There are good reasons to be sceptical when somebody starts talking about fantastical solutions right under our noses and 'unlimited energy'. There is no such thing as unlimited energy. Period.
I remember when I was a kid in the 60s - we were just starting to hear about pollution, and those in power said 'Come on, how can anything we dump in the sea or air have a global effect'. Now we know that pollution is a huge global problem.
Then it was overfishing, extinctions, loss of habitats etc - and we're seeing it and realising what devastating effects these things will have.
And then of course global warming and then end of cheap energy - there are still some that are in denial, but most have now realised that it happens, and that we are to blame.
In all of these cases people didn't want to see that we humans reach the limits of any resources very quickly - the same will happens to this supposedly 'unlimited energy', even if the science part of it is not bogus. We simply have to stop wasting more and more resources.
Well, of course they do, but I think the database concept has evolved as far as it makes sense. Relational and object oriented databases are more or less the logical limit to what you can meaningfully do about organising data - and don't forget, databases are about organising data, not about how you use it afterwards. You could argue that retrieval methods are part of what a database is, since eg. indexing is a way of retrieving data - but that is bad thinking, in my view. An index is just data organised in a certain way.
That is just my opinion about things; now roll out Wikipedia and Webster dictionary to 'prove' me wrong, I don't really care. But why make a fuss about it at all? Well, I feel there is a trend to muddle the concept, and I think it is a good idea to keep those things clear and simple; otherwise it all just ends up being marketing drivel. Take for example the way 'the internet' has become equivalent with 'web sites' - which is obviously nonsense. The internet is a physical network plus a number of protocols, of which http is one. But we still see from time to time some stupid sod blaring out 'The Demise of The Internet' because of some new virus or other nuisance that affects a large number of web sites. Hey, let us keep our minds clear - certain applications of the internet may go out of use, but the internet continues.
So, back to databases - OK, some wise guy thinks that we will see databases more like so and so, and that it could be cool if whatever. All well and good, but its not that databases are changing fundamentally, its just new applications.
Oh, for fscks sake, get a grip now. Every time its about China we see this stupid paranoia; I'm sick of it, to be honest. What's going to be next? 'Chinese rice harvest record high - could this be a new plot to suppress freedom of speech?'
You Americans (or to be more precise: citizens of USA, since America is so much than USA) keep blabbing on about freedom, freedom, freedom. You know what I use to say? If you're starving, all you think of is food, if you're thirsty, all you think about is drinks. So why do you go on about freedom? Need I say more?
This is going to lead to a backlash I think. The thing is - most music is produced on an assembly line and is very repetitive; I honsetly have a hard time telling the difference between a lot of the bands out there. And the music industry wants to squeeze ever more profit out of us?
I personally have stopped buying new music altogether; can't see the point. At the same time I can see there's a lot of real talent that simply doesn't get published - at least not through any of the known labels. Seeing how recording equipment comes down in price all time, I think its only a matter of time before a lot of people start producing - and having success with - home made, unlabeled music CDs. I know I would be interested in buying some of that stuff!
Imagine this becoming a commodity: you can hibernate through all kinds of rough or simply boring times. Lost your job? Hibernate for 6 months and see whether things have improved. Perhaps something for the loving and caring US government, a way of managing the population?
Anyway, judging from the research into the life-prolonging effects of calorie restriction this might make people live longer (at least in real, if not in subjective, time)
I have often wondered about this, since I have never been able to find any merit in iehter the films or the cartoons. The plots are generally lame and farfetched, the 'science' has a very long way to go berfore it reaches as high as 'grossly inaccurate' or 'vaguely plausible', humour is totally absent, and the characters are shallow, immature and mechanical.
So why? Is it the leather and the puffed up Chevrolet he drives?
Learn to be a plumber, electrician, builder or gardener. No seriously - these people charge more per hour than most programmers dare aspire to, and its a physically active job. Plus, there's little reason to believe that the need for that kind of people will ever go away. A safe bet, in my opinion.
