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Love this. I'm happy to say I just talked to Bill Nye on Friday (LS was still AWOL) about this and a recent science competition for kids and I love his enthusia

Love this. I'm happy to say I just talked to Bill Nye on Friday (LS was still AWOL) about this and a recent science competition for kids and I love his enthusiasm for everything. He thinks of it as carrying on work that Carl Sagan started. Just gonna hijack this thread to share a couple quotes from my notes that didn't make it into my article[1], since you guys might appreciate them: "for me it's [lightsail is] really personal. i had carl sagan for one class, and it changed my life. and so i'm really excited to get this thing working. if not this mission, the next mission. oh god, the concept is just cool, to just be sailing around the solar system essentially for free. It's elegant." "there are two questions we all ask, and if you meet somebody who claims they've never asked these questions they're lying and that's all there is to it: where did we come from and are we alone in the universe? if you want to answer those questions, you have to look at the past and the future. You have to look at paleontological evidence, and you have to explore space." "talk to younger people. they expect great things from technology. that expectation i believe will carry over to every aspect of life - that we can do technological things to prevent climate change. that for any problem there's a technological solution." "this is what we talk about all the time in science ed. we want science every day in every grade. this is obvious to me and my colleagues in science ed. what's amazing is it's not amazing to everybody. science is as important a topic as writing and reading and arithmetic. if you want to have innovation, if you want to have the engineers of tomorrow, you have to have science." "kids have no trouble understanding climate change - it's grown-ups that are confused. climate change denial is almost entirely a generational issue." [1] http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/bill-nye-boosts-future-science-guys-girls-kids-are-natural-n370706 http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/bill-nye-boosts-...

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monk_e_boy 11y ago
"climate change denial is almost entirely a generational issue" ... I do wonder if this is a US thing. I've not seen a denier over here in the UK. Sure, on the TV they have debates about climate change with scientists. They argue and present data and talk about change. They may argue about the rate of change and the potential effects. But everyone agrees that change is happening. Just take a look at the G7 fossil fuel pledge by the Germans. That's pressure from everyday people over here in Europe, that's millions of us who understand.
- ajuc 11y ago
  Lots of global warming deniers in Poland. It seems it mostly depends on interests. Global warming wouldn't really be bad for Poland, and CO2 tax is very bad for Polish economy, so there's more people choosing to belive it's all a scam.
- virmundi 11y ago
  I wonder if it is more a phrasing issue in American polls. I live in a small, rural, Southern town. I've had a few conversations, as well as watching American media. I think the term climate change or global warming means man-made warming in most people's head. Many people I've seen pressed on the issue, even by gentle conversation show this conflation. The deniers tend to be people saying, even through a veil, "I don't think man has everything to do with it". Oddly, in the back of many people's head that I've spoken with is the Cambrian period. They have a vague remembrance that Earth was hotter and more swap like. Since there were no men then, it is possible for the planet to heat up on its own. They latch onto this thought and back their view that modern peoples can't be causing this much damage.
- pjc50 11y ago
  James Delingpole in the Telegraph is probably the leading UK denier. But there are quite a lot of "silent" denialists who won't make a big noise about climate itself but will attack environmental, energy or "green" projects on spurious grounds.
  - monk_e_boy 11y ago
    Meh. History will judge them (and us.) Let's hope we win, else our history will be written by an off-earth entity.

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monk_e_boy 11y ago

"climate change denial is almost entirely a generational issue" ... I do wonder if this is a US thing. I've not seen a denier over here in the UK. Sure, on the TV they have debates about climate change with scientists. They argue and present data and talk about change. They may argue about the rate of change and the potential effects. But everyone agrees that change is happening. Just take a look at the G7 fossil fuel pledge by the Germans. That's pressure from everyday people over here in Europe, that's millions of us who understand.

ajuc 11y ago
Lots of global warming deniers in Poland. It seems it mostly depends on interests. Global warming wouldn't really be bad for Poland, and CO2 tax is very bad for Polish economy, so there's more people choosing to belive it's all a scam.
virmundi 11y ago
I wonder if it is more a phrasing issue in American polls. I live in a small, rural, Southern town. I've had a few conversations, as well as watching American media. I think the term climate change or global warming means man-made warming in most people's head. Many people I've seen pressed on the issue, even by gentle conversation show this conflation. The deniers tend to be people saying, even through a veil, "I don't think man has everything to do with it". Oddly, in the back of many people's head that I've spoken with is the Cambrian period. They have a vague remembrance that Earth was hotter and more swap like. Since there were no men then, it is possible for the planet to heat up on its own. They latch onto this thought and back their view that modern peoples can't be causing this much damage.
pjc50 11y ago
James Delingpole in the Telegraph is probably the leading UK denier. But there are quite a lot of "silent" denialists who won't make a big noise about climate itself but will attack environmental, energy or "green" projects on spurious grounds.
- monk_e_boy 11y ago
  Meh. History will judge them (and us.) Let's hope we win, else our history will be written by an off-earth entity.