nations like mine do not have time for paper promises,” Kabua added.

Urgent pleas also came from Africa, which contributes least to global warming but stands to suffer from it the most.

“In favoring solutions based on the respect for nature, we’re also preserving the health of our peoples,” said President Issoufou Mahamadou of Niger, part of the Sahel region south of the Sahara desert where temperature increases are expected to be 1.5 times higher than the world average.

“Our global home that was teeming with millions of species of God-given creatures, both great and small, is slowly dying,” said Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who last year noted that his country was the only one in Africa to reach the goal of making renewable energy 75% of its energy mix.

He added: “Our world is yearning for us to stop its ruin.”

(Source: The Independent)

Earth-skimming meteoroid dipped 56 miles into the atmosphere over the Netherlands and Germany before returning to space

 A meteoroid was captured skimming Earth's atmosphere for a few seconds above Germany and the Netherlands before returning on its journey through space.

Astronomers spotted the bright cosmic object streaking across the night sky on September 22, as is dipped 56 miles in altitude - lower than any satellites orbiting Earth.

The video was shot at 11:53pm ET and shows the meteoroid covering a path of more than 499 miles as it sunk into our atmosphere for 19 seconds.

More than 100 people reported seeing the meteoroid and shared images they snapped of the event

Researchers from Western University traced it to a Jupiter-family orbit, but was unable to identify matches of potential parent bodies.

The September 22 event, although lasting just 19 seconds, left those on the ground in awe as they witnessed the spaced rock streak through the night sky.

The video was taken by the Global Meteor Network (GMN), which is a team of amateur astronomers who have cameras all over the world to capture such occasions.

Pictured is a graph showing the more than 466 mile path the meteoroid took as it skimmed Earth's atmosphere

The September 22 event, although lasting just 19 seconds, left those on the ground in awe as they witnessed the spaced rock streak through the night sky.

The video was taken by the Global Meteor Network (GMN), which is a team of amateur astronomers who have cameras all over the world to capture such occasions.

Tens of thousands of meteorites have been found on Earth, yet, of these only about 40 can be traced back to a parent asteroid or asteroidal source.

A study conducted by Harvard speculates that an Earth skimming asteroid may have taken life to Venus, which is based on the 2017 meteor that was spotted over Australia.

The team believes this meteor could have collected up some 10,000 microbial colonies from our world and carried it to another.

Researchers from Western University traced it to a Jupiter-family orbit, but was unable to identify matches of potential parent bodies

The study notes that over the last 3.7 billion years, at least 600,000 space rocks that dipped into Earth's atmosphere have a collided with Venus.

'Although the abundance of terrestrial life in the upper atmosphere is unknown, these planet-grazing shepherds could have potentially been capable of transferring microbial life between the atmospheres of Earth and Venus,' the Harvard study reads.

'As a result, the origin of possible Venusian life may be fundamentally indistinguishable from that of terrestrial life.'

Previous research determined that life is found up to an altitude of 43 miles from the surface.

Earth-grazing asteroids can dip 52 miles without experiencing significant heating – another lower would kill any life it gathered from our planet.

Earth grazing meteoroids occur sporadically – the last one to be captured was spotted over Australia in 2017 (pictured). This event lasted for one and a half minutes and the space rock soared through Earth's atmosphere at more than 35,000 mile per hour before returning to space

'Further work is needed to investigate the existence and abundance of microbial life in the upper atmosphere,' reads the study.

The team also notes that if a meteor coming from Earth enters the atmosphere of another planet, hitchhiking microbes could be released in clouds before the rock disintegrates in the atmosphere.

'A future probe that could sample the habitable cloud deck of Venus will potentially enable the direct discovery of microbial life outside of Earth, the team wrote.'

'Specifically, the capability to either directly analyze microbes in situ or to return an atmospheric sample to Earth will be critical in the design of a successful mission. Finding exactly the same genomic material and helicity on Venus and Earth would constitute a smoking gun for panspermia.'

(Source: Daily Mail)

I’ve interviewed Hillary Clinton. Biden is saying everything she wished she could

 When I spoke with Hillary, long after I’d been to her 2016 rallies and followed her on the campaign trail, she made some salient points about what women are allowed to say and do in politics

It’s not a good sign when the best part of a presidential debate is happening off-screen, but given the absolute dumpster fire that was the first showdown between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, it’s also not surprising.

From politicians to pundits, everyone on Twitter had an opinion on the fiery exchange between the pair — which left neither looking particularly electable, never mind presidential.

But one person must have been smiling while watching the clash.

For former presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, Biden was finally getting in the jabs she had so clearly been holding in during her own debates with Trump in 2016.

One can just imagine Secretary Clinton raising a glass of her favorite Chardonnay as Biden told Trump to “shut up, man” — so much so that the writer Jill Filipovic tweeted: “I so feel for Hillary right now because I’m positive she wanted to say that and couldn’t”. Clinton replied: “You have no idea.” It was hands-down the best moment of the night.

Aside from some acerbic comments and well-placed jabs about his experience, Clinton largely shied away from hitting Trump on a personal level during the last election cycle, instead commenting in the October 2016 debate: “I am reminded of what my friend Michelle Obama advised us all. When they go low, you go high.”

Clinton, like all women in politics, didn’t have much choice but to go high. While no one fares well when they attempt to play Trump at his own nickname-giving, insult-driven game, female politicians are routinely painted as emotional, out-of-control, even hysterical if they step into the realm of trading personal blows.

