Italy Beppo Grillo and De-Growth

Catweazle · Post by **Catweazle** » 26 Mar 2013, 20:35

stevecook172001 wrote:Simply by existing, we are both complicit in the most negative trend of life on Earth since that last mass extinction event.

It's easy to blame the Human race for everything, but the planet existed quite happily before we evolved and will exist quite happily when we are gone. Evolution has created and destroyed more species than we can imagine, and just because we consider a particular butterfly beautiful doesn't make it any more significant than a dung-eating ant in the DODGY TAX AVOIDERS.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 26 Mar 2013, 21:34

Catweazle wrote:
stevecook172001 wrote:Simply by existing, we are both complicit in the most negative trend of life on Earth since that last mass extinction event.
It's easy to blame the Human race for everything, but the planet existed quite happily before we evolved and will exist quite happily when we are gone. Evolution has created and destroyed more species than we can imagine, and just because we consider a particular butterfly beautiful doesn't make it any more significant than a dung-eating ant in the DODGY TAX AVOIDERS.

Life will, of course, recover. However, it may take millions of years to recover from the mass extinction that is now well underway. You may not realise it, C, but the rate of extinction that is currently occurring is at least on a par with the Dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago and quite possibly far greater.

Hopefully, a significant proportion of us humans will have f***ed off before it gets that bad.

Catweazle · Post by **Catweazle** » 27 Mar 2013, 08:50

stevecook172001 wrote:
Catweazle wrote:
stevecook172001 wrote:Simply by existing, we are both complicit in the most negative trend of life on Earth since that last mass extinction event.
It's easy to blame the Human race for everything, but the planet existed quite happily before we evolved and will exist quite happily when we are gone. Evolution has created and destroyed more species than we can imagine, and just because we consider a particular butterfly beautiful doesn't make it any more significant than a dung-eating ant in the DODGY TAX AVOIDERS.
Life will, of course, recover. However, it may take millions of years to recover from the mass extinction that is now well underway. You may not realise it, C, but the rate of extinction that is currently occurring is at least on a par with the Dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago and quite possibly far greater.

Hopefully, a significant proportion of us humans will have ****** off before it gets that bad.

Does it matter if it takes millions of years to recover ? All life has evolved, and life will continue to evolve until the end of the planet when everything will die. In cosmic terms it all happens very quickly and matters not a jot.

The only reason I can see for preserving the environment is so that we can leave our children a nice place to live. A malformed shrimp in the Gulf might not make much difference to them, a lack of bees certainly will, so perhaps we could concentrate our efforts on the important stuff.

I'll be planting flowers and not losing any sleep over the shrimp.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 27 Mar 2013, 09:19

One shrimp doesn't amount to a hill of beans, but shrimp and their ilk are the bottom of the food chain in the oceans and a major stabilising factor in the global climate, if Gaia theory is correct. Life won't last forever on this planet, the sun is slowly warming, and if Gaia has been stabilising the global temperature in the 'goldlocks zone' there is a chance that our human triggered mass extinction could knock the whole planet into run-away global warming from which it never recovers.

Even without that, life has got about 3 billion years left on the planet, tops.

Blue Peter · Post by **Blue Peter** » 27 Mar 2013, 10:36

RalphW wrote: Even without that, life has got about 3 billion years left on the planet, tops.

Thanks for reminding me. I really must get my bug-out bag sorted

Peter.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 27 Mar 2013, 11:58

That follows on from my theory of life, the universe and everyfeckingthing - that the universe could collapse back on itself eventually, hit a singularity and go big bang again, something it's done an infinite number of times and will do for a comparably infinite number of times.

Ahem. Well, this theory that I have - that is to say, which is mine...is mine.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 28 Mar 2013, 05:22

RalphW wrote:........... the sun is slowly warming, ............

Oh! no it isn't!! Not at the moment anyway.

I have a theory, which is someone else's but I've borrowed it, that the sun is cooling and will remain so for at least thirty years. It's a cyclical thing and relates to the Dalton and Maunder Minima, and several before that, when the sun goes into a quiet stage with low numbers of sunspots caused by low magnetic activity. It's the low magnetic activity that is the cause of the cooling not the sunspots which are only a symptom.

