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Archive for the ‘existential risks’ category: Page 10

Oct 4, 2020

#SpaceWatchGL Opinion: Satellite Technologies Use To Monitor Climate Change and Manage Environmental Disasters

Posted by in categories: climatology, economics, existential risks, habitats, satellites, sustainability

The recent 2020 US West Coast wildfire has opened infernos, as it ravaged hundreds of homes and charred hundreds of neighborhoods. On September 10, 2020, CNN announced that the Creek Fire had taken more than 166,00 acres after destroying 360 structures in Central California, Amidst a state emergency, firefighters had to defeat the “beast” that turned the scenery to a similar fiction movies scene on a doomsday. Wildfire causes environmental disasters that were attributed by many scientists to climate change. The preparedness, detection, and management of wildfires and other environmental disasters, that affected the environment hinge on satellite technologies, essentially, the Remote Sensing of sea surfaces and land areas, and the civil space-based Earth Observation and its applications. Such space-based technologies are deployed to assess, monitor, and manage local, regional, and large-scale transboundary environmental issues that impact the societies, economies, and ecosystems. Thanks to its large areas’ data collection and high-frequency capabilities Earth Observation, in particular, has become a powerful tool to monitor the terrestrial environment and manage environmental disasters as it be addressed in this article.

Satellite technologies have been used to understand climate change better to find solutions to mitigate its deteriorating consequences, such as hurricanes, droughts, rising sea levels, melting polar ice caps, wildfire, and floods. Scientists relied upon various observation systems and satellite technologies, networks of weather balloons, buoys, and thermometer, to collect climate change’s evidence from the depths of the oceans to the top of Earth’s atmosphere. For instance, EO is relied upon to map the greenhouse gases. Earth Observation (EO) monitors the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, the second most abundant greenhouse gas component after water vapor, satellite monitored through water management, and weather forecast [1]. Public and private entities harnessed spectroscopy and satellites to monitor externalities data from various sources.

Oct 2, 2020

Will World War III Be Fought by Robots?

Posted by in categories: existential risks, robotics/AI

What happens when autonomous machines have “to choose between various shades of wrong?”

Sep 29, 2020

Earth-skimming meteoroid dipped 56 miles into the atmosphere

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

A meteoroid skimmed Earth’s atmosphere for 19 seconds over the Netherlands and Germany. The object came in as low as 56 miles in altitude, covering a path of more than 466 miles.

Sep 22, 2020

RV-size asteroid to get closer to Earth than the moon

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

This asteroid isn’t socially distancing with Earth very well.

Sep 22, 2020

NASA warns newly-spotted asteroid to pass by ‘closer than a weather satellite’

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

US space agency NASA has forecast a recently-spotted asteroid, 2020 SW, for a fly-by on Thursday. It will fly by at an agonising distance of around 17,000 miles – closer than a weather satellite.

Sep 21, 2020

World War III will be fought over water

Posted by in categories: existential risks, finance, food, law, terrorism

RS: The third world war is at our gate, and it will be about water, if we don’t do something about this crisis. These walks are to raise awareness—this year we covered 17 countries, and in nine of them there were displaced people. So many people in the Middle East and African countries are moving to places like Europe, in part because of water scarcity—after forced migration comes, tension, conflict, and terrorism. Where terrorism is active, there is usually a scarcity of water. Look at Syria—a long time ago, it had very good agriculture, but then Turkey built a dam that changed things. It’s a similar story with Libya. If we want a safe future, we need to start conserving water.

What role can regulation play in conservation? Do you think privatizing water is a good way to promote its efficient use?

RS: If we really think about legal changes, we have to first think about river rights, or the rights of nature, and only then about water rights for humans. This type of thinking doesn’t exist today but we need this kind of legal framework that assures that the land of the river is only for the river, that the flow of the river is kept clean, and that the river has greenery on both banks to prevent erosion and silting. Only with all these factors can we ensure that rivers are healthy and only then that we are healthy.

Sep 16, 2020

The Shocking Doomsday Maps Of The World And The Billionaire Escape Plans

Posted by in category: existential risks

In the wake of dramatic environmental changes and the NASA reports of a new Asteroid interception mission, shocking future maps of the world created by doomsday theorists are looking more realistic every day.

Sep 16, 2020

ESA awards €129.4 million contract to planetary defence mission Hera

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, engineering, existential risks

Darmstadt, 15 September 2020. – The European Space Agency (ESA) awarded a €129.4 million contract covering the design, manufacturing and testing of Hera, the space agency’s first mission for planetary defence, ESA announced today.

The contract was signed by Franco Ongaro, ESA Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality, and Marco Fuchs, CEO of Germany space company OHB, prime contractor of the Hera consortium, ESA said today. The signing took place at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, which will serve as mission control for the 2024-launched Hera.

The mission will be Europe’s contribution to an international asteroid deflection effort, set to perform sustained exploration of a double asteroid system, ESA said.

Continue reading “ESA awards €129.4 million contract to planetary defence mission Hera” »

Sep 12, 2020

NASA tracks three space rocks making near-Earth approach TODAY

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

ASTEROID trackers at US-based space agency NASA have revealed a trio of cosmic rocks will safely skim past Earth today.

Sep 11, 2020

Meteor booms over California in stunning video — ‘That was a close call’

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

A HUGE meteor streaked in the skies above California, leaving onlookers stunned with one claiming it was “a close call”.

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