Vida Enigmática

"Who speaks for Earth?"

Who speaks for Earth?

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“Typical liberal moron”

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So just today, someone once again called us ‘liberals’ morons. Again.

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First of all, I’d like to point out to Americans that in Australia, the liberal party is actually the conservative party. The labor party is the one that swings to the left. So get your facts straight.

I hope you are one of those republicans and you are reading this. I really do. I’ve tried to spam this blog post with conservative keywords in the hope that more of you will find it and actually use a greater proportion of the right hand side of your brain.

Anyway, I think you’ll find that the majority (not all, but most) creative people ARE liberal.

So that means artists, musicians, writers, actors, 3D animators, graphic designers, industrial designers, fashion designers, interior designers, architects, art directors, creative directors, marketing and advertising gurus, chefs, comedians, photographers, hairdressers, dancers … you know… all the people who make life interesting. Not to mention many scientists, psychologists and health care workers as well.

What that means is, who do you actually go to when you do any of the following: read a book; watch movies (other than old westerns); listen to music (anthing but country music that is); buy nice clothes (including designer suits); buy furniture; go out to a restaurant; give birth to a child; watch a comedy; take a taxi; get a haircut; need a lawyer; need a psychologist; go out for a drink at a bar or pub; set foot in a nicely designed home; watch any kind of entertainment.

What music do you listen to when you feel like cheering up? Who do you go to when you want to sell more widgets? Who do you go to when you want advice on branding or corporate identity? How about you stop calling people “liberal morons” eh? Do you not know how to compose an entire sentence without insulting someone? Because it’s becoming tiresome. Really. If anyone has made the Divided States of America, it is you.

I hate to say this, but without liberal people, your society would look a lot like the USSR. You know: communist! Not that there’s anything wrong with that either. It’s just… a bit too depressing by all accounts. [Read more…]

What a monkey space mission!

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They’re planning on sending monkeys into space in 2017…

Please, don’t send monkeys into space to try and ‘fix’ everything. If you do, you’re only abusing and exploiting monkeys for humanity’s benefit.

Where is the ‘reward’ for the monkeys? What’s in it for them? Have you asked them whether they know how many banana trees grow on the planet Mars or in Space? Because I’m sure if you could communicate that to them, they would jump on your face and start scratching at your eyeballs in order not to go.

See, this might have been okay in the 60s. But now we know better.

Fellow humans, the ‘answers’ (and by that I mean a technical solution to all the problems we face down here on Earth) won’t be found in exploring Mars. You’re not going to like this, but the answer to our survival is in making less, doing less. Not more. Less. Minimalism. That is the only way we can move forward.

We need to respect animals in order to survive as a species. We ourselves are animals!

So ban the whole darn mission I say. And my message to scientists is: ask yourselves why you are doing research. Are you doing research just to do research or to better humanity? If you’re trying to make us better humans, this is not the way. How does it make us better? How does it make our future better?

 

What is the amount of carbon dioxide gas generated by all the cars in the world today?

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I previously wrote an article which contained a simple calculation to estimate the amount of CO2 emitted by 1 litre of petrol. And it was a fairly popular blog post. From there it was easy to estimate the amount of CO2 produced by driving on one full tank of petrol.

When one litre of petrol is burned, 2.28kg of CO2 are produced, equivalent to 1268 litres of of CO2 gas!! Every single 50 litre tank full of petrol will produce over 63,400 litres of CO2 gas (63.4 m3), or a volume of pure CO2 gas equivalent to an imaginary cube with sides 4 metres long.

Now I’m going to calculate how much CO2 is produced by the fleet of 500-600 million cars worldwide using just one full tank of petrol and compare that figure with the total volume of the Earth’s atmosphere.

600,000,000 x 63,400 = 38,000,000,000,000 litres.

38 trillion litres on just one tank of petrol.

What’s the average annual petrol consumption? Average distance driven per year? Easier to get the stats from elsewhere at this point, more reliable:

Cars – together with power stations- are the main producers of CO2. Today 500 million cars world-wide emit four billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere – around 20 per cent of the total quantity produced by mankind. And the number of cars on the road is growing rapidly – currently twice as fast as the world’s population. Forecasts assume that this number will reach 2 billion world-wide by the year 2030. This will mean that petrol consumption will grow to an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes by 2030. CO2 emissions from traffic would then increase to more than 7.5 billion tonnes. Source: greenpeace

I’m an ex-scientist. And scientists deal with numbers. It is our job to try and explain very large numbers to people.

