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Inspired by a Revolution in Our Midst, Worried About a Revolution in Our Atmosphere
If you were in the space shuttle looking down yesterday, you would have seen a pair of truly awesome, even fearful, sights.
Much of North America was obscured by a 2,000-mile storm dumping vast quantities of snow from Texas to Maine--between the wind and snow, forecasters described it as "probably the worst snowstorm ever to affect" Chicago, and said waves as high as 25 feet were rocking buoys on Lake Michigan.
Meanwhile, along the shore of Queensland in Australia, the vast cyclone Yasi was sweeping ashore; though the storm hit at low tide, the country's weather service warned that "the impact is likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations," especially since its torrential rains are now falling on ground already flooded from earlier storms. Here's how Queensland premier Anna Bligh addressed her people before the storm hit:
"We know that the long hours ahead of you are going to be the hardest that you face. We will be thinking of you every minute of every hour between now and daylight and we hope that you can feel our thoughts, that you will take strength from the fact that we are keeping you close and in our hearts."
Welcome to our planet, circa 2011--a planet that, like some unruly adolescent, has decided to test the boundaries. For two centuries now we've been burning coal and oil and gas and thus pouring carbon into the atmosphere; for two decades now we've been ignoring the increasingly impassioned pleas of scientists that this is a Bad Idea. And now we're getting pinched.
Oh, there have been snowstorms before, and cyclones--our planet has always produced extreme events. But by definition extreme events are supposed to be rare, and all of a sudden they're not. In 2010 nineteen nations set new all-time temperature records (itself a record!) and when the mercury hit 128 in early June along the Indus, the entire continent of Asia set a new all-time temperature mark. Russia caught on fire; Pakistan drowned. Munich Re, the biggest insurance company on earth, summed up the annus horribilis last month with this clinical phrase: "the high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and record temperatures both globally and in different regions of the world provide further indications of advancing climate change."
You don't need a PhD to understand what's happening. That carbon we've poured into the air traps more of the sun's heat near the planet. And that extra energy expresses itself in a thousand ways, from melting ice to powering storms. Since warm air can hold more water vapor than cold, it's not surprising that the atmosphere is 4% moister than it was 40 years ago. That "4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms," said Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis section at the government's National Center for Atmospheric Research. It loads the dice for record rain and snow. Yesterday the Midwest and Queensland crapped out.
The point I'm trying to make is: chemistry and physics work. We don't just live in a suburb, or in a free-market democracy; we live on an earth that has certain rules. Physics and chemistry don't care what John Boehner thinks, they're unmoved by what will make Barack Obama's re-election easier. More carbon means more heat means more trouble--and the trouble has barely begun. So far we've raised the temperature of the planet about a degree, which has been enough to melt the Arctic. The consensus prediction for the century is that without dramatic action to stem the use of fossil fuel--far more quickly than is politically or economically convenient--we'll see temperatures climb five degrees this century. Given that one degree melts the Arctic, just how lucky are we feeling?
So far, of course, we haven't taken that dramatic action--just the opposite. The president didn't even mention global warming in his State of the Union address. He did promise some research into new technologies, which will help down the line--but we'll only be in a position to make use of it if we get started right now with the technology we've already got. And that requires, above all, putting a serious price on carbon. We use fossil fuel because it's cheap, and it's cheap because Exxon Mobil and Peabody Coal get to use the atmosphere as open sewer to dump their waste for free. And today you can see the results of that particular business model from outer space.
Overcoming that will require a movement--a movement that is slowly beginning to build. In 2008 a few of us started from scratch to build a campaign with an unlikely moniker: we called it 350.org, because a month earlier this particular planet's foremost climatologist, James Hansen, had declared that we now knew how much carbon in the atmosphere was too much. Any value higher than 350 parts per million, he said, was "not compatible with the planet on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted." That's troubling news, because right now the atmosphere above Chicago and Cairns and wherever you happen to be is about 390 ppm co2. In other words, too much.
