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(credit: Lawrence Berkeley Lab)

In Science’s Policy Forum column, President Barack Obama has penned an article arguing that the world is quickly replacing fossil fuel-based energy with clean energy. That momentum, he asserts, will not be stopped by “near-term” policy changes from Donald Trump’s incoming administration.

The current president writes that, although climate change is undeniable, the incoming administration might do nothing about it. That would be a political mistake, but it might not effect on the economics of clean energy, Obama argues. “Mounting economic and scientific evidence leave me confident that trends toward a clean-energy economy that have emerged during my presidency will continue,” he wrote, adding that “the trend toward clean energy is irreversible.”

The president cites recent studies from national and international agencies showing that energy emissions are decoupling from economic growth, a trend that “should put to rest the argument that combatting climate change requires accepting lower growth or a lower standard of living.” And the potential damage to the economy is vast: a 4°C increase in global temperature could “lead to lost US federal revenue of roughly $340 billion to $690 billion annually.”

Enlarge / Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell (credit: National Press Club)

“Why, why, why... ?”

In a speech Monday at the National Press Club, US Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell puzzled over the GOP’s plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act without having replacement legislation at the ready. “Why do you want to want to repeal it without telling what we’re going to do?” she said. “That’s not what we owe the American people.”

Her question—and her whole speech—are part of a coordinated campaign by the outgoing Administration to protect the signature healthcare legislation from Republican leaders, who are already abuzz with plans for a swift repeal once President-elect Donald Trump takes office January 20.

Enlarge / The VISIR instrument before its impending upgrades. (credit: ESO)

Today, the European Southern Observatory announced an agreement with Breakthrough Starshot, the group dedicated to sending hardware to return data from the nearest stars. The agreement would see Breakthrough Starshot fund the development of new hardware that would allow the ESO's Very Large Telescope to become an efficient planet hunter. The goal is presumably to confirm there's something in the Alpha Centauri system worth sending hardware to image.

Breakthrough Starshot's audacious plan involves using ground-based lasers and light sails to accelerate tiny craft to a significant fraction of the speed of light. This would allow the craft to visit the stars of the Alpha Centauri system within decades. The company's goal is to get data back to Earth while many of the people alive today are still around.

Getting meaningful data requires a detailed understanding of the Alpha Centauri system, which is where the new telescope hardware will come in. Last year, scientists confirmed the existence of an exoplanet orbiting the closest star of the three-star system, Proxima Centauri. But we'll want to know significantly more about it, its orbit, and whether there are signs of any other planets in the system before we send spacecraft. The other two stars of Alpha Centauri are also worth a closer look.