https://steemitimages.com/DQmZ4G6LNgc2suGiT8cx8K6S4vTSZZKzEcMbrcoBkYKzU1i/image.png
[source](https://pixabay.com/en/background-abstract-color-3259429/)
# A Really Big Rock
> #### "Sometime in the next decade, a really big rock will be seen to be a hazard,” John McCormick, journalist, sheepherder, and “Perihelion” science editor warns.
> #### “We will then wish we’d had the foresight to already have a spacecraft in orbit around Mars or Venus to send ion engine darts to steer the rock out of the way,” which would take a lot of time and effort. McCormick wrote the book on why our government should devote more funding to this threat, literally.
***
More on that in a minute.
### @dreemit inspired me with [What Would You Do? A writing challenge for Steem and SBD's](https://steemit.com/steemit/@dreemit/what-would-you-do-a-writing-challenge-for-steem-and-sbd-s)
> "You have just been told by a source you trust implicitly that a meteor is going to take out life on earth; there is nothing that can be done to stop it, and they have no intention of alerting the public. You have four days until impact/game over. What would you do with your time?"
### @dreemit also reminded me of a book everyone should read (or know about):
### [Saving the World from Asteroids and Planning for Coronal Mass Ejection threats: What isn't being done to protect us from impacts and the power grids from solar events](https://www.amazon.com/Asteroids-Planning-Coronal-Ejection-threats-ebook/dp/B00M2I68HC/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)
https://steemitimages.com/DQmNR9HPuCUoy25p7VTnY37HBh9Wa21hujMrfovJXcU5Qgz/image.png **John A.McCormick** https://steemitimages.com/DQmYjECy3wjKcXFUoxfpCr2tNF7XHxdy5zA3t8ER2YLJPjb/image.png
**Publisher: Groundhog Press Inc.**; 1 edition (July 23, 2014)
https://www.amazon.com/Asteroids-Planning-Coronal-Ejection-threats-ebook/dp/B00M2I68HC/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
# "Build a Giant Baseball Bat"
### 5 stars from Sam Bellotto Jr
https://steemitimages.com/DQmUSqDXzXWYkFTF7fHWsm2fniUFfUPEEPtce47F9nSoPSR/image.png
> One asteroid, not especially huge, delivered the coup de grace to a species that had been dominant on this planet far longer than any other. Us newcomer humans need to build a giant baseball bat to knock any future planet busters out of the solar system. This book is essential reading for all Earthlings.
### 5 stars from Keangaroo
https://steemitimages.com/DQmZsU1tEV6iptYcrFfK6o6ja3KjnYsVM3kbK5ZMEKRgCUd/image.png
August 2, 2015
### The sun causes electrical and electronic damage all the time,
but we don't notice unless we're scientists specializing in solar events. We will notice, if/when a solar flare or a coronal mass ejection takes down the power grid. This is a far more likely and more imminent catastrophe than global warming, renamed "Climate Change" (April snowstorms in the Midwest), but it gets surprisingly little attention from the usual fear-mongers who squawk
### "The sky is falling!"
and exhort us to spend trillions of dollars trying to control the weather.
### This is a must-read
for voters who should petition their government to invest money in ways to prevent Near Earth Objects from smashing into the Earth and sending us the way of the dinosaurs. It's possible. Read the book (at 99 cents, it's a steal) and see how it can be done. Me,
### I'd confiscate Al Gore's Nobel Prize
for a documentary filled with scientific errors and [donate](https://b612foundation.org/donate/) confer it on the [**B612 Foundation**](https://b612foundation.org/our-mission/), funding options to prevent a disaster, and making plans to protect Earth and safeguard our power grid from more immediate dangers.
### Defend Our Planet. Donate to B612.
> Our crew members hail from 46 countries around the world. Please join us as we embark on this space mission to protect the Earth.
> B612 is an organization that works towards protecting the Earth from asteroid impacts and informing and forwarding world-wide decision-making on planetary defense issues.
> B612 provides a non-governmental voice on the risks, options, and implications of asteroid data while advancing the technical means by which that data is acquired. We work to make interpretation of asteroid data open and accessible, and we serve as an informed source for an international community of policy makers and scientists who can best help to achieve these goals.
Click [here ](https://b612foundation.org/b612-resources/) for more news items on the B612 Foundation:
https://steemitimages.com/DQmdXbZfsSw1pcyzTGM3ZEUjhtsntsG4Lc63swiokhTbnUQ/image.png and https://steemitimages.com/DQmXXYLDNX2JP44yC453NFsRrKFdYJM9fpJvx45Zt2fXoWQ/image.png and more [here ](https://b612foundation.org/b612-resources/)
### John is prolific!
<div class="pull-left"><img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmT4dkzNTDdJAxXQ4uDb9abNLXPkodG91XE1vfgkDwaoMT/image.png "></div>
<div class="pull-right"><img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmPJXqJkSSsaokBRFgNEKpvJw6huXSbZz99mtVAhvJe2YX/image.png"></div>
https://steemitimages.com/DQmUTVBPxvzLocwwcHF8jeZfBsAnqb79i3EzPCzJ8yEs241/image.png
My Kindle is packed full of highlights from McCormick's books, and I quoted from this one in an August 2015 essay for Perihelion Science Fiction:
### “Solar flares and CMEs (coronal mass ejections) occur all the time,”
McCormick tells us in [Could Global Warming Actually be GOOD??: Will global warming fight the next ice age? An ice age is coming, says The Milankovitch Theory](https://www.amazon.com/Could-Global-Warming-Actually-GOOD-ebook/dp/B00MLISHTK/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8).
