Analog SFF, April 2010 (29 page)

The Legion of Super-Heroes (LSH for short) exists more-or-less a thousand years from now, in the 31st century. In a universe of starships, aliens, and an interstellar government called the United Planets, the LSH is a team of (originally) teenagers, each with a different power or ability. Often they are offworlders whose people developed these abilities to cope with alien planets—for example, settlers on the planet Braal genetically engineered magnetokinetic powers to deal with the hostile metal-boned creatures that inhabit the world, while all inhabitants of Durla are shape-shifters.

Over the decades the LSH (in the fashion of all comic-book teams) has grown increasingly detailed and more and more baroque. There have been several mutually exclusive versions of the team, as their universe was “rebooted” to attract new readers with a fresh start. But one thing has remained constant: the LSH has always been set in the future, and has always used the tropes and concepts of science fiction: alien beings, other worlds, time travel, alternate universes; they are even inextricably linked to that other science-fiction-based superhero, last survivor of doomed Krypton: Superman. As a boy, Superman traveled into the future and had many adventures with the Legion.

And Legion they are: various incarnations of the team have had dozens of members.

In
Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds
, writer Geoff Johns pulls out all the stops to bring all the previous versions of the LSH together in a space opera like no other. And legendary artist George Pérez is right there with him, his intricately detailed pages teeming with literally hundreds of characters.

The plot is fairly straightforward. A powerful, malevolent entity known as the Time Trapper desires to wipe out the Legion, and finds a perfect weapon: an evil version of Superboy from a universe that no longer exists. The Trapper brings this Superboy Prime to 31st century Earth. The boy—whose unimaginable powers exceed even those of the mature Superman—learns of the existence of a Legion of Super-Villains and liberates them from the prison planet Takron-Galtos. This evil Legion heads to Earth for a final battle with the good Legion.

The LSH calls in Superman from the 21st century, but they know even his power will not be enough. They turn to Brainiac 5, whose super-power is his “twelfth-level intelligence.” Brainy summons two alternate versions of the LSH from other realities; he also resurrects some heroes who died fighting Superboy Prime in the present day. For good measure, the outer-space Green Lantern Corps enters the fray.

It's good Legions vs. evil Legion, with the all-powerful Time Trapper manipulating time to his benefit, until Brainiac 5's machinations bring about a deliciously over-the-top ending that proves, once and for all, that there's still fun left in comics.

If you haven't experienced the Legion of Super-Heroes and their fantastic future universe, you owe it to yourself to give them a try.
Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds
is a great way to get acquainted with the team that Otto Binder and Edmond Hamilton created, all those years ago.

Copyright © 2010 Don Sakers

Don Sakers is the author of
A Rose From Old Terra
and
Dance for the Ivory Madonna
. For more information, visit
www.scatteredworlds.com
.

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Dear Stan Schmidt:

In
Analog's
November 2009's Alternative View, “Lessons from the Lab,” Jeffrey D. Kooistra offers a valid criticism of data from the National Weather Service's temperature monitoring stations. But before I conclude this inaccurate data alone throws into question the existence of global warming, I would ask Mr. Kooistra his views on the accuracy of
National Geographic
magazine's photographic archives, which appear to document a significant worldwide shrinkage of glaciers (and polar ice caps) over the past hundred-odd years.
Something
is causing those ice deposits to go away, and it isn't Invisible Ice Thieves from the planet Zorgul.

Richard M. Boothe

Seal Beach, CA

Dear Stan,

Regarding the Alternate View column in the November 2009 issue: Kooistra exposes himself as a single data point physicist. Not only do we know that there's increased CO2 in the atmosphere (it's at this moment higher than any time in the last 300,000 years and increasing daily), but we also know CO2's absorption spectrum and like glass, it acts as a greenhouse material! We also have a pretty good idea of what the conditions on this planet were the last time CO2 levels were as high as they are now. We also notice the melting of glaciers all over the world as well as the permafrost in at least Alaska, not to mention the Artic Ocean. Looks like we can think about using the fabled Northwest Passage and still be skeptical about global warming? As an engineer, I was trained to look at the big picture in relatively simple terms. The way I see it, we live in a sphere that has several sources of heat energy influx, a blanket of insulation (which we're increasing with the CO2, etc.), and at least one source of loss of the heat that's coming in (radiation to the almost perfect “black box” of outer space). If we are increasing our insulation blanket, and at the same time releasing huge amounts of heat energy, there's only a single path for the immediate future. The only thing we have left to worry about is what the planet will do in response, as there are more feedback mechanisms built into our environment than I can get my mind around—some are positive and some negative. As a pragmatic and conservative old school engineer, I caution Jeffrey not to look at only one data point and to especially not mess with Mother Nature! (Or predict the future from a biased perspective!)

I've been reading
Astounding/Analog
since I was a kid, when my dad would bring it home in the early ‘50s, and this is the first time I thought I needed to be even a little critical.

Thanks for the many thoughtful reads over the years.

Ron Miller

Colorado Springs

Dr. Schmidt:

I always enjoy reading Jeffery Kooistra's Alternate View and this one, citing the inaccuracy of the temperature measurements made by the NWS in support of his skepticism of global warming, was no exception. I downloaded and read the report he cited, written by meteorologist Anthony Watts. I agree with the conclusion that almost none of the temperature-sensing probes are sited for accurate readings of the ambient air temperature. However, given the fact that such things as asphalt-paved parking lots, air conditioner exhausts, and concrete walls exist in the world, one must admit that they contribute to the increase in temperature of the ambient air as, apparently, do all of the sources of greenhouse gases. While admitting that the placement of these temperature probes is neither ideal nor even in compliance with the Nation Weather Services own specifications, I find it hard to say that there is no such thing as global warming when reports are coming in that glaciers are melting all over the world and trees are taking over the tundra. Something is happening to cause all this. By all means, we should fix the siting of the temperature probes to accurately record the ambient air temperature. I'm definitely in favor of gathering good data, but in the meantime, I still plan to do everything I can to make my own energy use as efficient as possible and keep my “carbon footprint” as small as I can.

