Ken Fabian

Kushner would not be establishing it for his own personal use, surely. If it's an unofficial, unacknowledged line - whether direct between heads of state or between their staff on their behalf - that is outside the knowledge or scrutiny of the Intelligence agencies it could be called a "back channel". If they aren't involved how would anyone be confident that it is secure? Perhaps it's more correctly called a communications security breach?

There are proposals like "Breakthrough Starshot" - Postage stamp sized probes launched in large numbers by large laser arrays; I suspect optimism is the special magic ingredient that is expected to overcome all obstacles to make it actually work. I don't believe in magic. That unshakeable optimism is an almost universal characteristic of proposals to send manned or unmanned missions to other stars. This particular one would probably require the launch of a continuous series of probes that can act as communications relays; postage stamp sized probes are not likely to be able to transmit strongly enough to reach all the way. The energy requirement to launch even a <1g probe fast enough to reach Alpha or Proxima in 20 years is enormous; it better not be coal or gas plants providing it. We better have sorted out our emissions and energy and sustainability problems sorted out first - but the impacts on projects like this seem almost an irrelevance in the greater scheme of things. I'm very dubious that any interstellar mission will be undertaken let alone succeed. I'm actually extremely dubious that any direct, non-stop mission will be capable of crossing between stars and still be functional at the end. Whilst still extremely unlikely and difficult in other ways, but I think potentially possible, is humans reaching other stars very, very slowly - self supporting colonisation of deep space objects would allow human expansion that leap frogs from one to another, perhaps preferentially on a tangent towards another star, ultimately to see far distant descendants get within reach. Given that I don't think we will see self supporting colonies in space except as the unintended consequence of long lasting, large scale, economically successful exploitation of space resources by a wealthy, healthy Earth based economy - which can't happen without some extraordinary technological leaps that can make what is hugely difficult and expensive cheap and easy - I see nothing inevitable or even likely about it. There is no reason to expect technological leaps like that to be possible let alone count on it as inevitable.

A back channel to another nation's leaders is okay, even a good thing for a President to have. A back channel established without the knowledge and cooperation of Intelligence services is not.

There was a PBS documentary that included the assertion that the conflict in Syria - and others - have been exacerbated by climate change consequences, ie record drought conditions. It featured former US Chiefs of Staff and other military figures. The idea that it will be a threat multiplier has been around a while within Intelligence circles. http://pbsinternational.org/programs/the-age-of-consequences/

I think we will see parking spaces increasingly fitted with charging facilities, potentially by induction, without any plugs or leads. I don't know how feasible but perhaps a kind of mobile electricity account could be used; you deal with your own power company wherever you charge your EV and possibly do an exchange of what your PV fitted home is feeding to the network for what you use elsewhere.

Flow batteries like Vanadium Redox store energy in liquid electrolytes - draining and replacing electrolyte would recharge the battery. You wouldn't be able to re-purpose hydrocarbon fuel infrastructure to do it though. But currently Li-Ion performs better and yes, recharge times are an issue. A quick battery swap system might be possible, as Bender says.

I think that depends on the specific lottery - the NSW government authorised Jackpot lotteries popular here are won by single tickets, a two draw system where the jackpot ticket number is drawn from all tickets (200,000 at $5.50 per ticket or 270,000 at $2.20, for the two common offerings if I recall correctly), but only wins if that ticket was also a winner of an ordinary prize (1 in 17 or 1 in 24 wins a prize) If you buy in as part of a syndicate, then yes, you share with other syndicate members and it won't be cheap to buy every ticket. I don't think it would work under the gaming regulations here, but in theory that would be $AU1.1M at $5.50 a ticket or $AU594K for the $2.20 version. But the jackpot prize has reached $16M for the latter, much more than the cost of all tickets.

If there is statistical evidence that the draw is not getting random results that may be circumstantial evidence of fraud or faulty methodology - which may be legally actionable against the operators of the lottery. Unless some kind of insider knowledge is involved those who won under those arrangements should be immune from legal action.The statistical evidence will not be proof by itself, rather, it would be cause to investigate and small numbers of small draws may not be a large enough number to apply statistics to unless the fraud or fault is major. The only proven method of winning with genuine "fair" lotteries that I am aware of is with accumulating jackpot type lotteries that end up with prize money exceeding the costs of all the tickets, by attempting to buy them all (or as close to all as possible). I'm not sure but I think rules often work to prevent that happening, by preventing mass purchases at the scales that needs and by allocations to over the counter type sales that would can't easily be bought in bulk. I have heard of syndicates set up to take advantage of large jackpots in jurisdictions with rules that enable it.