At the time, some of our environmentalist friends said that science was too complicated for most people to get--that the only way to talk about these issues was to simplify them. But we thought people could understand, just as we understand when a doctor tells us our cholesterol is too high. We may not know everything about the lipid system, but we know what 'too high' means--it means we better change our diet, take our pill, lace up our sneakers. And indeed 350.org has now coordinated almost 15,000 demonstrations in 188 countries, what Foreign Policy magazine called 'the largest ever coordinated global rally" about any issue.
That's just a start, of course, and so far not enough to counter the power of the fossil fuel industry, the most profitable enterprise humans have ever engaged in. So we'll keep building, and hoping others will join us. But the good news is simple: more and more of this planet's inhabitants are remembering that they actually live on a planet.
We've been able to forget that fact for the last ten thousand years, the period of remarkable climatic stability that underwrote the rise of civilization. But we won't be able to forget it much longer. Days like yesterday will keep slapping us upside the head, until we take it in.
The third rock from the sun is a very different place than it used to be.
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160 Comments so far
Show AllHi Tom, Barry's not referring to household waste; he's talking about sucking carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it in an area twice the size of California.
I am aware of that. The "illustration" I provided was an analogy to illustrate the systemic nature of the problem.
Regarding techno-fixes:
This is capitalism's pseudo-revolutionary technological alternative to the needed socio-ecological revolution. Those in charge are increasingly aware that the system in its normal workings under business as usual cannot solve climate change and other environmental threats. But rather than turn to a change in social relations [i.e moving away from capitalist social relations] of production -- that is, accept the need for an ecological revolution that would transcend the fundamentals of the system -- the vested interests turn instead to grand technological ploys. To understand the danger of such forms of geoengineering, one has to appreciate the complex nature of the earth system itself, [which are] beyond our capacity fully to understand. Some, for example, have said we can put iron filings in the ocean to promote algae and absorb carbon dioxide. But this could lead to other consequences such as expanding dead zones in the ocean (ocean anoxia). If we try to geoengineer the planet we are inevitably going to create bigger, more threatening forms of what Marx called metabolic rifts, with all sorts of complex, unpredictable effects. This is the road to insanity: the sorcerer's apprentice raised to the level of master of the entire planet. Nobel-prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen says we could dump sulfur in the atmosphere via cannons or aircraft, in order to block some of the solar radiation from reaching the earth. But if the economic system keeps on growing, we would have to increase the sulfur dumped into the atmosphere exponentially year after year, and we have no real idea what the repercussions would be if we tried to intervene in the earth system in this way on such an enormous scale. Carbon sequestration, if the technology ever got off the ground, might help. But it would not solve the underlying problem.
In capitalism you have an economic crisis whenever there isn't economic growth or it slows down significantly (more specifically when the growth of profits and accumulation turns negative or stagnates). It is a grow-or-die system. Whenever there is an economic crisis it poses..."a disaster for working people," since they are ultimately forced to bear the cost. We are experiencing that right now in a very big way. But it is also true that the ecological footprint of humanity is now too big, and we are crossing all sorts of physical boundaries of the system. This too is a reality, and one that will only worsen with continued exponential growth [that the capitalist system requires].
Excerpted from: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/foster270410.html
"we could dump sulfur in the atmosphere... to block some of the solar radiation" Think about what such dimming would do to already high food prices.
yes tom...........and don't forget the GREED.
Not just greed, structural, institutionalized greed. Humans have the capacity for all kinds of traits: good and not so good. However, CAPITALISM REWARDS GREED! That's the economic system that dominates our planet.
And, McKibben doesn't have much to say about it.
TOM: Did you ever consider that human beings fit together like a gigantic organic jig-saw puzzle? If so, Bill is doing HIS part to bring attention to this very important matter. His sincerity is engaged 100%. Perhaps what he reveals is intended to catalyze the understanding of the larger picture (as you relate it) for others.
There are a number of people on CD who berate those who have committed themselves to significant works. These are dedicated efforts intended to make a POSITIVE difference in the world. I think we should honor these efforts without being quick to focus on what is missing. Don't you have a blindspot or two? I do. If each of us had it ALL together there'd be no need for (or magic derived from) human synnergy.
