Slashdot Mirror
Volcanic Warming Eyed in 'Great Dying'
gollum123 writes "AP writes on an article in the journal Science where an ancient version of global warming may have been to blame for the greatest mass extinction in Earth's history. 'In an event known as the "Great Dying," some 250 million years ago, 90 percent of all marine life and nearly three-quarters of land-based plants and animals went extinct. Researchers think the answer is Massive volcanic flows in what is now Siberia, and believe the extinctions were caused by global warming and oxygen deprivation over long periods of time."
From the learning-from-history dept??
WTF are we supposed to learn from this, "Don't set the fucking volcanos off"?
If only the US had signed the Krakatoa-Pompeii Treaty, we wouldn't be getting fucked to death by these massive volcanic flows!!
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
When people climb tall mountains, they have to deal with lower oxygen. (Some people bring oxygen with them, but some don't). ...16% oxygen in the atmosphere doesn't sound like it would kill all those people...
It might not kill people who are trained to deal with the differences in the levels. For the elderly, for those that have weakened immune systems, and for young children these changes might have consequences.
People train at altitude for months to get their bodies prepared for thin air. I have a feeling that dinosaurs might not have had the chance (or possibly even the evolutionary ability) to make those changes over a short period of time.
> Luck favors the bold. - Virgil
> Luck favors the well prepared. - Pasteur
Luck favors the lucky.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Um ... these are in geological terms.
30 miles/hour is fast or slow depending on what sort of transportation you are talking about (walking vs. car vs. jet plane). 10 million is sharp vs 1100 million.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
"The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere people... we are!" ~ George Carlin
Now it's bad enough when we get local pertebations in weather that screw up the growing season. With global warming we start wandering into realms where the entire WORLD's growing patterns change. When you have millions of people starving in one country, while a previously uninhabited place starts being able to grow food like crazy, you get global wars as we all pile onto the new places like toddlers fighting over a cookie.
And if that weren't bad enough, where you have millions of starving people with compromised immune systems, epidemics aren't far behind.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
No, if impugn the work of scientists simply because it would fit your political agenda, and give no counter evidence to support your conspiracy theories, then yes, it is flame bait.