'Remember, the vast majority of the religions on the planet make Earth out to be something special in "all of God's work"'
Not quite - Judaism (and its two major sects, Christianity and Islam) works that way. I don't see much of that in eg. Hinduism or other religions. I think this kind of boneheaded intolerance is something that is more or less built in to monotheism: 'Since there is only ONE GOD all others are false by definition and therefore evil.' It is unfortunately very easy to extend this kind of intolerance to all aspects of existence.
It's interesting to see the comments here - everybody is so wise and knowledgable as to what the motives of the Chinese government are. And of course 'they are only out to cut off people's access to the hugely important information on the internet'. We all know that, don't we? Because they are evil communists; I mean that's EVIL, right?
Don't you think the Chinese government already know that they can't keep easily accessible information away from people? These people are clever - they are after all bringing China forward, from being a backward and poor country to now being poised to overtake USA, EU, Russia and Japan economically, scientifically and politically.
So why not try to think up something better than just repeating the usual drivel? Could it not be that these net-cafes are actually something that ought to be closed down? I mean, one thing is that about 99% of what you find on the Internet is worthless rubbish, but have you ever been in an average, Chinese internet cafe? I have - they are mostly small, cramped, filthy rooms where no attention has been paid to a basic thing as firesafety, not to mention that you can also very easily get much too close to the criminal environment; and Chinese gangs are not something that it is wise to get involved with at all.
No, in my opinion this is a good move, and one that most Chinese parents are probably happy with.
Talk about arrogance! Aren't you just now being simply an arrogant twit? I suppose you are one of those people who also belives that what USA are now doing in Iraq has anything to do with 'Freedom and Democracy'?
I think you are simply chosing to parrot whatever sounds most convenient; you don't want to have to give up your wasteful habits, so 'Global Warming Is Not Our Fault'. And you don't want to have to think critically about what Bush is doing, so you pretend to believe in his transparent nonsense. Etc etc.
So - on one hand the Bush government's maniacal power drive is 'to liberate...', despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and dubious evidence is enough proof for you guys to spend trillions of $$ on smashing up civilians in a poverty stricken country.
But on the other hand, 'Global Warming Is Not Our Fault' - despite overwhelming and growing evidence that says that it is. Because 'it is only 99% certain'.
It seems odd to me that this kind of drugs are promoted so uncritically - considering that throughout history all the 'fatastic enhancement' drugs have gone the same way: cocaine, heroin,...
Perhaps it is valid to search for this kind of drugs - but as time passes it becomes more and more blatantly obvious that the current laws about recreational drugs (which is all these new ones are going to be in the end) are woefully inadequate; and written by wild-eyed paranoics too.
Think about it: We all know that recreational drugs are more or less harmful in several ways. We all know that each year there are people who go down and even die because of them. We also know from our experience as a society with alcohol, that it is possible for most to avoid these sad effects, even though there are alcoholics who die every year.
So wouldn't it be better to decriminalise drugs in some sensible way? In the current situation a large part of the devastation caused by drug use is caused not by the drug, but by the fact that it is a crime to buy or use it. In my opinion it would make sense in so many ways if these things did not have to be bought from unscrupulous dealers and used in dangerous environments.
Firstly, however damaging the pure drug is, it becomes much worse when it is mixed with whichever rat-poison the dealer happens to have lying around. The health costs would be smaller if drug users had access to clean drugs and relatively safe conditions in which to use them, and many drug users would be able to pursue gainful employment rather than having to resort to crime, if they didn't have to raise hundreds of dollars each day.
Secondly, the entire class of 'drugs related crime' would not exist or be greatly reduced, thus freeing up police and jails.
Now I can't see anything wrong with these arguments - please point it out to me if there is anything obvious I have missed.
Isn't this just another MS Passport like scheme? The reason that thing didn't catch on wasn't so much that it was Microsoft or even that they wanted to keep all your information on one (hackable) computer, but the fact that it simply isn't a big enough advantage.