Bill deserves praise. He's been out on the front lines on this issue for some time; and in spite of the disgusting setbacks seen on the part of the Obama Administration (its paltry efforts at Copenhagen as well as Cancun) so soon after equally remorseful acts taken by the Bush Junta, he has not given up the quest, or lost faith. That says a lot about the man and what he's made of. Critics are a dime a dozen (I like you, Tom, so this is NOT aimed at you). How many do the work of actually making a difference? Do we have the right to sit in judgment of those who do?
McKibben might be a nice guy and well meaning. Just as there are nice and well meaning people who dump their time and energy into actions organized by MoveOn. The problem is that like MoveOn activists, McKibben is dumping his energies into working within a corrupt system. It is not reformable. Many in the environmental movement have aligned themselves with liberal institutions (funded by big corporations). The history of Liberalism is to make lots of noble sounding rhetoric to placate the masses and maybe, just maybe, provide some marginal reforms (the kind that we haven't seen in 40 years). Liberals, by definition, are not going to allow systemic change. What is needed is systemic change to address the problems that we face with global warming. Systemic change is what defines the ideas of Radicalism. McKibben isn't going there. Following McKibben would be like Egyptians believing in Mubarrak's claim that he will step down next year and every thing will be better for Egyptian democracy. McKibben's path will not lead us where we need to go, that's the problem. He'll build a movement that will fail, people will become disheartened and go home. Just like the peace movement of recent years whose members dumped all their energies into the Democratic Party.
McKibben is right when he describes the magnitude of the problems of global warming, but like Al Gore he stops short when saying what to do about it. Recall that at the end of "Inconvenient Truth", after powerfully outlining the imminent problems due to global warming, Gore's solution was to switch to energy-efficient light bulbs. Huh? The solution was totally out of whack with the scale of the problem, i.e. a "reform". McKibben is given a high profile in our media precisely because his ideas don't threaten the status quo. He's a liberal. Liberalism is reformist. You might have noticed that our political economy has been retreating from Liberalism for more than a generation and, as a political ideology, it is dead (see Chris Hedges). Reform is no longer viable.
"What is needed is systemic change to address the problems that we face with global warming."
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Although he might not be calling for systemic change, McKibben may be *contributing* to systemic change through his work on global warming.
Maybe. And millions of Americans believe[d] that Obama was really going to bring progressive change to the country too. They and we, would be far better off right now if they had been building an INDEPENDENT MOVEMENT instead of backing the Democrats. Look, if you were going to join an organization that was working on climate change, would you join the one with the correct analysis or the wrong one? This is not to say that you cannot form coalitions with liberal organizations to achieve immediate goals, but at every opportunity you should challenge, debate their ideas.
Tom,
Thank you for sharing your concise and accurate thinking. It is refreshing to read a comment that cuts down to the root cause of our problems. It would seem that most people would rather 'buy our panaceas in the form of easily swallowed pills' (1), rather than taking a deeper look into the root causes - regardless of them being well-intentioned, or not.
(1) quote from Murray Bookchin's essay "The Crisis in the Ecology Movement"
Thank you for the comment, and the Murray Bookchin quote is right on the mark.
The science is simple. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that energy used in doing work is degraded. Degraded energy is called entropy and usually takes the form of heat.
In an open system useful energy comes in, does work, and the heat is pumped back into the environment.
Global warming is the expression of the entropy generated by the capitalist industrial system.
This system also generates the CO2 which impedes the heat from being pumped back into space. So we get climate change.
doesn't entropy apply to the universe as a whole?...............