Paul Baker

Browns Valley, CA

Dear Stan:

In the 2009 November issue, Jeffery Kooistra latches onto some poor data collection practices for air temperature to support his skepticism about global warming. The errors quoted don't seem to justify saying that global warming doesn't exist, just that it's not proceeding quite as fast as that particular data implies. One doesn't need sophisticated averaging of daily and seasonally fluctuating air temperatures to
know
that Earth's heat balance is not in equilibrium. Just look at the ice.

The upper part of a container of ice water may stay close to the freezing point as long as some ice exists, but melting of the ice clearly indicates that the container is absorbing heat. Similarly, melting of ice at both poles and in almost every glacier on Earth clearly indicates that more heat is being added to Earth's surface than is being radiated away into space. The real issue is not so much a question of “warming” (yet); it's a matter of how big the imbalance is now, how fast it is increasing, and what we can do to reach equilibrium or better before much of the current land area becomes uninhabitable desert or ocean floor.

Chuck Gaston

Lancaster, PA

Dear Dr. Schmidt,

Mr. Kooistra has again raised some interesting issues. He suggests that evidence for recent global warming that is based just on thermometer readings may be flawed due to local heating affects. This urban affect on local temperatures has long been known, and if that were the only evidence for global warming, then I would agree that some skepticism of global warming might be justified. However, that is not the case, and there are many other means of estimating temperature changes of our planet.

For instance there is one recent article (Kaufman et al. 2009. “Recent warming reverses long-term arctic cooling.”
Science
325: (5945, 9/4) 1236-1239) which estimates past temperatures by several different techniques, none of which involve direct thermometer readings. They find that data from each technique supports the conclusion that there has been an unusual rise in arctic temperatures in the past century, consistent with recent global warming. Perhaps Mr. Kooistra might review the techniques used in this study. If he finds flaws in any of the techniques used by these researchers, then he might share them with
Analog
readers in the future?

Otherwise it should be noted that all means of measuring temperature, or anything in science, have technical issues. That is why in science there is cross checking of results, repeated by other workers, and done using different techniques. When many different workers, using many different methods, see the same trends, then it is very likely that something is up. That is the current state of affairs with global warming. The article I note above is merely one of a vast number of studies on this topic. While thermometers are still used to measure temperature, the technical problem that Mr. Kooistra notes has long been recognized. The use of these other techniques has served as a cross check, and the consensus it that global warming is happening.

Scott T. Meissner

Ithaca, N.Y.

Dear Sir:

Jeffrey Kooistra uses his latest (November 2009) Alternate View as a platform to express his dissent from the scientific consensus regarding global warming. This is both his right as an American citizen and the way that good science gets done, since scientific truth is established by an appeal to facts, rather than authority or consensus. However, I see at least three flaws in his argument for greater skepticism regarding global warming.

First of all, the surface temperature measurements are only one of many confirmatory strands of data regarding global warming. Among other things, there is the accelerated retreat of glaciers in the northern hemisphere and sea-ice in the Arctic Ocean. There is also satellite measurement of surface temperature, the changing (poleward) ranges of many different animal species, and much more evidence too extensive to cite in a letter to the editor.

A second flaw is the methodology presented as refuting the reliability of surface temperature measurements. The weatherman he cites, visited three (of 1,221) monitoring stations near his home and on that basis dismisses all surface temperature data in consequence. To put it mildly, this sampling procedure is somewhat deficient.

The final flaw, also related to the surface temperature records, is that the change that supposedly invalidated the results happened in 1979, exactly thirty years ago as I write. My understanding is that the most pronounced increase in the temperature “hockey stick” has occurred in the past twenty years. I suggest that it is unlikely that a change in 1979 only started affecting the temperature readings in 1990 and later.

I believe that Mr. Kooistra would be on somewhat better ground criticizing the anthropogenic hypothesis regarding the causes of global warming than the factual basis of global warming. Even there, it is notable that the most strident critics of the human origins are those whose economic interests would be most drastically affected by development of a carbon neutral energy system (e.g.; oil and coal producers or public officials from states with such interests). And where did the extra CO2 in the atmosphere come from, if not burning fossil fuels, which had sequestered the carbon for hundreds of millions of years?

In any case, his Alternate View column certainly was provocative.

John Howard Brown, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

School of Economic Development,

Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA

Dear Stan,

Since my November 2009 column drew so many comments, I've decided that the best way to reply is in an upcoming Alternate View. I do want to clear up one apparent misconception: I am not entirely skeptical of global warming in and of itself. Given any arbitrary century-long period, it would be odd indeed if the average temperature wasn't trending up or down a little bit during that slice of Earth history, whether humans exist or not. So for it to have gotten a tad bit warmer from 1900 to 2000 would not surprise me one bit. What I am intensely skeptical of is the excessive certainty global warming proponents attach to their claims, both to those of gloom and doom, and to the faultlessness of their methodology.

I am delighted that the column stirred up so much debate, as I had hoped it would, and I want to thank everyone, even those who took me to task, for weighing in.

Best,

Jeff

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