I personally have tens of usernames and passwords; the important ones are all different (as are the passwords), and the unimportant ones are from a small selection of names. Having only one names means having only one thing that an ID thief needs to crack. Thanks, but no thanks.
Corporations, and in particular American corporations, hide behind that kind of crap too much by far. A company is a 'person' in the legal sense and when you ask a psychiatrist about what kind of person possesses the personality traits you will find in the average American corporation, he'll say: 'A psychopath'.
Apart from that - a company is run by people and it's actions are the results of those people's decisions. Every time a corporation decides that regard for ethics or human life and health is immaterial, that decision is made by people. We all have a right to expect that the people that run companies act in a way that is in all ways responsible, just like we expect it from the persons around us.
I single out American corporations here, because in Europe this is not nearly as pronounced. One can of course speculate why this is the case, but a reasonable guess would be that this is because European companies are under far tighter regulations than in America.
On a final note, I think it is unsettling to know that America is run by enormously rich corporations that, as we have just seen, can best be described as psychopaths.
Whether volcanoes and other natural sources produce more or less is not the point, really. Seen over the 'short' time span (a few thousands of years), these phenomena are reasonably constant, and nature has coped. When you have a system, where what goes in balances what goes out, you only have to increase the influx a little to make things go out of balance.
Another area where you can see this is, interestingly enough, in people's weight: take a person who eats 2500 calories a day and uses up all that energy - his weight will be stable. If he suddenly starts eating just 50 calories more than he needs, he will begin to put on weight, and in a year this can be significant. The same thing happens to Earth: not only do we produce more CO2, but we also damage the environment in way that deminish nature's ability to absorb it.
So, whose fault is it? If you get into a boat and start dancing around, whose fault is it when you fall overboard?
China is no longer just 'a third world country', and as opposed to USA they don't have a proven track record of aggression and meddling in other countries' affairs. America is already trying to shut out China, and has been for years, but the world is more and bigger than America, fortunately.
So in reality it is the other way round:
1. America continues to shut the rest of the world out and slides further down towards becoming a 'third world nation'.
or
2. Americans get their act together, open their eyes to their own failings and weaknesses, clean out the corruption, take away the ridiculous amount of power held by big business and religious extremists, and grow up to become a TRUE democracy.
'When your ape signs "please let me vote for president, I care about ecological progress"' - you say.
Does that mean that the substantial number of illiterates in USA should not have human rights? Ah, you said 'ape' - but then what is man other than a species of ape, when it comes to it?
Besides, speaking of apes and presidents; well let's not go there, shall we? Just for a moment I actually read it as 'When your ape runs for president...'
This is exactly why I don't use Google anymore - not since 2002, or thereabouts. I suspect it has something to do with who buys adverts and who doesn't. What I seemed to observe was that when I searched on Google I would always get a lot of results that were irrelevant or only remotely relevant, but which pointed to commercial sites. The most grotesk was once I searched for nonsense words (just to see what happened) and I got results like 'Buy books about [nonsense-word] on Amazon'. I mean, that is simply totally worthless; at least to me. Not to mention deceitful.
Yahoo, which I prefer now, does the same, but at least they are honest about it and display these links seperately as 'Sponsored Links'.
I agree - you do have a point here. Unfortunately a lot of people here on/. don't think, at least not scientifically. I suspect they are seeing scientific and technical matters as a source for entertainment, simply.
In extension of what you are saying I think it is important to point out the need to realize that anything we do has an effect that is sometimes greater than we might expect - this is just one more illustration of the 'butterfly effect': that the flick of a butterfly's wings in one part of the world may ultimately cause a hurricane in another part of the world - this is of course a poetic interpretation of the surprising insights that chaos theory gives us.