If I remember correctly, the entropy content of a flow of energy (like heat) is proportional to the inverse of its temperature. Since light can be qualified by its wavelength, which is proportional to its temperature (Weins Law), the entropy produced by planet earth is probably the difference in entropy between incoming radiation and outgoing radiation: S = Qout/Tout - Qin/Tin Since Qout = Qin, S = Q*(1/Tout - 1/Tin) I think the incoming solar radiation is at about 9000K (peak) equivalent temperature, and the outgoing is at about 300K, so S = Q*(1/300 - 1/9000). Since 1/300 >> 1/9000, S = Q/300. If global warming raises the temperature to 305K (this century), then Snew/Sold = Q/305 / (Q/300) = 300/305 = 98%, so global warming reduces the production of entropy by earth. Things ought to run the other way (systems evolve to produce more entropy if they are in contact with two or more environments, like the Sun and space). Hence global warming is in conflict with a 'tendency' of natural systems to become better producers of entropy as they move forward in time (increase in production of entropy = increase in complexity). This argues for a trend that is unsustainable, i.e. we either fix the problem or it fixes us and earth moves forward without us. I'm probably misremembering a lot of this, however.
They say you can't solve a problem using the same techniques that got you into it - some out-of-the-box thinking is required. So here's my simple and out-of-the-box suggestion for ending the climate crisis: we all collectively decide to outlaw war and the production of any and all munitions. War is so destructive of the environment and releases so much carbon that abandoning warfare and embracing peaceful negotiations would likely (my guess) stop the increase of carbon in the atmosphere without our having to do anything else, such as giving up our cars. The people of the world would love to see war come to an end and the only unhappy people would be the warmongers. It would be hard but it's an elegant solution.
War is also hugely expensive, and its costs impact many generations. Each year without war would bring increased peace dividends, which would make the expense of dealing with climate change easier to afford.
agreed............and add to that factory farming.
Yep, just where is that "civilization" McKibben mentions?
Noam Chomsky recently alluded to a debate between the late Carl Sagan and another scientist(I forgot his name). Sagan took the position that contact with extraterrestrial intelligence was in evitable, the other fellow didn't think so. He postulated that intelligence was such a powerful self-destruct mechanism that most species exhibiting it would be gone before they could move onward and upward. One might say our own evoloution is an extreme event--- a transient effect in the universe.
Those are compelling ideas, but they don't take into account the actual evidence, which strongly suggests that extraterrestrials have been visiting this planet for some time.
Is there a TV channel or website yet where people can go to look at the world any time of day or night from space? and see these weather pictures? That would be cool. You could feel like a god looking down on the little earth, doing its thing.
Dish network has Earth Channel, which is from a geostationary satillite. NOAA has numerous weather satilltes. Ditto, the Weather Channel, both online. NASA TV occasionally. Then there's the NSIDC--national snow and ice data center--which has polar orbiting satillites. The EAA--European Sopace Agency--has its own stable of cameras in space. So yes, there're plenty, but mostly online. Now, if your computer is hooked to your TV, then all can be displayed in that format.
Can't someone design little magnetic screens that sit in our open windows in the summer that collect carbon and then, thru some magical mechanical.chemical process, turn the carbon molecules into the electricity that we need to run our fans and fridges? If there's so much carbon in the air, we just need to catch it. ;-)
Sure, pick on the energy industry all you like, but if they have to pay for their externalities, how are the executives in the individual companies going to make payments on their Mercedes?
Come on Doug, they already write-off their benz's as a bizness expense.
We had better get busy looking for another habitable planet or two cause were very rapidly trashing the only one we have at the moment.
We had better get busy looking for another habitable planet or two cause were very rapidly trashing the only one we have at the moment.
Re McKibben's hope and expectation that people will understand the concept of climate change when simplified - I just overheard a discussion in my workplace that convinced me otherwise. It seems that because there is cold weather and a lot of snow on the ground in the east of the country (Canada), and because meteorologists had earlier predicted that the west coast would have a colder winter than usual and the east a milder one (the opposite has occurred), that is proof positive that there is no global warming. In fact, they said, the term "climate change" is now being used in order for the scientists to backtrack on their prior conclusions. These workmates are not idiots, but this is the mass mentality at the moment. We believe what we want to believe until we cannot.
So, because atmospheric scientists mispredicted the severity of Canada's winter, there is no global warming (GW)? In fairness, have your coworkers looked at the accuracy of the GW skeptic communities predictions? They may have missed those predictions because the skeptics carefully avoid making any. Or, when they do, they are all over the map (as opposed to 96% of climatologists who think the planet is going to heat up).
