Yesterday I featured Part 1 of this posting.  I left at #9, Supervolcanoes.  Here are the remaining eight ways Humanity could go extinct.  I will today particularly focus on what I've all my adult life feared most, nuclear war. #8  Solar Storms The most intense storm peaked in the September 1-2 period of 1859, and is known as the  Carrington Event .  Carrington was a British astronomer. The aurora borealis over the Rocky Mountains was so bright, that gold miners thought it was morning. Even Hawaii saw this phenomenon . Telegraphs gave operators shocks.  However, there is a much-publicized conversation between two operators in Boston and Portland ( Maine ) who were able to communicate without using batteries to power the line. If this were to happen today, the USA alone stands to lose $3.35 trillion to our general economy. Researchers examining carbon-14 tree rings and beryllium-10 in ice cores found two other major solar storms:  in the years 774-...

 The Texas flooding catastrophe is up to 119 dead and 160 still missing. Both the Texas storm and the July 7 North Carolina flood caused by Tropical Storm Chantal were 1000-year events.  And President Donald Trump is encouraging greater use of fossil fuels, while cutting back on global warming research. A 100-year flood means that there is a 1% chance that this will happen at your home's location in any given year. A 1000-year flood means there is a 0.1% chance of this occurring. Read details here. Now, on to the topic of today.  My field of knowledge primarily spans from energy to the environment and into ocean resources.  I drafted when working in the U.S. Senate the original hydrogen bill which became law, and same for ocean thermal energy conversion.  My first job was in biomass engineering, and I later did research in geothermal energy, wind energy and grew marine microalgae in a raceway fed by the waste gases from a small powerplant to someday remediate gl...

Did you know that both Mother's and Father's Days are national holidays?  Of course they are always celebrated on Sundays, so they are not a federal holiday.  President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation in 1914 designating  Mother's Day  as the second Sunday in May.  Of course motherhood has long been cherished, and the ancient Greeks and Romans held festivals in honor of mother godesses Rhea and Cybele. Mind you, the Greeks and Romans also honored fathers, and in Catholic Europe, St. Joseph's Day ( March 19 ) is a feast day dedicated to Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus.  But Father's Day in the USA had a rather startling beginning that few know. First, Father's Day did not become a national holiday until 1972. The reason why has everything to do with civil rights movements in the 1960s. The story starts in 1964 when a middle-aged father and mid-level federal appointee, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, dreamt a solution to America's racial conflict in his sle...