It is important that we think before we act - and that we act cautiously. It wouldn't really cost us a lot to try to estimate the effects of our proposed extracting energy from different renewable sources; and once we know, we can proceed with more confidence, avoiding things that turn out to be too risky.
This is one thing I consistently fail to understand about certain people's attitude. It's always 'Oh, nothing can possibly go wrong' - and then, SLAM, wow, it went wrong after all. Don't people ever learn? We've had this lesson over and over:
1. The Black Death: 'Nothing wrong with living in filth and among rats'
2. The cholera epidemics: 'Nothing wrong with literally drinking other people's shit'
3. The smogs in London: 'Nothing wrong with breathing toxic gases and smoke'
4. etc etc
All of these cases are about how we pollute our environment choke on it. It's also about how certain people put their own short term interests above all else. And it is still the case. Just to pull out the same old, tired example once again: why won't America sign up to the Kyoto treaty? Because it would cost 'America' money - I put America in quotes, because it isn't really America, only a few ultra-rich American corporations that might or might not lose a bit of profit. And of course America aren't the only ones, just the most talked about.
Well, actually, breaking wind does indeed have an effect on the climate - at least when it is sheep and cattle that do it;-)
Sorry, I just had to say it. Apart from that, I find it a bit funny to see that on one side a lot of people reject the thought that burning fossil fuel is a major factor in the global heating, because 'it isn't sufficiently proved', but the all jump at this one, which is not in the least as well founded, scientifically.
This is not to say that I don't think the result is valid; but if one accepts this result, there is no good reason to reject that our pollution with CO2 etc is causing the global heating; and that if we want to improve our outlook, we must take steps now by drastically reducing our burning of fossil fuel.
Slashdot Mirror
We all have something to hide - of course. It's called privacy.
Yes, yes, calm down everybody.
There are good reasons to be sceptical when somebody starts talking about fantastical solutions right under our noses and 'unlimited energy'. There is no such thing as unlimited energy. Period.
I remember when I was a kid in the 60s - we were just starting to hear about pollution, and those in power said 'Come on, how can anything we dump in the sea or air have a global effect'. Now we know that pollution is a huge global problem.
Then it was overfishing, extinctions, loss of habitats etc - and we're seeing it and realising what devastating effects these things will have.
And then of course global warming and then end of cheap energy - there are still some that are in denial, but most have now realised that it happens, and that we are to blame.
In all of these cases people didn't want to see that we humans reach the limits of any resources very quickly - the same will happens to this supposedly 'unlimited energy', even if the science part of it is not bogus. We simply have to stop wasting more and more resources.
Well, of course they do, but I think the database concept has evolved as far as it makes sense. Relational and object oriented databases are more or less the logical limit to what you can meaningfully do about organising data - and don't forget, databases are about organising data, not about how you use it afterwards. You could argue that retrieval methods are part of what a database is, since eg. indexing is a way of retrieving data - but that is bad thinking, in my view. An index is just data organised in a certain way.
That is just my opinion about things; now roll out Wikipedia and Webster dictionary to 'prove' me wrong, I don't really care. But why make a fuss about it at all? Well, I feel there is a trend to muddle the concept, and I think it is a good idea to keep those things clear and simple; otherwise it all just ends up being marketing drivel. Take for example the way 'the internet' has become equivalent with 'web sites' - which is obviously nonsense. The internet is a physical network plus a number of protocols, of which http is one. But we still see from time to time some stupid sod blaring out 'The Demise of The Internet' because of some new virus or other nuisance that affects a large number of web sites. Hey, let us keep our minds clear - certain applications of the internet may go out of use, but the internet continues.
So, back to databases - OK, some wise guy thinks that we will see databases more like so and so, and that it could be cool if whatever. All well and good, but its not that databases are changing fundamentally, its just new applications.
'Will I one day have to pay a membership fee to access other popular forums?' you ask, and the answer is:
'No, but you may have to switch to another forum'.
