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Post by Fusioner on Aug 2, 2005 20:32:37 GMT -5
Survey Finds Gulf 'Dead Zone' Much Larger news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050802/ap_on_sc/dead_zoneThe dead zone, also known as hypoxia, forms each spring and summer as fresh water enters the Gulf of Mexico and causes large algae blooms. The algae die and sink to the bottom of the Gulf, where they decompose, using up oxygen in the deeper, saltier water. Fish avoid the low-oxygen water, and bottom-living organisms are killed. Officials are looking for ways to cut down on the amount of fertilizer and pollution in watersheds that flow into the Mississippi and end up in the Gulf.
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Post by Fusioner on Aug 2, 2005 20:35:09 GMT -5
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050731/ap_on_sc/citrus_cankerCitrus CankerFORT PIERCE, Fla. - The state is launching a major assault on the crop-destroying citrus canker disease in central Florida, trying to remove infected trees before the next tropical storm or hurricane spreads the bacteria any farther.
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Post by Fusioner on Aug 4, 2005 1:26:59 GMT -5
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Post by Fusioner on Aug 4, 2005 23:37:32 GMT -5
news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050804/us_nm/weather_hurricane_dcHurricane Ivan generated monster wavesWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hurricane Ivan, which caused a swathe of destruction across the Caribbean last September before crashing into the U.S. Gulf coast, generated ocean waves more than 90 feet high, researchers said on Thursday. They may have been the tallest waves ever measured with modern instruments, suggesting that prior estimates for maximum hurricane wave heights are too low...
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Post by Fusioner on Aug 8, 2005 11:10:17 GMT -5
news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050808/sc_nm/environment_heat_dcWildlife moves to stay cool in a warmer world ROBINS IN ARCTIC... U.N. data show that the warmest year since records began in the 1860s was 1998, followed by 2002, 2003 and 2004. Most scientists link the rise in temperatures to human emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, rather than natural change. The panel that advises the United Nations says that rising temperatures may drive thousands of species to extinction and cause more storms, floods and deserts while raising sea levels, perhaps by one meter (three feet) by 2100. Inuit peoples have noted southerly species of wildlife reaching the Arctic in summertime in recent years, including robins, hornets and barn owls. Anecdotal evidence from further south is piling up...
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Post by stupid on Aug 8, 2005 12:25:41 GMT -5
I kind of like global warming myself.
Are we still on the tail end of an ice age anyway?
Not that the changing environment won't have tremendous influences upon the alleles of the planetary genome, but how do we define adverse under these circumstances?
Are mere talking apes fit to determine what is good and what is bad? I think we overestimate ourselves, perhaps while at the same time underestimating our place in ecology.
Mr. Fusioner, is there some way your propose we deal with global warming? It is happening, however what if it not only cannot be stopped, but largely ties into natural cycles on earth?
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Post by Fusioner on Aug 8, 2005 13:32:41 GMT -5
The global warming we are seeing is an accelerated natural process at this point in time. The earth is still warming up from the last ice age. The addition to the slower natural warming process humans are pouring incredible amounts of both CO2 and pollutants into the environment (not just the air, the oceans are affected). I don't think it's a good thing. Even natural processes can be catastrophic... If you had the technology to move a comet away from a collision course with the earth to prevent an impact... You think it's better to let nature take its course? Of course human and nature are incontrovertably linked... You don't feel people should be responsible for their actions if they hurt the nature portion of our existance? Yes there is a solution... But there are problems getting to solutions... Hydrogen fusion technology needs to be the power supply of the next millenium. The best designs are based on Einstein's theory, and they don't work... So new working theory has to be developed... Not proven mathematically, but by developing working machines. Hydrogen Fusion Thread:fusioner.proboards60.com/index.cgi?board=future&action=display&thread=1122865011Einstein Thread: fusioner.proboards60.com/index.cgi?board=history&action=display&thread=1122978365
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Post by stupid on Aug 8, 2005 17:40:24 GMT -5
Perhaps, it is a complex topic. on the contrary, I think humanity should be accountable and face the consequences of its actions. Sometimes when we need to be saved from the consequences of our own action, the best thing for us is to face those consequences and not be saved.
