Just a reminder, you can't get something for nothing. And any human activity will disturb something. Physics tells us that even passive observation changes the observed.

And even the Internet installers cause pollution.

http://www.gomemphis.com/newca/local/120600/locdrill.htm

-------------SNIP--------------------------------

Net cable installers pollute Drilling mud is culprit

By Tom Charlier The Commercial Appeal

Along sullied streams in at least nine Middle and West Tennessee counties, state environmental officials are finding signs that the Internet is ushering forth more than just a new age in communication.

A distinctive type of pollution - milky water and muck-covered stream bottoms - turned up at two dozen or more sites where crews drilled underneath rivers and creeks to install fiber-optic cable that will carry Internet service.

Tennessee regulators required extensive cleanups at the polluted sites and are weighing possible fines and other enforcement action against the builders of a nationwide fiber-optic network blamed for most of the problems.

They worry that the pollution problems experienced so far could be repeated as more Internet systems are installed.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

Answers

Great find. A major CRISIS and luckily for the types that promotes such hogwash, a man of great skill and reputation in the field will soon be available to SpearHead the Public Protest.

Now skilled in the nuances of election laws and armed with 20 years background in the Green Nightmare Fictions, we can be sure that alBore will rise to the task.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

Charlie, if someone put you in any of those cited rivers or creeks, would you believe it THEN? You have a physics degree, don't you? Is it at all possible that you don't understand the concept that everything anyone or anything does has an EFFECT on something somewhere? Everything has consequences. Just because you "don't believe" doesn't make it "not true".

Paul, one of the things I've found fascinating (one of those painfully obvious things that no one ever thinks about) is what you stated at the beginning of the piece:

"...any human activity will disturb something. Physics tells us that even passive observation changes the observed."

Ever since someone mentioned that to me some years ago, I've been trying to figure out a way to "observe" without disturbing. Yeah, I know; infinitely better minds than mine have been at it for much longer.

Someday, I'll think of it. (With any luck, it will happen before those "infinitely better minds".)

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

the concept that everything anyone or anything does has an EFFECT on something somewhere?

Just finished listening to the last lecture in my Evolution/Ecology class tonight. Dan [the wildman] picked of all species ANTS to make this very point. Without ants, the food chain would be destroyed. It seems they do a lot more than bite my toes.

I also learned that temperatures are increasing 2 degrees centigrade over 100 years, versus the THOUSANDS of years wherein temperatures increased by the same amount during the period between the last ice age and NOW. With ice caps melting, some shorelines could move in 100 miles. He didn't see L.A. as a big loss.

Of course I go to a HEATHEN University, where everything taught is just spin. Who in their right mind would believe the earth isn't 6,000 years old?

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

LOL, Anita. Seems you're just doomed to a lifetime of ant stuff. Hey, it could be worse. It could be roaches.

(I can't even watch that one episode of the X-Files from a couple of years ago. I've made it about fifteen minutes into the show, and I just can't watch it. Gives me the serious creepies. Yech.)

I'm waiting for CA to slide under the continent. Then I'll finally have that beach-front property I've always wanted ;-)

(I will, of course, invite several of the current SoCal residents who post here and at Unk's to board with me. I'm not completely heartless [g].)

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

Maybe I should have put in the rest of that story. They were drilling under creeks in an area of fractured limestone, and the pressurized drillers mud came up through the limestone and got into the creeks.

I guess it is the same stuff as oil drillers mud, it sounds like it. And that gunk will kill fish in a hurry.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

Anita,

Actually the sea level in the Pacific seems to be falling, not rising.

The rise in temperatures did not take thousands of years since the last ice age. The temperatures of this planet has always been in flux. Around 600 years ago there was a “Little Ice Age” when temperatures fell in a short period of time.