Oh, for fscks sake, get a grip now. Every time its about China we see this stupid paranoia; I'm sick of it, to be honest. What's going to be next? 'Chinese rice harvest record high - could this be a new plot to suppress freedom of speech?'
You Americans (or to be more precise: citizens of USA, since America is so much than USA) keep blabbing on about freedom, freedom, freedom. You know what I use to say? If you're starving, all you think of is food, if you're thirsty, all you think about is drinks. So why do you go on about freedom? Need I say more?
This is going to lead to a backlash I think. The thing is - most music is produced on an assembly line and is very repetitive; I honsetly have a hard time telling the difference between a lot of the bands out there. And the music industry wants to squeeze ever more profit out of us?
I personally have stopped buying new music altogether; can't see the point. At the same time I can see there's a lot of real talent that simply doesn't get published - at least not through any of the known labels. Seeing how recording equipment comes down in price all time, I think its only a matter of time before a lot of people start producing - and having success with - home made, unlabeled music CDs. I know I would be interested in buying some of that stuff!
Imagine this becoming a commodity: you can hibernate through all kinds of rough or simply boring times. Lost your job? Hibernate for 6 months and see whether things have improved. Perhaps something for the loving and caring US government, a way of managing the population?
Anyway, judging from the research into the life-prolonging effects of calorie restriction this might make people live longer (at least in real, if not in subjective, time)
I have often wondered about this, since I have never been able to find any merit in iehter the films or the cartoons. The plots are generally lame and farfetched, the 'science' has a very long way to go berfore it reaches as high as 'grossly inaccurate' or 'vaguely plausible', humour is totally absent, and the characters are shallow, immature and mechanical.
So why? Is it the leather and the puffed up Chevrolet he drives?
Learn to be a plumber, electrician, builder or gardener. No seriously - these people charge more per hour than most programmers dare aspire to, and its a physically active job. Plus, there's little reason to believe that the need for that kind of people will ever go away. A safe bet, in my opinion.
'Remember, the vast majority of the religions on the planet make Earth out to be something special in "all of God's work"'
Not quite - Judaism (and its two major sects, Christianity and Islam) works that way. I don't see much of that in eg. Hinduism or other religions. I think this kind of boneheaded intolerance is something that is more or less built in to monotheism: 'Since there is only ONE GOD all others are false by definition and therefore evil.' It is unfortunately very easy to extend this kind of intolerance to all aspects of existence.
But not that big - Sellafield is in Cumbria, about as far away from London as you can get in England (which is not the same as UK)
It's interesting to see the comments here - everybody is so wise and knowledgable as to what the motives of the Chinese government are. And of course 'they are only out to cut off people's access to the hugely important information on the internet'. We all know that, don't we? Because they are evil communists; I mean that's EVIL, right?
Don't you think the Chinese government already know that they can't keep easily accessible information away from people? These people are clever - they are after all bringing China forward, from being a backward and poor country to now being poised to overtake USA, EU, Russia and Japan economically, scientifically and politically.
So why not try to think up something better than just repeating the usual drivel? Could it not be that these net-cafes are actually something that ought to be closed down? I mean, one thing is that about 99% of what you find on the Internet is worthless rubbish, but have you ever been in an average, Chinese internet cafe? I have - they are mostly small, cramped, filthy rooms where no attention has been paid to a basic thing as firesafety, not to mention that you can also very easily get much too close to the criminal environment; and Chinese gangs are not something that it is wise to get involved with at all.
No, in my opinion this is a good move, and one that most Chinese parents are probably happy with.
Talk about arrogance! Aren't you just now being simply an arrogant twit? I suppose you are one of those people who also belives that what USA are now doing in Iraq has anything to do with 'Freedom and Democracy'?
...', despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and dubious evidence is enough proof for you guys to spend trillions of $$ on smashing up civilians in a poverty stricken country.
I think you are simply chosing to parrot whatever sounds most convenient; you don't want to have to give up your wasteful habits, so 'Global Warming Is Not Our Fault'. And you don't want to have to think critically about what Bush is doing, so you pretend to believe in his transparent nonsense. Etc etc.