Meanwhile, male politicians can shout, talk over one another, make brash, outlandish comments, and become worked up without anyone suggesting they are hormonal beasts whose decisions are being made by their wombs.

I covered the US election in 2016, reporting from Hillary Clinton rallies — where she was less guarded on home turf. When I interviewed her in 2019 and asked about the future of women in politics, most notably the misogynistic commentary she faced while campaigning, she was pleased there were so many more female candidates in the mix (six initially announced: Kamala Harris — now Biden’s VP pick — as well as Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand, Marianne Williamson and Tulsi Gabbard). But she was under no illusion that women were viewed as equal to men, explaining they were facing the same worn rhetoric she had seen during her own campaign.

And while Clinton was happy to tackle that sexism head-on, calling it out on numerous occasions, it clearly hampered her battle for the White House.

Despite Trump’s own brash and at times bumbling campaign, he was unapologetically himself. Clinton, meanwhile, was under such scrutiny that one got the feeling she was holding it all in — lest any misstep reveal her as a fallible, human woman.

Since her defeat, Clinton’s critique of the president has become far more outspoken than it was during her campaign. Highlights include her trolling Trump with a fake letter from the JFK archives and responding to the president’s infamous coronavirus bleach comments by telling her Twitter followers: “Please do not take medical advice from a man who looked directly at a solar eclipse”.

Biden may have fulfilled Clinton’s ambition in bluntly showing his frustration with Trump’s steamroller approach to the debate, but it won’t have done him any favors at the polls: Trump long ago proved it is poison to play him at his own game.

The former VP’s appeals to “the folks at home” are likely to have made more of an impact on voters than his dismissal of Trump, despite the transparent intentions, while the passion he showed talking about his sons was more powerful than any zinger.

Biden’s team will likely advise him not to snap back at Trump in future debates, but as a one-off it worked, and as a bonus made some good viewing for Clinton. It’s just a shame she didn’t get to say it herself.

(Source: The Independent)

Physicists prove time travel is 'mathematically possible'

 Australian scientists say they have ‘squared the numbers’ of the grandfather paradox

Scientists in Australia claim to have proved that time travel is theoretically possible after solving a logical paradox.

Physicists from the University of Queensland used mathematical modelling to reconcile Einstein’s theory of general relativity with classical dynamics. The clash between these two systems is behind a famous flaw with time travel, known as the grandfather paradox.

Einstein’s theory allows for the possibility of a person using a time loop to travel back in time in order to kill their grandfather. 

However, classical dynamics dictates that the sequence of events following the grandfather’s death would culminate in the time traveller not existing in the first place. 

“As physicists, we want to understand the universe’s most basic, underlying laws and for years I’ve puzzled on how the science of dynamics can square with Einstein’s predictions,” said Germain Tobar, who led the research. “Is time travel mathematically possible?”

For their calculations, Mr Tobar and Dr Costa used the coronavirus pandemic as a model for working out whether the two theories could co-exist.

They imagined a time traveller attempting to go back and prevent patient zero from being infected with Covid-19.

Einstein’s theory allows for the possibility of time travel but the science of dynamics would mean that the fundamental sequence of events could not be interfered with.

This is because if the time traveller succeeded in preventing the virus from spreading, then it would eliminate their initial motivation for them to travel back in time.

“In the coronavirus patient zero example, you might try and stop patient zero from becoming infected, but in doing so you would catch the virus and become patient zero, or someone else would,” Mr Tobar said.

"No matter what you did, the salient events would just recalibrate around you. This would mean that - no matter your actions - the pandemic would occur, giving your younger self the motivation to go back and stop it. Try as you might to create a paradox, the events will always adjust themselves to avoid any inconsistency.

“The range of mathematical processes we discovered show that time travel with free will is logically possible in our universe without any paradox.”

University of Queensland physicist Dr Fabio Costa, who supervised the research, added: “The maths checks out - and the results are the stuff of science fiction."

A paper detailing the research was published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.

(Source: The Independent)

Hillary Clinton agrees she would have liked to tell Trump to shut up in 2016 debate: 'You have no idea'

 Former nominee said people ‘had no idea’ how much she wanted to react to Mr Trump that way.

Hillary Clinton admitted she would have loved to tell Donald Trump to “shut up” in her 2016 debate with the president.

Ms Clinton told a Twitter follower “You have no idea” when it was suggested the former Democratic nominee would have liked to react angrily like Mr Biden had in the first debate.

 “”Will you shut up, man" is the line of the night. I feel so sorry for Hillary right now because I’m positive she wanted to say that and couldn’t,” Tweeted Jill Filipovic.

And Ms Clinton, who ran against and debated Mr Trump for the White House, immediately responded. 

“You have no idea,” she wrote.

Mr Biden lost patience with the president after being repeatedly interrupted by him during the opening 20 minutes of Tuesday night’s debate.

“Would you shut up, man?” the former vice president eventually told Mr Trump.

Moderator Chris Wallace tried to move onto a new topic as Mr Biden told him they had not achieved anything. 

"That was a really productive segment. Keep yappin', man," said Mr Biden.

A fundraising t-shirt with the slogan is already being sold by a Tennessee candidate for a congressional seat.

Ms Clinton and Mr Trump’s first debate of the 2016 campaign set a new record with  84 million viewers. 

It beat out the1980 debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, which saw 80.2 million viewers tune in.

(Source: The Independent)