Michael Crichton picks a fight with environmentalists

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
more water isnt being displacd - more water is being tied up. sea level drops if any. but since its melting on the other side, sea level remains the same.

It depends. You might want to give more detail about the particular ice sheets. Are they increasing in thickness or area? If it's thickness, then more water s being tied up. If it's area, then not necessarily. If could be that continental ice is sliding out in to the ocean at a faster rate.

Also, are the ice sheets increasing and decreasing at the same rates?

[BlackCat]

to see that we agree on several points, but :

I don't care if MC hasn't a clue about current sceince, which i'm not that sure, but what is wrong if he elaborates what he know and write a story that is on the frontier of current knowledge ? He may be wrong, but has he in anyway claimed that what he has spoken is true ? And is he the first in this genre ? Imagine that you are a 18'century person and are reading Jules Verne. I don't think that you will take his claims for granted.

Maybe i'm wrong, but the only thing i hear from MC is that science is good as long as it's based on facts, but beware if it's based on belief.


i don't belive that desertificiation is the main issue in Sudan. That is an religious/ethnical/racial fight.

[Mr. Harley]

Blackcat, in Dafor they are all moslems. There is an ethnic/racial and power fight, but if they had enough water it would be much easier to work things out. National Geographic back in the 1980's had some excellent analysis that water would become the next major source of conflict. I wanted to use the Palestinian/Isreali conflict, but I'd get stomped all over and really hijack the thread.

If you look at my first post, Crichton is no cutting edge author, and he's lazy to boot. A sophmore level biology major, alright, a gifted sophmore level biology major, can cut the Andromeda Strain to shreds and that was back in the 70's! They might need to be a junior (embryology and genetics) for Jurassic Park. He deals in pseudo-science pap, with just enough science to make those who don't know the field to think it's believable. It's the same thing as Star Trek and astronomy/physics, in may "sound" like science, but often it's anything but (I wanted to scream in the episode where Voyager had to deal with the physical "crack" in an event horizen).

[Ted Striker]

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[Mr. Harley]

Oh, an interesting aside on the Chinese. Evidently some higher up must have looked at the numbers. They are now taking the effects of pollution seriously (single source interview, so this could be window dressing but it supports everything else I've seen on their numbers), and are assigning early middle-aged rising technocrats to deal with it. For those of you who know the Chinese system, that's deadly serious. They take the long view, and as long as they don't have some new cultural revolution, that means in 20-30 years they may have an integrated, versus adversarial, relationship between industry and the environment. Police - Free Market - Wealth (for you SMAC types). It's an interesting combination.

[Ted Striker]

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[Urban Ranger]

Another scientist weighs in

Glaciologist Lonnie Thompson worries that he may have found clues that show history repeating itself, and if he is right, the result could have important implications to modern society.
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“The climate system is remarkably sensitive to natural variability,” he said. “It’s likely that it is equally sensitive to effects brought on by human activity, changes like increased greenhouse gases, altered land-use policies and fossil-fuel dependence.

“Any prudent person would agree that we don’t yet understand the complexities with the climate system and, since we don’t, we should be extremely cautious in how much we ‘tweak’ the system,” he said.

“The evidence is clear that a major climate change is underway.”

article

[Mr. Harley]

Thanks UR, I was trying to avoid assembling various cites because my posts are the result of reading probably at this point over 100 articles, and I wasn't taking notes like I would have in college. The effort would have taken me hours or days. What's interesting is that he points to 5,200 years ago, and Paleontological records show some interesting things happening to native American populations in that 7000-5200 year span.

[RGBVideo]

4. temperatures around the world (large cities are adjusted for urban heat island' effect. underadjustment is what is given)
a. Punta Arenas 1888-2004: a decrease of 0.6 C
b. Pasadena 1930-2000: an increase of 3.5 C
c. Berkeley 1930 - 2000: an increase of 0.6 C
d. Death Valley 1933 - 2000: an increase of 0.3 C
e. McGill (NV) 1930-2000: a decrease of 1 C
f. Guthrie, OK 1930-2000: decrease of 0.5 C
g. Boulder 1930-1997: decrease of 0.4 C
h. Truman (MO) 1931-2000: decrease of 2.1 C
i. Greenvile (SC) 1930-2000: decrease of 2.3 C
j. Ann Arbor 1930-2000: decrease of 1C
k. Charleston (SC) 1930-2000: increase of 0.2 C
l. New York City 1930-2000: increase of 0.8 C
m. Syracuse (NY) 1930-2000:decrease of 0.9 C
n. Albany (NY) 1930-2000: decrease of 1 C
o. Oswego (NY) 1930-2000: decrease of 0.7 C
p. West Point (NY) 1931-2000: decrease of 0.5 C
q. West Point (NY) 1900-2000: increase of 0.5 C
r. West Point (NY) 1826-2000: increase of < 0.1C
s. New York City 1822-2000: increase of 5 C
t. Albany (NY) 1820-2000: decrease of 0.5 C

5. CO2 levels
1957: 315 ppm
2002: 372 ppm

Picking up random years and then using them to prove a point which you wanted to make before you researched the statistics is always suspicious. I'd be much more comfortable with a whole graph than just two separate values of it.

[Apocalypse]

I bought the book on Monday and thread about the first 100 pages by Wednesday...and then last night I read it before going to bed around 2 am, planning on just reading a bit (I was planning on reading most of it on the drive back to Virginia) but then stayed up until 9 am reading...took a break...and then again around 1:30 pm I picked it up again and finished the last bit. It was really good. Yeah, it doesn't seem to tell the entire picture, but it makes good points and at least there is a section at the end saying exactly what the author believes. So pretty much despite how you think of what he's doing, at least it isn't that underhanded.