So - on one hand the Bush government's maniacal power drive is 'to liberate
But on the other hand, 'Global Warming Is Not Our Fault' - despite overwhelming and growing evidence that says that it is. Because 'it is only 99% certain'.
I call that hypocrisy.
It seems odd to me that this kind of drugs are promoted so uncritically - considering that throughout history all the 'fatastic enhancement' drugs have gone the same way: cocaine, heroin, ...
Perhaps it is valid to search for this kind of drugs - but as time passes it becomes more and more blatantly obvious that the current laws about recreational drugs (which is all these new ones are going to be in the end) are woefully inadequate; and written by wild-eyed paranoics too.
Think about it: We all know that recreational drugs are more or less harmful in several ways. We all know that each year there are people who go down and even die because of them. We also know from our experience as a society with alcohol, that it is possible for most to avoid these sad effects, even though there are alcoholics who die every year.
So wouldn't it be better to decriminalise drugs in some sensible way? In the current situation a large part of the devastation caused by drug use is caused not by the drug, but by the fact that it is a crime to buy or use it. In my opinion it would make sense in so many ways if these things did not have to be bought from unscrupulous dealers and used in dangerous environments.
Firstly, however damaging the pure drug is, it becomes much worse when it is mixed with whichever rat-poison the dealer happens to have lying around. The health costs would be smaller if drug users had access to clean drugs and relatively safe conditions in which to use them, and many drug users would be able to pursue gainful employment rather than having to resort to crime, if they didn't have to raise hundreds of dollars each day.
Secondly, the entire class of 'drugs related crime' would not exist or be greatly reduced, thus freeing up police and jails.
Now I can't see anything wrong with these arguments - please point it out to me if there is anything obvious I have missed.
A couple of bad things for a worst-of-all-list:
1. Missile defence - dated before it left the planning committee, and impossible to actually implement in real life.
2. Teflon tyres.
Isn't this just another MS Passport like scheme? The reason that thing didn't catch on wasn't so much that it was Microsoft or even that they wanted to keep all your information on one (hackable) computer, but the fact that it simply isn't a big enough advantage.
I personally have tens of usernames and passwords; the important ones are all different (as are the passwords), and the unimportant ones are from a small selection of names. Having only one names means having only one thing that an ID thief needs to crack. Thanks, but no thanks.
Ah, of course! So that's alright then!
Corporations, and in particular American corporations, hide behind that kind of crap too much by far. A company is a 'person' in the legal sense and when you ask a psychiatrist about what kind of person possesses the personality traits you will find in the average American corporation, he'll say: 'A psychopath'.
Apart from that - a company is run by people and it's actions are the results of those people's decisions. Every time a corporation decides that regard for ethics or human life and health is immaterial, that decision is made by people. We all have a right to expect that the people that run companies act in a way that is in all ways responsible, just like we expect it from the persons around us.
I single out American corporations here, because in Europe this is not nearly as pronounced. One can of course speculate why this is the case, but a reasonable guess would be that this is because European companies are under far tighter regulations than in America.
On a final note, I think it is unsettling to know that America is run by enormously rich corporations that, as we have just seen, can best be described as psychopaths.
Whether volcanoes and other natural sources produce more or less is not the point, really. Seen over the 'short' time span (a few thousands of years), these phenomena are reasonably constant, and nature has coped. When you have a system, where what goes in balances what goes out, you only have to increase the influx a little to make things go out of balance.
Another area where you can see this is, interestingly enough, in people's weight: take a person who eats 2500 calories a day and uses up all that energy - his weight will be stable. If he suddenly starts eating just 50 calories more than he needs, he will begin to put on weight, and in a year this can be significant. The same thing happens to Earth: not only do we produce more CO2, but we also damage the environment in way that deminish nature's ability to absorb it.
