Global Warming and Other Changes are NOT the End of the World

I am getting sick and tired of seeing all the foolish whining from folks who seem to believe the world is coming to an end due to global warming or the war on terror. What is wrong with people these days? They do not seem to be capable of thinking anymore. Use your brains folks - that's why Homo sapiens is supposed to be the most intelligent species on the planet. You are actually expected to be naturally smarter than your cat. I hate to say this but even my fellow Americans seem to fall short of this.

GLOBAL WARMING: Is it happening? YES! Will it affect our lives? You can bet on that and win. Will it affect the economy of our country - and the world? YES! Will people die because of it? YES! Is there anything we can do to stop it? NOT A CHANCE IN HELL! Are we the primary cause of global warming? Not exactly - the jury is still figuring out the cause. Actually, from what I did learn in the couple weeks I was in paleoclimatology class - we have contributed to it but are not likely the sole cause of it. To put it another way - it was going to happen anyway - we just acted as a catalyst and sped it up a bit.

Can we slow it down? Yes, but it's a bit too late for that at this point. The Northern Ice Cap is pretty much gone and nothing short of an ice age will bring it back. Can we reverse it? Very possible and likely if we work really really hard to do that - but maybe you want to think of the consequences of doing just that, first. Actually, maybe you all would prefer an ice age instead of global warming. Let's see...hmmm... Do you think we could invent a way to grow food on ice sheets in freezing temperatures? How about your house... Did you ever wonder what it would be like to live with a glacier in your yard? Or your house buried beneath one? Yeah, there would be more beaches to visit - albeit covered in ice. Basically, a full reversal of global warming would cover about half of the Earth with uninhabitable ice sheets. Maybe that's your idea of paradise - but it ain't mine. Did you ever hear the saying - when hell freezes over? I think you get the point.

Will all life on Earth, including all of humanity, cease to exist and die out in some cataclysmic mass extinction event from global warming? NO! Global sea level rise is not going to kill us off. Yeah, there will be a lot less islands and the coastlines will recede. So just get the hell off the island and don't own any beachfront property. Anyone who sticks around those locations is doomed - like the ninnies who stood and watched as the tsunami killed them. The animals had enough sense to get the hell out of dodge - but the humans were incapable for some unknown reason of following them. There was absolutely no excuse for that. Unless you want to argue the point that humans are just naturally more stupid than the other Earth creatures. Go ahead, go right ahead... be my guest.

Guess what's hiding under all that melting ice as global warming happens? LAND! Well, what do you know! Places to grow food and build houses and villages and cities. WOW! Imagine that! What rock have you idiots been hiding under that you are now just crawling out from? There is a lot of us Earthlings who actually knew that all that nice fertile land was under all that ice just waiting for the melting to finish up and the land to thaw out.

As for the beaches. Well, we'll have to move all the lighthouses as the coastlines recede. Yes, that will cost money. So, get off your lazy butts and make some big money so that we don't have a very bizarre remake of the Titanic tragedy - only this time the ship runs into a lighthouse submerged beneath the sea. Yoi! I think humanity can agree to save the lighthouses at the very least. To hell with the beachfront hotels - they can be rebuilt a lot easier than a lighthouse. As for the beaches themselves: Guess what! After they recede - they will naturally rebuild themselves . Yeah, beaches grow - and they even evolve - due to beachfront erosion. So, move inland far enough so that you will actually be owners of the new beachfront property. You all might want to start moving on that - you only got a couple years before...well...you know.

TERRORISM: Most likely, the crazy jihadi folks over in Iran will finish building one or two nukes and launch it at someone. The US or Israel! What do you really think the rest of the world will do when they do this? Worst case scenario - nuke Iran until it's a sheet of radioactive glass. And make sure the stupid bastards who built and launched the weapon(s) are trapped there when we hit them - preferably with every terrorist on Earth hanging with them partying to REM's It's the End of the World as We Know It. Hey, we already know that the terrorists are all suicidal - so all they have to do is say when and the world will oblige them and put them out of OUR misery. Actually, to tell the truth we here in the United States are indeed stalling on nuking anyone for the simple reason that we just don't like to do such a thing. Wiping out every living thing in an area is not a nice thing to do - but we will if absolutely necessary. We just don't have to like doing it. And we're giving the innocent bystanders a chance to get the hell out of there beforehand. Leave now or forever hold your peace!

