Re: OT: followup on New Orleans - disgraceful
- From: bill.sloman@xxxxxxxx
- Date: 7 Sep 2005 10:28:26 -0700
John Larkin wrote:
> On 1 Sep 2005 04:12:40 -0700, bill.sloman@xxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> >You over-estimate them. They are in denial, and aren't even conscious
> >of the threat.
> >
> >Jared Diamond's "Collapse" ISBN: 0670033375 has a bit to say about the
> >behaviour of the controlling elites in collapsing societies, and the
> >typical pattern is business as usual, going after luxury goods to used
> >to reinforce their status, and investing in impressive structures aimed
> >at the same end. "Fiddling while Rome burns" pretty much covers it.
> >
> >The oil business - which paid for Bush's election and re-election -
> >would have shrink dramatically if anyobdy started taking global warming
> >seriously, and you can imagine how likely they are to let their
> >imagination - or anybody elses - run free in that direction.
> >
> >They won't even see this as censorship, but as censuring people who
> >occupy theyselves with nonsense at public expense,
> >
> >Check out John Larkin's comments for an example of the mind-set. He is
> >a smart as they come, but has a blind spot on global warming.
> >
>
> Blind spot? I've said that
>
> The global warming phenom is poorly understood.
>
> Any man-made warming is a blip in the historical, natural chaos of the
> planet's climate. Solar variance, vulcanism, cosmic ray influx, cosmic
> dust influx, our periodic passage through the galaxy's plane, orbital
> variations... all have effects, some profound. We've had ice ages and
> climate catastrophies that wiped out most of the species on the
> planet. You just don't remember.
I've just been reminded - by reading Tony Hallam's "Catastroiphes and
less calamities" ISBN 0-19-280668-8. If you went to the same trouble,
you might find out that global warming is rather better understood than
it was a few years ago. The influence of atmospheric CO2 levels is
pretty clear from the ice-core data, and there is good indirect
evidence of the influence of atmospheric methane from the geology at
the Paleocene/Eocene boundary, some 55 million years ago, when the
oceans seem to have gotten warm enough to break down the under-sea
methane hydrates.
The recent rise in CO2 levels is a very large blip, and if we warm up
the oceans enough to start melting some of the methane ice on the sea
floor, we could melt the ice-caps in short order.
>
> It's not known if increased C02 levels will help or harm the planet
> and its critters. Once the C02 level on this planet was measured in
> per cent, not PPM.
Sure, and there were tropical rain forests where the antarctic is now,
and the sea level was some hundred metres higher than it is now. It
might not harm the planet, but it would change its ecology. Big,
slow-breeding species like us tend to go extinct when the environment
changes that dramatically. The K-T event did for everything weighing
over 25kgm (55lbs).
> There's not much we can do about it.
There is a quite a lot we might do about it. You've listed a number of
reasons why it would be difficult to do anything effective, but
"difficult" is not "impossible".
> The Chinese and Indians and
> Africans and Russians want to quit being poor, to have electricity and
> transportation and houses with floors, all that energy-intensive
> stuff, and we'd be prigs to tell them to stay picturesque and save the
> gas for our Volvos. Try telling the Chinese to "take global warming
> into account" and quit mining coal.
If you could persuade them that their national survival was at stake,
you might have a chance, and it probably is. There isn't much point in
building up infrastructure if it is going to be submerged in a century
or so. New Orleans and the surrounding oil refineries are a case in
point.
http://resumbrae.com/archive/warming/100meter.html
> If global warming is the result, get used to it. If whining about it
> justifies your Anti-Bush or Anti-Blair or pro-Marx politics, enjoy.
I'm not whining about it - I've not got any kids and I'll be safely
dead before it starts doing any real damage. It just seems strange that
so many people are still in denial.
> I've sold, so far, four or five thousand 16-channel electrical survey
> instruments for end-use load studies, developed originally with the
> DOE and the PNL/Battelle Institute. Most of the utilities and many
> universities in the US have used this gear to analyze energy use
> patterns and efficiency. What's your contribution, other than blaming
> and insulting people?
You see it as "blaming and insulting". I see it as raising
conciousness. I'd be delighted to do something more practical, but the
nearest I've got to doing anything recently is a promise of work with
Philips if they do go forward with some medical ultrasound project - I
don't have the luxury of being able to choose to work on something that
might be construed as planet-saving.
----------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
.
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