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Changes in Earth's Orbit Linked to Extinctions
Josh Fink writes "A group of Dutch Scientists have recently released a study stating that they have found that changes in Earth's orbit around the sun are linked to mammal extinctions. From the article: '"Extinctions in rodent species occur in pulses which are spaced by intervals controlled by astronomical variations and their effects on climate change..." The cycles are associated with lower temperatures, changes in precipitation, habitats, vegetation and food availability which are the main factors influencing the extinction peaks, the study published in the journal Nature said.' So on top of worrying about global warming, it seems we should also worry about the physics that govern the orbit of Earth around the sun. Too bad we don't have a way of keeping the Earth in the same orbit/on the same axis of rotation."
We did until George Bush ordered it to be defunded.
Do you have ESP?
before anyone starts getting all 'see, all you global-warming believers, this is a perfectly rational natural explanation for the current warming trend,' the periods of these natural cycles are on the order of 1.2 and 2.4 million years. not exactly fast-acting.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
The dinosaurs died because you touch yourself at night. Family Guy told me so.
Too bad we don't have a way of keeping the Earth in the same orbit/on the same axis of rotation.
Isn't it obvious?!? We have to find a way to keep all the rodents alive!!!
To start with, I propose a massive government sponsored squirrel feeder project, and a public ban on cats.
While I am sure those opposed to global warming will hold this study up as evidence that we should continue along our path to wanton self destruction, it represents little more than a blip on the screen when compared with the overwhelming evidence supporting the deleterious effects of greenhouse gases on our environment.
Indeed, while Nature is a well respected publication, it has become little more than a grandstanding rag where special interests buy articles to support their agendas. So junk science like this is given credibility to be used as ammunition against real science.
They figured a way to stop a Supernova, a change on Earth's orbit should be a piece of cake!
My other OS is the MCP!
Is causing a wobble in the earth's orbit and causing global warming. Now where is my Nobel prize?
This is clearly due to world jump day... http://www.worldjumpday.org/
I left my wallet in El Sigundo!
That's just daring Hollywood to make an action movie involving a motley crew of dangerously unqualified misfits, nuclear bombs, and terrible depictions of science.
Too bad we don't have a way of keeping the Earth in the same orbit/on the same axis of rotation.
You sir are shortsighted. Find someone to blame, add it to the party platform (either one, it doesn't matter) and then fund raise on it. Global Wobbling must be stopped!! We can stop it!!! It won't be stopped if party X get's/keeps control of Congress!!! The time to act is now!!
Please click here to donate 25, 50, 100, 1000 dollars to STOP GLOBAL WOBBLING. You will receive two complimentary pamphlets entitled "The Wobble, the Planet, and You" and "Why is Galileo weeping?". Both are packed with earth-shattering information to help you spread the news of this new threat to our precious freedoms and way of life.
Strangely, the headline is worded to imply that extinctions caused changes in the earth's orbit.
More info in nature. It seems to do with something called Milankovich cycles. But i guess 'wobble' is specific enough for stuff that matters.
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
Take the shuttle to Lawanda Kompleks and replace the bedistor to reactivate Course Control.
Say out loud: I'm an Aspie and I'm somewhat proud, I guess. Uh. Can I write an email in all caps instead? Hm...
...and you just linked it!
Observe:
"140Mandak262Jamuna mentioned NFL quarterbacks having motorcycle accidents in a comment about Global Warning."
Even if we could affect a change in the earth's orbit around the sun, who's to say if that is a good thing? Might that not be akin to preventing all forest fires? Controlled burns are our way of preventing some large/catastrophic forest fires and lightning strikes are nature's way of doing it. What makes us think the "wobble" in our orbit isn't causing cyclical "refresh" events? No, I'm not suggesting some diety is controlling things or that ZOMG WE R AL GOING 2 DIE or anything like that. Just saying we might not yet comprehend the consequences of making this "fix" change. Hell, we are still unable to predict the weather with any certainty more than a day or two out. /shrug
...and asteroid impacts, close passes by rogue planets, ice ages, orbital wobbiling, development of nuclear weapons, and the occasional odd supernova in your immediate vicinity, you go on to develop advanced civilization and the Double Whopper with Cheese (tm).