'These workmates are not idiots'. I understand your lament, as I have a professional friend who also loves reciting the mispredictions of climatologists. I like my friend, but guess his profession: he's an economist. And he was as blindsided by the 8 tr housing meltdown as they all were (with few exceptions). Like the old saying goes: 'God invented economists to make meteorologists look good.'
Kinda sound like your work associates have independently arrive at the conclusion the Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" should have been label "Inconvenient Lie". But perhaps several of them have already read "Solar Cycle 24"
http://www.davidarchibald.info/papers/SolarCycle24.pdf
or perhaps
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/co2_report_july_09.pdf
which both clearly demonstrate that the so called bad guy CO2 indeed has a minuscule effect on earths warming effect and the Earth is actually getting colder and this will accelerate!!
It appears a little homework might be in order before one is convinced "he has the right answer" to what is driving the Earth's Climatic Change----particularly since its been going on for many thousands of years and the humans have seemed to have survived very well. And our ancestors didn't have the knowledge nor the need to feel they must do something quickly to protect all of mankind.
McKibben's final statement clearly sums up the fear mongering associated with the global warming folks, namely that "We believe what we want to believe until we cannot".
And please don't include me in that fear mongering crowd.
"CO2 indeed has a minuscule effect on earths warming effect" The greenhouse effect is settled science, about 180 years old. CO2, at 250ppm, has a major effect on the planets temperature, and without it, the planet would be 60F cooler. None of what I just said is controversial: it's settled science that exists outside of the 'climate change' controversy. If you don't believe in the greenhouse effect, you might as well say you don't believe in gravity, it is THAT far out a claim to make. BTW, CO2 will hit 500ppm sometime in the next decade or two.
"the Earth is actually getting colder" Your article by Monckton points to ONE paper that finds lower ocean temperatures for a grand total of 6 years. Did it occur to him that there are other papers out there that try to estimate the oceans heat content?
See http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=515
From this article: "In an effort to create the most reliable measure of ocean heat, various teams across the world combined their efforts into a single 'best estimate' of ocean heat (Lyman 2010). What they found was robust warming in the upper ocean over the 16 years from 1993 to 2008. While the warming trend of the upper ocean from 2003 to 2008 is not as great as the long-term trend, the best estimate indicates the upper ocean is still accumulating heat over this period."
Ask yourself: when ice melts in a glass, does the water temperature go up? Since 2000, both Antarctica and Greenland ice mass have fallen off a cliff. Hence, since 2000, we wouldn't expect the ocean temperature to rise as rapidly as it did before then. But, since Monckton is cherry-picking data only since 2003, he conveniently avoids dates before 2000.
Since you chose to diseminate Monckton, I feel the need to disinfect your readers with some truth:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton-Myths-one-stop-shop-Monckton-misinformation.html
also
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton_Myths_arg.htm
Consider my post above and see if it may be a situation of the earth getting colder BECAUSE it's getting warmer. More heat makes bigger storms. Bigger storms move more water. If the water is moved to a place where it freezes (110ky iceage cycle) we get new ice caps... tectonic heating due to changing forces on the tectonic plates...gives us more heat, more storms, etc, until in about 80k(shaky)yrs things settle down and we get another 20-40ky thaw.
Anthropogenic warming due to carbon/nuclear energy choices may juice this cycle into overdrive, hence, the well-intentioned effort to crash CO2 back to normal, natural levels.
So, how does this version of fear-mongering work out?
I see disaster, but not with heat and flooded cities. And sooner, rather than later, because of the clockwork characteristics of mechanically triggered, rapid-onset climate change.
(Sorry, this is no easier to understand than the other version, and will certainly not result in any increased activity to mitigate the mess we face.)