I think we’re all very used to hearing the words ‘thousands’, ‘millions’, ‘billions’ and even ‘trillions’.

And we’re not used to measuring the weight of gases. We’re used to seeing their volume. Aren’t we?

So. If that happens, if CO2 emissions from traffic increase to 7.5 billion tonnes per annum, why, do you know how many litres that is?

I’ll tell you how many litres of CO2 that is. It’s 3.82 quadrillion, that’s how many litres of CO2 that is. Per year.

Now, I’m willing to bet that you don’t even know how big one quadrillion is, let alone 3.82 of them. It’s “fucken huge”, that’s how big it is. Just how much bigger is one quadrillion than one billion?

Let’s imagine there were 3.82 quadrillion people scattered throughout the universe… and that there are 7.5 billion people on each planet1, there would have to be 509 million planets in existence to total 3.82 quadrillion people.

That’s how much CO2 gas cars pump into one of our Earth’s atmospheres every single year.
3.82 quadrillion litres of CO2.

Take a look at this latest graph.

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Go on, have the balls to actually look at it:

nsidc_global_area_byyear_b-800x533

See where we are? We’re right at that point where we don’t want to be. That’s where we are. The appropriately red-coloured line that is beneath all the others (well beneath).

Look, I don’t claim to know much about climate science. I know about materials science. But if there’s one thing scientists know how to do, it’s to respect others’ areas of expertise. Especially the expertise of other scientists.

It’s a bit like the song:

“What you don’t know you can feel it somehow” — U2

We know that there are others who are cleverer than us. And we respect that knowledge.

So I admit that I don’t know how the Earth’s climate fully works. But this latest graph worries me. This graph worries me a lot.

Because its pretty darn obvious to anyone what is going on in this graph.

I don’t think the Earth is completely screwed just yet. But if we don’t change NOW, then it will be.

I think the Earth’s climate is remarkly resilient considering all we’ve thrown at it over the last century.

But all I know is, if man thinks he can change local environments —on a global scale mind you— without global consequences, well then he is sorely mistaken.

That is not the way this world works. That is not how any world works.

Because this is the graph of all graphs. This graph should be printed on the insides of all petrol tank lids.

Every time you wish to use your car, you should be thinking of this graph!

Every time you want to fly somewhere, you should be thinking of this graph!

Every time you eat meat, you should be thinking of this graph!

This is the “climate emergency” graph that James Hansen is referring to.

And what do I see? In reality? In reality, I look around today, and I see bugger all people talking about this problem. And yet it is a big problem. A very big problem.

People should be talking about this over their lunch break and their coffee break. And for some reason they’re not. They’re just not.

[Read more…]

“Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”

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Ok. I am sick to death of hearing people rubbish climate change at this very late stage. Especially by the people who contribute most (manufacturing/engineering).

“Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” …. down here on the Florida coast, the water-line remains the same it was fifty (50) years ago. Same goes for southern California, the high tide line remains the same as when I lived there in the early 1950s … hello Al Gore? you remain 100% wrong. The first thing that needs to be done is to ban any and all lawyers from any and all discussions about CC. — David Hubbell

David, I see you are a clever bloke. Engineers are always spouting off about how the world couldn’t work without engineering. Well ok. Fair enough. But it wouldn’t work without science either.

I put my trust in engineers every time I cross a bridge or catch an elevator. And you accept that your computer ‘works’, don’t you? So people put their trust in electronics every single day of the week. And who studies that stuff? Physicists. Materials scientists. That’s who.

But do you people ever question the theory behind semiconductors? No, because that enables computers. Do you question anything else to do with science for that matter? It’s these very same science and technological advances and principles that have enabled consumerism to spawn in the first place. These are the same people who invented MRI machines for Pete’s sake! And yet deniers say nothing about electron theory, magnetic domains or PN junctions.

What am I saying? I am saying that I think it’s time we showed the same level of respect for climate scientists. It looks to me the ONLY reason there are deniers today is that it means you have to “give up” something. And that something is called ‘lifestyle’.

Personally, I think that’s why you are on the denying side of the fence. Because if you accept what is happening, suddenly you’d have to take a long hard look at your own career choices. Because they contribute, don’t they? And you don’t want to do that, so you have these pre-conceived ideas about the world

Kindly educate yourself on the CO2 composition of the planet Venus and it’s surface temperature. And to all my connections, this is the real problem. The social intertia. That’s what I’m tackling here. It’s time to call out the bullshit “personal observations” for what they are. Personal observations.