Michael Crichton picks a fight with environmentalists

[MrFun]

Originally posted by notyoueither


I want my f**king hockey! I'm in withdrawal here. I am reduced to prowling message boards in search of virtual fisticuffs.

Ted is always good for a go. Just have to prod him correctly.

Sorry, Ted. Sort of.

(I also noticed you actually have the balls to give Ted a half-hearted felt apology)

[Mr. Harley]

Here is some additional info, first referencing the sun's current high levels of activity. The problem is that we have less of a baseline on this then we have on global temperatures. It neither proves nor disproves the solar versus CO2 argument. As with many of these controversies, it may well prove both are factors. One plausible scenario, for example, would be that we are entering an era of increased solar activity, and that coupled to human influences could result in a catastrophic confluence of events (i.e. an extinction event). Pure speculation, but it makes the point.

Solar storm surge 'not over yet'
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor


Scientists are warning that the spurt of dramatic solar activity may not be over yet.
One astronomer described the two large gas clouds that reached the Earth earlier this week as "unprecedented".

However, experts say that although unusual, the events are not beyond the bounds of "normal" solar activity.

They say the flares do not represent any significant change in our Sun's behaviour as there has only been 25 years of monitoring from space.

'Two big shots at us'

Earlier this week, aircraft traversing the north Atlantic were confined to a narrow corridor to minimise radiation exposure, and astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) took shelter in its most shielded section.


I have not seen anything like it in my entire career as a solar physicist
John Kohl, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Two Japanese satellites malfunctioned and work had to stop on a Norwegian highway that relied on satellite positioning.
The sunspots - areas of recent explosions that sent charged gas clouds heading our way - have now moved so that the Earth in no longer in the "line of fire".

However, astronomers say that the Sun may not have finished with us yet.


Commenting on the solar events of the past few days, John Kohl of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the US, said: "It's like the Earth is looking right down the barrel of a giant gun pointed at us by the Sun... and it's taken two big shots at us."
"The Sun is really churned up. The timing of two very large X-class flares aimed directly at the Earth, occurring one right after another, is unprecedented.

"I have not seen anything like it in my entire career as a solar physicist. The probability of this happening is so low that it is a statistical anomaly."

Spacecraft shut down

As a precaution, astronauts Michael Foale and Alexander Kaleri on board the ISS spent 20 minutes per orbit in the Zvezda module - the most protected area of the station - while the ISS passed through high magnetic latitudes.

It is a routine procedure and astronauts have done it twice before - in April and November 2001.


En route to the Red Planet, the Mars Express spacecraft was hit by the cloud of charged particles but it was designed to withstand these events.
The Smart 1 mission, spiralling its way to the Moon, has suffered some disruption of its "ion" engine.

At one point, the engine automatically shut down, but restarted itself later without problem.

Radiation monitors on other spacecraft in highly elliptical orbits had detected radiation, probably coming from the solar flare.

These spacecraft, XMM-Newton and Integral, are safe and fully operational.

In 2001, XMM-Newton survived the largest solar flare ever recorded, and mission scientists had no reason to be concerned about the effects of this week's events.

An astronomer at the University of Iowa has even managed to detect the "sounds" made by the first storm - a clicking noise followed by a whoosh.

Donald Gurnett says the sounds of the solar flare were picked up on Tuesday by the US space agency's Cassini spacecraft as it heads for a rendezvous with Saturn and its moons.


Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3230807.stm

Published: 2003/10/31 14:58:08 GMT

Sun's massive explosion upgraded
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor


The massive solar flare that erupted from the Sun last November was far bigger than scientists first thought.
At the time, satellite detectors were unable to record its true size because they were blinded by its radiation.

But University of Otago physicists say they have now estimated the probable scale of the huge explosion by studying how X-rays hit the Earth's atmosphere.

They tell Geophysical Research Letters the X45 class event was more than twice as big as the previous record flare.

Fortunately, the Earth did not take a direct hit from this immense blast of radiation and matter.

Had it done so, several orbiting satellites would almost certainly have been damaged and there could have been considerable disruption of radio communications and power grids on the planet's surface.

The big one

Last October and November, the Sun underwent an extraordinary surge in activity, producing a series of big flares from the most active sunspot region ever seen.


SOLAR FLARE CLASSES
Flares classified by brightness at X-ray wavelengths
X-class is biggest; can trigger radio blackouts on Earth
M-class is medium-sized; radio interference at polar regions
C-class is smallest; few noticeable effects on Earth

Day after day, gas was being explosively heated to millions of degrees, sending radiation and billions of tonnes of charged particles streaming into space.
But it was on 4 November, as Active Region 486 was being carried out of sight around the Sun's western limb by solar rotation, that the most extraordinary flare let rip.

Between 1929 and 1950 GMT, the enormous explosion sent an intense burst of radiation towards the Earth.

Even before the storm had peaked, X-rays had overloaded the detectors on solar-monitoring satellites, in particular those on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, which usually provide data allowing scientists to estimate the size of such events.

Later study suggested the flare was an X28.