OMG the Earth getting colder ,while it gets warmer is a result of manmade carbon dioxcide, it get's colder because of natural changes from many different things..or whatever, the point is that our pollution is hurting us all physically, and our enviroment, and the Erath is changing from Earthquakes and sunbburts, either way we must clean up our air..what's to aurgue about with that ? As far as the Natural changes the Planet has, we must adapt, but any idiot has to realize pollution is bad.
I find it so hard to listen to people that say our activity in the last 150 yrs. hasn't effected our Planet, they are just idiots, as far as the ones that don't want to face the truth... for thier own protection, I guess we just need to fix things we can, and let them benefit like we always have.
We just can't turn our backs on reality, because some people have a real slow adjustment period. That mentality has held us back throughout History.
We either have natural climate cycles or we don't.
If we do, it would be really wise not to juice it with GHGs and heat from any source. (I think carbon, nuclear, and, sadly, geothermal energies should have been scrapped yesterday.)
If we don't, it would be really wise to keep GHGs/heat within historical norms so we don't screw up a friendly climate.
And either way, it makes no sense to burn a useful, non-renewable resource that is all humankind will ever have, ever, so that we can indulge in our favorite hobbies of war and drive-around-buy-stuff.
The biggest user of oil is the war machine. The war machine is running in overdrive to secure more oil, which is then even more depleted, which requires even more war. Short term, this is very poor strategy...long term, suicidal.
Hell in the movie Day after Tommorow, which was after a real scientist therory, the cold was a result of Global Warming. Sure it was just a movie, but many movies about the future, have a funny way of coming true ,or at least awful damn close !
We just don't know the answers, but we do know that stripping every Natural Resource, and polluting the Air is Bad for us, why don't we just start with that part ?!
Exxon doesn't want to start with 'that part', and what Exxon wants (like Iraq), Exxon gets.
About a year ago National Geographic had an issue on global water situation and, in passing, mentioned that the (change in location of) the mass (concrete and water) of the 3 Gorges Dam in China had moved the earth's axis a small, but measurable amount (a few cm or so).
Some of the climate change literature names a wobble in the earth's axis as a possible contributing factor in rapid-onset change.
As landborne ice melts even more rapidly due to carbon forcings, it seems that a study of the changes in rotational energies and subsequent tectonic activity might reveal that we have even less time to fart around with half measures than even McKibben would indicate.
Heat can be added to the ecosphere rapidly by magma and volcanic activity, both on land and in the oceans ( note the massive coral die-off over the Marianna Trench area near Indonesia due to hotter ocean temps.)
Give it some thought and see if this idea could lead in some way to the replacing of water mass to the poles as part of the 110,000yr cycle of water mass movement as depicted in the charts of CO2/temp/iceages over the last 650ky.
I think a good starting place would be to put an end to the manufacture of implements of war. Wars themselves would be hugely less destructive and harmful without this stuff. The economic waste could be directed to any number of useful ends. The massive pollution and environmental destruction of war would stop.
In addition, a large number of other destructive activities, such as factory farming, could no longer be forced on the unwilling.
If I were going to believe in UFOs, I would believe that contact happened decades ago, and the MIC drove off all the potentially good aliens and made deals with the most corrupt dictators we could find. I mean, what else would you expect from the MIC?
Widhalm 19
Sorry I suggested you were grown though black magic from meat scraps.
You throw around a lot of hifalutin terms. I think I understand MEP as well as anyone, but can find no logic to your claim of "no proof of Catastophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW)." Clouds were always a negative feedback, the water vapor that composes clouds is a positive feedback. That's the general understanding of the climatological community. What I find saddening about your post is that, after deciding to hang your hat with the two skeptics you mention, you proceed to describe what the hundreds of other climatologists are doing as 'mental masturbation'.
All that evident education, all those numbers, all that incisive foofurall about 'maximization of entropy production' and, in the end, you come down to name-calling. Classy.
That is interesting, Ecoeng, about how the energy absorbed is about equal to the energy given off.
I think of space as a variable super thin atmosphere of energy radiation and cosmic particles.
