Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Crop yields are details -- with huge consequences. Extreme variations in weather give no guarantee that gluts between times and places will match shortages at other times and in other places.

Crop failures can make all else irrelevant.

I was actually commenting on Florida being underwater. Without minimizing the importance of weather to crops, sea levels can effect farm productivity as well.

Didn't 100% of the scientists think that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune had solid surfaces upon which a spacecraft etc. could land, until around 1965-70?

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

Didn't 100% of the scientists think that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune had solid surfaces upon which a spacecraft etc. could land, until around 1965-70?

They did not know whether there was any rocky material in Jupiter. Its moons can be very rocky, and there is no way in which to be sure that there is no metallic or rock-like material deep inside Jupiter under the gigantic atmosphere which is almost of the planet. One can calculate that an Earth-like planet that holds onto hydrogen and helium in proportion to the celestial abundance of the elements -- silicon is the easiest to calculate with because volatile silicon compounds disintegrate to form silica -- would be much like Jupiter in size. The early Earth could have been a Jupiter-like planet that lost all of its hydrogen and helium and most of its volatile compounds (including methane, ammonia, water vapor, carbon monoxide, phosphine, and hydrogen sulfide). Most, that is. There was enough water vapor for seas, and enough of the rest to create the chemical stew of life. Most likely the free hydrogen and helium were gone, and (a significant detail) phosphine had oxidized to phosphate rocks that became the source of phosphates in genetic material and energy transport.

Biochemistry says much about the early Earth as a relic of chemical conditions that only life can now preserve. Methane, ammonia, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen sulfide are all unstable in an oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

...
Biochemistry says much about the early Earth as a relic of chemical conditions that only life can now preserve. Methane, ammonia, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen sulfide are all unstable in an oxygen-rich atmosphere.

As an erstwhile chemist, I'm guessing that an oxygen-rich atmosphere is unstable in the absence of plant life to replenish it. Oxygen is the quintessential oxidizing agent, and there has always been plenty of stuff around to oxidize.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

Didn't 100% of the scientists think that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune had solid surfaces upon which a spacecraft etc. could land, until around 1965-70?

You know what causes scientist to change their minds? Evidence.

Have you got any evidence that will cause climatologists to change their conclusions or are you just interested in throwing out red herrings?

Originally Posted by Vandal-72

You know what causes scientist to change their minds? Evidence.

There are other means (money, which indicates that one is not so much a scientist as a money-grubber) or personal threats (the red-hot poker) which indicates an environment no longer conducive to science. Pure scientists can work for giant, profit-seeking enterprises, but they generally compartmentalize their work. If one works for Exxon-Mobil on finding algae that can shortcut the process of turning sunlight into a fuel as good as petroleum, then one can still have some intellectual independence. If one works for a politically-charged PR firm, then one no longer acts as a scientist.

Should there ever be a political climate in America hostile to science, then America would experience a brain drain as severe as that endured in central Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. America and Britain got the top scientists (and not only in atomic physics) and Germany got the poseurs. That was after the deleterious effects of official Marxism-Leninism upon pure science in the Soviet Union; Imperial Russia, vile as it was in its social order and politics, fostered a strong scientific community.

Should America put ideology above science, then many countries can offer more congenial environments for experimenting, publishing, and teaching. A rigid "Profits first" ideology or the dominance of Christian Protestant fundamentalism in America could make countries with big problems, like India or South Africa, look good to genuine scientists who would find a "Union of Christian and Corporate States"* menacing. Language problems? Scientists are usually good at learning languages.

I'm no scientist -- and today a scientist begins his career for all practical purposes as a lab technician at which I was awful -- but I have been able to read and comprehend at the level of Scientific American since I was on the borderline between junior high and senior high. I can do the calculations so long as they go no further than integral calculus, and I am good enough at math to get the results.

I can also understand some political trends, and some look ominous. A combination of superstitious religion and an idolatry of wealth and bureaucratic power bodes ill for much more than science.