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Incorrect. Millions of football fans and fantasy football players sighed upon news of Roethlisberger's motorcycle accident, either in relief or exasperation. All that additional hot CO2 released into the atmosphere is dangerous, dammit!
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
it should be "mammal extinctions linked to changes in earth's orbit", not the other way around...
Too bad we don't have a way of keeping the Earth in the same orbit/on the same axis of rotation.
I'm sure industrial corporate America is responsible for contributing to the change in rotation. bad, corporate America! BAD!
Power to the Penguin!
link linked to mammal extinctions.
What what?
can I get a link link?
Clearly, this is caused by the precession generated by all those people who are spinning in their graves. I say we dig 'em up and reverse their polarity.
That's not the Earth's orbit causing rodent extinction.
That was the mice rebooting the Earth while debugging it.
Since the users of our iPlanet are bailing out now without the system shutting down, I expect we're obsolete. Get ready to do your part for the firewall they turn us into.
--
make install -not war
Too bad we don't have a way of keeping the Earth in the same orbit/on the same axis of rotation.
Too bad we don't have a way of controlling the Earth's orbit. Then we could move it a little bit further out to offset global warming.
The parent post is not flamebait. The Slashdot MOD system has become an inbred, retarded, ideological FAILURE!
but surely both extinctions and changes in orbit could be explained by meteorite impacts in one fell swoop?
We don't have animals in our climate model, but if you'd like to see how orbit effects climate, you can do so yourself.
The EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA GCM in a graphical interface. You can double-click to install, and if you'd like to turn the sun down a few percent or change the orbit, there are checkboxes and sliders. Press play, wait a while (hours to a day or so depending on your computer), and you can look at the results...
Disclaimer: I'm the developer.
Space and Computers.
What if we solved global warming a few hundred years from now, reversed a lot of the temperature increases we found we are directly responsible for, and over that time the Earth's orbit/rotation changed such that an Ice Age was triggered? Oh noes! Suddenly global warming doesn't seem all that bad, does it?
Suppose again someone in charge actually accepted my supposition and decided global warming research was pointless.
Ok, I'm done making improbable suppositions.
Blame it on microsoft, it makes everyone so much more happier.
How do animal extinctions change the Earth's orbit?
As for moving the Earth's orbit, they did that in Gorath.
They cover Antarctica with giant, city-sized rocket engines. Yep. SOLID science fiction, baby.
It's not the rotation, it's the tilt
The earth did it]
Of course, the better known theory that an asteroid caused the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago might also be related to changes in earth's orbit, no?
Not possible. We all know any and all changes in global temperature are caused solely by SUVs, and anyone disagreeing is obviously in the pocket of the Big Oil companies, and probably believes the Earth was created 6000 years ago.
(btw -- chimpy mcbushitler is the devil, no blood for oil, make love not war, we will know peace in our time, etc)
John Kerry actually voted for the Global Orbital Treaty before he voted against it.
Not many people realize that.
You meant to say "extinctions linked to changes in Earth's orbit", which is not the same thing. As for the global warming conclusions -- the article makes excellent points about how fairly minor changes in basic climatic conditions can have far-reaching consequences, including fatal impact on life. The fact that the current climate changes are 1) hard to diagnose, 2) hard to predict does not undercut the need to adjust emissions & pollution policy to prevent realistic bad consequences.
Yeah, by all means feel free to keep pumping crap into the atmosphere that is slowly killing the planet if not by heat just by poison. I think the global warming stuff is secondary to throwing toxins into the air and ground so that our own food is making us sick. Either case, dialing the output a bit wouldn't hurt as much as the industrial companies lead you to believe.
....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
as a resident of canada.. who lives through 2 seasons every year.. winter and the partial thaw before the next winter.. i say BRING IT ON..
Global warming sounds like a good idea to me..
Did I mention they're calling for snow today??
Was it link link linked or just link linked?
News at 6.
It's never just a game when you're winning. - George Carlin
I was arguing about global warming the other night with my half-senile extreme right-wing nutjob father-in-law. He maintained with great vehemence that the causes of global warming are debatable, therefore any emphasis on moderating pollution is a misdirected effort.
My view is that, regardless of the causes of global warming, wouldn't moderating pollution help to mitigate the effects? The cause be damned -- if there's something we can do to control the process by a few degrees isn't that worth doing?