http://www.vehiclechoice.org/climate/cutler.html

Wednesday, August 13, 1997 The Little Ice Age: When global cooling gripped the world By Alan Cutler THE YEAR WAS 1645, and the glaciers in the Alps were on the move. In Chamonix at the foot of Mont Blanc, people watched in fear as the Mer de Glace (Sea of Ice) glacier advanced. In earlier years, they had seen the slowly flowing ice engulf farms and crush entire villages. They turned to the Bishop of Geneva for help, and he made the journey to Chamonix. At the ice front he performed a rite of exorcism. Little by little, the glacier receded. But before long the threatening ice returned, and once again the bishop was summoned. The struggle against the glacier continued for decades. Similar dramas unfolded throughout the Alps and Scandinavia during the late 1600s and early 1700s, as many glaciers grew farther down mountain slopes and valleys than they had in thousands of years. Sea ice choked much of the North Atlantic, causing havoc with fisheries in Iceland and Scandinavia. Eskimos paddled their kayaks as far south as Scotland. At the same time in China, severe winters in Jiang-Xi province killed the last of the orange groves that had thrived there for centuries. These and many similar events, bewildering and disruptive to the societies of the time, are pieces of a global climatic puzzle that scientists and historians today call the "Little Ice Age." Throughout the world, from Norway to New Zealand, glaciers in mountainous areas advanced. Elsewhere, particularly in parts of Europe and North America, temperatures plummeted and harsh weather set in. It was a time of repeated famine and cultural dislocation, as many people fled regions that had become hostile even to subsistence agriculture. Experts disagree on the duration of the Little Ice Age. Some mark its inception as early as the 1200s, others view the Little Ice Age "proper" as beginning around 1450 or even later. Disagreements arise because the phenomenon was not simply a giant cold snap. The cooling trend began at different times in different parts of the world and often was interrupted by periods of relative warmth. All agree, however, that it lasted for centuries, and that the world began emerging from its grip between 1850 and 1900. Most of the Little Ice Age occurred well before the Industrial Revolution and the widespread burning of fossil fuels, so scientists are confident that its climatic convulsions had purely natural causes. The event fascinates scientists because it gives them a glimpse of how Earth's climate system operates when left to its own devices. "It's important because we're trying to understand the warming over the past 100 years," says Alan Robock of the University of Maryland's Department of Meteorology. "Some people have said it's just a `recovery from the Little Ice Age.' Well, what does that mean?" In the 10,000 years since the end of the last major ice age, which closed the Pleistocene Epoch, Earth's climate has undergone a series of global warmings and global coolings. Though far smaller than the temperature swings of the Pleistocene, during which vast ice sheets expanded over large parts of continents and melted away several times, these oscillations nonetheless left their marks on human cultures and natural ecosystems. With each climate change, whether global or local, ecological communities shifted north or south or were disrupted, leading to the creation of new groupings of species. Likewise, human cultures were uprooted and driven to more favorable locales, or people adapted by changing their technologies and behaviors. About 6,000 years ago, for example, during a period known as the "Holocene Maximum," global temperatures were about 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today. Rainfall patterns also were different. For example, in what is now the arid core of the Sahara desert, hippopotamuses and crocodiles thrived in lakes and swamps. Moister conditions in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley aided the development of agriculture and humanity's first great civilizations in these regions. Then global cooling dropped the temperatures to a little cooler than they are now, and living things shifted again. Earth didn't warm appreciably until about 2,000 years ago. During the present millennium there was a period of relatively mild climate called the Medieval Warm Period, lasting from about 1000 to 1300 AD. As with the Little Ice Age, its timing and effects varied from region to region, and many experts doubt that the Medieval Warm Period was a truly global phenomenon. In East Asia, for example, temperatures were cooler. Europe, though, enjoyed an undeniably balmy climate during the early medieval period. Agriculture flourished farther north and at higher elevations on mountains than is possible even in today's warmish climate, and harvests generally were good. Farmers raised wine grapes in England 300 miles north of present limits, and in what now are icebound parts of Greenland, Norse settlers grazed sheep and dairy cattle. In his book Climate History and Modern Man, H.H. Lamb noted that the great burst of cathedral- building and population expansion in medieval Europe coincided with the peak of the Medieval Warm Period. By about 1400, the climate had cooled to temperatures comparable to today. Over the next century or two, the world would cool still further, bringing on the Little Ice Age. TRACKING CLIMATE Unlike many earlier climate swings, the Little Ice Age was abundantly documented by human observers. Records include the first readings from meteorological instruments such as rain gauges and thermometers. Galileo invented the thermometer in the midst of the ice age, and in central England, reliable, monthly temperature records begin in 1659. For most places, however, and for times before the 1600s, it takes some sleuthing to deduce past weather conditions. Climate historians search old journals and public documents for descriptions of events such as snowstorms, frosts and droughts at unusual times of year. The prices of wheat and other grains in a given year sometimes are used to estimate the size of the harvest and, by another step in logic, the favorableness of the weather that year. One researcher even made a statistical study of the skies depicted in landscape paintings to trace the changes in cloudiness from the 1500s to the present. Where human records are absent or unreliable, researchers turn to a host of natural climate indicators. Foremost among these are tree rings, which are formed by the annual growth of wood in the trunk. During warm years, trees grow fast, adding thick rings; during cool years, rings are thin. After correcting for idiosyncrasies of tree growth, a tree-ring researcher can use the pattern of thick and thin rings to reconstruct the temperatures during the tree's lifetime. Researchers also drill into