Commentary

Four ways the Earth is fine-tuned for life, and one more

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Circumstellar Habitable Zone
Circumstellar Habitable Zone

This is a post from J. Warner Wallace, over at Cold Case Christianity.

Let’s see his four ways first, then I’ll add one that I know.

He writes:

  1. The Earth’s Relationship to the Sun Is Favorable to Life
  2. The Earth’s Atmospheric Conditions Are Favorable to Life
  3. The Earth’s Terrestrial Nature Is Favorable to Life
  4. The Earth’s Relationship to the Moon Is Favorable to Life

I’ve blogged about the moon and plate tectonics before, so we won’t pick #3 and #4 to look at. And I blogged about the stellar habitable zone before, so we won’t pick #1, either.

Let’s look at #2:

The Earth’s Atmospheric Conditions Are Favorable to Life:
The surface gravity of Earth is critical to its ability to retain an atmosphere friendly to life. If Earth’s gravity were stronger, our atmosphere would contain too much methane and ammonia. If our planet’s gravity were weaker, Earth wouldn’t be able to retain enough water. As it is, Earth’s atmosphere has a finely calibrated ratio of oxygen to nitrogen—just enough carbon dioxide and adequate water vapor levels to promote advanced life, allow photosynthesis (without an excessive greenhouse effect), and to allow for sufficient rainfall.

Ok, that’s very good.

Now here is one from me… well, it’s from Science Daily, but I found it. Actually, ECM found it. But he told me.

Excerpt:

They suggest that the size and location of an asteroid belt, shaped by the evolution of the Sun’s protoplanetary disk and by the gravitational influence of a nearby giant Jupiter-like planet, may determine whether complex life will evolve on an Earth-like planet.

This might sound surprising because asteroids are considered a nuisance due to their potential to impact Earth and trigger mass extinctions. But an emerging view proposes that asteroid collisions with planets may provide a boost to the birth and evolution of complex life.

Asteroids may have delivered water and organic compounds to the early Earth. According to the theory of punctuated equilibrium, occasional asteroid impacts might accelerate the rate of biological evolution by disrupting a planet’s environment to the point where species must try new adaptation strategies.

The astronomers based their conclusion on an analysis of theoretical models and archival observations of extrasolar Jupiter-sized planets and debris disks around young stars. “Our study shows that only a tiny fraction of planetary systems observed to date seem to have giant planets in the right location to produce an asteroid belt of the appropriate size, offering the potential for life on a nearby rocky planet,” said Martin, the study’s lead author. “Our study suggests that our solar system may be rather special.”

So, that’s 5 ways that the Earth and our solar system are fine-tuned to be habitable for complex, embodied minds. Somebody is looking out for you, so be thankful and recognize.

Actually, I was thinking about this today (Wednesday). At lunch, I was thinking about this girl I know who is very disrespectful of me, of what I’ve achieved, and she won’t take my advice in the areas where I am experienced – education, career, saving, investing. I was fretting about it as I was about to start eating my lunch and suddenly it struck me that I don’t give God enough credit for the many blessings I get from him. I don’t mean things that “go my way”, I mean big things like habitability, and so on. So I said a longer grace than normal today at lunch. I wonder if he sent me that rebellious girl so that I would know how he feels when I don’t recognize and respect him, and just complain about the things he doesn’t do for me.

Anyway, I hope this habitability post will give you something to be thankful for. Our God is an awesome God.

News

IPCC lead author: 25 years of failed global warming policies have made us poorer

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Atmospheric temperature measurements though Sept 2015
Atmospheric temperature measurements though Sept 2015

I found this article on The Stream, it’s about environmental economist Richard Tol.

It says:

Environmental economist Richard Tol wants the world to deal with global warming, but his data shows the past 25 years of climate policies in rich countries have done nothing to fundamentally tackle the issue.

If anything, Tol argues, current and past climate policies have only served to make most people a little poorer while benefiting those in politically favored industries or with connections to powerful politicians.

“Twenty-five years of climate policy has made most of us a little poorer,” Tol told an audience gathered at the libertarian Cato Institute Friday, adding that such policies also made “some of us a little richer” — referring to those getting green energy subsidies and government grants.

In Tol’s view, climate policies have been more about “rewarding allies with rents and subsidies rather than emissions reduction.”

Tol, no skeptic of man-made global warming, argued current policies to cut emissions have done nothing to change the trend in carbon dioxide emissions reductions over the past 25 years. Basically, U.S. and European climate regulations have not caused emissions to be reduced any faster.

“CO2 intensity in the economy has come down,” Tol said, “but you can’t really see a trend break in 1990. It just seems that the last 20 years were a continuation of the trends of the 20 years before.”

“And this is true for the United States, where there has been some climate policy, but it’s also true for some of the countries — Germany, Japan, United Kingdom — who have consistently claimed to be in climate policy and claim to have done a whole lot to reduce their emissions,” Tol said. “It’s just not visible in the data.”

Tol is probably the world’s leading environmental economist and a lead author of a United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group, but that hasn’t stopped him from being criticized for his unorthodox opinions.

Tol lashed out against the IPCC last year for exaggerating claims about global warming, by comparing it to an “apocalypse.” The economist also authored articles debunking the “97 percent” consensus claim often touted by environmentalists and politicians.