I think that the tech is neat, however is there as solution of the inevitable global warming aspect? How much data do we have from the last tail end of the last ice age? Do you have a fractacular algorithm what we can apply to the global warming and predict climate trends?
I dread the pollution aspect, but think that mass extinctions and catastrophic change are natural and inevitable. If part of our problem is we have this war with nature, where we try to exert control, then how is attempting to exert more control and influence over nature a solution? Perhaps if catastrophe is what nature has in store for us we should not further attempt to control it, but should willingly face it.
Maybe interfering with nature is the cause of many of the problems we face, then if that is the case, how can there be a solution in attempting to interfere with nature yet again?
Would you agree that we have to work with nature at this point?
Maybe sustainable practices are more practical that the pursuit of further technology, even if we pursue sustainable technology. It might be time for people to come back down to earth.
This ties into my own thoughts on biological freedom, which may be brought up in time.
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Post by Fusioner on Aug 8, 2005 19:13:06 GMT -5
But the direction you face makes a difference. Things can be mitigated at the very least.
Without mitigation, there are real possibilities millions, even billions of people would die horrible deaths in the course of catastrophic changes.
It looks to me like a great number will die even with mitigation efforts.
Society can be taught... It is a slow, mountainous... But it does change with time.
I would think it possible to steer a halfway course between complete catastrophe and slow imperceptable changes. And it is not "taking control" of nature... It is attempting to moderate our effect on it, and reduce the rates of climate change.
Global climate change... with humans or without humans, is inevitable on a geologic scale. Humans have geologic impact on that scale, and the changes we make are specific, and rapid.
What that means is that left to its own... Nature changes the climate... Warm periods and cool periods are documented in the earth's fossil record. But nature makes changes over thousands of years. Men come along and in 100 years have consumed and exhaled a great deal of stored carbon... While at the same time deforesting vast tracts of land... And producing huge amounts of toxic pollution. The result is climate changes that occur in a few decades... Not thousands of years.
And the impact it will have, cannot be measured or calculated... All the data is not in... We are just starting to observe the first very serious problems. We don't have the advanced math yet to derive these fracal algorythms... The best minds have been spent looking at Einstein's curved and smoothed out space.
It is not a choice between the lesser of two evils... Both paths are correct. A clean, high energy, industrial power source will go a long, long way to stopping burning of hydrocarbon fuel for global production of energy.
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Post by stupid on Aug 8, 2005 20:47:01 GMT -5
I guess I am just too stupid to see it your way. Oh well.
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Post by Fusioner on Aug 8, 2005 21:05:16 GMT -5
I see some of your logic... Just let everything take it's course and nature will care for all in the end... Even Man.
But I don't think that is valid since Man has some control over his environment, and indeed his own destiny. It may take some slaps before the message is seen and heard loud and clear... But nature really has no mercy.
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Post by stupid on Aug 8, 2005 23:26:19 GMT -5
Perhaps humanity requires a lack of mercy in order to learn the lessons it needs to. I would say not to bite the hand that feeds us (so to speak) would be a good place to start.
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Post by Fusioner on Aug 8, 2005 23:35:45 GMT -5
Why?
We already affect climate. If you want people to suffer, that's already a given. Without some mitigation efforts things will progressively get worse... And you say?
What me worry? Mankind needs some kind of lesson... We cannot learn and progress without some form of punishment?
Climate control is not a long shot for a life form that can modify climate.
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Post by stupid on Aug 8, 2005 23:46:56 GMT -5
Sometimes salvation and redemption allow the cycle to continue and things to get worse.
I don't want people to suffer more than they have to, but in our case the hand has not been slapped for far too long.
If the punishment never occurs, (IE if we don't have to face the consequences of our own actions) we may never learn the lesson.
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Post by Fusioner on Aug 9, 2005 0:09:51 GMT -5
You do not see the magnitude of the problem... Even if we stopped producing greenhouse gasses and pollution completely... Tomorrow... It will be years before the climate change we have already started has completed.
We are on a roll... And even if you don't push anymore, things are not going to see any slowing for some time.
Climatic changes.
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