It may be a concern, or it may not, but the burden of evidence is on those who advocate spending public money.
If climate change is causing damage, it will also require spending public money to fix and adapt, and probably more because it means there's less time to take the proper action. By that argument, the burden of evidence is on those who advocate nothing is happening.
Advocates of climate change action should stop the shrill rhetoric
Most of them are very reasonable, but the over-the-top vocal ones are the ones that make the press. That's how it always goes. Drama sells papers. On the other side, there's also a very vocal group (with other agendas) that claim the world isn't warming because it snowed yesterday. It would be nice if all these extreme ends of the spectrum would shut up, but unfortunately, that's not going to happen, and we'll have to do with whatever we get.
I don't dispute that there are regular droughts, but I'm wondering how that helps to find the cause of this particular one. I don't believe there's a 500-year clock mechanism somewhere that is responsible for triggering them.
There is a huge difference between looking through a webcam at an ocean and actually standing at the shore yourself.
The difference is a lot smaller when you can move the camera (and other instruments) around, zoom in on any details that the human could see, and you have a team of experts deciding where to look.
Humans can create new tools
The environment of Mars limits what you can make.
There are economic benefits to developing the technology to send humans that go far beyond the mission itself.
That also applies to technology we would develop for autonomous robots. Probably more so.
We've figured out how to keep a rover alive for several years. That's plenty of time to do a bunch of research. I think the bigger problem is that after a while they run out of interesting things to look at with the instruments they brought. What they really need is better and different instruments. Human presence couldn't help you with that. All it can do is compress the "several years" into "several weeks". Given the time to prepare and execute the entire missions, that's hardly significant, especially because a human mission would take much longer to prepare, and would cost several orders of magnitude more.
I think it makes more sense to work with the known data, and not count on magical new stuff appearing when we need it. Betting our future on sufficient methane hydrate production is a big gamble. It may work out, of course, and then I'll be happy to hear you say "I told you so".
That's not being serious. Hubbert's peak theory wasn't formulated until 1956, and serious claims as to the exact moment of peak oil only appeared in the last decades. Of course, things like methane hydrates are not included in the peak oil discussion. That doesn't make the prediction wrong, just limited in scope. Obviously, when you expand the scope, you have to adjust the predications.
As far as methane hydrates, what's the best guess for when we can capture enough methane hydrates to generate a million barrels/day from it ?
You make a claim and you want me to provide the evidence for it ? That's not how it goes. What Ted Danson says is "The industrial way we fish for seafood is harming the marine habitats that all ocean life depends upon.". That's a bit more accurate than "kill all life in the oceans".
Slashdot Mirror
I use firefox + adblock plus 2.6.3, and I don't see any ads either.
It may be a concern, or it may not, but the burden of evidence is on those who advocate spending public money.
If climate change is causing damage, it will also require spending public money to fix and adapt, and probably more because it means there's less time to take the proper action. By that argument, the burden of evidence is on those who advocate nothing is happening.
Advocates of climate change action should stop the shrill rhetoric
Most of them are very reasonable, but the over-the-top vocal ones are the ones that make the press. That's how it always goes. Drama sells papers. On the other side, there's also a very vocal group (with other agendas) that claim the world isn't warming because it snowed yesterday. It would be nice if all these extreme ends of the spectrum would shut up, but unfortunately, that's not going to happen, and we'll have to do with whatever we get.
I don't dispute that there are regular droughts, but I'm wondering how that helps to find the cause of this particular one. I don't believe there's a 500-year clock mechanism somewhere that is responsible for triggering them.
You don't need a model to see there's global warming. You can do that simply by making observations.
Not that graph again....
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/201...
Why should China care about California's citizens ? If you want them to make rapid change, you need to offer something in return.
Last I checked, this drought is a "500-year drought"
How does one check such a thing ?
This is just one of Obama's (or any president for that matter, this sort of thing is hardly limited to him) attempts at pushing some sort of agenda.
Or any other person for that matter, this sort of thing is hardly limited to presidents.
That doesn't mean it's not a reason for concern.
There is a huge difference between looking through a webcam at an ocean and actually standing at the shore yourself.
The difference is a lot smaller when you can move the camera (and other instruments) around, zoom in on any details that the human could see, and you have a team of experts deciding where to look.
Humans can create new tools
The environment of Mars limits what you can make.
There are economic benefits to developing the technology to send humans that go far beyond the mission itself.
That also applies to technology we would develop for autonomous robots. Probably more so.
We've figured out how to keep a rover alive for several years. That's plenty of time to do a bunch of research. I think the bigger problem is that after a while they run out of interesting things to look at with the instruments they brought. What they really need is better and different instruments. Human presence couldn't help you with that. All it can do is compress the "several years" into "several weeks". Given the time to prepare and execute the entire missions, that's hardly significant, especially because a human mission would take much longer to prepare, and would cost several orders of magnitude more.
I think it makes more sense to work with the known data, and not count on magical new stuff appearing when we need it. Betting our future on sufficient methane hydrate production is a big gamble. It may work out, of course, and then I'll be happy to hear you say "I told you so".
Oh, you mean this one: "In 1988, he said we had 10 years to save the oceans or we would pay the consequences, which would be death.[citation needed]".
I stand corrected of course. Why didn't you just quote that line ?
When the next "cometary visitor" from the Oort Cloud comes knocking
It's easier to survive a comet impact on earth than it is to survive the normal conditions on Mars or other solar system object.
In addition to looking for water, NASA also looks for anything out of the ordinary. I don't know what more you could do to find life.
Seriously a Century of being wrong on this
That's not being serious. Hubbert's peak theory wasn't formulated until 1956, and serious claims as to the exact moment of peak oil only appeared in the last decades. Of course, things like methane hydrates are not included in the peak oil discussion. That doesn't make the prediction wrong, just limited in scope. Obviously, when you expand the scope, you have to adjust the predications.
As far as methane hydrates, what's the best guess for when we can capture enough methane hydrates to generate a million barrels/day from it ?
Endless peak oil doom ?
Conventional oil has already peaked. Shale oil wasn't included in the Peak Oil predictions, but that will peak within a few decades.
You make a claim and you want me to provide the evidence for it ? That's not how it goes. What Ted Danson says is "The industrial way we fish for seafood is harming the marine habitats that all ocean life depends upon.". That's a bit more accurate than "kill all life in the oceans".
Half an hour is not a lot of time, all things considered.
So, where did Ted Danson actually claim that we were going to kill all ocean life ?
The existing rovers on Mars move at an average speed of 30 meters per hour. Average human walking speed is over 100x faster.
When you have a few decades head start, 30 meters/hour beats 3000 meters/hour for a long time.
Let's not do anything or go anywhere
Nobody says that. But the budget is only so big, so I would rather see it used on something that brings the most scientific bang for the buck.
Yes, when we do find live, it means we've recognized it. We may, of course, overlook life much earlier.
One keystroke per indentation is the simplest and most efficient.
Or zero, if you have auto indent. But a decent editor will allow these options, and still let you choose between tabs and spaces.
All of them can be made happy if you use tabs to the point of indentation, and then after that use spaces to further indent.
No. If you use tabs for indentation, and then spaces to line up comments after the code, it gets all screwed up when you change the tab settings.