glacial ice at the poles and on high mountains to obtain records of snowfall, dust and atmospheric chemicals contained in the ice. These can give information on temperature, precipitation and even global wind patterns, if the source of the dust can be determined. Layers within lake sediments, coral reefs and cave formations can be analyzed by sophisticated chemical techniques to determine the temperatures at which they formed. LIFE IN THE FRIGID TIME From all these data sources, climate researchers have assembled a broad picture of a world that was, on average, one to two degrees cooler than it is today. For comparison, during the Pleistocene, when the ice cap in eastern North America reached as far south as Pennsylvania, the world was about nine degrees cooler. Averages, however do not tell the story. The effects of the Little Ice Age were anything but uniform. Cooling was much more pronounced (or at least better documented) in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere. In some places and some years, winter temperatures were colder, but not summer temperatures. In France, for example, the harsh winter of 1788-89 added to the misery and discontent of the peasants, but Paris warmed up pleasantly in time for the storming of the Bastille that summer. Cold and erratic weather patterns produced numerous crop failures in northerly areas such as Scotland and Norway. Native American tribes such as the Iroquois relocated their villages to escape the cold. These migrations stirred up political conflict among tribes, leading to the creation of nonaggresssion pacts like the famous League of the Iroquois, adopted in the 1500s. Perhaps hardest hit were the Norse settlements in Iceland and Greenland. The population of famine-ridden Iceland dwindled during the Little Ice Age to half its previous numbers. Greenlanders fared even worse. Growing sea ice cut off communication with the outside world beginning about 1370, and when German ships landed in Greenland more than a century later, they found a single frozen corpse but no living colonists among the ruins. Despite all the hardships, there was a lighter side to the Little Ice Age. In London, freezings of the Thames River were celebrated with carnival-like "Frost Fairs" with food, drink and entertainment on the ice. The cold, snowy winters of the early 1800s may have inspired Charles Dickens' sentimental vision of the "old-fashioned" white Christmas. In the fledgling United States, New York harbor froze over in winter, allowing people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island. So, what caused the Little Ice Age? Because the sun is the ultimate source of Earth's warmth, some researchers have looked to it for an answer. In the 1970s, solar researcher John Eddy, now at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, noticed the correlation of sunspot numbers with major ups and downs in Earth's climate. For example, he found that a period of low activity from 1645 to 1715, called the Maunder Minimum, matched perfectly one of the coldest spells of the Little Ice Age. Judith Lean, a solar physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, estimates that the sun may have been about a quarter of 1 percent dimmer during the Maunder Minimum. This may not sound like much, but the sun's energy output is so immense that 0.25 percent amount to a lot of missing sunshine -- enough to cause most of the temperature drop, she says. Other researchers have examined earthly causes. Volcanic eruptions are known to meddle with climate by injecting a veil of sun-blocking aerosols into the atmosphere -- the so-called parasol effect. Remember Mount Pinatubo? Its eruption in 1991 dropped Earth's average air temperature by about 1 degree -- an effect that lasted about two years. The University of Maryland's Robock points out that there were more frequent eruptions during the Little Ice Age than during the 20th century. Most prominent was the 1815 eruption of Tambora in Indonesia. It pumped into the atmosphere vast amounts of ash -- ten times that of Krakatoa, another famous Indonesian volcano. The following year has been called the "Year Without a Summer." In June and July of 1816, New England and northern Europe suffered frost and even snow. Scientists dispute the importance of these two causes, and of other possibilities such as shifts in ocean currents. But it seems possible that during the Little Ice Age Earth's climate was hit by a one-two punch from a dimmer sun and a dustier atmosphere. What about the greenhouse gases -- mainly carbon dioxide and methane - - that have been so much in the news lately? These heat-trapping gases have been important players in the climate system since our planet's beginnings, but their natural variations in recent centuries have been too tiny to have had much impact. That, however, may be changing. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been increasing steadily on account of the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities. Lean, at the Naval Research Lab, says that while changes in solar output and volcanic dust seem to have driven the fluctuations of the past, this century's rise in temperature may have been influenced by humans. The amount of influence, however, remains in dispute. Carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by about 28 percent since pre- industrial times and are growing at the rate of 0.4 percent per year. There is no dispute about this. There is, however, disagreement about whether the increase is warming the climate and by how much. "We're lucky to have the phenomenon of the Little Ice Age," says climatologist Jonathan Overpeck of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo. Earlier periods of climate change are not nearly so accessible for study. "By studying the last several centuries we should really be able to narrow down the uncertainty with regard to what's going to happen next year or 50 years from now." AN ICE AGE LEGACY One thing that happened during the Little Ice Age was that it spoiled the 1816 summer vacation of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife, Mary, with friends at Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The weather was so cold that they stayed indoors much of the time, entertaining one another with horror stories. Mary Shelley's contribution was Frankenstein, the immortal fable of human tampering with the forces of nature. In Shelley's tale, a legacy of the Little Ice Age, the monster and his creator meet their fates in a frozen Arctic sea. Today she might have chosen a parched greenhouse desert. Science fiction aside, the clear message of science and history is that climate change has always been a natural phenomenon on Earth and a matter of vital human interest. Alan Cutler is a visiting scientist at the National Museum of Natural History.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