*Allusion to the old and unlamented "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" is intended.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

There are other means (money, which indicates that one is not so much a scientist as a money-grubber) or personal threats (the red-hot poker) which indicates an environment no longer conducive to science. Pure scientists can work for giant, profit-seeking enterprises, but they generally compartmentalize their work. If one works for Exxon-Mobil on finding algae that can shortcut the process of turning sunlight into a fuel as good as petroleum, then one can still have some intellectual independence. If one works for a politically-charged PR firm, then one no longer acts as a scientist.

In high school science, remember how they declared most problems to deal with frictionless surfaces? Collisions were either perfectly elastic or perfectly inelastic? Current traveled with no resistance? Everything got simplified to the audience's ability to comprehend? I fear in Vandal's high school, scientists are similarly idealized. They are treated as perfect, without the influence of politics or other motivations other human beings are prone to.

I wouldn't suggest this is unique. Marx's theories counted on perfect communists, similarly lacking politics, greed, power hunger or other symptoms of being human. Some liberals might see liberal politicians with similar rose tinted glasses. It's the flip side of the tendency towards ad-hominum and strawman attacks direct at those one disagrees with. Lots of us tend to demonize those immersed in worldviews in strong conflict with our own, and to some degree perceive those with similar worldviews as saints.

Vandal just has it bad, insisting on perfect idealized frictionless scientists.

Originally Posted by B Butler

In high school science, remember how they declared most problems to deal with frictionless surfaces? Collisions were either perfectly elastic or perfectly inelastic? Current traveled with no resistance? Everything got simplified to the audience's ability to comprehend? I fear in Vandal's high school, scientists are similarly idealized. They are treated as perfect, without the influence of politics or other motivations other human beings are prone to.

I wouldn't suggest this is unique. Marx's theories counted on perfect communists, similarly lacking politics, greed, power hunger or other symptoms of being human. Some liberals might see liberal politicians with similar rose tinted glasses. It's the flip side of the tendency towards ad-hominum and strawman attacks direct at those one disagrees with. Lots of us tend to demonize those immersed in worldviews in strong conflict with our own, and to some degree perceive those with similar worldviews as saints.

Vandal just has it bad, insisting on perfect idealized frictionless scientists.

Sounds like the perfectly rational economic person, of the economist's delusions.

Originally Posted by B Butler

In high school science, remember how they declared most problems to deal with frictionless surfaces? Collisions were either perfectly elastic or perfectly inelastic? Current traveled with no resistance? Everything got simplified to the audience's ability to comprehend? I fear in Vandal's high school, scientists are similarly idealized. They are treated as perfect, without the influence of politics or other motivations other human beings are prone to.

At a certain point, sharp kids asked, "What about friction?" College physics introduces the coefficient of friction.

Scientists may be better able to approach perfection in reliability of results because of double-blind testing and peer review. Others may imitate that to some extent, but only so far as the incentives offered (get the results that we want!) and implicit threats are applied (heads will roll if things go wrong!). Unlike scientists, most others are concerned with profit and loss or at least some responsibility for productivity.

I wouldn't suggest this is unique. Marx's theories counted on perfect communists, similarly lacking politics, greed, power hunger or other symptoms of being human. Some liberals might see liberal politicians with similar rose tinted glasses. It's the flip side of the tendency towards ad-hominum and strawman attacks direct at those one disagrees with. Lots of us tend to demonize those immersed in worldviews in strong conflict with our own, and to some degree perceive those with similar worldviews as saints.

We need checks upon the worst tendencies of humanity. The Seven Deadly Sins may not be as deadly as they used to be, but they can certainly make life miserable. Liberals and socialists are hardly perfect. The conservative that most of us knew a few decades ago used to recognize life in general and politics in the specific as compromises between tradition and progress. Now the word 'conservative' has come to become a euphemism, typically self-applied, for 'reactionary'.

An attempt to return the harsh inequality of an early-capitalist world for the enrichment and indulgence of extant elites is reactionary. Is there any benefit to it? One may have some question of whether such is cruel by malice or bungling... but most of us know our history well enough. Humanity can do well enough without serfdom, the lash, and hunger; the presence of those indicates catastrophic failure of ethics.