Why all the obsession with cause to the detriment of consequence?
If the planet may be subject to orbital shifts that change the climate, shouldn't our civilization be empowered to do whatever it can to minimize such changes insofar as they represent a threat to our current au courant version of the ecosystem?
These stories are free but worth money.
Isn't it the biological factors that really effect a creature's ability to deal with the environment. I mean TFA actually states that rodents are susceptible because of their short lifespans... um, that's biology.
It is a combination of factors that causse extinctions, not just one single thing.
if some species can get extinct..will the change in orbit et al. result in emergence of new species?
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[quote]Too bad we don't have a way of keeping the Earth in the same orbit/on the same axis of rotation.[/quote]
;)
Archimedes once said:
"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."
So at least we have a outline of what needs to be solved
First, we had the pending doom of the New Ice Age (Global Cooling) in the 1970's (remember that? Of course not). When that failed to produce tons of money for the enviro-weenies' "research" and funding and votes for the libs' political campaigns, they invented the Global Warming hysteria which actually gained them tons of money...now this? What the F could possibly be next? I can hear it now:
"Katie, this just in...we are hearing reports that large quantities of space alien shit have finally made their way into our solar system from some far-off galaxy and it is heading straight for Earth! Run for your lives! Oh, the humanity!! Oh...wait...new report coming in...we CAN stop this shittroid afterall - make your check or money order payable to...".
Please, for the love all things, don't give the mis-guided, naive, dopey, liberal teenagers and other similar idiots a reason to adhere another whiney dumbass bumper sticker to their car. Bumper-to-bumper traffic sucks enough already.
that as the orbit of the earth was changing because of mammal extinctions?
For a metorite (actually asteroid) to measurably change the orbit, it would have to be in the size range of of Cuba.
One that large would would wipe out every species on the planet except maybe some bacteria/algae.
The whole tone of this /. post freaked me out. There's no way for there to be 'irregularities' in the Earth's orbit without something with both really high mass and really high velocity interacting with the earth or the sun.
So I read up on Milankovich cycles, and it turns out it's just precession. It's perfectly regular, it's just that in the case of something the size & slow angular velocity of the earth, it takes a really long time to change.
When you spin a top, you can see the axis of spin describe a circle. This is precession.
Likewise as the Earth rotates, there is precession. Also, as the earth orbits the sun, there is precession. These have cycles on the order of tens of thousands of years. Both can affect the climate by changing the angle of sunlight. There are cycles on the order of millions of years long in which the two effects both affect the climate the same way, and so produce a bigger net effect.
I guess wobble is an accurate term, except that to me it implies something irregular. In a system as big and isolated as the Earth's orbit around the Sun, or the Earth's rotation, momentum is king, and very little could cause an irregular change. These changes are just precession, and they're perfectly regular.
I am not a physicist, but I do have a Bachelor of Science in Physics.
TFA totally neglects telling us what the orbital/rotational changes were, or what caused them. Bad science reporting!
Hellloooo? Any astrophysicists out there who can tell us what really happened?
Changes in astronomical variables can effect the climate? No effing way! This is a hoax meant to distract you from thinking that your car is the sole cause of global warming.
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
Is there anyone else who fail's to see the logic in such things as global warming and mass extinctions affecting the orbit of the Earth? I mean come on guys come up with something that actually has the ability to be proven and/or not able to be biased souley to the opinion of the Ph.D.'s in that feild. Come up with something that can be physically proven, repeated several times with same results, and don't setup the test so that it's so tipped in your favor that nobody else but you can be proven right. Now I know I'll get modded for being off-topic but this example is from personal experience and shows exactly whats going on here. One of my co-workers at Wal-Mart is studying enviromental science and we got into a heated debate over global warming. She told me that after 1 hour of operation a car produces more CO2 than there is in 1 cubic KM of air at 35,000 feet. As soon as I began to attack the method of testing that proved her data true, she immediatley began the "I'm right, you're wrong!" course of thinking and wouldn't hear of anything that might actually prove global warming wrong. She said that if that test method isn't used (geusstimation and very closely rounded numbers made to fit there uses), then we are all doomed to live through another Ice Age in the very near future.
Yes I agree that things like these need to be taken seriously, to a certain degree though. If its out of our control why worry about it and make others lifes suck, just to justify our own point of view?