So, whose fault is it? If you get into a boat and start dancing around, whose fault is it when you fall overboard?
Hey, wake up mate.
China is no longer just 'a third world country', and as opposed to USA they don't have a proven track record of aggression and meddling in other countries' affairs. America is already trying to shut out China, and has been for years, but the world is more and bigger than America, fortunately.
So in reality it is the other way round:
1. America continues to shut the rest of the world out and slides further down towards becoming a 'third world nation'.
or
2. Americans get their act together, open their eyes to their own failings and weaknesses, clean out the corruption, take away the ridiculous amount of power held by big business and religious extremists, and grow up to become a TRUE democracy.
No I don't believe you will be able to either.
What do you mean 'lacy'? Do you like dressing in lace?
Simple:
1. vi
2. C
'When your ape signs "please let me vote for president, I care about ecological progress"' - you say.
Does that mean that the substantial number of illiterates in USA should not have human rights? Ah, you said 'ape' - but then what is man other than a species of ape, when it comes to it?
Besides, speaking of apes and presidents; well let's not go there, shall we? Just for a moment I actually read it as 'When your ape runs for president...'
This is exactly why I don't use Google anymore - not since 2002, or thereabouts. I suspect it has something to do with who buys adverts and who doesn't. What I seemed to observe was that when I searched on Google I would always get a lot of results that were irrelevant or only remotely relevant, but which pointed to commercial sites. The most grotesk was once I searched for nonsense words (just to see what happened) and I got results like 'Buy books about [nonsense-word] on Amazon'. I mean, that is simply totally worthless; at least to me. Not to mention deceitful.
Yahoo, which I prefer now, does the same, but at least they are honest about it and display these links seperately as 'Sponsored Links'.
I agree - you do have a point here. Unfortunately a lot of people here on /. don't think, at least not scientifically. I suspect they are seeing scientific and technical matters as a source for entertainment, simply.
In extension of what you are saying I think it is important to point out the need to realize that anything we do has an effect that is sometimes greater than we might expect - this is just one more illustration of the 'butterfly effect': that the flick of a butterfly's wings in one part of the world may ultimately cause a hurricane in another part of the world - this is of course a poetic interpretation of the surprising insights that chaos theory gives us.
It is important that we think before we act - and that we act cautiously. It wouldn't really cost us a lot to try to estimate the effects of our proposed extracting energy from different renewable sources; and once we know, we can proceed with more confidence, avoiding things that turn out to be too risky.
This is one thing I consistently fail to understand about certain people's attitude. It's always 'Oh, nothing can possibly go wrong' - and then, SLAM, wow, it went wrong after all. Don't people ever learn? We've had this lesson over and over:
1. The Black Death: 'Nothing wrong with living in filth and among rats'
2. The cholera epidemics: 'Nothing wrong with literally drinking other people's shit'
3. The smogs in London: 'Nothing wrong with breathing toxic gases and smoke'
4. etc etc
All of these cases are about how we pollute our environment choke on it. It's also about how certain people put their own short term interests above all else. And it is still the case. Just to pull out the same old, tired example once again: why won't America sign up to the Kyoto treaty? Because it would cost 'America' money - I put America in quotes, because it isn't really America, only a few ultra-rich American corporations that might or might not lose a bit of profit. And of course America aren't the only ones, just the most talked about.
Well, actually, breaking wind does indeed have an effect on the climate - at least when it is sheep and cattle that do it ;-)
Sorry, I just had to say it. Apart from that, I find it a bit funny to see that on one side a lot of people reject the thought that burning fossil fuel is a major factor in the global heating, because 'it isn't sufficiently proved', but the all jump at this one, which is not in the least as well founded, scientifically.
This is not to say that I don't think the result is valid; but if one accepts this result, there is no good reason to reject that our pollution with CO2 etc is causing the global heating; and that if we want to improve our outlook, we must take steps now by drastically reducing our burning of fossil fuel.