Comely1

Clouds of dust ,smoke and ice and history...

science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/13nov_lcrossresults.htm [science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/13nov_lcrossresults.htm]

An artist's concept of solar wind blowing away the atmosphere of Mars.
This is just one of several plausible explanations
for what happened to the Red Planet.




Mars must have lost its most precious asset: its thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide. CO2 in Mars's atmosphere is a greenhouse gas, just as it is in our own atmosphere. A thick blanket of CO2 and other greenhouse gases would have provided the warmer temperatures and greater atmospheric pressure required to keep liquid water from freezing solid or boiling away.

Over the last four billion years, Mars somehow lost most of that blanket. Scientists have proposed various theories for how that loss happened. Perhaps an asteroid impact blew most of the atmosphere into space in one catastrophic event. Or maybe erosion by the solar wind... a stream of charged particles emanating from the sun ÃÃ,¢Ã¢,Ã,¬" could have slowly stripped the atmosphere away over eons. The planet's surface might also have absorbed the CO2 and locked it up in minerals such as carbonate.

Global Recession Status




Moody's Economy.com closely tracks economic conditions in the major economies of the world and summarizes the results on this interactive map. Analysts follow a wide range of indicators to ascertain a country's position in the business cycle. Specifically, we focus on gauges of employment, industrial production and retail sales--high-frequency indicators that capture the breadth of economic activity. Countries where the indicators are dropping are labeled In Recession. Those where declines have slowed are said to be Moderating. Countries where the indicators have begun rising again are Recovering. Economies that have advanced past their previous growth peaks are labeled Expanding.

Emphasis on Growth Is Called Misguided


Instead of centering assessments on the goods and services an economy produces, policy makers would do better to focus on the material well-being of typical people by measuring income and consumption, along with the availability of health care and education, the report concludes.

Many of these prescriptions will no doubt resonate with policy makers and ordinary people.

Indeed, the difficulty comes in turning these general principles into new means of measurement. The report notes that its authors concur on the big picture, but diverge on the methodologies to be employed when it comes to factoring in the value of a better education and cleaner skies.

The old mode of measurement has taken a beating, and yet the new one, it seems, is still a work in progress.



The report is more critique than prescription. It elucidates in general terms why leaning exclusively on growth as an economic philosophy may yield unhappiness, and it suggests that the incomes of typical people should be weighed more heavily than the gross production of whole societies.