Just my $.02!
That its perfectly fine for one side to have exceptions to issues the other side but the reverse is not true.
My problem with the whole GW crowd is how they will quickly object or attempt to marginalize anything which doesn't support their view. At the same time any little piece of information which supports their view is held forth as indisputable fact.
Look, we don't know half of what we think we do. The one great thing about science in this day and age is that we are continously changing what we know as fact as our ability to observe becomes better and better. Old theories that were hard to prove can be supported and previous "unalterable" facts are dismissed.
We can barely predict the weather from day to day let alone week to week. We can't accurately predict the number of hurricanes, typhoons, or the like. Yet at the same time you want me to believe that enough is known to tell me that we are all going to die in 10 years?
Just admit you know about as much about the climate as the other side. Fact is, we are still discovering the variables. In no shape or form can you have the definitive anwser without all the variables.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Too bad we don't have a way of keeping the Earth in the same orbit/on the same axis of rotation.
Why are people so adverse to change? Everywhere you go people want a static environment and will go to great lengths to achieve it. They want to be told how things are and know that this will never change.
I would think that change is an opportunity to strengthen our position. The lessons learned in dealing with small changes will help us when the big one comes. But if we keep trying to force a static environment, all we will learn is that nature is much more powerful than we are.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Was it in Futurama the earth orbit was changed to counter global warming? Another proof that cartoons don't make you stupid.
The (ring)WORLD is not stable!
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Too bad we don't have a way to stop the Earth from warming up either.
Considering how many people actually live close to the water that is really an ass of a comment, especially when you keep repeating it.
So let me get this straight:
Change in Earth's orbit - is NOT caused by humanity
Reversal of the Earth's magnetic poles - is NOT caused by humanity
Global warming - IS casued by humanity
Who makes these decisions anyway?
It's lovely that you have it all figured out and seem to know every consequence of a warming event.... not.
Desertification comes to mind...
http://water-is-life.blogspot.com/
Also while it may be fun to have laughs at the expense of the "spotted owl lovers" the plunge in biodiversity which has already started won't seem so funny when you are inhaling the neurotoxic fumes of the algeas that take over when the current biosphere can no longer sustain itself.
Someone had to do it.
Oh wait that was my cat's fault. Never mind.
Damn the Republicans! They are responsible for this.
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Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
What the hell does that mean? The whole point of a cycle is that every point in the cycle is a 'beginning'. Roll forward a few million and we get the same thing again. Much better to read the original Nature article.
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061009/full/06100
Firstly, we are talking local effects here - the study involved specifically focused on a variety of spanish rodents. Previous studies collating data globally did not observe this effect. So this is a different thing from global warming - more of a shifting around of environments than a large scale global change. Moreover, this oscillation is fairly measurable, and predictable, and indeed well understood (that's why we can spot that the extinctions were caused by the oscillations), so it is simply wrong to blame GW on this.
The fact is, the small scale nature of this study gives us little clue as to how significant this effect is.
There is very little reason for alarmism on the back of a single paper about mice.
"...So on top of worrying about global warming, it seems we should also worry about the physics that govern the orbit of Earth around the sun. Too bad we don't have a way of keeping the Earth in the same orbit/on the same axis of rotation."
/ earth_move_010207.html
Yes, we have! And it's very interesting indeed!
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth
A link to the paper: Korycansky, D. G.; Laughlin, Gregory; Adams, Fred C. Astronomical engineering: a strategy for modifying planetary orbits. Astrophys.Space Sci. 275 (2001) 349-366
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0102126
Abstract:
"The Sun's gradual brightening will seriously compromise the Earth's biosphere within ~ 1E9 years. If Earth's orbit migrates outward, however, the biosphere could remain intact over the entire main-sequence lifetime of the Sun. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of engineering such a migration over a long time period. The basic mechanism uses gravitational assists to (in effect) transfer orbital energy from Jupiter to the Earth, and thereby enlarges the orbital radius of Earth. This transfer is accomplished by a suitable intermediate body, either a Kuiper Belt object or a main belt asteroid. The object first encounters Earth during an inward pass on its initial highly elliptical orbit of large (~ 300 AU) semimajor axis. The encounter transfers energy from the object to the Earth in standard gravity-assist fashion by passing close to the leading limb of the planet. The resulting outbound trajectory of the object must cross the orbit of Jupiter; with proper timing, the outbound object encounters Jupiter and picks up the energy it lost to Earth. With small corrections to the trajectory, or additional planetary encounters (e.g., with Saturn), the object can repeat this process over many encounters. To maintain its present flux of solar energy, the Earth must experience roughly one encounter every 6000 years (for an object mass of 1E22 g). We develop the details of this scheme and discuss its ramifications."