Right place and time

The biggest previous solar flares on record were rated X20, on 2 April 2001 and 16 August 1989. So 4 November's explosion certainly set a new mark. But only now do scientists understand the probable true power of the event.


The New Zealand researchers in Otago looked at the effect the flare's radiation had on the Earth's upper atmosphere and used that to judge its strength.
"So when this event overloaded the satellite detectors, we were in a unique position to make this measurement," they said.

Detailing their work in their journal paper, the team report that at the time of the big solar explosion they were probing the ionosphere with radio waves as part of a long-term research programme.

They noticed that X-rays from the flare changed the properties of the ionosphere, an effect that has been observed many times before.

Massive bombardment

The changes the Otago researchers saw allowed them to produce a new estimate of the flare's intensity, increasing its rating from X28 to X45.

"This makes it more than twice as large as any previously recorded flare," said Associate Professor Neil Thomson.


THE IONOSPHERE
Refers to region of Earth's upper atmosphere
Normally extends 70 to 400 km above the surface
Atmosphere location where solar radiation can affect transmissions of radio waves

Luckily the radiation from the flare only struck a glancing blow to the Earth.
"If the accompanying particle and magnetic storm had been aimed at the Earth, the damage to some satellites and electrical networks could have been considerable," said Thomson.

The New Zealanders say their calculations show the flare's X-ray radiation bombarding the atmosphere was equivalent to that of 5,000 suns, though none of it reached the Earth's surface, they stress.

"Given that any future flares are unlikely to be large enough to overload the ionosphere, we believe that our new method has great advantages in determining their size in the event of satellite detector overloads," said Thompson.


Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3515788.stm

Published: 2004/03/17 01:27:25 GMT

[Mr. Harley]

And now for some info on industrializing CO2 emitters.

China, Brazil reveal climate plan
By Elizabeth Blunt
BBC News, Buenos Aires


China and Brazil have presented details of their greenhouse gas emissions to an international summit on climate change.
Both countries also explained how they plan to contribute to the fight against global warming.

The presentation aroused a good deal of interest amid discussions about whether such rapidly developing countries should be expected to reduce emissions.

Greenhouse gases do not just come out of the smokestacks of factories or the exhaust pipes of cars, they said.

In Brazil it seems a staggering 75% of the country's carbon dioxide is produced by the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, with carbon dioxide being given off as trees are burned or allowed to rot.

Achievements

The Chinese presentation revealed a more conventional programme with its power industry by far the largest contributor to greenhouse emissions.

But it also included a discreet reference to what it called "animal enteric fermentation" - a reminder that some greenhouse gases like methane are produced by pigs and cows and that these agricultural emissions can be quite significant in developing countries.
But although Brazil and China are very different, both are keen participants in the movement to arrest climate change and both can boast real achievements.

Brazil has pioneered the use of ethanol made from renewable sources such as sugar cane to replace petrol for cars and lorries.

China has cleaned up some of its older, coal-fired power plants and has succeeded in growing economically with a relatively modest rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

At the moment neither country has any obligation to cut back.


The Kyoto Protocol only imposes binding cuts on the developed countries who caused the problem.
But some delegates are starting to think about what should happen after the first phase of Kyoto cutbacks.

Some are suggesting that China and Brazil might be offered the chance to gain some kind of benefit from voluntary cutbacks, perhaps by being able to sell their carbon reduction credits on the international market.


Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4087493.stm

Published: 2004/12/11 04:11:15 GMT

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
It may be part of a normal cycle. Temperatures and CO2 levels have been much higher in the past, when homo sapiens did not exist. Human activity may be irrelevant as a cause or prevention to any climate change that is occuring. happening. And what is happening may not be harmful.

#1, We are here now, so it is a concern to us. So what if CO2 levels were higher 300 hundred million years ago. All of the currently existing organisms have evolved since then.

#2, May be part of a normal cycle. On the other hand, it may not. Until we know either way, it behooves us to deal with it now. If we are cautious, and it turns out we were wrong, we missed out on some growth. If we go full steam ahead and it turns out we are right, then we are all ****ed.

#3 What is happening is harmful. Small islands are being swallowed up. Storms are getting nastier, even if they aren't increasing in frequency yet. Antarctic ice shelves are calving at greater rates, meaning the ice behind them is flowing faster, meaning that sea levels will rise. Greater melting in the arctic decrease our albedio, meaning we absorb for heat from the sun, etc. Drier forests in the boreal forests mean a greater likelihood for massive northern forest fires, etc.

[Myrddin]

Small islands are being swallowed up

Name 3

[germanos]

Marianas (all of them)

[Sandman]

The Maldives.

