Weekend open thread for Dredd Blog bloggers to blog about anything they choose to blog about.==//==
There is a shocking and little known piece of history that may effect the debate over climate change.
A global warming history specialist, a geologist, stated over two and a half years ago that global warming caused by human activity would have the same effects on volcanoes and earthquakes as global warming in the past that was not man made.
It would cause volcanic eruptions ... and he specifically said the volcano that just erupted would erupt when the ice shrunk down enough.
One wonders if hacking is so easy a cave boy can do it, how safe are voting machines?
ReplyDeleteLink
"One geologist is saying that global warming will have an effect on earthquake and volcanic activity (as ice sheets melt weight is redistributed around the earth, changing pressures on the crust)."
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Certainly recent events have to make you wonder about this one. Unfortunately, amassing scientific proof would be a long process and would likely come too late to prevent even further events. I'm in the camp that thinks we've probably already locked in catastrophic changes, so I'm not sure it makes any difference what we do now anyway. Not that we'd do anything even if the evidence was unassailable. The economic costs would just be too high.
disaffected,
ReplyDeleteThe article linked to was posted "30 August 2007" when things were quiet compared to now as you pointed out ("Certainly recent events have to make ou wonder").
It is interesting that the geologist, over 2.5 years ago, said: "In places like Iceland, for example, where you have the Eyjafjallajökull ice sheet, which wouldn't survive [global warming], and you've got lots of volcanoes under that, the unloading effect can trigger eruptions" ...
Even as we speak a volcano from that specific place has shut down European air traffic.
You also mentioned that "amassing scientific proof would be a long process" ...
Interestingly, that geologist based his prescience upon existing data from the study of past events:
"... noting that there is ample evidence for this association in past climate change events"
I see that Europe is all a twitter about getting airline flights restarted, due primarily to the loss of revenues (people can generally get around without air travel if they have to, although certainly not with the speed and convenience they're used to).
ReplyDeleteMight be interesting to see how this all plays out over the coming days, weeks, and months. As a former aircraft maintainer for the USAF, I can personally attest to the more often than not long term ignorance of short term decisions when it comes to aircraft maintenance and safety.
This is another case of business decisions directly impacting safety that must be made based on strict allegiance to the dictums of the market, which is of course a whore to the exponential growth equation.