Haiti

Wasn't it caused by Toba erupting or something ?

 

In message

Looks more like they are just scooping them up with JCBs and chucking
them in mass graves

 

On Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:13:57 +0100, Wicked Uncle Nigel

[climate change denier]

People who don't use emotive language concede the public debate to people
who do. That's why you get "pro-choice" and "pro-life" in abortion debates.

Basically, if you're trying to convince the general public, not using
emotive language is akin to taking a sword to a gunfight. Yeah, maybe
a sabre is an elegant weapon for a more civilised age, but you're going
to get shot.

The majority of people use predominantly emotional heuristics to make
decisions, sometimes with a thin veneer of rational thought. Not
that it is a bad thing, emotional heuristics are rather good. But you
have to take that into account when dealing with humans.

 

Ah, here it is. I should be able to dig out her logbook if necessary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_flight_in_the_UK

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Richard Smith

That says that flight is in VMC under IFR. Which is what I was saying,
isn't it?

 

"Do you dig graves?"
"Yeah, they're OK"

I've found some of the reporting to be a bit voyeuristic. I know they
need to let the world know and all that, but if I'd been one of the
rescue workers pulling a survivor out of the rubble, I'd have told the
reporter that was standing on said rubble doing a piece to camera to
get out of the fucking way and let me get on with my job.

 

OK. First up the, 1,500,000 should have been 500,000 my cock up. '5's
and ',' being the same key and me trying to delete it.

These are just the time periods of each of the major cycles:
Eccentricity
Axial tilt
Precession

Not the accumulative cycle.

That's just the eccentricity. We are 50.000 years from a maximum.

(20,000 years from an axial tilt that will accentuate the seasons and
10,000 years from precession doing the opposite to the seasons.)

Oh Dear!
If you take the accumulative cycle:
The changes in the seasonal snow fall and minor glaciation caused by the
above trigger feed back loops. It is these feed back loops that drive
the major shifts in global climate change.

Ignore the trigger and you can predict anything.

Feed back loops can include eg :
The Global conveyer (North Atlantic conveyer)
Glacial sheets and the Earth's Albedo
Sea levels/temp and CO2 release / absorbsion
etc.

I should have made it clearer. By referencing Bruegel I was indicating
the Northern European area. I was trying to be artistic.

It is hypothesised that it was caused by a shift or faltering of the
global conveyor belt in the North Atlantic. This was caused by a loss of
ice in to the Labrador current due to a period of warming..

The supporters of the 'shift' theory point to the increase in
temperatures in Spain that caused crop failures.

I used this example as an extreme but short (in earth terms) example of
a total shut down of the conveyer. 1000 to 1500 years

I'd change your source of data. The North Atlantic Conveyer dropped to
25% of it's flow rate during a period in 2004 and faltered for 10 days
at the end of 2006. Minor fluctuations that cause no problems but it did
follow a loss of ice and melt water in to the Davis Strait and hence the
Labrador current. (ICESAT SPOT)

eg: (Not necessarily for you but others who may be following this
thread)

The natural 'feed back loop' in the North Atlantic is:

[start]
North Atlantic Conveyer gets very efficient warms the climate conditions
in the north Atlantic and melts the ice.

Ice melting changes the density and forces the Global Conveyer to loop
south of the equator.

The North Atlantic area gets very cold lots of ice forms.

The ice makes the sea density more favourable for the Conveyer to go
north and warm up North Atlantic.
[Go to start]

Off to have Brunch now!

 

My reference to short time scales.

FUD?
Female Urinary Device?
Fair Use Doctrine?
Fear Uncertainty Doubt?

In the longer term it will change any way.

I'm a heretic not a true believer in the *one* cause.

Erm? Move the earth closer or further from the sun?
What other SiFi answers do you have to this one?

)>

Probability is we will have a major catastrophe before then.

 

The joy of modern rolling 24-hour news channels.