Anita:

I also learned that temperatures are increasing 2 degrees centigrade over 100 years, versus the THOUSANDS of years wherein temperatures increased by the same amount during the period between the last ice age and NOW. With ice caps melting, some shorelines could move in 100 miles. He didn't see L.A. as a big loss.

It is not only a heathen University, but one that doesn't keep up with the latest data. Of course, if this an introductory course, they are just trying to give you an overview.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

SAVE THE FISH. Ban the Drilling Mud and live with DIAL UP. Live will slow down and that will be good. Right?

As the people in the NW know, it is critical especially vis a vis The Salmon.

Now to save the Salmon, (after some one Billion plus was spent on assorted solutions), we will have to tear down some of Engineer's Dams. That means there will be less power available from Hydro Plants for those Evil City Folk who think nothing of lighting their Sky Scrapers to show off their City Lines all night.

It goes without saying that the tearing of the Dams to save the Salmon will also cause an imbalance of supply and demand and PRICES OF JUICE WILL RISE, (Greatly). And, the water used for Agriculture may not be available.

But WE HAVE TO SAVE THE SALMON, RIGHT?

Meanwhile, over on the East Coast, there is now a strange increase in the Population of LOBSTERS. It seems that no matter how overfished the Lobster men try, they can't deplete the Lobster population NOR can the Dept. of Fish and Games of assorted states explain this beyond the "little lobsters are getting through the holes of the traps and living off the bait" or 'the chum used to fish lobsters is actually feeding them and making them thrive.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

Engineer:

Vehicle Choice, eh? That would be these folks, right? Vehicle Choice

I mentioned this before when one of these global warming thoughts came about: BOTH of my Biology professors have told me that global warming is REAL. BOTH of my textbooks verify this. YOU can believe whatever you want, but *I*'m not going to suggest that my professors [who BOTH have PhD's in Biology] are incorrect. If YOU'd like to do so, feel free, but PLEASE wait until I finish finals next week. At that time, you can also feel free to tell them that the earth is 6,000 years old.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

OK, Anita:

What is your school, name of the Professors and name of the text books? What is the level of the course? Given that information, I can come to a conclusion.

Thanks.

Best Wishes,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

Z:

I attend the University of Texas at Arlington. I'm taking Biology 2343: Evolution, Ecology, and Biodiversity, and Biology 3327: Plant Science.

The texts are: Biology of Plants Sixth Edition, by Raven, Evert, and Eichhorn, and Biology Fifth Edition, by Campbell, Reece, and Mitchell.

I'd prefer to wait until I'm done with UTA before providing the names of my professors, but one of them is the Chair of the Biology Department at UTA.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

Z:

Here's a quote from my Plant Science text:

"At the beginning of the 1980's, a major study by the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States predicted that the increase in the carbon dioxide "blanket" would significantly increase the average temperatures on Earth, beginning by the turn of the century. A number of subsequent studies, coupled with worldwide temperatures in the 1980's and early 1990's that were higher than in any decade since records have been kept, have now convinced not only most members of the scientific community but also political leaders throughout the world that the increase is real and has already begun. If the warming trend continues, by the middle of the twenty-first century Earth's average temperature may increase by 1.5 degrees centigrade to 4.5 degrees centigrade.