Since we now know that space is not empty but full of energy of all known and unknown kinds, the pressure of the gravity in my vision is the pressure of space energy pushing against the Mass of matter where the amount of space energy that matter displaced depends on the great variable of the density of the matter pushing against or occupying the cumulative pressure of the lighter density of space energy. Because of the law of equal reactions heat energy and counter pressure is generated from the compression of the infinitely less dense but equal pressure of the space density around the intrusive masses of matter of all kinds as the law of G. pushes all together the balance of stars, planets, rocks, gas and dust swimming in this soup of energy filled space.
I see this balance of mass and energy competing for the space that both mass and energy live for (it is how they breath in relative space) I see gravity, as the push, the opposite and equal reaction of that stress and pressure of mass in its sea of space energy and the push back of the surrounding space energy.. it is all a balance of mass and energy. So to me gravity is the result of the balance of matter competing with the space energy pressure.... the mass as in Energy equals Mass times the speed of light square (light, a description of almost pure space energy) so our matter that competes for space with the pressure of infinite space radiation energy gives us this beautiful balance that keeps us alive on planet Earth with just the right amount of balance between Mass and Energy as in e=mc2.... So my theory of Gravity is the result of the balance of this mysterious but logical constantly balancing pressure of moving mass against infinite space energy.
I have a vision that the speed of this pressure might even be faster than light but it is still a clue to me that the law of the displacement of light is similar to the law of the the displacement or weakening of gravity... but this one I haven't figured out yet.
Sometimes a straight beam of energy can be seen coming from the tops of the centers maybe Black holes of galaxies...which means that to keep the energy beam straight for thousands of light years the source seems to have been pointing in the same direction...maybe because of the spinning like a top. But how the arms of a galaxy bend but almost keep up after being attached to a straight bar of light at or from or towards the center for thousands of light years is amazing beyond belief.
So now and forever when two or more mass objects large or small get near each other the closer they come in orbit the stronger the push or pull, it is the same because the closet points of distance between the center of gravity of the 2 objects lies in the center of a shadow like field a relative vacuum of less dense space energy, the strength of which is proportionally the same as in how the dispersal of light from an object gets weaker in the same proportion as gravity the father from the object or any object of mass in the universe including ourselves and who knows about the universe within.
Space seems to shrink by the compression of the inherennt clash of the forces of matter and energy like the lensing effect of gravity and the bending and slowing of light through dense mediums.
It is like a pull is actually a push like a left hander will push the pen across the page, while a right hander thinks he is pulling but the curled fingers are pushing from the opposite side and it is the pressure of those fingers and the grip that is the tool for the motion.
So to me Gravity is what makes everything change...motion or time it is the result of the law of every action has an opposite and equal reaction working with energy that cannot be created or destroyed.... only changed in form. It is all this mix, a mathematical balance that makes the universe live and move.
I have a huge hunch that if our science guys gave Photons of light the dignity of having mass, they would discover what dark energy is or at least that the balance of the universe is fine just the way it is..
So anyway this is some of my theory of the gravity of infinity.
Sorry for goin off subject... you got me started somehow.
I heard a Noam Chomsky talk where he alluded to a debate between Carl Sagan and another scientist(who's name I can't recall) about the probability of communicating with extraterrestrials. Sagan thought the probability so high it was nearly inevitable. The other fellow disagreed. His thesis was that exceptional intelligence was an almost guaranteed self-destruct mechanism. Any beings smart enough to broadcast signals into outer space would probably be extinct before they evolved technologically-adept to do so. Thus, we were an improbability to have made it this far. One might say our whole history was an extreme weather event. From such a perspective, our impending extinction isn't that shocking. Maybe I'll adopt the attitude: "I was glad to ever have existed at all. Glad to have seen what beauty I have seen, heard the greatest music ever conceived, had access to the ideas of a Noam Chomsky." Whether E.T. saves our butt or not, whether Jesus comes back or not, it's all okay in the universal scheme-of-things.
Carl Sagon predicted a nuclear winter from the first gulf war oil fires. Before the CO2 era, 25 years ago, we as environmentalists demonized scientists for making radical environmentalism necessary in the first place.They polluted the planet with their chemicals i.e. pesticides. Without scientists, we wouldn't have such a great need for stewardship. They created the problem.
