"The meaning of the world is the separation of wish and fact." - KURT GÖDEL
"According to Peirce's doctrine of fallibilism, the conclusions of science are always tentative. The rationality of the scientific method does not depend on the certainty of its conclusions, but on its self-corrective character: by continued application of the method science can detect and correct its own mistakes, and thus eventually lead to the discovery of truth".
A guiding principle for accepting claims of catastrophic global events, miracles, incredible healing, invisible friends, or fill in the blank is:
“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” - Carl Sagan
"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable." - H. L. Mencken
I would add irrational and highly delusional to the mix when faith requires one to accept magical violations of the well known, well tested or easily demonstrated laws of Nature. - PWL
"Science is Progress and the Future. Faith is regression to the Dark Ages." - PWL
“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.” - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
"Two important characteristics of maps should be noticed. A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness." - Alfred Korzybski
"Science is a search for basic truths about the Universe, a search which develops statements that appear to describe how the Universe works, but which are subject to correction, revision, adjustment, or even outright rejection, upon the presentation of better or conflicting evidence." - James Randi
"Hypotheses are nets: only he who casts will catch." - Novalis
"Nullius in verba. Take no one's word for it." - Motto of the Royal Society
"I'm trying to find out NOT how Nature could be, but how Nature IS." - Richard Feynman
"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." - Thomas Henry Huxley
“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.” Albert Einstein
"Science is empirical. Knowing the answer means nothing. Testing your knowledge means everything." - Lawrence Krauss
"Skepticism is the agent of reason against organized irrationalism - and is therefore one of the keys to human social and civic decency." - Stephen Jay Gould
"Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work." - James Randi
The Wicked Greenland Soothsayers of the West say “I’m Melting”, now “How much energy is required to melt all the ice in Greenland?”
by pwl
How much energy is required to melt all the ice in Greenland?
How much ice is there in Greenland?
“The Greenland ice sheet (Kalaallisut: Sermersuaq) is a vast body of ice covering 1,710,000 square kilometres (660,235 sq mi), roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is the second largest ice body in the world, after the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The ice sheet is almost 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) long in a north-south direction, and its greatest width is 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) at a latitude of 77°N, near its northern margin. The mean altitude of the ice is 2,135 metres (7,005 ft).[1] The thickness is generally more than 2 km (1.24 mi) (see picture) and over 3 km (1.86 mi) at its thickest point. It is not the only ice mass of Greenland – isolated glaciers and small ice caps cover between 76,000 and 100,000 square kilometres (29,344 and 38,610 sq mi) around the periphery. Some scientists predict that climate change may be about to push the ice sheet over a threshold where the entire ice sheet will melt in less than a few hundred years. If the entire 2,850,000 cubic kilometres (683,751 cu mi) of ice were to melt, it would lead to a global sea level rise of 7.2 m (23.6 ft).” Wikipedia on Greenland Ice Sheet.
2,850,000 cubic kilometers of ice in Greenland.
So claim of a 100 years to melt 2,850,000 cubic kilometers of ice. Hmmm… we’ll get back to that.
How much energy to melt ice?
“When ice melts, it absorbs as much heat energy (the heat of fusion) as it would take to heat an equivalent mass of water by 80 °C, while its temperature remains a constant 0 °C.” – wikipedia on ice
The benefits of carbon dioxide supplementation on plant growth and production within the greenhouse environment have been well understood for many years. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is an essential component of Carbon Based Life on Earth.
There would be NO GREEN without the ESSENTIAL NUTRIENT CO2. MORE CO2 = MORE PLANTS. Inconvenient FACTS of PLANT BIOLOGY. More CO2 = More Plants = Cleaner Air. More CO2 = Plants = More Food For Humans. More CO2 = A Good Thing.
GROWING MORE PLANTS WITH CO2 IN GREENHOUSES TODAY
“The benefits of carbon dioxide supplementation on plant growth and production within the greenhouse environment have been well understood for many years. Read the rest of this entry »
“Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has once again accused the United States of playing God. But this time it’s Haiti’s disastrous earthquake that he thinks the U.S. was behind. Spanish newspaper ABC quotes Chavez as saying that the U.S. navy launched a weapon capable of inducing a powerful earthquake off the shore of Haiti. He adds that this time it was only a drill and the final target is … destroying and taking over Iran.”
Maybe Hugo Chavez is using too much of his country’s local white powdery substances mixed in his coffee.
Any weapon capable of causing an earthquake of a 7.0 magnitude would have itself registered as a bomb detonation on the seismic sensors. Bombs and earthquakes have different seismic signatures in the data streams that are recorded.