Only one step down the moral ladder from the photographer looking for
his next Pulitzer.

 

I'm in agreement here but would add the hope that a degree of sudden climate
change provides an antidote to 3rd world overpopulation.

 

You seem terribly convinced by a lot of rather loose science. Just because
there are many scientists employed in the field, being paid for being in the
field, doesn't make it good science.

There seems to be a general lack of the usual mechanisms, impartial peer
review etc, and too many things which are not certain are proclaimed as
certain because "we must take it as certain because if we don't and we are
wrong the consequences will be terrible". Well **** that, if we always took
that approach then the RCC would still be running Europe.

The science is being polluted by politics. Some rather left wing politics.
Some rather right wing politics and a lot of Anti Capitalist politics. And
for that reason it is all rather losing its way and for that reason many
people are utterly cynical and sceptical.

You can boil down a few facts though and make a few sensible provisions.

Has humanity increased the level of CO2 and other (really) harmful gases in
the atmosphere. Well of course it has. We have been very careless in our use
of technology vis a vis the environment and we have allowed population to
grow to astronomic levels then set about industrialising the 3rd world on
that Careless model.

Do we know enough about the environmental system to put firm numbers on the
contribution we have made to CO2 increases. No we fucking don't and anyone
who says we do is wrong, deluded or has a political agenda. Do we know
enough to put numbers on some of the other gases, yes probably we do.

Do we know what the effect of the changes in gas composition are going to be
in the macro environmental model? No we fucking don't and anyone who says
we do is wrong, deluded or has a political agenda. But there are some
pointers in the evidence which suggest it MAY be going to have a negatve
effect on some or all of us.

So should we do something and when should we do something. Well it's a
win/win proposition. One thing needs to be done, it needs to be done for
multiple reasons and it doesn't have a downside for you and me.

Stop burning fossil fuels for electricity and centralised heating
generation. That's all. It generates almost all of the gases that matter
and has (for us in the West) a detrimental effect on world economics.

So, start installing flu gas treatment systems on the gas/oil/coal power
station *everywhere* right now. That's a 30 year project. Then over the next
60 years close them all down, other than the few in each country required
for backup systems. Centralised heating systems need to go electric,
everywhere, shutting off supplies of oil and gas except where mains power is
not available. I suggest that LPG and biodiesel are the appropriate niche
products.

That is a LOT of political will though, isn't it. A lot of vested interest
disrupted. And probably the West should refuse to trade with all and any
countries that refuse. We don't supply them any products. We don't buy
anything. We don't connect our voice and data communications to them. Real
proper pressure.

None of that seriously inconveniences people on the Western streets, does
it. No pet projects in schools. Nobody gives up their cars. Nobody has to
turn the heating down. No sudden and negative change in Western society at
all. Indeed it would rather consolidate the economic and technology
advantages that West has over the less developed countries.

 

None of it makes me feel I have any believable idea of everything that is
actually going on there. Which is what I would like to get from The News.

 

I haven't heard anyone say it yet so let me be first.

They live on a major tectonic fault line which has in the recent past caused
huge damage. They all group together in dense conurbations. They mostly
make buildings in construction and materials as likely to kill the occupants
in an earthquake as possible.

Ergo......

 

They wouldn't do it if they had any choice?

 

....some effort should be made to assist stable governance, the repayment
or writing-off of loans from the years of major corruption, and the
targeted use of international aid to help avoid the same mistakes being
made?

I wholeheartedly agree!

 

Nice small flexible light wooden buildings, as the ordinary folks in some of
the Asian areas at risk do.

 

why, they will only **** it all up again.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8463921.stm

Much better idea. It's fucking stupid to live in high density communities
built over fault lines.

Just wait until LA or San Fran get it served up cold.

 

Nicely stated Hog. Mind if I quote you on that elsewhere?

Kev

 

Again?

 

I thought this applicable:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/the-daily-cartoon-760940.html