I think we'll do a lot more than nothing but far less than is needed. For some people to try - and there are actually a lot of people trying - and still failing is still better than no-one trying. It's a cumulative problem and the affects can be lessened or made worse by what we do so achieving a reduction in the worst case is still better than the worst case. I sometimes wonder if ultimately the direct climate impacts will be less damaging than the bad decisions in response to those impacts; using more fossil fuels as part of climate adaptations, repairing and hardening infrastructure or using more to power more air conditioners or to build dykes and power flood pumps. Or breakdowns in international agreements, isolationism that could see nations that imagine benefits to themselves or (more disturbingly) harm to their enemies and rivals from a warming climate welcoming the early stage changes whilst failing to look beyond that to the later stage ones, made worse. And there is the raised potential for conflict, in a world where there will be more WMD's than ever before in more hands than ever before. Ultimately serious underlying issues around sustainable resource use and population are not solved by a transition to low emissions - yet I think that transition is what we can do and so we should. On the positive side the advances in renewable energy should not be underestimated; it's continued growth and being preferred over coal and gas look likely to accelerate and older analyses of costs and benefits, based on earlier, higher costs, will keep getting rewritten. The largest part of new energy generation being built is wind and solar and the well of innovation underpinning their future growth looks a long way from running dry. Also I suspect that one of the most important more near term benefits of the renewable energy success story will be a breakdown of the economic alarmist "too hard, too expensive" position that has united so much of commerce and industry in opposition to strong climate and emissions policy. I'd like to think Trump and the doubt, deny, delay attempts are a last doomed effort to pretend their way out of the climate problem and not the beginning of an every nation for themselves collapse of co-operation. With lessening political obstruction policies can be developed and enacted that are not so full of inadequate goals, loopholes, exceptions and compromises. Who knows, even nuclear would benefit from a political shift away from denial and obstruction - given that the largest base existing political support for nuclear (in "Western" developed nations) is currently being rendered ineffective because it is within the same political groupings that have preventing and delaying strong climate action as a higher priority. Up ramps that take them into space? Unless they not merely achieve orbit but escape Earth's gravitational field altogether the planetary orbit won't get changed but having less fossil fuel burners would be a net gain.

Of course the net effect would be zero - and not because the amount of force is so small compared to Earth's mass as to be almost insignificant but because when the vehicles decelerate and stop the forces from that would be equal and opposite to the initial accelerations. Rolling the vehicles to a stop rather than braking merely spreads the same total transfer of momentum out as wind and road resistance with zero change to Earth's orbit. No, the solution to ongoing global warming is to stop pumping GHG's into the atmosphere - less fossil fuel powered motor vehicles, not more, no matter which direction we point them - only unlike the proposal under discussion the net result when we stop will not be the same as when we began. Reversion to pre GHG driven climate would require pulling CO2 (and methane etc) out of the atmosphere - and even then we would never truly get back to how it was.

It's always misleading to generalise, yet without generalising a lot of issues are difficult to make sense of. Do I have serious environmental concerns? Yes. Am I an Environmentalist? I suspect, invoking generalisation, that lots of people would see me that way. But there are no minimum standards or set of rules. It's a very broad grouping that includes a wide range of views, some of which are contradictory. I can accept that, with respect to climate change, hydro is much less damaging than coal whilst retaining concerns for the local impacts on rivers and dependent ecoysystems. Like lots of real world people with climate and other environmental concerns I recognise the necessity for compromise whilst retaining a commitment to push for more and better policy responses. "Hydro is evil" - not sure that it's about good or evil, rather about costs vs benefits, but it's not a requirement for "environmentalists" to hold the view that hydro is evil. There are people who identify as pro-nuclear simultaneously with environmentalism. Some are more concerned with protection of remnant ecosystems, some are involved locally on local land use issues - those tend to be strongly opposed to hydro. Me, I see the climate/emissions/energy conundrum as fundamental, both as an environmental issue affecting precious remnant ecosystems and as an economic issue affecting long term human prosperity and security ie that failure to manage that overarching problem will ultimatel undermine the efforts of people wanting to protect what's left of Earth's wilderness. It should be no surprise that those with strong environmental concerns saw AGW's consequences as a serious environmental issue. What is surprising is the extent that commerce, industry, economists and policy makers have resisted seeing AGW as a serious economic and security concern and have gone to great lengths to encourage economic alarmist fear of actions to limit and avoid climate disruption. If "evil" has any appropriate application I suggest it applies best to those in positions of trust and responsibility who willfully reject expert advice and promote climate science denial and other obstructionist actions, doing so knowing that the science is almost certainly fundamentally sound and the problem is real, serious and urgent, with consequences that are effectively irreversible.