Perhaps instead of worrying about global warming, and the orbit of the earth, near earth objects, anthrax laced mail, terrorists, pirates, evil scientists, GM foods, sudden climate change, fundamentalist nutjobs. You should just worry about everything. Yes worry worry worry until you feel properly self righteous and afraid. Then build some sort of cold war bomb shelter and live in that. Besides sheeple are much easier to keep in line when they are scared of their own shadow.
The fascinating average temperature data from Vostok Antarctic ice data:
/ tempplot5.gif
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/vostok/graphics
shows that for last 450,000 years Earth was mostly in the Ice Age, interrupted
by 10,000 year long warm periods spaced 100,000 years apart. We are about 15,000
years into the last warm period on record.
Because of strong periodicity, the current best explanation of this cycle is
by astronomical phenomena (Earth orbit/axis wobble).
This does not contradict global warming---it just shows that the climate
is a very delicate balance between strong opposing phenomena; the point being
that we should be real careful how we influence it.
So if the GW supporters are wrong, the worst that would happen from following their advice is that we would be out a little more money but living in an environment that is much more diverse and clean.
If the GW supporters are right, and the worst that could happen from ignoring their advice is extinction of the Human Race.
So list Mr-I'm-A-Greedy-Glutton, tighten your belt and consume less to ensure a nice planet for the future.
Blar.
... change for the last 200 years?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This reminds me of this film.
If you manage to swallow the basic premise then the rest of the science isn't too incoherent: also, it's beautifully written, shot and acted (especially by the late great Leo Mckern.)
Well worth a view.
If everyone in China (1,313,973,713 per https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos /ch.html) climbs on a chair and jumps off at the same time they should be able to adjust the orbit of the planet.... figuring a mere 60lbs per person, the 78,838,422,780 pounds landing on one side of the planet should have quite an effect. By distributing special watches to everyone they could repeat the move as often as needed.
Isn't this basically the plot from Nightfall?
Oh...wait...
George Bush, SUV's, whats the difference.
So you and that dimwit Arianna Huff and Puffington are telling me my SUV is the primary reason for Global Warming while you or she fails to mention that hollywood jet setting lifestyle your leading or that 20k sq ft house you call a home when its really a convention center. Oh but then you can buy "carbon offsets"...what a fucking joke.
SUV's contribute to GW as much as you and any other purveyors of science castrated contribute to intellectual progress.
This has been known though out history about the earths orbit. the Egyptions,Incas,Mayas all new this. there has been noted of a great catalcym in myths of an iceage and floods which i think that there could be a connection of sorts that could be linked with the earths orbit not just ANIMAL EXSTINCTIONS.
I came here to complain about the Global Warming scare but I see its not nessary as so many slashdoters already don't believe in it.
Global Warming is fraud.
The intelligent tend to equiocate when confronted with the unknown.
./-ers perhaps we put too much weight to the intellectual, however, in my experience many intellectuals aren't very wise nor are they very good leaders (although there are exceptional people of course who break the stereotype).
The partisan tend to accept uncritically the propaganda discount the dissent.
Sadly neither response is very good way to approach a complicated problem like global warming. It takes wise people to weight all the evidence to get insight to what the problem is and suggest a course of action and true leadership to try something in the face of the knowledge that it may not be the right thing to do (and/or there is possibility of failure), yet the followers are confident is in pursuit of the best out of all the current available alternatives.
For what it's worth, weighing the evidence isn't the same as weighing arguments made by intellectuals or their partisan spokespeople. That's a mistake that many people make.
Sadly, in the current political environment, we don't usually get leaders to lead us nor wise people to consult, but just the intelligent and the partisan. This is the biggest suffering the the global warming debate (and other big questions of our time). We are sadly reduced to weighing arguments of intellectuals through the glasses of partisans instead of seeking the consult of the wise and backing up the true leaders. As
There's very little skill set involved to become a partisan, however.