To be fair, though, he’s not a skeptic like me:

On the other hand, Tol is no skeptic of man-made global warming. He favors taxing carbon dioxide emissions, but has admitted that global warming could initially result in economic benefits from enhanced plant growth, lower heating costs and fewer deaths from the cold.

It never ceases to amaze me how my secular leftist friends believe whatever they want to believe, because they want to believe it, regardless of evidence. I suppose that they will even reject this guy as being “in the pay of the Big Scary Oil Companies”.

News

All about Jenean Hampton, the new Lieutenant-Governor of Kentucky

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So, there was an election for the governor of Kentucky on Monday, and all the polls said that the Democrat would win. In Kentucky, normally the Democrat does win. They only have had one Republican governor since 1971.

Kentucky.com reports:

He never led until the end, and that’s when it counted.

Republican Matt Bevin, who trailed in every public poll since winning the Republican primary in May by 83 votes, shocked Democrat Jack Conway on Tuesday to become the next governor of Kentucky.

[…]Bevin was able to defy pundits, political insiders and polling — including one released by his own campaign in October that showed him losing — and emerge a winner Tuesday night.

In the end, it wasn’t even close. Bevin won 106 of the state’s 120 counties on his way to a nine-point victory.

[…]He was quick to rush to the defense of Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis when she was jailed briefly for defying a federal judge’s order to issue marriage licenses after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.

In the closing days of the race, Bevin focused on that saga and other social issues, honing in on rural voters’ contempt for Obama and career politicians.

And this is the interesting bit:

After being introduced by running mate, Lt. Gov.-elect Jenean Hampton — the first black person to win a statewide race in Kentucky — Bevin spoke of the challenges that lie ahead, saying it was time “to get the overalls on, get the boots on and get out of bed.”

Here’s her picture:

Kentucky Lt. Governor Jenean Hampton
Kentucky Lt. Governor Jenean Hampton (in her USAF uniform)

Wow. Let’s find out more about her.

National Review:

Both Bevin and Hampton are Tea Party activists who have never held elective office. Hampton’s path certainly represents triumph over adversity. Born in Detroit, the 57-year-old Hampton and her three sisters were raised by a single mom who lacked a high school education and couldn’t afford a television or a car. But Hampton was determined to better herself. She graduated with a degree in industrial engineering and worked for five years in the automobile industry to pay off her college loans. She then joined the Air Force, retiring as a Captain. She earned an MBA from the University of Rochester, moved to Kentucky and became a plant manager in a corrugated packaging plant.

Daily Signal has more about her background:

She grew up in inner-city Detroit, to parents who divorced when she was 7 years old. Her mother was left to raise her and three sisters.

She vowed when young that she would not “live a life of poverty,”  she told the Courier-Journal. “A huge part of what formed my opinions was the peer pressure that I got to fail.”

After a liberal upbringing, Hampton connected with President Ronald Reagan’s ideals and made a switch to conservative thinking.

Hampton’s mother has switched to the GOP, but Hampton’s father (who died in 2014) never accepted his daughter’s conservative views.

[…]She has been married for 14 years to Dr. Doyle Isaak, a retired Air Force flight surgeon.

Hampton is a member of the Eleventh Street Missionary Baptist Church in Bowling Green, according to her campaign website.

To pay for college, she worked for five years in the auto industry, including General Motors. She holds an industrial engineering degree from Wayne State University and a master of business administration from the University of Rochester.

At the beginning of her seven years of military service, she was a computer systems officer for the Air Force. Her job duties included writing code and testing software.

Hampton was deployed to Operation Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia, where she was an Air Force captain.

We  actually had two victories in states where the left went after social conservatives. This Kentucky victory follows after the jailing of Kim Davis for civil disobedience against the Supreme Court. And then we had the rejection of a gay rights bill that would allow men to go into women’s bathrooms, which followed the effort by the gay Houston mayor to persecute Houston pastors.

Social issues won in Kentucky and Houston

David French and Ryan T. Anderson both wrote articles talking about what these victories mean for social conservatives.

David French:

In Houston, all the right celebrities and corporations endorsed the “HERO act” — an expansive city ordinance that among other things would have granted transgender men access to women’s restrooms — but the celeb/corporate alliance failed. Voters decisively rejected dangerous sexual radicalism.

[…]One year ago, the activist, lesbian mayor of Houston subpoenaed the sermons and other communications of five pastors — men who opposed the city’s expansive nondiscrimination ordinance. The subpoenas weren’t limited to sermons about the so-called HERO act; they demanded “emails, instant messages, and text messages” on “equal rights, civil rights, homosexuality, or gender identity.” Houston had launched a direct attack on religious freedom.

Ryan T. Anderson:

As the Washington Post’s “Daily 202” notes, a major factor in Bevin’s victory—a Republican in a state that has elected Democrats as governor for 40 of the past 44 years—was “[f]ocusing on social issues, including promises to defund Planned Parenthood and defend Kim Davis, [which] helped drive the conservative base to turn out.”

No one was predicting that Bevin would win, especially not after he publicly defended Kim Davis and vigorously criticized the current governor for his handling of that situation.

It’s easy for me to keep blogging about bad news every day, we have so much of it. In particular, we haven’t done a good job of raising the next generation to respect marriage, family and children. But it’s not on us to gurantee outcomes. It’s on us to try be salt and light in a world that needs it. And sometimes, we win.