Progress? National greatness? Count on neither. No technological fix can deal with the wreckage that dehumanized, reactionary ideology can do. I have seen evidence of some large companies insisting that their employees vote certain ways lest they be deemed disloyal.

I have enough imagination to see how America can go very bad, very fast. Nobody needs march on Washington, and nobody needs have a tome full of personal resentments mostly of innocent people as a model for a vile new order. All that is necessary is that one of the two main Parties go bad and win one election that allows it to ensure that all subsequent elections go its way. Such a Party will then serve the worst people with wealth and power at the expense of everyone else.

The House in 2010, the Senate in 2014, the Presidency in 2016, and Morgen die Welt!

But isn't medicine science too - and that the first principle in medicine is to at least do no harm?

And like plunging the world into a permanent Great Depression, with the increase in poverty therefrom causing huge increases in hunger, starvation, and the coincident spread of morbid diseases such as cholera, typhus, etc. wouldn't constitute doing massive harm?

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

But isn't medicine science too - and that the first principle in medicine is to at least do no harm?

Hippocratic oath. Don't supply a poison even to someone who demands it.

Of course, the words imply some ambiguity. Amputation of a gangrenous limb implies a choice between one sort of harm and another. Could harm apply also to financial dealings of physicians? As in, "Don't rip off the insurance companies or the patient".

And like plunging the world into a permanent Great Depression, with the increase in poverty therefrom causing huge increases in hunger, starvation, and the coincident spread of morbid diseases such as cholera, typhus, etc. wouldn't constitute doing massive harm?

All technologies imply some economic harm to those who work in an industry whose technology becomes obsolete. By using a digital camera I certainly hurt the photo-finishing business and the companies that manufacture photographic film. By using an e-reader I hurt the people who print and bind books and sell dead-tree editions. Such is nothing new. Compact discs and DVDs made a mess of the manufacturers of audio and video tape who did not adapt. Refrigerators wrecked dealings in ice, and automobiles put many horses 'redundant'. Just think of what solar cells could do to the oil industry (although I suspect that the oil industry is already investing in the technology).

Technology can serve humanity well. People have had to adapt in the past, with people working in one dying industry finding its ways into newer and more lucrative ones. But if technology is put to malign use, all Hell breaks loose.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Hippocratic oath. Don't supply a poison even to someone who demands it.

The original version, I understand, made the physician promise not to do surgery. That was a good while ago, though.

Things do change.

The climate changes are we are seeing are not man-made. There have been climate changes for many years. I think nuclear energy is the solution to air pollution.

Originally Posted by decadeologist1011

The climate changes are we are seeing are not man-made. There have been climate changes for many years. I think nuclear energy is the solution to air pollution.

Pollutants are chemicals noxious in themselves, like dangerous ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur oxides, and volatile compounds of lead or arsenic -- troublemakers irrespective of any greenhouse effect.

Greenhouse gases can be either transient components of the air (like carbon dioxide and water vapor) and comparatively non-toxic gases. One extreme is the heavy gas sulfur hexafluoride, a heavy gas that is chemically inert for all practical purposes. It was commonly used as a propellant before it was banned for such a use because of its extreme greenhouse effect.


If anything, the laws of physical chemistry are not man-made, and they do not respect the rhetorical flourishes of PR firms and ideologues.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Pollutants are chemicals noxious in themselves, like dangerous ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur oxides, and volatile compounds of lead or arsenic -- troublemakers irrespective of any greenhouse effect.

Greenhouse gases can be either transient components of the air (like carbon dioxide and water vapor) and comparatively non-toxic gases. One extreme is the heavy gas sulfur hexafluoride, a heavy gas that is chemically inert for all practical purposes. It was commonly used as a propellant before it was banned for such a use because of its extreme greenhouse effect.


If anything, the laws of physical chemistry are not man-made, and they do not respect the rhetorical flourishes of PR firms and ideologues.

So why not use nuclear power to cut down on emissions?