Given Trump's rhetoric it isn't a surprise that climate science deniers are being appointed to run the departments doing climate change relevant work. I'm Australian and we currently have a conservative government that applies a gloss of acceptance of climate science over a firm commitment to oppose and obstruct policies that limit the use of fossil fuels or facilitate an enduring transition to low emissions - a kind of entrenched dishonesty that is deeply disturbing. It sounds like the UK and Canada also have strong climate obstructionist political parties - a problem within, mostly, English speaking nations it seems, perhaps due to the reach of partisan English language news services? The obstructionist agenda is (my opinion) not a consequence of the alleged poor quality of climate science - that claim looks manufactured to order as justification and excuse for those in positions of trust and responsibility to willfully fail in that trust and continue actions that are irresponsible. It's about climate responsibility avoidance in order to avoid the costs that responsibility potentially burdens them with - and the principle theme of this campaigning is of economic alarmist fear. It's a potent and immediate fear that flows through from captains of commerce across to their political advocates - Presidents and Prime Ministers, politicians and appointees. It flows down to their employees who - with encouragement - will put work and economic security ("for their families", to give it extra potency) ahead of "external" and "disputed" long term concerns. And this fear feeds through to those further down, in the gutters of ethics free public opinion shaping for hire - advertising, paid opinionators, PR, and tankthink. Slick FUD provides justifications that assuage any sense of shame for an unwillingness to make even small sacrifices for the sake of long term climate stability - encouraging the "proper" response of outrage (principally amongst people who, by any historical standards live lives of extravagant indulgence and wasteful excess) that they should have to pay anything for something that would appear to benefit someone else. If the diving costs of renewables can persist perhaps the "free" market will favour low emissions enough to keep this transition going ahead in the presence of hostile politics and outlast it. The most optimistic thought I've had is that low cost renewables - even if currently limited to intermittently low cost - can entice the greater part of the commercially self interested company owners and execs to break ranks within the collective advocacy of major business associations and commerce "friendly" conservative and mainstream politics. These look to me to be increasingly playing that game of applying a "yes we have to do something in principle" gloss over continuing opposition and obstruction of all effective policy options in practice. I suspect a large part of that "in principle" rhetoric is aimed at limiting the influence of "warmist traitors" in their own ranks from effectively ending the obstruction - but I am (don't know why) - a bit cynical.

Perhaps the robots should pay taxes on their relative "earnings" rather than be a deductable expense for those that purchase and use them in place of people.

Low lands vs high - big differences to minimum and average temperatures can exist in close geographic proximity. Grazing or hunting the high country in summer could extend, with more dense fur, to become wintering in the high country. I'm not convinced that large differences to fur density are much less likely than small ones - small genetic changes might cause a growth process to switch on or off earlier or later with big impacts. Big impacts would exaggerate the survival differences compared to those without such mutations of course and most often those would be negative. The survival impacts would probably be more immediate. But mostly is not always. Unlikely perhaps, but evolution is a product of the unlikely; millions of years and generations across vast and varied geographic areas and populations leave room for the rare and unlikely.

It would be possible for a more densely furred variant to arise in a less than ideal environment. But how well would it survive and reproduce compared to it's relatives? That is, would it be perpetuated and ultimately be fixed within a population? On the face of it that trait would disadvantage rather than advantage but I don't think it's always so simple. Plenty of furred mammals occur in hot climates - and even hot climates can have cold seasons and unseasonal cold periods; even if it's often a disadvantage there can be times and situations where it becomes an advantage. It may be that those times are critical. I would also expect for populations in hot places that are still relatively near to places where it is colder - hot low altitude areas next to mountains with colder climates - those who move to higher altitudes could gain advantage as SFNQuestions has suggested. There are going to be more variables than simply heavier or lighter coat; what means are available for thermoregulation - which may include panting, sweating and even, as with some Kangaroos, licking forelegs for evaporative cooling - will have a bearing. A heavier coat would hold more heat but better protect from intense sun, but does it shed water or hold onto it? If it better protects from being wet and cold, even if those circumstances are only periodic, it may be sufficiently advantageous and persist. Nocturnal or diurnal? It would matter whether the genetic differences are dominant or recessive as well.

