Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist in climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research — and one of more than eight hundred researchers to sign a recent open letter urging Trump to act on climate change — told me that NASA's contractors, being numerous and widespread, might be able to "mount a defense outside the scientific community".
That prompts the question, how widespread might this practice be among other authors?
A study of rainfall patterns in the Southwest before the 1940s, when irrigation in the Central Valley became widespread, might provide scientists with a better climatic crystal ball.
The smoke and soot from widespread fires might lead to a nuclear winter, or the gases might cause global warming; it's hard to predict which, Ryskin says.
They are still trying to figure out whether the contamination was deliberate, and how widespread it might be.
There are designs for more efficient fission reactors, and for "breeder" reactors, which spawn their own fuel, but they will require billions of dollars in investment, and their widespread use might abet the proliferation of fissile material.
In fact, she mixed in more stage work, including "The Crucible," in which she played Elizabeth Proctor to Liam Neeson's John Proctor, than an actress seeking widespread exposure might have.
Since last February, when Chinese leaders grew fearful that widespread protests might erupt because of the antiauthoritarian uprisings in the Middle East, security forces have regularly detained intellectuals, lawyers and rights defenders without giving any legal cause for doing so.
Perhaps, submits Mr Bobbitt, a "kind of G2" comprising America and the European Union, the two superpowers that enjoy widespread legitimacy, might act as the "energising force" behind this needed change in the world order.It is too easy to mock ambition.
However, it's possible that widespread success might bring with it regulations or even lawsuits.
The 'Problem of Envy' is the possibility that widespread envy might do just this.
