Global warming off topic? Just wondering...

[sandy]

--
/* Sandy Pittendrigh >--oO0>
** http://montana-riverboats.com
*/


Is global warming OT in this newsgroup?
Maybe not.

There have been a flurry of internet links, the last few days,
to a series of stories about the announcement of a
new global warming model that essentially concludes
we've already past an unstoppable tipping point. Most of this has gone
by un-noticed--admidst all the hurricane news. But it is a story
that wants to make all else beside the point.

Even if we were to stop pumping CO2 and other green house gases into
the atmosphere now--it's already too late--according to
this new model. Part of the new news is the recently noticed and
supposedly unprecedented melting of the Siberian perma-frost.
So much frozen Siberian methane is supposed to released into the atmosphere,
according to this new argument, that there is now no stopping the
melting of the polar ice caps.

New York streets, this new model says, will be, like the streets of
New Orleans, swamped and flooded within 50-80 years.
Like a mountain snowfield in late June, most of the actual melting will
happen all at once at the last minute, they say. But just like
a snowfield in early April: it's just a matter of time
and there's no stopping it now. Or at least so goes the argument.

Just because some climate guys have a model doesn't make it true, of
course. But the stakes are definitely escalating.
Just a few years ago climate researchers were starting to warn
that conditions seemed to be changing. Now some of them are
starting to predict inescapable cataclysm. A thirty foot increase in
world-wide ocean levels would--like nucular war--ruin
your whole fishing day.

One of the most interesting things about this debate is
the right/left ideological divide. The Christian right, who tend to
view the world as some sort a holy homo sapiens fish tank, created
specifically for our benefit, where humans (but only humans)
go to heaven for eternal paradise--get all uptight when
they hear about global warming suggestions. God would
never allow such a thing, they seem to think. (now this really
*is* off topic now, but I do find myself wondering about it: if they
do have eternal paradise in heaven, does that mean they still have sex?
Can I still get laid? Well, I know I won't be going there anyway, so
I guess I shouldn't worry about it. But here's another question:
if you die when you're 97, do you remain 97 for eternity?
Can they still eat steak? Do they have outhouses or toilets there?)

Anyway, back to global warming:
The ideological free market capitalists are even more
threatened by any talk about global warming than the Christians.
The magic of the market place suddenly doesn't look so ideologically pure
anymore, not in the global warming context. In fact, when and if you ever
do accept that global warming is not only happening, but largely
caused by human activity, then the only logical next step is
big time government intervention. So it's no wonder they
don't like it all.

If global warming is happening, as a consequence of humanity,
then the only logical conclusion is that the human race is
a worldwide pestilence. An infestation in fact.

The next 10 to 20 years should be interesting.
Whatever the outcome, the prognosis should be less in doubt
by then.

[Wolfgang]

"sandy" > wrote in message
...
>
> --
> /* Sandy Pittendrigh >--oO0>
> ** http://montana-riverboats.com
> */
>


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


>
> Is global warming OT in this newsgroup?
> Maybe not.
>
> There have been a flurry of internet links, the last few days,
> to a series of stories about the announcement of a
> new global warming model that essentially concludes
> we've already past an unstoppable tipping point. Most of this has gone
> by un-noticed--admidst all the hurricane news. But it is a story
> that wants to make all else beside the point.
>
> Even if we were to stop pumping CO2 and other green house gases into
> the atmosphere now--it's already too late--according to
> this new model. Part of the new news is the recently noticed and
> supposedly unprecedented melting of the Siberian perma-frost.
> So much frozen Siberian methane is supposed to released into the
> atmosphere,
> according to this new argument, that there is now no stopping the
> melting of the polar ice caps.
>
> New York streets, this new model says, will be, like the streets of
> New Orleans, swamped and flooded within 50-80 years.
> Like a mountain snowfield in late June, most of the actual melting will
> happen all at once at the last minute, they say. But just like
> a snowfield in early April: it's just a matter of time
> and there's no stopping it now. Or at least so goes the argument.
>
> Just because some climate guys have a model doesn't make it true, of
> course. But the stakes are definitely escalating.
> Just a few years ago climate researchers were starting to warn
> that conditions seemed to be changing. Now some of them are
> starting to predict inescapable cataclysm. A thirty foot increase in
> world-wide ocean levels would--like nucular war--ruin
> your whole fishing day.
>
> One of the most interesting things about this debate is
> the right/left ideological divide. The Christian right, who tend to
> view the world as some sort a holy homo sapiens fish tank, created
> specifically for our benefit, where humans (but only humans)
> go to heaven for eternal paradise--get all uptight when
> they hear about global warming suggestions. God would
> never allow such a thing, they seem to think. (now this really
> *is* off topic now, but I do find myself wondering about it: if they
> do have eternal paradise in heaven, does that mean they still have sex?
> Can I still get laid? Well, I know I won't be going there anyway, so
> I guess I shouldn't worry about it. But here's another question:
> if you die when you're 97, do you remain 97 for eternity?
> Can they still eat steak? Do they have outhouses or toilets there?)
>
> Anyway, back to global warming:
> The ideological free market capitalists are even more
> threatened by any talk about global warming than the Christians.
> The magic of the market place suddenly doesn't look so ideologically pure
> anymore, not in the global warming context. In fact, when and if you ever
> do accept that global warming is not only happening, but largely
> caused by human activity, then the only logical next step is
> big time government intervention. So it's no wonder they
> don't like it all.
>
> If global warming is happening, as a consequence of humanity,
> then the only logical conclusion is that the human race is
> a worldwide pestilence. An infestation in fact.
>
> The next 10 to 20 years should be interesting.
> Whatever the outcome, the prognosis should be less in doubt
> by then.

Hoo boy.

Wolfgang
who especially liked the "...stakes are definitely escalating" part.