POLARITY REVERSAL: Some liken this to the END OF TIME. If it is the end of time, it may just mean the years might start recounting - like when BC switched to AD. There will likely be some odd adjustments and a bit of inconvenience but not the end of all life on Earth, as some crazies like to think.

When the reversal happens we need to be prepared to deal with a lot of crazy things happening - like everything on Earth with a polarity ceasing to function. This includes the nuclear power plants of the world, as I mentioned once before. Anything that functions by battery or electric might also no longer work - this includes the cars and other vehicles - and yes, the computers. I am not saying that this is absolutely what will happen - but since we have not had a reversal since long before the technological revolution - it would be good to be prepared for the worst. Geomagnetic reversal is still too new of a concept for scientists to understand all the consequences to our technological world. Hey, scientists never claimed to be all knowing!

The field reversal - since it has to do with polarities - north south - positive negative - very likely will affect EVERYTHING else with a polarity. Try putting the batteries into anything upside down - it just will not work. What do we know runs by battery? The same for electricity - yes, electric currents have a polarity and when you reverse it - some things simply stop working and some explode. I do not know if the fact that we use Alternating Current as opposed to Direct Current will be any help. Hopefully it will. What exactly happens when AC is reversed or shut down completely? This is up to the physicists of the world to determine.

I once heard a saying: Assume the worst, and you'll end up pleasantly surprised. I may be a realist - but I am also an optimist. I do believe we can and will make the best of what's about to happen. Until next time... Or maybe better yet...maybe later this week. Ta ta!

Update and Issues

I have been out of commission for a bit due to a couple personal issues. I have literally been lying low for a bit. Down but not out. But I have not been idle neither. The Paleoclomatology class got withdrawn from - taking one massive issue off of my shoulders. All that has happened to me over the past few months reminds me of a character from one of my favorite novels when the enemies knocked part of a building down on top of him. I mean, really. What happened to my luck? It certainly went south - and me unable to do a damn thing to stop any of it. Yoi!

I did finally register for the Plate Tectonics class here at Pitt and am waiting to hear back from the professor about when and where we are meeting for class. This will be the third graduate level class I have taken so far. I did pass the other two, albeit one without the best of outcomes and the other almost did not make it at all - but turned out ok in the end. Wish me luck.

I am a bit undecided about whether to register for the department's colloquium class. It's only one credit and I do need it. I just wish it were still like it was years ago in my old geology days when it was not mandatory to attend and you did not have to register for it. I believe they changed it so that the department gets enough money to get the speakers - who are typically all from other colleges and other organizations. I wonder how other science departments handle funding problems for their seminar series. There's got to be a better way.

It reminds me of the last class I needed to take for my B.A. in History and Philosophy of Science right here at Pitt. It was also one credit and a seminar type class. We also had to write two research essays on the class topic and readings - which happened to be on Descartes - with Dr. McGuire presiding. It was not a series of lectures by speakers from outside, however. I do recall both our HPS and our Philosophy departments having colloquium type seminars.

I have also been going through all my old research paperwork on the Intelligent Design situation - a la the Discovery Institute. So far, I have only reread and organized into a file folder three old articles from back in 2002 about the Columbus, Ohio scandal. I have plenty more where that came from. I still cannot understand how that Guildenhuys ass of a grad instructor was able to say I was off topic on the essay I wrote for my first attempt at Intro to Philosophy of Science. That is one mistake I have not gotten on any paper since maybe grade school. Well, he got his comeuppance - he ended up on academic probation - on an unrelated issue. Why am I not surprised! I think he might need to take a class on ethics and maybe one on morality - since the "man" did not have any at the time. And not much in the brains category, neither. And Logic is a mandatory class requirement for a Bachelors in our HPS department. He apparently slept through those classes.

Gotta get to class. Till later... Cha Ching!