However, “if a large enough solar event hit just right (from our viewpoint, just wrong), the world’s technological infrastructure could be completely incapacitated.” Civilization would immediately reset to 1850—minus the knowledge of how to live in that age, minus the horse, steam, and water power infrastructure of one hundred seventy years ago.
McCormick interviewed Russell L. Schweickart, Chairman Emeritus and co-founder of the B612 Foundation, whose goal is to build and launch a satellite designed to detect all of those larger bodies that may impact the Earth. Hugo-winner wannabes, here is a subject that isn’t worn out yet. Schweickart is chock-full of ideas. (Imagine a zoot-suited heroine aiming nuclear bombs at incoming asteroids to save the world we know and love.)
### “Why is there so little support
for a project addressing the biggest preventable threat to life on Earth?” McCormick asks. “Many people will survive global climate change or the end of cheap energy, but no one survives a major asteroid impact.”
### “No challenge poses a greater threat to our future
and future generations than a change in climate,” President Barack Obama said on August 3, 2015, unveiling new measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions. But, but, what about plans to protect us from a Near Earth Object smashing into us the way that six-mile-wide meteor smashed into the Gulf of Mexico sixty-five million years ago, ending the age of dinosaurs and devastating the North American continent?
The Chicxulub impact sprayed molten rock far into what is now Canada and created a shockwave that flattened trees across the continent. This could happen again, and it’s a far greater threat to us than climate change, but I haven’t heard politicians speak of funding for the B612 Foundation. The big news is that by 2030, America’s existing power plants must cut emissions by thirty-two percent from 2005 levels. Well, that oughta halt global warming in its tracks. Too bad it won’t do a thing for the power grid.
“An outage caused by a solar flare just an order of magnitude greater than the one that hit Quebec, Canada, in 1989 would not just shut off the power,” McCormick writes. “It would destroy much of the electrical equipment in your home, business, and government agencies worldwide.” A massive CME or solar flare like the 1850 “Carrington” event could destroy the technological base of the entire world. The event was so powerful, “the resulting aurora turned the night as bright as day in parts of the northern U.S. and was seen as far south as the Caribbean. Telegraph service was knocked out, with the power surge in the wires starting fires and injuring telegraphers when the telegraph was the only electrical technology in use.”
Sadly, the lesser threat of global warming somehow attracts all the hysteria and government regulations, even though we’re far more likely to go the way of the dinosaurs due to a Near Earth Object hitting us, or an Electro-Magnetic Pulse taking down the power grid.
Happily, the B612 Foundation has proposed a number of solutions, but we need to fund them.
I also posted an Amazon review. Here are a few excerpts:
https://steemitimages.com/DQmPgEEcRsud2TE9CineetcpZMgx1FfLps52TQQDeMTjU7o/image.png
### The science, the studies, the historical record:
it’s all here in a little book that’s intelligently written yet simple enough for laymen to understand.
“Global warming won't end all life on Earth. It won't even end human life,” says John McCormick in “Could Global Warming Actually be GOOD?” (Collected Works: John McCormick Book 4).
McCormick is not in denial: climate change happens. It’s happening now. Instead of trying to prevent it, he offers better ideas on how we should respond to it. Spending billions of dollars--enacting tighter restrictions on businesses and in our daily lives--may be an exercise in futility. And if we’re heading into the next Ice Age, maybe global warming isn’t something we should try to stop?
In fact, “The next ice age is due to really get rolling sometime between 500 years ago and 1500 years from today,” McCormick tells us; “…we will return to kilometer-thick glaciers sometime in the future. All it takes is for the polar winter to get a minute longer year-by-year. You wouldn't even notice.”
The opposite of the frog in a kettle of water slowly heated to boiling.
“Eric Jones, inventor, engineer, and co-founder of Perihelionsf.com Science Fiction Magazine, says that recent Russian science reports call for a 250-year cooling period,” McCormick adds.
All McCormick’s books have so many lines worth sharing, I’d have to Kindle-highlight almost every word. I quoted extensively from Book 3, “Saving the World from Asteroids and Planning for Coronal Mass Ejection Threats,” in my August 2015 article for Perihelion Science Fiction ezine.
The real science in these books could inspire some great speculative fiction (science fiction stories) – authors could use this series as handbook.
Worth noting: in the Great Plains, topsoil is being depleted, but on the bright side, global warming could open new land in the formerly frozen north. “SDA climate zones have already moved one or two zones north in the past 30 years, meaning you can grow things in the north that could previously only grow in the southern parts of the U.S.,” McCormick writes.
Humans have endured global warming before--the Medieval warm spell from 1100-1250, for one.
If you can find my Kindle Highlights on this book, you’ll see more lines cited from the book. I’ll pass over the Milankovitch passages-- perihelions, apihelions, solar maximums, too--gotta leave you some incentive to buy this book! Also, Milankovitch leads to things like this; “The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.” Suddenly I realize this is not Science for Dummies.
Would it be easier to survive a major ice age or mild global warming? I'm reminded of the Robert Frost poem:
> *Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.*
If we spend our tax dollars wisely and stop panicking like Chicken Little without examining facts first, we won't be unprepared for a coming Apocalypse. More level-headed thinkers in politics would be nice, but that takes us from the realm of science fiction and deep into the fantasy genre. McCormick's book, by the way, is not a fiction. It's founded in facts. Just the way I like it.
### John A. McCormick
Senior contributor, newsblaze.com
Member, AAAS, former Member National Press Club (38 years)
Science Editor, perihelionsf.com
### The rest of the list is about ten miles long.
[ Visit Amazon's John A. McCormick Page](https://www.amazon.com/John-A.-McCormick/e/B00287RNFS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0) and see for yourself.
#### Until next time,
#### Keangaroo
because Kean sounds like Kane (not keen, hint, hint)
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