Extinctions Linked to Changes in Earth's Orbit.
Or was I the only one who read it as a paucity of mammoths might cause a tilt...?
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Ooops. Still, I can try to salvage something.
a t_dying.html
8 /5720/398?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT= &fulltext=permian+warming&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0& resourcetype=HWCIT
The graph may be for the wrong event, but we still do have a general scientific consensus that the Permian extinction involved warming.
http://www.livescience.com/environment/050120_gre
Referring to
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/30
Now, as for the other spike... It doesn't show in the extinctions graph because that is a marine fossil diversity graph. The disruption appears to have mostly occurred for land creatures, but is still mentioned in numerous other article referring to it.
Yeah, it's an embarrassing error, but my general point still stands. There's no justification for saying that warming events are always good, and extinction events are always cooling.
OK; Listen everybody , those north of the equator, at the count of 10 move to your right 1 meter.
Does this mean that killing off thousands of species at once will cause the earth the fall into the sun?!
Shouldn't it be: 'Extinctions Linked to Changes in the Earth's Orbit'?
Connect the dots. Global warming is NOT man made. It is made by changes in Earth's orbit and changes in output from the sun.
Can anyone tell me who was burning fossel fuels between the year 850 and 1300 when the earth last experienced "global warming" or why from 1300 to sometime around 1800 we experienced global cooling in what scientists called a "mini ice-age"?
what is world doing even when something can be done to control global warming??
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...is that it's might be possible that with the number of people on the planet (6.5 billion approx), and with an average body temperature of about 90 degrees fahrenheit, could humans be contributing to global warming simply by existing?
Currently there are more people on earth than at any time in history, and with the addition of domesticated animals in increased numbers compared to their previously wild counterparts (horses, pigs, cows...in other words large-ish mammals), could that not have contributed a tenth of a degree here or there?
Sure, we've all heard about the evils of the combustion engine and the greenhouse gasses, but something I've never seen addressed is the fact that 6+ billion things at 90 degrees could be making things worse simply by being there. The same principle in miniature can be seen at a frat party on any university campus - take a room that is at 68 degrees ambient, add 200 people moving around and breathing in and out...after a couple of hours everyone's sweating and the room is over 80 degrees.
Although it's a gross simplification, I think it possibly has some merit for some grant-winning scientist to research.
Wow. I thought with the ozone layer, with such terrible CO2 levels, with global warming, all life was going to end soon.
:)
What an arrogant people we are to believe that what has occured over the several thousand years that humans have recorded as history is how things have always been, and how things must always be. The climate has changed dramatically in the past, and life adapted and survived. It will change dramatically in the future, and life will adapt and survive. In spite of mankind's ability to screw stuff up, in the great scale of things our contribution to the planet's climate change will seem negligible when the next supervolcano erupts, the next orbit shift occurs, or the next great event we haven't yet observed (nearby stellar nova, interstellar dust cloud, asteroid/comet impact, outgassing of suboceanic greenhouse gases, the sun warming over the next billion years, etc.) happens.
Life adapts to change, quite well, whether we're worrying about it or not.
I'm not saying we don't need to pay attention to what we're doing (if we want to minimize changes, we need to lessen our impact on the environment), but the gloom and doom predictions are silliness. From past climate patterns, if we didn't have global warming right now we'd be heading back into a cycle of increased glaciation, eventually leading to an ice age. There is no static climate. Life would, and will adapt either way.
If anything, I would suggest once fair global emission controls are in place, rather than spending excess time wringing our hands worrying about something we cannot prevent, we take that energy and begin planning, today, for the changes that we know will happen.
Still, if we weren't worry about whether we were going to have rising ocean levels and palm trees in Ohio we'd be wringing our hands over ice sheets advancing down through the grain belt. Choose your doom.
-Joe
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
600 million people were supposed to simultaneously jump on July 20th to alter the earths orbit to prevent global warming. Only after the fact did anybody bother to tell us this could lead to our extinction. Oh no!
Stupid people are funny.
"Changes in Earths' Orbit Linked to Extinctions" -- Congratulations on writing a wonderfully confusing headline!
