The Earth is Getting Fatter

murk1e writes "The BBC News service has an article which reveals that the Earth is getting fatter. It is well known that the Earth is slightly wider at the equator than at the poles, it is less well known that for years, the Earth has been becoming more spherical. Now it appears that the trend has reversed, and the Earth is getting more obese (in the sense of shape change rather than changing mass). Perhaps the Earth should sue?"

Comments

We are at the farthest distance from the sun now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Feeling any cooler?

Re:an effect of modern "civilization?"

[Jerf]

How long before we finally go to far, and the Earth dissolves entirely?

Oh good lord. You can't "dissolve" a planet, no matter how much sci-fi you watch. You must input enough energy into it to overcome gravity, which no amount of drilling will do.

Please get a clue; I mean this not as an insult, but that I really, really wish there were more environmentally concerned people with a clue. If more environmentalists were fighting rationally, maybe they'd make some progress, instead of worrying about stupid things and then making stupid decisions.

This is in no way a violation of the second law.

[Peter T Ermit]

Momentum's conserved, mass is conserved, energy is conserved -- nothing unusual is happening here. It's just the sloshing of the matter in an object. There's no violation of physics here.

Life isn't a violation of the second law, either. Put energy into a system, and you can reduce entropy locally. The only things that violate the second law are perpetual motion machines. (Small statistical glitches, like those reported last week, aren't violations either, as the second law is statistical.)

Re:an effect of modern "civilization?"

[quantaman]

Ummmmmm. Did you consider that is is perhaps just due to slow ossilations triggered by the rotation and its orbit (it isn't exactly in a stationary system)? Frankly I cannot imagine how we could of possibly caused something like this, I mean do you realize just how trivial we and our actions are compared to the ENTIRE PLANET!! Also consider that when drilling for oil they put water and steam back into the ground to fill up the gap (other wise we would be seeing a lot of lawsuits when oil wells started collapsing). We have NOTHING to do with the effects/evils of mankind it is just yet another natural phenomenon I don't understand. Besides I don't see a few millimeters here and there translating into the Earth dissolving in a few hundred years:) In fact looking back was your post just a fairly subtle joke on environmental extremists?