As is evident in the first few frames of this security camera you can see the building (reportedly a shopping mall type structure) collapse. That’s extremely fast considering that it basically went down on the first few earthquake wave crests in the first few seconds of this 7.0 quake. It really shows the potent power of The BIG ONE! Imagine what that would do in your city.
At seven seconds into the video the building is standing. The camera starts moving at second 8. Smoke from the collapsing building is visible during second 10 and clearly the building falls by second 11. That’s about three seconds from first wave to catastrophic destruction of the structure. That’s not even enough time to comprehend what is happening if you’re standing in the structure before the roof comes down on your head. Yikes.
Cars driving down the road clearly divert from their lanes. At second 25 a truck appears on the left side of the video and attempts to turn left onto the main road and arcs left losing control – having just missed a car by a second or two – and comes to a stop before hitting the collapsing building. Double yikes.
As you can see from this Google Earth Satellite image below annotated with earthquake symbols, most of which have happened between Jan 10th, 2010 and today, Jan 18th, there is a massive cluster of aftershocks to the west of the hard hit area of Port-Au-Prince. What is of note though is the numerous numbers of low magnitude quakes just to the north of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Some of these are actually under Puerto Rico. Too close for comfort.
(Click image to enlarge).
This is quite the number of aftershocks and also reveals the underlying fault lines.
Do these sets of aftershocks under and to the north of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands provide a warning of dangers lurking or has the pressures on the underlying plates been relieved somewhat so that danger has been reduced? I wonder.
Update 20100119: Additional earthquakes: “It’s one week after the Haiti Earthquake and the World has seen earthquakes in Argentina, Venezuela and most recently Guatemala.” – San Francisco Gate (1). How likely are these additional quakes related to the Haiti quake and aftershocks? Could these be adjustments resulting from the Haiti quake? Hmm….
Update 20100120: The quakes continue in the region with another large one hitting Haiti (5.9 with some reports saying 6.1) today.
If Mount Mayon pops it could put a huge amount of material into the atmosphere.
Maybe the Mayan’s had it right after all with 2012 but actually meant “Mayon” not “Mayan”? Ok, not. Sorry, couldn’t resist. Actually the way the locals pronounce “Mayon” sounds like “Mayan”, almost.
Run for the hills! Er, run away from the hill! Er, run away from the mountain!
Anyhow this could be a big event. Certainly lots of video of it now. Don’t know how much video will make it out if it pops big.
Mayon Volcano, also known as Mount Mayon, is an active stratovolcano in the province of Albay, in the Bicol Region, on the island of Luzon, in the Philippines. Renowned as the “perfect cone” because of its almost perfect conical shape, Mayon is situated 15 kilometres northwest of Legazpi City.
Finally the real cause of Global Warming is Revealed!!! It’s ALIENS! Yes, ALIENS are TerrorFroming Earth for their liking! It’s V all over again (oh they are remaking V too which is too cool…)!
She’s an ex-model. He’s an elite commando. They’re going to solve global warming – by stopping the aliens who are causing it!
The most important question: Is Al Gore a Lizard creature hell bent on terrorforming Earth? Yes, inquiring minds want to know!
Al Gore on a terrorforming rampage!
This, ahem, theory of “Global Warming as Caused By Aliens” (Alien Global Warming AGW) has about as much credence as the Anthropomorphic Global Warming (AGW)! Oh, wait, the above video is indisputable proof of the Alien caused Global Warming! So now the science is settled as in the Aliens have Settled on Earth terrorformed by Global Warming!!!
Has anyone noticed Gore’s red eyes?
All in good fun… the only reason I poke fun at the AGW crowd is that they think the science is settled… science is just about never settled in the sense that asking questions is at the core of science… asking questions and VERIFYING the answers with EXPERIMENTS to confirm or refute the hypothesis! For example, new particles are being discovered which upset the standard model… or at least require it to be rethought at regular intervals. Were are the experiments that “settle the science” of “anthropomorphic global warming”? Lacking basic methods of science isn’t having the science settled. Anyway it’s a fun little movie that provides more evidence for Alien caused Global Warming that I’ve ever seen for Anthropomorphic Global Warming and you’ve gotta love that!!!
Professor Oleg Georgievich Sorokhtin, Dr. Sci. (Phys.–Math.), is chief
researcher at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences.
