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Earth's Period of Habitability Is Nearly Over
xp65 writes "Scientists at this year's XXVIIth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil agree that we do not yet know how ubiquitous or how fragile life is, but that: 'The Earth's period of habitability is nearly over on a cosmological timescale. In a half to one billion years the Sun will start to be too luminous and warm for water to exist in liquid form on Earth, leading to a runaway greenhouse effect in less than 2 billion years.' Other surprising claims from this conference: that the Sun may not be the ideal kind of star to nurture life, and that the Earth may not be the ideal size."
This is exactly the conclusion of this article of Scientific American, May 2009.
Cosmic Rays are electromagnetic radiation, they have no charge.
Untrue. Cosmic rays are mostly high energy protons.
Cosmic Rays are high energy particles, not electromagnetic radiation. They're mostly protons.
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
troll, I'll take your bait. The IPCC doesn't advise paying more taxes, but using our resources better : more insulation, more energy-efficiency ... which leads to : you needing to buy less energy. see for example : http://www.naima.org/pages/about/releases/2001/ase.html
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
I'm confused... how can 2012 be attributed to Christian myth even by the most loose of interpretations?
It isn't. It's attributed to Mayan myth (and its a fundamental change in the world, not necessarily the end of the world). But you get some confused people who think that's "another sign" of the last days, and that Jesus/the Apacalypse/what have you is coming then.
Totally illogical, not to mention heretical by their own belief system, but that doesn't seem to slow them down any.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
None of these are universal christian doctrines.
Luther, amongst many others, pointed to the papal system as the antichrist (literally meaning "in the stead of Christ").
Mark of the beast (on the right hand and forehead) is interpreted to symbolise a certain way of thinking and acting - indoctrination that salvation is attained through "the church" and not through Christ, with all the accompanying abuses of power. (Also keep in mind that the church organisations of today descend from that first church organisation, and although they claim to have reformed to leave behind some doctrines, they have maintained others.)
Persecution of christians under the Roman empire pales in comparison to persecution under the Roman church.
Single currency? Not sure, never heard of that one.
Rapture: I understand it's big in the US in certain circles, as it goes hand-in-hand with the aforementioned views, but it's not universal. When one investigates history and sees that many of these signs (many that you haven't even mentioned), that these people claim go hand-in-hand with the "end times", have been in effect from the days of the apostles, one realises that many christians in modern times have it incredibly good. I often ask proponents of the Rapture doctrine: what makes you better than the millions of early christians that where rounded up and fed to lions and burnt at stakes - why should you avoid persecution by being raptured, and they not?
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
I don't see a problem... unless you read the thing. And don't selectively ignore parts of it....
Oh wait, we can ignore it all! Based on the fact that it is just one of many creation/destruction myths, none with any more validity then the next....
...and that the Earth may not be the ideal size ...
I think your missing the point that they are making in that of course the Earth was able to develop life given it's sun and size. But that if they were to make the ideal star/planet combo that they would tweak some things to make it perfect. /. car analogy: I can get to work every day in a Yugo. But ideally I'd like to be driven in a stretch limo with strippers and an open bar. In fact, forget driving to work...
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Don't worry, the Earth will remain inhabitable even in the most dark of the global warming scenarios.
Just not by humans.
What global warming scenario says the planet won't be habitable for humans? I've seen scenarios where the carrying capacity is drastically reduced (due to serious declines in agricultural output) but I've never seen one where it's eliminated entirely.
Humans have survived serious climate changes before -- without the benefit of modern knowledge and technology. Do you really think we have the ability to do more damage to the climate than the Toba event?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Just because you use the word "faith" to mean two different things doesn't mean those two things are the same.
No one has "faith in airplanes" (well some idiots probably do. I don't "have faith" in the plane when I fly. I see the evidence that crashes are reasonably rare and in a commercial jet require a number of things to go wrong in succession in most cases. I also see that crashes do happen and people do die. I don't "have faith" that my specific plane will be ok and have a good pilot. I expect it to since in the vast majority of cases that is true. I'm not shocked and surprised when a plane crashes though.
American Indians had the wheel. They used it on toys (or religious figures; we're not really sure if the figures are just "toys"): http://www.shields-research.org/Graphics/Wheel/P191p1.jpg. If wheels are on "toys" you could assume they used them on larger objects. Not necessarily but toys in all cultures generally are miniature versions of objects in use.
They also drew pictures of wheels: http://www.shields-research.org/Graphics/Wheel/P192p1.jpg
They even made larger wheel-type objects that might have been use on carts: http://www.shields-research.org/Graphics/Wheel/P195p1.jpg
American Indians built most of their structures and tools out of wood. They used a lot of stone but most things were made out of wood. Wood objects do not last very well over time.
It's true, we don't have a lot of evidence that American Indians used the wheel, although many of them certainly knew what they were. I'll not go into the reasons people give for them not using the wheel but basically it boils down to: we don't know very much about the Indians.
and we still haven't found a method to either safely store it away or make it less hazardous.
Even though it's been said 1e6 times before on /. and I'm sure someone will say it elsewhere, bullshit.
You realize that nuclear power is the opposite of clean energy? It creates highly dangerous/toxic waste that's dangerous for thousands
Please stop spreading this dangerous misinformation. Do you even know how much waste you're talking about? Imagine a cylinder 10mm in diameter. A 5mm slice of that cylinder will supply your energy needs for a year. The rest of the world stores the byproducts safely on site, and there's no reason we can't do the same. Future reactor designs will burn the fuel more completely resulting in less (and safer) remaining waste.
Burning coal (the only practical alternative to nuclear) releases far more radiation into the atmosphere than nuclear power ever has or will. And don't even get me started on the mercury poisoning of lakes, etc.
I am assuming you mean uranium mining. It's about as bad as coal mining, and the area that needs the most improvement. It's basically just a grind and sift method, separating the trace amounts of uranium from the massive amount of rock and sand. A process that should automate pretty well. It will take some doing (initial time money and energy) to get a clean mining operation designed and implemented. With that said if simply presenting a problem is enough to stop you in your tracks then you won't get very far. A problem is simply an opportunity for invention, and invention is what turns the crank of progress.
Nuclear energy is not clean.
The main reason nuclear energy hasn't been clean is that the ones we have had up to now have by and large been optimized for one single primary concern: producing weapons-grade fissionable materials. Manufacturing energy has been a welcome by-product of that and the waste an accepted cost.
If we were to instead design nuclear plants optimized for green energy production we could make them almost arbitrarily clean. We would use efficient breeder reactors that burn up almost all their fuel, and we'd sequester any remaining waste for proper disposal rather than spew the radioactive waste into the air for all to enjoy like our coal plants are doing today.
sigs are hazardous to your health
The US has accumulated that much waste because it is illegal in the US to reprocess that waste into more uranium pellets. Other countries with active nuclear programs recycle their waste, drastically reducing the volume and half-life of the net waste output.