“And I’m just scared”.

Maybe it’s time to increase Georgia’s police basic training up from ten weeks to maybe eleven or even twelve! Source: https://www.trainingreform.org/state-police-training-requirements

Luckily, the fossil fuel companies told us it isn’t anthropogenic and not to worry about this so we will be okay. /s

Fun fact: NASA employees are unable to even talk with congressional representatives about proposed scientific missions because it is considered a “conflict of interest”. Let that sink in. Meanwhile…

Hey doesn’t Phil Mickelson play golf there?

I bought a 97 Ford Taurus off a friend for $800 back in 2008. Her dad thought it was on its last legs at 155k miles so he wanted to sell it. I drove it for four years. It was running fine until someone blasted it out in front of my girlfriend’s house and drove off. At the time it had 206k miles. 50k miles for $800 was certainly one of my best purchases.

The 3rd district in Colorado is not a swing district. It became a swing district because of Boebert. It was pretty red before she showed up.

I certainly do not disagree with you. What the Muslim leaders are doing is certainly stupid as Trump will be far worse for their people in the Middle East. I am just relaying the information that is out there about their current agenda.

According to the census, 1.1% of Americans are Muslim and many Muslim leaders are encouraging their base not to vote for Biden. They aren’t voting for Trump either but since Muslims lean heavily democrat, a non vote is the same as voting for Trump in a swing state. It isn’t that they want Trump and authoritarianism, it’s that they are protesting against the US support for Israel.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/muslim-swing-state-biden-vote-fb3b93f465ed6fd34a901c269a084a90

If Biden reschedules (or even better legalizes — I know this is a larger challenge legally) cannabis and takes a harder stance against Israel, I think he would win most of the key states he needs to win the election. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona, and to a lesser degree Georgia will determine this election. The rest of the states are locked in. A 1% swing can mean the difference to prevent a dictatorship.

Ego is a huge human weakness. People struggle hard to admit they are wrong. This is especially true if they are committed to an idea that happens to be wrong. They would rather distort their own reality than admit they were wrong and try to grow from the experience. Once nice thing about being a scientist is we get lots of critical feedback from one another and we learn to admit when we are incorrect. However, even we are not immune. I know of one scientist who ruined their career committing to an idea that was wrong.

While I’m not specifically a climate scientist, I have degrees in atmospheric science, which include a PhD so I understand climate change better than most. The most frustrating part of informing people about this very real threat is how well the propaganda from the fossil fuel companies worked. We have known for 100 years about this and have solid evidence since the satellite era (1979-present). I can explain not only that climate change is real but also it is human caused and I can prove it mathematically on a white board in about 15 minutes to a laymen person (it isn’t hard). But despite the fact they believe in math (I ask them in the beginning just to be sure), they are skeptical of mathematical results. They know more than me, the scientist, because they watched a YouTube video this one time saying that it isn’t real. I’m honestly glad I don’t work in climate science because I can’t imagine how aggravating it can be.

Any minute now something will be done to show Thomas’s actions have consequences! Any minute now…. any minute….

Some good advice I heard once is that you can’t change what happens to you but you can change how you react to it. Bad things will happen but how you react to those things makes such an impact. Reacting positively to negative things happening affects not only your mood, but also how you deal with those things. It takes time to shift to this style of thinking but it will definitely improve your way of life.

We do. Do you not recall all the “thoughts and prayers” after each incident?

The theoretical limit for a solar flare is very high. These are called super flares. However, they are exceptionally rare and tend to occur in younger, larger stars than our sun. That said, it isn’t impossible for one to occur, and if a massive flare were to occur, the flare wouldn’t be the worst part. Simply put, a solar flare is magnetic energy being launched from the surface of the sun in the form of photons or particles of light. While this would create radio blackouts, satellite drag, and phenomenal aurora, it wouldn’t have a significant impact on Earth’s surface (except for the satellite issues). The real danger is the coronal mass ejection that would follow. A coronal mass ejection is protons, neutrons, alpha particles, and electrons being launched at insane speeds off the Sun’s surface. Because these particles are charged, they can impact our electric grid. And in an extreme case could, in theory, destroy it through massive electrical ground level enhancements. These enhancements would primary occur at higher latitudes because the charged particles would follow Earth’s magnetic field lines toward the poles, but could easily disrupt electric grids northward/southward of 30 degrees. That would mean most of Europe, America, much of Asia, Australia, half of South America and Africa all without power. Obvious chaos would ensue. The good news is governments are aware of this risk and have begun taking preventive mechanisms to prevent such a catastrophic failure. The other piece of good news is this type of event is very rare. The likelihood of it happening in anyone’s given lifetime is extremely low.

Yes and no. Starlink’s loss rate has to do with their two step launch process. For cost reasons, they launch a bunch of satellites to an initial altitude of much lower than LEO, typically between 200-300 km. At these altitudes, satellite drag is high and gets higher with solar activity. Then they use fuel to propel them into their operational orbit. This worked fine during solar minimum when space weather activity is low. However, as we approach solar max, this method will continue to cause more losses because of higher space weather activity. The February, 2022 incident when they lost 38 satellites was due to a moderate geomagnetic storm should have been a wake up call. That storm wasn’t even that big. If they continue to launch using this method over the next few years as we reach solar max, they will continue to lose more satellites.

Good question! Scientists have estimated the solar flare that occurred prior to the Carrington event might have at around an X-45 (Elvidge et al, 2018). I believe that this was the first flare ever recorded, but as you mentioned, we obviously we didn’t have modern detectors back then for measurement.

If your concern is whether your cellphone carrier has the ability to see who you are calling and for how long, this is true whether you have a smartphone or a “regular” phone.

Heliophysicst here. This is not true. The flare that hit Earth on December 14th was an X-2.6 flare. While this is a large flare and the largest of the current solar maximum, it is nowhere near the largest ever recorded. The largest was on November 4th, 2003 (referred to as part of the Halloween storms), which was so strong it actually saturated the detectors. It was measured at an X-28, which is more than two orders of magnitude larger than Thursdays, but was estimated to be much larger than that.

If I am high on acid at the same party she is throwing poo, she is still my friend. Look outward, not inward on this one.