Originally Posted by decadeologist1011

So why not use nuclear power to cut down on emissions?

Nuclear power is not so innocuous as it has been presented.

Three Mile Island.

Chernobyl.

Fukushima.

Even without catastrophes (coal mining is far more dangerous), nuclear waste is extremely dangerous.

One of my favorite quotes when this subject comes up is the following: "The problem with nuclear power is when things go wrong. The problem with coal power is when things go right."

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Nuclear power is not so innocuous as it has been presented.

Three Mile Island.

Chernobyl.

Fukushima.

Even without catastrophes (coal mining is far more dangerous), nuclear waste is extremely dangerous.

Three Mile Island was cleaned up very well and there was no statistical rise in cancer.
With Fukushima, people should know not to put a nuclear plant that close to the ocean, where a Tsunami can occur. People should plan things and put them in better locations. As long as things are well-planned, nuclear power is the best bet. People should think of any sort of disaster that can happen, study, and prepare for whatever may happen.

Shale can be the solution as to what to do with nuclear waste:
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pr...ear-waste.html

Originally Posted by decadeologist1011

With Fukushima, people should know not to put a nuclear plant that close to the ocean, where a Tsunami can occur. People should plan things and put them in better locations. As long as things are well-planned, nuclear power is the best bet. People should think of any sort of disaster that can happen, study, and prepare for whatever may happen.

To be fair, pretty much everywhere in Japan is at risk for earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis, so I don't know where they could have put it. I don't envy having to craft an energy policy for Japan if natural disasters takes nuclear off the table.

Originally Posted by Bronco80

To be fair, pretty much everywhere in Japan is at risk for earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis, so I don't know where they could have put it. I don't envy having to craft an energy policy for Japan if natural disasters takes nuclear off the table.

They could have put it inland with an earthquake-proof structure and plans drawn out as to what to do if anything goes wrong. Things can be more difficult for Japan when it comes to energy but not impossible.

Originally Posted by decadeologist1011

They could have put it inland with an earthquake-proof structure and plans drawn out as to what to do if anything goes wrong. Things can be more difficult for Japan when it comes to energy but not impossible.

Don't get me wrong, I pretty much agree with your essential point. The argument of "don't build nuclear plants because of natural disasters" just has a little bit more merit in a place like Japan--though as you said, certainly not impossible.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

But isn't medicine science too - and that the first principle in medicine is to at least do no harm?

And like plunging the world into a permanent Great Depression, with the increase in poverty therefrom causing huge increases in hunger, starvation, and the coincident spread of morbid diseases such as cholera, typhus, etc. wouldn't constitute doing massive harm?

That's why we need to replace fossil fuels with clean energy as soon as possible.

Long, detailed, and academic.

http://www2.ametsoc.org/ams/assets/F...ull_Report.pdf

This new solar power device looks promising.

Sunflower solar harvester provides power and water

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...GLOBAL-twitter

…."A solar energy harvester could soon become the first "drop-in" machine to provide renewable energy, water and heat to off-grid communities in remote regions.
The 10-metre-high, sun-tracking dish has been designed to be transported in a single shipping container, so it can be delivered to any location. It is being developed by Airlight Energy of Biasca, Switzerland. As well as clean water and electricity, it can generate heat or, with the addition of a heat pump, provide refrigeration.”...

...Tests of an 18-mirror prototype have shown that on solar energy conversion, the Sunflower is 30 per efficient, and on heat, 50 per cent, Airlight says. The final 36-mirror Sunflower should be able to provide 12 kilowatts of electricity and 20 kilowatts of heat from 10 hours of sun.:...

Originally Posted by Bronco80

To be fair, pretty much everywhere in Japan is at risk for earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis, so I don't know where they could have put it. I don't envy having to craft an energy policy for Japan if natural disasters takes nuclear off the table.

Japan is all-in on ITER, for reasons that have to make perfect sense for a country with no natural resources and a bad history with fission. ITER is working towards an energy system that's intrinsically safe and limitless. I won't see it, but most of you will.