This graphic from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Centre clearly shows the dip in the early 1800s, which is the time of the Dalton Minimum cold period, with sunspot numbers in the 40s.

The predicted sunspot high for the current cycle is about 60 but could be lower looking at the way the graph is going at the moment.

The effect is explained in a paper here. This solar effect doesn't in any way denigrate the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming which could work in tandem with the solar effects. Global Warming could mitigate the loss of heating from the sun and give us a much less dramatic cooling over the next 35 years. The current cooling cycle, which should have started in about 2005, could be the reason that we have had three extremely cold winters in a row, which, in itself, is an unusual occurrence in my lifetime at least.

Blue Peter · Post by **Blue Peter** » 28 Mar 2013, 09:39

kenneal - lagger wrote: The current cooling cycle, which should have started in about 2005, could be the reason that we have had three extremely cold winters in a row, which, in itself, is an unusual occurrence in my lifetime at least.

Though would not people argue that the last 3 really cold winters are a local, not global, phenomenon (2010 being the warmest year on record), perhaps best explained by the changes in the arctic?

Peter.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 28 Mar 2013, 10:18

kenneal - lagger wrote:the reason that we have had three extremely cold winters in a row, which...

Have we. By 'we' do you mean
a) Berkshire,
b) the surface of the planet as measured by a lot of land-based observations, a few ocean surface measurements and a very few shallow ocean water temperatures,
or
c) temperatures in the whole ocean-atmosphere system, noting that 93% of the energy is in the oceans?

Hypothesis: variation of El Nino masks variation in sunspots.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 28 Mar 2013, 12:02

I was talking about warming over billions of years.

It is the standard evolution of a main sequence star.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 29 Mar 2013, 00:44

We have had Climate Change throughout the world with warming and cooling and flood and drought in different places at different times. Yes, we have a warming trend but it could be significantly warmer with a more active sun.

What drives the El Nino/La Nina cycle? The sun? Landscheidt has both related past El Nino/La Nina events to solar cycles predicted future ones.

Anyone doubting that CO2 is responsible for all the temperature changes on this planet brings out a certain tetchiness in some people! I am convinced that man made CO2 is a major source of warming but cyclical variations in the sun, which have been seen to affect climate in the past, could do so again. Just because we are dumping massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere doesn't mean that the sun can't go on holiday for a few years just the same as the fact that solar cycles are unlikely to be the sole source of warming or cooling of this planet.

JavaScriptDonkey · Post by **JavaScriptDonkey** » 29 Mar 2013, 12:54

Take no notice of Biff, he has belief.

The increase of CO2 by volume in the atmosphere is doubtless man made but its impact is hard to discern amid other variables.

The problem with the linear 'more burning = more CO2 = more global warming' concept is that it clearly is not the whole story but once people subscribe to it you have a terrible job getting them to admit that they may have overlooked something else.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 29 Mar 2013, 13:03

JavaScriptDonkey wrote:Take no notice of Biff, he has belief.

Actually I find the idea of 'belief' pretty meaningless. I think in terms of a hypothesis supported by observation that is used to inform action until further observation suggests that an improved or alternative hypothesis is better supported.

Oh, all right, I believe the Earth is not flat. We all lapse from the scientific analysis occasionally.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 02 Apr 2013, 10:14

biffvernon wrote:Actually I find the idea of 'belief' pretty meaningless.

Well said. Received language can be powerful and it's easy to slip into a sentence starting with, "I believe that..." Avoid.

the_lyniezian · Post by **the_lyniezian** » 14 Apr 2013, 21:03

biffvernon wrote:
JavaScriptDonkey wrote:Take no notice of Biff, he has belief.
Actually I find the idea of 'belief' pretty meaningless. I think in terms of a hypothesis supported by observation that is used to inform action until further observation suggests that an improved or alternative hypothesis is better supported.

Oh, all right, I believe the Earth is not flat. We all lapse from the scientific analysis occasionally.

So in other words the precautioonary principle.