“Of all the solar system’s planets, only the Earth possesses a unique atmosphere that provides a friendly climate for the development of higher life forms on its surface. This is due to a fortunate combination of a number of preconditions: the Sun is a quiet star; the Earth is at an optimal distance from it; the Earth has a massive satellite, the Moon; the chemical composition of the primeval Earth itself, etc. The comfortable climatic conditions for life on our planet have developed owing to the optimal composition and pressure of the earth’s atmosphere and strong feedbacks between the evolution of the earth’s biota and the development of the atmosphere. As for the periodic coming of ice ages, they are connected to precessional self-oscillating processes provoked by lunisolar interactions; this is the topic of the article below.” – The Evolution of the Earth’s Climate and the Genesis of Glacial Epochs
THE COMING OF A NEW ICE AGE
BY GERALD E. MARSH, physicist
CHICAGO — Contrary to the conventional wisdom of the day, the real danger facing humanity is not global warming, but more likely the coming of a new Ice Age.
What we live in now is known as an interglacial, a relatively brief period between long ice ages. Unfortunately for us, most interglacial periods last only about ten thousand years, and that is how long it has been since the last Ice Age ended.
The Ice Age is Ending... It must be our fault.
How much longer do we have before the ice begins to spread across the Earth’s surface? Less than a hundred years or several hundred? We simply don’t know.
Even if all the temperature increase over the last century is attributable to human activities, the rise has been relatively modest one of a little over one degree Fahrenheit — an increase well within natural variations over the last few thousand years.
While an enduring temperature rise of the same size over the next century would cause humanity to make some changes, it would undoubtedly be within our ability to adapt.
Entering a new ice age, however, would be catastrophic for the continuation of modern civilization.
“The Maunder Minimum is the name given to the period roughly from 1645 to 1715, when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time. It is named after the solar astronomer Edward W. Maunder (1851–1928) who discovered the dearth of sunspots during that period by studying records from those years. During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, for example, astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to a more typical 40,000–50,000 spots.”
Given this graph it sure looks like temperatures are driven by the Sun, that huge ball of fusion going crazy at the center of our solar system that has 98+% of the mass of said system. A long slow bumpy progression trending upwards.
We all want to make the world better — but how? Jamais Cascio looks at some specific tools and techniques that can make a difference. It’s a fascinating talk that might just inspire you to act.
“We need better documentation about what is happening to the planet if we are ever going to have a chance at repairing the damage.” – Jamais Cascio
Damage? What damage exactly? How are you going to fix it? You’re not serious are you? Act how? Towards what goal? For what purpose? Control? Power? Out of Wisdom or Fear? How many will die if you act? How many will die if you don’t? What actions? How do you know you are Building a Better World? Really, are you so sure? What if you’re wrong, even a little bit wrong?
“[The colony on LV-426] is what we call a Shake’n Bake colony.” – Van Leuwen, Chairman of the Interstellar Commerce Commission Board
“Carbon capture and storage, however, is not as green as it seems — underground burial of carbon dioxide presents immense new risks to society. If the carbon dioxide is stored in deep ocean masses, as sometimes proposed, environmentalists fear that ocean acidification could devastate marine eco-systems. If the carbon dioxide is stored in geologic formations near fossil fuel plants, as is more commonly proposed, the harmful effects would directly affect human life: Research at Columbia University by one of the world’s leading geohazard scientists ranks carbon storage as one of the five top coming causes of man-induced earthquakes, a prediction all the more scary because the earthquakes would tend to occur near the fossil fuel plants, and population centres. In another potential danger, some fret about the consequences of an accidental release of carbon dioxide from underground storage facilities. In Cameroon in 1986, 1,800 people died after an unexplained release of carbon dioxide from beneath Lake Nyos, which has deep stores of carbon dioxide beneath its bottom.“
…
“Ironically, carbon capture technology would not only worsen air quality and more rapidly scar the tar sands landscape, it may also harm the global environment if it is successful in its goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide stimulates plant growth and leads to a greening of the planet. In fact, satellite measurements now show the planet to be the greenest in decades. Little wonder that, in surveys of scientists, the great majority view carbon dioxide as a beneficial gas that’s indispensable to plant growth, and insignificant to any deleterious global warming.”- Lawrence Solomon, National Post
“Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has once again accused the United States of playing God. But this time it’s Haiti’s disastrous earthquake that he thinks the U.S. was behind. Spanish newspaper ABC quotes Chavez as saying that the U.S. navy launched a weapon capable of inducing a powerful earthquake off the shore of Haiti. He adds that this time it was only a drill and the final target is … destroying and taking over Iran.”
“The 