Islands aren't nearly as important as the low-lying river deltas which will be threatened; home to hundreds of millions of people.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

What is happening is harmful. Small islands are being swallowed up. Storms are getting nastier, even if they aren't increasing in frequency yet. Antarctic ice shelves are calving at greater rates, meaning the ice behind them is flowing faster, meaning that sea levels will rise. Greater melting in the arctic decrease our albedio, meaning we absorb for heat from the sun, etc. Drier forests in the boreal forests mean a greater likelihood for massive northern forest fires, etc.

crichton disputes all of this. antartic ice shelves are melting on one part of the continenet but are growing bigger on the other side (net = zero) a study of Vanutu island in the pacific shows no increase in sea level in the last 30 years.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia


crichton disputes all of this. antartic ice shelves are melting on one part of the continenet but are growing bigger on the other side (net = zero) a study of Vanutu island in the pacific shows no increase in sea level in the last 30 years.

Good for Vanutu. So what?

nice that he disputes things- I dispute him though, so what?

[Mr. Harley]

Note that Crichton conveniently ignores the record melting of most temperate latitude glaciers, the pollen and oxygen isotope evidence I've mentioned earlier, etc. It's like his conveniently ignoring various aspects of vertebrate physiology, blood chemistry, infectious diseases, and energy metabolism to create his virtually "undefeatable" disease in the Andromeda Strain. Or the fact that the closest mitochondrial DNA (from the egg cell) to dinosaurs will NOT be amphibians, let alone the fact the the DNA can not last for the requisite length of time due to simple chemical issues.

Quoting him as a reference is like quoting Bill Clinton on marital fidelity, or Bush on consensus building. The problem is that he writes Popular pseudo-science novels, and thus the press holds him up as an expert. My contempt of the press and the dearth of genuine, in-depth reporting has been stated in detail before.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Good for Vanutu. So what?

nice that he disputes things- I dispute him though, so what?

he has data. lets see yours, convince me crichtons wrong.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Sandman
The Maldives.

Islands aren't nearly as important as the low-lying river deltas which will be threatened; home to hundreds of millions of people.

If i'm not wrong, sealevel is actually falling at the Maldives.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by GePap


Good for Vanutu. So what?

nice that he disputes things- I dispute him though, so what?

Nope. You aren't disputing anything, you just babbles a little.

About Vanuatu, well, they are probably glad that the disasasters they were promised wasn't true.

[Mr. Harley]

Check on the Arctic Ice Pack. It's been thinning and is doing quite badly, with open areas lasting for much longer periods into the pre-winter period than ever recorded. Again, same problem. Recorded info on the Arctic Ice Pack is of much too short a duration, it's going to take extensive ice core research to really determine what's going on. If the changes continue it may cause the extinction of the Polar Bear, which indicates the elimination of a species, which is at least 100,000 years old (evolved in the Pleistocene). Maybe it's indicative of a major change?

Note I posted info on the increased solar activity. The various other posters did the work for CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions. Crichton is using one of the few examples that is ambiguous, and leaving out the other "inconvenient" facts like the temperate region glacial melting or the Arctic changes. Even then he leverages his one example to claim it proves what it doesn't. Note that the Antarctic Ice Shelf is undergoing a substantial redistribution (if current trends continue). Now I would consider that something to be concerned about, and indicative of some sort of change.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Ted Striker




The only thing you have shown on that graph is a possible "slight" increase in 2001, and that's it. A blip against a very long trend that was established almost to the point of flatlining.

And, by the way, compare that with the big ass red line the US has waaaaaaaaaayyyy on top and look at the South Korean line that is going waaaaaaaay up, even though they have comparable economic growth rates.

You are completely looking at coal as one aspect, and overlooked modern, efficient machinery, better power plants that produce hardly any pollution, and also increased use of hydro electric power.

You know, that whole three gorges thing, the largest dam ever created in the history of mankind. Surley that would be a nice clean source of power, you know with that small 18.2 million kilowatts which just happens to equal the output of 18 nuclear plants or 40 million tons of coal.

http://www.chinaonline.com/refer/ministry_profiles/threegorgesdam.asp

Did you know there are ways of generating energy which actually don't have pollution?


Sorry.

HERE IS THE BOTTOM LINE

China is growing faster than anybody else in the world and yet they are doing a good job of cutting, flatlining, and containing pollution, from any way you want to look at it.

With 1.2 billion people, they are in a position to pollute more than any other nation in this world, yet have managed to reduce their pollution load on the planet.

Meanwhile in the US we are afraid to do anything about pollution because we are whores to the almighty god of big business.

I think that you don't have any idea of what you are talking about.

You can't in any way compare US an China in the way you are doing it. Do you really think that every chinese are at the same level as a US citicen if we talk about "way of life" - that is refrigs, tvs, and whatever you can mention of energy consumtion thingies ? If you do that or even think that more than a small percentage of the chinese population has acces to that, then you are wery wrong.

If, or rather when china reaches the same level, i can gurantee you that that lilac line will go straight up and pass every other line in that figure.

You are talking a lot about rises in growth, and that's very nice. You just forget one little thing, there are a hell of difference in rising 10 pct from a high level against doing it from a low level.

You are also ignoring the fact that it is no problem to grow your energy production and reducing pollution when you go from a high pollution - non efficient system to one that is efficient and less polluting.

So your claim that they have reduced their pollution and increased effectivity isn't going to last for more than a couple of years.