Extreme weather

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Extreme growth!?

[LesPalenik]

Extreme growth!?

Extreme growth of corn would be beneficial, but extreme growth of production of plastic straws and polyethelene shopping bags not.

[Alan Klein]

Extreme growth of corn would be beneficial, but extreme growth of production of plastic straws and polyethelene shopping bags not.

Actually extreme growth of corn is the problem the others are just the result. Farming has allowed huge population explosions that has led to the impact on the environment. In any case the environment won't be finally impacted because the population will level off. We're already seeing that and countries in Europe and elsewhere as the issues of modern living have limited the number of children people are having. So it's all self-correcting.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... the population will level off. We're already seeing that and countries in Europe and elsewhere as the issues of modern living have limited the number of children people are having...

Which means the end of the Western Civilization and the victory for the barbarians. Just like the Roman Empire.

[Rob C]

Which means the end of the Western Civilization and the victory for the barbarians. Just like the Roman Empire.

It depends on how you configure the maths: if each couple has no more than two, is simply replaces itself upon death. Problems start when alien groups move in with less considered birth rates (or cleverly designed ones!) and throw the indigenous equation out of gear, in which case, you are terribly right!

The original limit of two creates an initial build-up of figures, but life span limits the damage and brings the ratio into equilibrium after the original rise in the graph. Few of us meet great great grandchildren. Thank goodness. What would we find to say to them? And their music, O.M.G.

:-(

[Peter McLennan]

we are supposed to kill growth and return to the Stone Age, hunting our lunch with a bow and arrow!?

I've seen very few recommendations to that effect.

Always with the reductio ad absurdum.  Can't you come up with something a little more, I dunno, reasonable?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Rob, Western societies are all already way bellow the replacement rate, which is 2.1 per woman.

[Rob C]

Rob, Western societies are all already way bellow the replacement rate, which is 2.1 per woman.

I understand; that 0.1 refers to miscarriages. Maths is wunnerful.

[Rob C]

Regarding the storm of a day or two ago here in the western Med: I wandered down to the sea today, and I counted twenty-four yachts that had broken from their anchorages in the bay and had hit the shore and one another. I am told that a further six sank at their mooring. I have only ever seen one boat at a time in that condition on the rare winter's day. This is new territory.

I remember being told that you can't get insurance if you moor out there during winter; if that's correct, a lot of people gonna feel bad.

[Peter McLennan]

This is new territory.

That's what the weathermen from all continents keep telling us.

[Ray]

Regarding the storm of a day or two ago here in the western Med: I wandered down to the sea today, and I counted twenty-four yachts that had broken from their anchorages in the bay and had hit the shore and one another. I am told that a further six sank at their mooring. I have only ever seen one boat at a time in that condition on the rare winter's day. This is new territory.

Maybe new territory for you, Rob, and the locals whose memory extends back only a few decades, but imagine if the locals' Great Grandfathers were still alive. They might recall even worse events when they were young and CO2 levels were lower.

The greatest threat to humanity's future is the type of dumb thinking which describes every major, extreme weather event as 'unprecedented' and attributable to rising CO2 levels.

In the distant past, extreme weather events were attributed to a particular God. Now they are attributed to rising CO2 levels. It's just another religion. Even as recently as 1974, before the alarm about CO2 levels became widespread, the destruction of the city of Darwin by Cyclone Tracy, on Christmas Day 1974, was considered by some Christian fundamentalists to be a punishment by God because the city (in Northern Australia) was named after that horrible atheist, Charles Darwin. 

[Alan Klein]

Rob, Western societies are all already way bellow the replacement rate, which is 2.1 per woman.

China has a more severe problem.  But in the end will have the same reduction of population that will help the environment.  The issue of population causing climate change, if true,  will end naturally.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/opinion/sunday/the-chinese-population-crisis.html

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... This is new territory...

For you.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... In the distant past, extreme weather events were attributed to a particular God. Now they are attributed to rising CO2 levels. It's just another religion...

Exactly. Science as the new religion. People have that insatiable urge to explain things they don’t understand. One way or another.

[Rob C]

"In the distant past, extreme weather events were attributed to a particular God. Now they are attributed to rising CO2 levels. It's just another religion. Even as recently as 1974, before the alarm about CO2 levels became widespread, the destruction of the city of Darwin by Cyclone Tracy, on Christmas Day 1974, was considered by some Christian fundamentalists to be a punishment by God because the city (in Northern Australia) was named after that horrible atheist, Charles Darwin." .... Ray

"For you." .... Slobodan

Which is kinda the point we have been trying to make to you guys: it's changing. And it's incumbent upon us to do what we can to mitigate that change which is not doing any of us any good.

Bunching religion and science together is misleading; it may convince the oddball who shows the same blindness re. Mr Trump, but for the rest of us, the conjunction doesn't fit. You may as well try to make a similar analogy between the Southern Ocean weather and that of the Dead Sea.

The CO2 (how do you drop that pesky 2 on a keyboard?) levels were already rising in '74 and nobody spoke about it because nobody I knew had a clue as to what we'd been doing to our world; all we knew was that when regulations came in, we lost the smog that used to kill us, but no associations were struck. Today, we have rubbed the sleep from our eyes. Well, some of us have.

[Robert Roaldi]

Exactly. Science as the new religion. People have that insatiable urge to explain things they don’t understand. One way or another.

Give me a break.

[petermfiore]

People have that insatiable urge to explain things they don’t understand. One way or another.

That's why humans have had many gods. Fire, Rain, Lightning, Wind, etc... Notice as Science answers these issues, their gods disappear. When this planet finds the answer as to what this Universe is truly all about and why, the idea of God will need a update.

Peter

[Alan Klein]

I think we're best off letting God explain why things are and science how things work.  Conflating the too isn't good.  There's no argument with most religious people that you can have faith in God yet still be a scientist trying to understand how things work.  Call it getting in the mind of God or whatever.  The two are related but different as well. 

While we're on the subject of God, there's no conflict either with being observant and being a good steward of the environment.  In fact, the bible commands it even requiring beasts of burden to have the day off on the sabbath.  God, man and beasts all rest together.  Also, God doesn;t want us to schmutz up His creation.  But He also gives us the earth to be used.  We have to find a balance.  Sometimes were at odds what that balance is as it seems currently regarding climate change.  But we're all in His hands as well.  So maybe a little trust that all will work out regardless would be a nice thing to consider. . 

[LesPalenik]

While we're on the subject of God, there's no conflict either with being observant and being a good steward of the environment.  In fact, the bible commands it even requiring beasts of burden to have the day off on the sabbath.  God, man and beasts all rest together.  Also, God doesn;t want us to schmutz up His creation.  But He also gives us the earth to be used.  We have to find a balance.  Sometimes were at odds what that balance is as it seems currently regarding climate change.  But we're all in His hands as well.  So maybe a little trust that all will work out regardless would be a nice thing to consider. .

The Great Spirit teachings of the native Indians were to preserve and promote the beauty of the Nature.
The contemporary evangelical interpreters of God today promote greed, money, wars, and anti-abortion movements.

[Rob C]

But at least I have finally understood the mystery of black holes.

They have nothing to do with very high density/gravity. Their function is to act as drains: when a planet or other heavenly body loses its sense of gravity it can no longer hang together with itself, but performs the act of explosion. This creates loose particles which have to go somewhere, because if they don't, they simply cloud the issue. Hence, Nature, in its bounty, has given us these natural drainage holes through which all the loose crap slips weightlessly out to the next level of being where, with luck, it gets a freh dose of gravity and comes to its senses one more time. Do you see?

Infinity, if you like.