[daytripper]

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 18:15:18 -0700, while one toke over the line, sandy
> wrote:
>Is global warming OT in this newsgroup?

Well, heck, even if it *was*, what's the diff? Go for it!

/daytripper (300 feet ASL today, beach front property in 2050! Woohoo!)

[Sum Ting Wong]

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 18:15:18 -0700, sandy
> wrote:

>There have been a flurry of internet links, the last few days,
>to a series of stories about the announcement of a
>new global warming model that essentially concludes
>we've already past an unstoppable tipping point.

Standing near the Great Lakes when the glaciers were receeding, some
folks would lament the global warming taking place and rail at the CO2
being released from campfires of primitive man.

S.T.W.

[Cyli]

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 18:15:18 -0700, sandy
> wrote:

It's not off topic. It will change fishing patterns and places
various species will live by an immensurable amount. But it's hard
to pinpoint how and when and if that'll be a good or bad thing.

There's the starting fact that there's some pretty good science saying
that it was on its slow way anyway, and the most man has done is to
help it along quicker. We are coming out of a glacial age, the
warming has been happening over hundreds or thousands of years.

As for the religious side of it, I can't speak. I'm pretty much an
agnostic, but I backslide into anything from primitive animism to
middle class Prot Chrisitianity without notice. And sometimes without
noticing. Though I generally do notice when I get a pinch of hoodoo
(not voodoo) in there. My general attitude about 'higher powers' is
that they're gonna do what they're gonna do and there's probably
nothing I can do to stop or even influence them.

Humanity as an infestation? Well, yah. However, it's no worse an
infestation than blue green algae, the various grasses, dinosaurs in
their time, insects, and jellyfish. You've got your molten lava and
then you've got life. I don't think the earth, Gaia or Rhea or
whatever you want to call her / it, gives much of a diddly doodoo
about what shape the life takes or what gasses it inhales or emits.
Humanity just likes to get in a twitter about us being an infestation
and harm to the earth because we've got so much ego that we _have_ to
be important to the planet.

We're not. The most we can do is mess up the ecology that spawned us.
We can't mess up _the_ ecology, because there have been lots of them
and doubtless will be more of them. It's sort of like messing up the
number 4.13126298. There are lots more numbers.

Think about the thing in terms of mass. Mass of the earth versus mass
of humans and their artifacts from the beginning of homo (whatever
species you care to name) to present. Totally unbalanced in favour of
the earth, isn't it?

So let's get it down to how to save the ecology that makes us
comfortable and may keep our progeny comfortable and keep in mind that
there's more out there if humans and even mammals all go away. Once
we admit that we're a speck on Goddess' glasses (she needs to magnify
to even see us as that), then we can get down to how to save what we
want. We aren't going to do it by regarding the end of our gentle
world with the end of the universe.

However, you all do know (drop into solipsism here) that when I die,
you're all going to vanish, don't you?

Cyli
r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels.
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli
email: (strip the .invalid to email)

[Tim J.]

sandy wrote:
>> Is global warming OT in this newsgroup?

What's this "global warming"?
--
TL,
Tim
---------------------------
http://css.sbcma.com/timj/

[Wolfgang]

"Sum Ting Wong" > wrote in message
...
> On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 18:15:18 -0700, sandy
> > wrote:
>
>>There have been a flurry of internet links, the last few days,
>>to a series of stories about the announcement of a
>>new global warming model that essentially concludes
>>we've already past an unstoppable tipping point.
>
> Standing near the Great Lakes when the glaciers were receeding, some
> folks would lament the global warming taking place and rail at the CO2
> being released from campfires of primitive man.

Standing near the Great Lakes when the glaciers were receding would have
left the survivors with a host of more immediate and pressing
laments......and little time in which to indulge them.

Wolfgang
who, it must be admitted, derives but cold comfort from the realization that
some things never change.

[sandy]

It was whiskey loosened my tongue.
That's all I'm going to say.


--
/* Sandy Pittendrigh >--oO0>
**
*/

[vincent p. norris]

>Think about the thing in terms of mass. Mass of the earth versus mass
>of humans and their artifacts from the beginning of homo (whatever
>species you care to name) to present. Totally unbalanced in favour of
>the earth, isn't it?

Not sure that's the way to think about it, Cyli. If you think in
terms of mass, an elephant vastly outweighs a rifle slug about the
size of your thumb, which can kill it.

vince

[Wolfgang]

"vincent p. norris" > wrote in message
...
> >Think about the thing in terms of mass. Mass of the earth versus mass
>>of humans and their artifacts from the beginning of homo (whatever
>>species you care to name) to present. Totally unbalanced in favour of
>>the earth, isn't it?
>
> Not sure that's the way to think about it, Cyli. If you think in
> terms of mass, an elephant vastly outweighs a rifle slug about the
> size of your thumb, which can kill it.

Then too, ants (or so I've heard) comprise something like 10% of the Earth's
animal biomass.

Hm.......

Wolfgang
who, while living in south florida, saw individual cockroaches bigger than
that! :(

[Cyli]

On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 20:46:19 -0400, vincent p. norris >
wrote:

>>Think about the thing in terms of mass. Mass of the earth versus mass
>>of humans and their artifacts from the beginning of homo (whatever
>>species you care to name) to present. Totally unbalanced in favour of
>>the earth, isn't it?
>
>Not sure that's the way to think about it, Cyli. If you think in
>terms of mass, an elephant vastly outweighs a rifle slug about the
>size of your thumb, which can kill it.
>
>vince

But we don't have a planet buster bomb. Yet. Until then, we can
change our particular ecology, but the earth will wander on in the
regular path and accept whatever ecology comes next.

Cyli
r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels.
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli
email: (strip the .invalid to email)