Scientists created cruise missiles, cancer causing chemicals, land mine technology, nuclear weapons, germ warfare, cluster bombs, strip mining technology, deep sea drilling technology and now climate change.
Climate change has not only set back social advancement because of lost public support, it has also done to science, what abusive priests did to religion.
Thank you Mr McKibben. That photo of the real thing over the US and Australia is right out of the movie, "Day After Tomorrow" .........but now it's real.
The other factor about climate change is the exponential factor. As it gets warmer it gets warmer. As it blows hard, it'll blow harder. When it was one and went to two, no big deal, right, but 2 goes to 4 to 16 and within a moment or two it is in the millions...likely the way we'll die in the heat waves and ice storms.
Jackboots, whorporate thievery will just be blown away in the dust storms.
The world has become too full of itself. Maybe it is time for a change.
You're blaming the scientists now? I wasn't aware that the scientists owned the chemicals, bombs and the patented technologies that spread death and destruction. I was pretty confident that the scientists were just paid for their expertise, and it was those who pay for and own these things that pollute the planet. Do you care to provide any information to prove that your premise of blaming the scientist is correct?
"Scientists created cruise missiles, cancer causing chemicals, land mine technology, nuclear weapons, germ warfare, cluster bombs, strip mining technology, deep sea drilling technology and now climate change."
-- Economic need is a real factor in why a scientist will create these things. The scientist who is employed to make a cancer causing chemical doesn't normally make them because he hates people and wants them to get a horrible illness. Just like a lumberjack who is employed to clear-cut a forest doesn't normally hate trees, or the miners who are employed to blow up mountains to get coal from them don't normally hate mountains.
No. The very real need for people to provide food, shelter and health care can and do compel people to act against their best interests. It is a sad fact of our modern day society. This sad fact is also the product of social arrangements that normal people (ie: scientists, lumberjacks, miners, etc) do not have any control over - at least that is what they think right now.
The good news is that this social arrangement can be changed. This social arrangement is not a natural law, but a human-made institution that is alterable. The way to alter this social arrangement is to do what the Egyptian people are doing en masse and demand for deep social changes within their society.
Blaming those who don't believe they have any control over this social arrangement is a shallow and diversionary tactic that refocuses the people's attention on the symptoms rather than the causes. At this point in time it would seem more appropriate to focus on the causes and to help others see that they do indeed have some control over the social arrangements. The first step is to stop playing their game of divide, distract, divert and conquer.
"when the CAGW crowd... put every... one of their journals onto the Internet for... reviewing... I'll... take them... more seriously.... Until this... I don't think we have any justification... to take this Issue seriously"
I'm pretty sure you can access their journals via internet but there's a subscription fee. In this way they differ from CommonDreams, who still merely ASK for our money, as opposed to DEMAND it, for content.
I'm not sure you can read this content, but since you asked:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1097-0088
http://www.ametsoc.org/pubs/journals/jam/index.html
So its been 25 years now of the UN's climate crisis warnings of unstoppable warming. Public and or "voter" support is all but lost. The deniers have won. Obama won't even say the words "climate change" or EPA in his state of the union and now we see that all public research supports the "unstoppable warming" prediction and all private and neutral and independent research supports the "negligible to no effects" side of the CO2 theory.
We former believers have this question for you faded doomers trying to scare our kids:
-What has to happen now to make us former believers, the majority now, change our minds and vote YES to taxes and sacrifice, just to make the weather colder? What has to happen?
Real progressives don’t delight in telling their kids that they will die if they don’t start turning the lights out more often and that is why the shift in Liberalism is heading straight to the centre, closer to the neocons. This fear mongering was unsustainable. Climate change was our Iraq War and it is derailing progressive social advancement. Our mistake was when we went ALL-IN with the CO2 death factor and we cant go back now but the sooner we back off of the CO2 mistake, the sooner we can get environmentalism and progressivism back on the right track and keep the Tea Party out of the White House.