SamCogar - I've had an ongoing interest in the evolution of human furlessness and don't see anything particularly aquatic about it. Applying a kind of "reverse engineering" to body hair - paying attention to it's current functions as well as what reduced or lost functions compared to related apes, primates, mammals and considering what evolutionary processes including advantages and disadvantages could lead to the range of hairiness humans currently display - doesn't lead me to conclude there is or was anything aquatic. Comparing to other "hairless" mammals (n.b. even mole rats, elephant and rhinoceros are not truly hairless) can help in finding potential evolutionary "pressures" that may lead to that furless state but each had it's own distinct evolutionary history; they can only indicate possibilities to consider and should not be seen as anything conclusive or exclusive of other possibilities. And amongst the possibilities we probably should not leave out that dominant mutations swept through a population of clever, problem solving, behaviourally adaptive hominids without providing any disadvantage they could not survive or advantage that greatly improved survival - they just tolerated the changes. BTW, out of interest, can I ask what functions you think body hair has lost and what functions you think it currently performs? Note that I will argue if you claim it currently serves no significant function.

Bender, I don't think there is any real reason to live on the Moon or Mars. I've never been convinced about ultimate survival of the human race as a realistic motivation for colonising space; if the more mundane motivations, like profitably exploiting resources by outposts of a healthy and wealthy Earth economy are insufficient I doubt the willingness of the majority to sacrifice their futures funding the preservation of a select few would would do it. In any case the nuclear powered bunker probably works better for most global disaster scenarios than colonies on Mars or the Moon. For any space colony to succeed in a lifeboat scenario role a greater than 100% technological self sufficiency would be needed. I don't know how many distinct specialisations would be the minimum for tech dependent survival beyond Earth but I suspect enough that a largish population and diverse economy would be required to sustain them. Perhaps some forms of virtual expertise and a base technology optimised for ease of endless reproduction and resistance to downhill degradation of capabilities could stand in the place of the pool of actual, working experts at the leading edge - the sort that only large populations and wealthy economies can sustain. I don't see that we could do so with what we currently have.

Bender - Tourism seems unlikely to be a viable economic basis for a space colony even if it might play some minor supporting role. Just like the entertainment value of selling "reality" TV rights. But entertainment is a fickle industry and may continue to find the fantasy version, with CGI, more suited to their budgets and tastes. I suspect the more real space tourism there is the more vulnerable the illusions the fantasy/SF version perpetuates will be to being blown. If the economic transport infrastructure to support trade between planets is a huge hurdle, that for tourism, with the comfort and luxury the wealthy expect, must be at least as problematic. And no, we haven't colonised Antarctica - we have scientific bases on Antarctica, that are supported and funded by the wealth and technology of nations elsewhere.

Colonising ventures are underwritten and funded because they are expected to provide tangible, ie economic, returns to those investing in them. Colonies survive by trade, or by self sufficiency but the latter simply won't apply because of the high cost, high tech minimum requirements. Those would strain the wealthiest and most technologically capable nations. Trade requires a cost effective system of transport. Neither seems a reasonable prospect for either the moon or Mars. Unlike the Earthside historical examples that made use of well established low cost transport and trade infrastructure, space colonisation requires a huge pre-investment in technologies that are essentially hypothetical. It makes fantastic (literally) fiction but it's not a sound business venture.

I would not be surprised if some birds of prey home in on potential prey by sight of tracks from above but I have no evidence or examples.

Unless it's a very powerful transmission, aimed at us from relatively nearby, relatively recently we probably won't notice it, not even when we are looking/listening. Much depends on what technologies they - and we - use. Intelligent with advanced technology does not automatically lead to spacefaring. Having space capability does not automaticaly mean space colonising even within a solar system. Given the distances and difficulties, intersteller travel and colonising cannot be considered likely. Those that do attempt it may be a much rarer subset of intelligent races. But if interstellar travel is achievable and if they are wise as well as intelligent - they may want to avoid notice by homo Sapiens and species like them. Surely any deliberate message we send out will - after careful consideration and composition - be misleading and deceptive; even if it's a case of accentuating the positive combined with lots of omissions - lying to ourselves as much as to them - we will probably start any dialogue with falsehoods. Not a good start.