The consequences of this increase cannot be known with certainty. In some parts of the world, there may be lengthened growing seasons, increased precipitation, and, in conjunction with increased levels of carbon dioxide available to plants, greater agricultural productivity. In other parts of the world, however, precipitation may be reduced, lowering crop yields and, in already arid areas, accelerating the spread of the great deserts of the world. Not all plant species respond in the same way to high levels of carbon dioxide. C3 plants might be expected to respond dramatically to higher carbon dioxide levels with increased photosynthesis and growth as photorespiration is effectively minimized. The response of C4 plants might not be so dramatic as they lose their competitive advantage over the C3 plants. Rises in sea level, resulting from the melting of polar ice, pose a potential threat not only to human inhabitants of coastal regions but also to the multitude of marine organisms that live or reproduce in shallow waters at the continents' edges.

Although it now appears that global warming is the inevitable consequence of past and present human activities, national and international efforts are underway to develop strategies for agriculture, energy use, and manufacturing that will slow--and perhaps eventually reverse--the process. At the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, for example, leaders of the world's industrialized countries signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change, with a goal of stabilizing carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2000. Subsequently, at the Kyoto Climate Conference, which was held in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997, a Protocol was adopted to reduce greenhouse emissions. If fully implemented, the Kyoto Protocol has the potential "to redirect the Earth from the path of an overheating climate and to a safer world." It remains to be seen whether we have awakened in time."

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

Anita:

I left out where the article originally came from: The Washington Post Wednesday, August 13, 1997

I left that off because I wanted to see your reaction to the Vehicle Choice part of the URL. The problem is that you think a report by someone working for or being funded by the auto or oil companies would be biased where a report by someone working for or being funded by some environmental organization is bias free. Nope. Both sides have their biases and emphasize points that make their case and de- emphasize points that are in opposition. I’m for being a skeptic but and equal opportunity skeptic.

And yes biology professors have their biases too. I would be more impressed if they were professors of Climatology. Part of it is similar to Y2K. People think that because they know a lot about X they also know Y.

The point that has always bothered me about global warming is that the people who are “promoting it” so to speak think it’s a crisis so we have to do something right now. And of course any opposition to their views should be shouted down and is done by evil, greedy, people who want to destroy the plant. Only by following them can we be saved because they are so much smarter and wiser then we are. Just salute, say Sieg Heil and march where they want us to.

You should note that Newsweek published a cover article about Global Cooling back in the 70’s or 80’s. The main person behind that article now endorses global warming but has never explained or admitted any error about why he thought that there was Global Cooling then.. He wasn’t wrong then but he is right now. Hmmmmm????? By the way his specialty isn’t Climatology but Geology.

A few things to think about:

1) No one knows why global cooling occurred back in the little ice age. The prevalent thinking is the suns output decreased by a fraction of a fraction percent. Sunspots basically disappeared Northern Lights disappeared and weren’t seen for such a long period of time that subsequent generations thought they were a myth. 2) Satellites don’t show any heating in the atmosphere. Which is odd if it really is a Greenhouse effect. 3) The Ocean doesn’t seem to be getting warmer either. 4) The ground does seem to be heating up. No one knows why, but…….. 5) The thermometers that record ground temperatures are usually near human habitations. Towns and cities tend to soak up heat and effect the micro climate around it by making it warmer. 6) There aren’t enough remote temperature sensors away from inhabited areas to actually give a good picture of what is occurring globally.

The questions really are:

Is global warming happening? Is it natural, manmade or perhaps a combination? Is it a bad thing? (If the choice is between global cooling or warming choose the later).

Why would I think the earth is only 6000 years old?

And if you really want to freak-out your biology professors, and maybe everyone else ……….

http://www.forbes.com/asap/2000/1127/162.html

or http://www.stephenwolfram.com/

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000

And if you really want to freak-out your biology professors, and maybe everyone else ……….

Why would I want to freak anyone out? I have two LIVING professors in front of my face two to three times/week versus an anonymous "Engineer" on the internet here. I have texts that were written by five different people.

THAT's why I mentioned the age of the earth at 6,000 years. SOME folks believe this. YOU believe that global warming isn't happening. I'm going with the guys who contribute to my GPA, thank you very much.

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2000

Anita,

Just ignore Z, he thinks he is an authority on everything since he got some college degrees a few decades ago.

I'm glad to hear that you are attending school now, keeping your education current. It's too bad more people don't do this. Good luck.

-- Anonymous, December 16, 2000