Cliff Mass is awesome. I've become a total weather-nerd because of his writing.
For the first time I understood the physics of rainbows!
On the other side now it looks a little less magic...
I wish there would be more PR effort spent on making science more exciting to the average person than magic. E.g. submarine mentions in various companies' advertising and various TV shows of the form: "It's better than magic -- it's science," with excited, attractive faces on screen eating it up.
I'm not sure that would help. You're just substituting one thinking-stopper (magic) for another (science). "How does electricity work?" "It's science!" "Oh, okay."
I'd still prefer that, because "It's science!" means that someone, somewhere understands it, and that they could too if they wanted to. "It's magic!" means there's no hope of understanding.