Friday, November 04, 2005
More ruminations.
It is amazing to me how pragmatic the invisible hand can be. Is there ever an end in which the money-grubbing becomes too much? A place where even the most obtuse capitalist starts seeing the self-destructiveness of this avaricious behavior?
The northwest passage to the orient has ever been a Ciabola to the merchant class. To cut so many miles off of established trade routes, ahh, the profits! Enough to make an Emperor blush.
This planet (earth) is made up of many checks and balances. These checks and balances are like vast machinery awaiting sufficient force applied to the appropriate lever to begin functioning.
The most obvious example is the hydrologic cycle, liquid to gas to solid, or water to evaporation to ice. Ice formed is white, water is dark, evaporation is grades of clarity. Water falls from the sky, rain. If the temperature is warm enough it quickly returns to the gaseous evaporative state. If cold enough, the water freezes into ice.
Longwave solar radiation excites the water molecules enticing them to evaporate. The longwave radiation rebounds off of the frozen ice in what is known as the albedo effect. Polar ice is very white with a strong albedo effect. Dark water has almost no albedo.
The radiation striking the water is absorbed, the radiation striking the ice is reflected. Therefore, the water absorbs heat at the same time as the ice rejects it. The ice is floating on the surface of the water, where currents gradually melt it away. Reduction in ozone resistance to longwave solar radiation makes water molecules more active, creating more heat, melting more ice. The mechanism is now in operation.
Whatever agent has caused it, the water is now warmer. The warmer water causes the ice to melt faster, the ocean gets warmer with more unfiltered solar radiation, the ice diminishes, further reducing albedo effect, causing more absorption of solar radiation, and so it goes.
Global warming is not that hard to understand. Did human beings cause it?
Does it matter who caused it?
...............................
Religion and science can each provide all the plausible denial one would need to deny anything. Holocaust revisionists can scientifically prove that the holocaust was made up by Zionist jews, scientists with strong religious beliefs can prove that the world has only been in existence 8,000 years. Both scenarios superficially plausible, but very unlikely.
When dealing with a precision device such as the planet earth, is it so hard to see that if there is a dumbshit at the controls, despite all inherent checks and balances, the course of the planet can go astray?
We humans are that dumbshit.
Is it arrogant for a human to claim that tiny little people can cause a fundamental change in the world climate? Hm, Is it arrogant for tiny little people to claim, based on an old testament, that God created the earth for the dominion of man? Sounds to me like man is dominating the planet, just as the Abrahamic God wanted it.
.................................
So the fabled Northwest Passage is due to become a year-round trade route within the next 25 years (science currently feels it will take fifty years, but let's just see.) Investors with an eye towards long-term growth potential are snapping up previously barren, icebound coastline all along Canada's northernmost shorelines, and likely along the northernmost shores of Siberia as well. In a warmer global climate, this will be the latitude in which the merchants will be able to bypass the Panama Canal and the Red Sea, saving both time and money.
Though rising sea levels will reduce land mass substantially, the human race will still have access to cheap imports. A sound investment.
The northwest passage to the orient has ever been a Ciabola to the merchant class. To cut so many miles off of established trade routes, ahh, the profits! Enough to make an Emperor blush.
This planet (earth) is made up of many checks and balances. These checks and balances are like vast machinery awaiting sufficient force applied to the appropriate lever to begin functioning.
The most obvious example is the hydrologic cycle, liquid to gas to solid, or water to evaporation to ice. Ice formed is white, water is dark, evaporation is grades of clarity. Water falls from the sky, rain. If the temperature is warm enough it quickly returns to the gaseous evaporative state. If cold enough, the water freezes into ice.
Longwave solar radiation excites the water molecules enticing them to evaporate. The longwave radiation rebounds off of the frozen ice in what is known as the albedo effect. Polar ice is very white with a strong albedo effect. Dark water has almost no albedo.
The radiation striking the water is absorbed, the radiation striking the ice is reflected. Therefore, the water absorbs heat at the same time as the ice rejects it. The ice is floating on the surface of the water, where currents gradually melt it away. Reduction in ozone resistance to longwave solar radiation makes water molecules more active, creating more heat, melting more ice. The mechanism is now in operation.
Whatever agent has caused it, the water is now warmer. The warmer water causes the ice to melt faster, the ocean gets warmer with more unfiltered solar radiation, the ice diminishes, further reducing albedo effect, causing more absorption of solar radiation, and so it goes.
Global warming is not that hard to understand. Did human beings cause it?
Does it matter who caused it?
...............................
Religion and science can each provide all the plausible denial one would need to deny anything. Holocaust revisionists can scientifically prove that the holocaust was made up by Zionist jews, scientists with strong religious beliefs can prove that the world has only been in existence 8,000 years. Both scenarios superficially plausible, but very unlikely.
When dealing with a precision device such as the planet earth, is it so hard to see that if there is a dumbshit at the controls, despite all inherent checks and balances, the course of the planet can go astray?
We humans are that dumbshit.
Is it arrogant for a human to claim that tiny little people can cause a fundamental change in the world climate? Hm, Is it arrogant for tiny little people to claim, based on an old testament, that God created the earth for the dominion of man? Sounds to me like man is dominating the planet, just as the Abrahamic God wanted it.
.................................
So the fabled Northwest Passage is due to become a year-round trade route within the next 25 years (science currently feels it will take fifty years, but let's just see.) Investors with an eye towards long-term growth potential are snapping up previously barren, icebound coastline all along Canada's northernmost shorelines, and likely along the northernmost shores of Siberia as well. In a warmer global climate, this will be the latitude in which the merchants will be able to bypass the Panama Canal and the Red Sea, saving both time and money.
Though rising sea levels will reduce land mass substantially, the human race will still have access to cheap imports. A sound investment.
