climate-change-and-cahokia

[kbs2244]

From the news page

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scie ... 96201.html

Beating again the dead horse again.

I wonder who they bought their SUVs from?

[Minimalist]

They concluded that a period of climate change accompanied by both droughts and floods had driven people in their thousands from the city.

So you don't think an agricultural community would be seriously disrupted by droughts and floods? The evidence that prolonged drought brought down the Old Kingdom in Eqypt as well as ancient Mesopotamia is quite well established. Same holds for the Maya.

Just because the Orange Turdfuhrer says its a hoax for the benefit of his oil industry buddies does not mean you have to fall for it.

[kbs2244]

I thought man caused change was a fake when Al G first brought it up.

In spite of our egos, we are just to small to affect something so big.

[shawomet]

I thought man caused change was a fake when Al G first brought it up.

In spite of our egos, we are just to small to affect something so big.

Henry Ford made the automobile affordable, and therefore affordable to the masses, by applying assembly line technology to the production of automobiles. Addressing your observation that "we are just to small to affect something so big" reminds me that I have often thought "how could tens of millions(hundreds of millions, how many gas driven cars are in use on this planet at the moment, I don't know?) of cars spewing exhaust into the atmosphere for a hundred+ years not have some kind of effect?? Since that situation did not exist prior to mass production of gas driven automobiles, how could its introduction and growth to its present situation not have an effect??

Although you do not specifically identify the automobile in your "too small" observation, I myself wonder how they could fail to have some effect, since they were not present before their invention, yet have been spewing greenhouse gases now for a long time since their invention. Is there something in the natural systems of Earth that cancel out the effect of what the auto spews into the atmosphere? Just asking. Given the growth in their numbers, given the time since their introduction, how do we conclude their effect will be "too small"? I am just wondering.

Is the Earth and it's atmosphere truly "too big" for humans to have any effect? I don't believe that at all. I don't think our planet is even that "big", let alone "too big".

[kbs2244]

When I was in Jr High School we had a science teacher that one day brought in a bag of oranges that he passed around.

After we all had on we were told to notice the bumps a grooves of the skin.

He then told us that, in scale, the difference between the top of Mt Everest and the deepest ocean trench would make the orange as smooth as an egg.

How small we are is a common mis-understanding.

[circumspice]

Here's my two cents worth...

Humankind, in its inexhaustible arrogance, has deemed that if this planet is rendered uninhabitable to such an extent that all humans will perish, then the planet will naturally be kaput... Yet...

How many humongous extinction events has this planet experienced in its existence? Nature has a way (definitive & proven) of rebounding from such occurrences and then... LIFE GOES ON. (in some form)

This arrogant attitude is simply a belief that humans are the crown of creation & if they perish, the whole shebang goes to shit & ceases to exist. NOT.

To borrow the title from an old sci-fi novel:

EARTH ABIDES

Just give the earth a few million years to wipe away the detritus of human existence & give birth to the next cycle of life & death on this planet.

*steps down from the soapbox*

[Cognito]

This arrogant attitude is simply a belief that humans are the crown of creation

I'm not really too concerned about CO2 growth since much of earth's history has been at far higher levels. I'm more concerned about the poisons we put in the land, the air and the sea that cycle through our food chain.

As a species we seem to excel at defecating our own bed with carcinogenic toxins. Before long, I expect that we will take our inability to bio-recycle to distant planets where we will create new and unusual, poisonous garbage heaps … our trademark.

[Minimalist]

What's wrong with you Cogs? You don't like yellow rivers?




Can't let anything get in the way of corporate profits, can we?

[kbs2244]

Long before the were SUVs there was a US river called "The Big Muddy"

[Minimalist]

There is silt. And then there is coal ash.



https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-du ... story.html

Duke Energy, the nation's largest electrical utility, pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to nine criminal violations of the Clean Water Act for polluting four major rivers for several years with toxic coal ash from five power plants in North Carolina.

The $50.5-billion company was fined $102 million and placed on five years of probation for environmental crimes. All company compliance related to coal ash in five states will be overseen by a court-appointed monitor and reported to federal parole officers.

The proverbial corporate slap-on-the-wrist. I wonder how the people who live in the area are making out?

[circumspice]

This arrogant attitude is simply a belief that humans are the crown of creation

I'm not really too concerned about CO2 growth since much of earth's history has been at far higher levels. I'm more concerned about the poisons we put in the land, the air and the sea that cycle through our food chain.

As a species we seem to excel at defecating our own bed with carcinogenic toxins. Before long, I expect that we will take our inability to bio-recycle to distant planets where we will create new and unusual, poisonous garbage heaps … our trademark.

Undoubtedly. If we don't drive ourselves to extinction first. We deserve extinction if we refuse to stop messing in the nest.

[shawomet]

Here's my two cents worth...

Humankind, in its inexhaustible arrogance, has deemed that if this planet is rendered uninhabitable to such an extent that all humans will perish, then the planet will naturally be kaput... Yet...

How many humongous extinction events has this planet experienced in its existence? Nature has a way (definitive & proven) of rebounding from such occurrences and then... LIFE GOES ON. (in some form)

This arrogant attitude is simply a belief that humans are the crown of creation & if they perish, the whole shebang goes to shit & ceases to exist. NOT.

To borrow the title from an old sci-fi novel:

EARTH ABIDES

Just give the earth a few million years to wipe away the detritus of human existence & give birth to the next cycle of life & death on this planet.

*steps down from the soapbox*

Yep, life goes on, even after the greatest of extinction events, such as the one that terminated the Permian Period, ushering in the Age of Dinosaurs. Yet, if we are indeed, as some claim, undergoing the 6th great extinction event, well, it saddens me. Deeply. I love my animal friends. Oh, I can do without earwigs, lol, but, seriously, it just saddens me beyond what words can express, to see so many forms of life endangered. Just now, in my lifetime. Yes, life will continue, and some reject the notion that we are at the beginning of the 6th major extinction, but, I suspect we ourselves are a deeply flawed species, and I do believe this Earth would be far better off without us.

[circumspice]

This arrogant attitude is simply a belief that humans are the crown of creation

I'm not really too concerned about CO2 growth since much of earth's history has been at far higher levels. I'm more concerned about the poisons we put in the land, the air and the sea that cycle through our food chain.

As a species we seem to excel at defecating our own bed with carcinogenic toxins. Before long, I expect that we will take our inability to bio-recycle to distant planets where we will create new and unusual, poisonous garbage heaps … our trademark.

Aren't middens a diagnostic feature of all the homo species?

[kbs2244]

On the "life will go on" theme:

https://www.ecomagazine.com/news/scienc ... 047bf244a-

Florida’s Toxic Red Tides Are More Resilient Than Previously Thought!

Co2 high/CO2 low we don't care !
We are simple single cells,
And we can adapt.

[Minimalist]

I recall George Carlin saying "the planet will be fine....the people are fucked!"