Yossi, I found this online introduction to evolution by Chris Colby worth a read. It seemed to be comprehensive and informative - http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html

Mistermack - currently more capacity of renewables are being built than nuclear and coal combined and the price point where they are cost effective has recently been passed. Cost estimates for new RE projects keep going lower. Intermittency is an issue but it isn't insurmountable and can actually become a defacto carbon price by forcing fossil fuel plant into greater intermittency, increasing incentives for solution. The PV and battery combination is just reaching the point here where it's use makes our household power bill cheaper - not 100% supply of course but forcing coal and gas into the role of backup and used more intermittently, in smaller amounts, rather than continuously is a step we can make and should make using the technology we have. Doing so will create economic incentives that favour investment in storage technologies.There are soundly based projections of battery costs coming down a lot - from very close to economically viable now to become economically sensible over the next few years. I struggle to understand why fusion, with extraordinary technological hurdles to overcome, that has such a poor record is held up as a potential saviour whilst renewable energy that has such a good record of successful, rapid improvement is - still - treated like it can't ever overcome it's limitations. Fission using proven nuclear technology will surely have a role however it's problems remain principally economic ones (and political ones that derive mostly from the economic ones) - renewable energy may not be a complete solution at low enough cost yet but it can and is being deployed in ever growing amounts even within the mire of conflicted climate and energy politics; as long as that mire persists nuclear, which requires strong, clear, persistent policy far more than renewables do, will be the loser. Nuclear needs a greater minimum threshold of support than renewables and the largest base of existing support can't be used effectively because of it's overlap with anti-climate action politics. Climate science denial prevents that clear, strong policy and did what the anti-nuclear activists could never do - got the captains of commerce and industry, that would be nuclear's most potent backers, to give up on serious climate action and give fixing it with nuclear a collective shrug. That was an economic decision - not fixing emissions appeared to be cheaper - not a position arrived at by assessing the validity of climate science but by assessing the impacts of addressing the problem on their near term costs and profitability. Climate science denial is justification and excuse for that position, propped up with a strong dose of alarmist economic fear. Even if climate change appears intractable to such "leaders" the choice of obstructing strong policy and avoiding a burden of climate responsibility has been within their power, using a well developed toolkit - judicious donating, lobbying, PR, advertising, tankthink. Perhaps disconnecting the collective lobbying of commerce and industry from obstruction of climate policy, by disarming the economic fear, will be the most significant thing that low cost renewable energy (even with intermittency) can deliver in the near term. That political shift may give nuclear a belated kickstart from people with great influence but solar and wind are already cost effective part of the time and storage is on the cusp of cost effectiveness; nuclear will not be competing hour by hour with solar and wind, but with hydro storage and batteries during the combined wind lows and evenings. The whole of RE system's success in emissions terms will come more slowly, as existing emitting plant displaced and shut down, but I think there is reasonable expectation that it will. Millions (billions) wasted on capture schemes - true. Including dubious reforestation schemes that simply cannot make a significant difference if the fossil fuel burning continues. As long as the area dedicated to reforestation is less than the preceding deforestation it will struggle to sequester the carbon released by that deforestation. It does not store endlessly - it becomes part of the carbon cycle - it will reach a point where it releases as much as it stores, well short of sequestering what fossil fuel burning releases.

Forests will never be able to fix much more carbon than was released by prior deforestation; it is unrealistic to expect it to sequester the far greater additional carbon from continued fossil fuel burning as well. Since the land that hosted the greatest forests are where the best soils and greatest amount of agricultural production is occurring it will not be re-planted. Reforestation will also face problems and risks due to climate change including greater risks of limited growth and tree deaths from things like drought, heatwave, fire. There is no certainty such forests will survive over the long term let alone permanently store excess carbon. There are good and sound reasons to encourage reforestation where possible but it won't work as a means of avoiding the real solution - which is making the energy we use with minimal or zero emissions. Given what is known about climate and climate change dangerous and irreversible climate change will result long before fossil fuels run out. There is no danger of an imminent ice age even if AMOC shutdown could result in decades of strong regional cooling - and no certainty that nuclear fusion energy will ever be reliable, abundant or cheap. Climate action requires more urgent and effective actions than reforestation. Innovation will be essential and we will probably never have the comfort of certainty of means, costs or effectiveness for a full climate solution but the starting point is where we are now. I think we do have what we need to make a serious start on emissions reduction.

If we reach the point where fossil fuels are running out, rather than being left in situ because we are using low emissions energy alternatives then we are going to be in serious trouble. As a solution to our current and accumulating climate problem fusion isn't a viable option and if it's as extremely difficult to do as seems apparent the likelihood it will become a cheap, mass produced, reliable and ubiquitous energy technology is doubtful.