Another reason to fly in to space and check out new homes! :) This world is fucked if we keep this up. That or we can look at it this way - Our only job is to fuck up the planet so bad, that it will kill us all off and bring on the dinosaur age again. We're going to ride this bicycle till the wheels fall off anyway, might as well have fun.
You'd risk the destruction of the only habitat that can sustain human life over the out-side chance that a measly Trillion Dollars could cure all the ills you listed?
We've already spent more than a Trillion Dollars (worldwide) fighting cancer, and so far, we've got nothin'
Clean water for everyone sounds nice...where do all the removed toxins go? Somewhere else on earth so they eventually get into the water again?
Shit, even if we had that much money it'd be spent on a war or something instead. By the time the US is 'done' with Iraq, the bill will be about One Trillion Dollars. Which we don't have. Which (according to you) could have cured cancer and given everyone on earth clean water and linux. Even though the people might value clean water over a war of lies...their leaders won't.
"Opportunity costs"...pffft...who's being simplistic?
Blar.
But more seriously, I've generally noticed intelligent people that are partisan tend to talk on both sides of their mouths. The intelligent of course have to feed their own egos and don't want to be wrong. The truely wise folks know that most of the time they are at least partially wrong, and realize the right answer is often unknowable, and aren't so high on their own horses... ;^)
Maybe you can survive, but that's all you're doing. You're not going to have a fun time in 120+ (and I mean without AC, in Vagas everyone has AC)
When you look for a periodicity in a bunch of data, you might do a fourier transform and look for peaks. (The other work did that.) Essentially you're doing a large number of correlations. If you try 100 corelations, you should not be surprised to see one that's significant at the 99% level, just by chance!
On the other hand, if the periodicity they found matched known astronomical phenomena (as opposed to the other work I looked at), the probability of a chance result is much reduced.
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
I went there once for a laugh. Food was okay, but I never gamble.
Wonder if it is still there.
Maybe we could rename it the "Chuck Norris Family Values Gaming Room"
Nice to know that your campaign contributions come from respectable businessmen.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Quick! Get me Casper Van Dien at once!
On second thought, forget it. We're fucked.
We get Yuri Geller to train 1 million people in how to think the earth to keep spinning in the right direction. An if just one person loses concentration then we're doomed to spin off into a black hole somewhere.
I could help the cause by sitting at home 24x7 just thinking about keeping the world on track. It'd be worth while, all I need are snacks, game console, tv and beer. I could get government sponsorship, maybe even a subsidy from somewhere for better beer. But I'm saving the planet, so it's ok.
Task Mangler
Would these slight changes in orbit happen to cooincide with GIANT FUCKING METEORS hitting the planet?
Just a thought.
"If the change is rapid ( "
There was a paragaph after that but I screwed up the html. Basically the explosion of new life after a major extinction event (such as the one we are experiencing now) is due to the lack of competition from the species that have been wiped out. I have no doubt that if/when humans are wiped out the planet will expolode back into new life once again.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
from the avoid-the-large-yellow-barbeque dept.
I'll have you know that yellow barbeque is actually quite delicious.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
Amen, brother.
This recently came to my mind - wouldn't the thinning of the ozone layer actually make more ultraviolet radiation reaching deep into the earth's atmosphere, thus contributing to heat it up further more?
If I understand this correctly, a normal ozone layer, will make the earth look 'bluer', partly reflecting the UV radiation though it would only be visible with accurately calibrated cameras lacking a UV filter (The 'Skylight filter' on regular photo cameras) It would have been very interesting to know, if this effect is great enough to be observed or measured and therefore could be contributing to the global warming.
It would have been useful, if someone could come up with some charts or bar graphs, which show us how much of the energy in the solar radiation, which is in the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. If that amount of energy is considerable, it could very well explain why the polar regions are warmed much more than the rest, since the ozone layer is much thinner there.
A few Cherry picked speculations and you guys are already to chalk up desertification as inversely correlated with global warming?? Get real. Look at what's actually hapenning. Do some real research for a change.
I mean if we just want to cherry-pick we can swat back and forth URLs all day: here ya go:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/06/17/de
The fact is that a forest needs a relatively stable supply of water. Under global warming, it gets nothing, then a flood, then nothing again. Deserts are fine with this. Forests aren't.
But don't bother listening to me. Or the people in Portugal, or Australia, or Africa, or...
Someone had to do it.