More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

My main basis for optimism about China generally, and it's based on deep ignorance, is that I don't see it as an expansionist culture. I don't think they covet territory elsewhere for the sake of territory; only for the resources or the security implications or the symbolism.

Witness the 'domino theory' in SE Asia, whose execution withered on the vine.
China just wasn't that interested: it wasn't for lack of opportunity.

Even as a pacifist, I didn't think the theory lacked plausibility, so I took a lot of notice when it faltered.

It seems to me that China's deep tendency is to see themselves as having always been the centre of things, rather than needing to become the centre of things by absorbing territory.

I have no idea if I'm right, but I hope so.

For the Chinese China is the centre of the world! - always has been and always will be! If you look at a map where the centre of the world is not Greenwich Meridien (0 degrees) but instead by landmass you can see they have a point! (Britain a small island at the edge of the world!). Leaving aside what bits of China they are presently missing (Taiwan and probably a few other bits - especially in the South China Sea!) and those which they have acquired in living memory (Tibet and HK / Macao) then I see them following the US model of "empire" by making those around them into vassel states economically rather than being interested in putting boots on the ground permanently.......and further afield simply having spheres of economic interest, which may or may not overlap with those of others!

My take is that the Chinese are right to fear chaos within their borders and that the overriding goal is prevent that. They may be called Communist but the reality is that they are more Nationalistic and Socialistic (National Socialist?!) and that arises from pragmatism rather than principle!, as the ruling classes do fear the peasants (their are a lot of them!), not so much from storming the centres of power but simply from the country descending back into chaos.

FWIW, I think the people who have most to worry (personally) about China are not foreigners abroad but folks inside China who are not Han Chinese - a lot of internal colonising going on (ethnic cleansing?).

No idea if China will fall apart - my gut says not anytime soon!, but I suspect that the model of large and populas countries being able to be controlled from a centre in a way that also permits the country to move forward collectively (sufficiently to keep a population onside / united) are drawing to a close. Kinda like the USA? ......the future I see are smaller countries working together in blocs (a mix of the formal and informal) that in turn co-operate / compete (fight?!) each other.....and those blocs as much defined by Geographic area as well as common basic mindset, albeit the details will differ for each country.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

When the discipline of science is "Properly" followed, dogma is vulnerable because there are no structural hooks to hang it on, only frail human egoes.


.

Humans again. Without us there would be no problems.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Therapy

Humans again. Without us there would be no problems.

tell that to the dinosaurs

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

tell that to the dinosaurs

[tropicalescape]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

Well hang on, let's think about that a bit.

By that same reasoning, humans in the Middle Ages could have reasonably said (and probably correctly) "There's always been animals leaving their waste byproducts (dung and urine) on the land, in the rivers and in the sea.

Heck, Nothing we can do about it; as mere humans, we'll just do the same."

But it didn't play out that way once cities and industrial farming grew: it's was never going to work out OK if we continued to discharge untreated sewage from farm animals and humans onto the land, into rivers and the sea indefinitely, and it turned out there WAS something we could do about it.

CO2 is like sewage in several ways: it's a waste byproduct from many natural processes, and it serves a useful purpose in the atmosphere provided there's not too much of it.

The thing is this: there's nothing "natural" about drilling for oil and mining coal and burning it.

What we're effectively doing when we do that, is we're releasing into the atmosphere the waste byproducts from hundreds of millions of years of accumulated plant growth (fueled by the sun), in a couple of hundred years.

That's what we're currently busy doing.

As "mere humans".

We're burning a significant fraction of all the plant material that ever grew, in a sense. And all at once.


Pretty clever, us mere humans.
　
　

Duke University did a study a few yrs back wherein they made an artifical ecology by building a plastic dome around a section of forest and ran a gas engine 24/7 for x amount of yrs. at the end they found that the emissions made the trees inside grow taller and faster than the ones outside the dome ,the worst part was that the biggest change was in the "Poison ivy" it took control of the whole enviroment and grew 1000% more than the ivy outside! This is enough evidence that Globel warming is not a good thing! I hate Poison Ivy! It it dosent look good for Russia either as the "russian winter " is not going to protect them from an "invasion" as it did when Napolian and Hitler tried to invade! Sunsu(sp?) said in the art of war "he that controles the Heaven and the Earth wins the day,maybe it is being done on purpose, new secret weapon!lol,but that poison ivy aint no joke!

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

tell that to the dinosaurs

We are trying to do so.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by jackdale

We are trying to do so.

the thing is that the current thinking is that the dinos were already dying out from their version of global warming that was being caused by the volcanoes in India long before the asteroid came along and finished them off

Of course another theory could be that they were so big and ate so much that all the farts were the cause. Now if they had instead stored some of that methane for later use ...............

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

Of course another theory could be that [the dinosaurs] were so big and ate so much that all the farts were the cause. Now if they had instead stored some of that methane for later use ...............

Hey. What do you think 'natural gas' is?

[gonesail]

Originally Posted by Therapy

Humans again. Without us there would be no problems.

we could always narrow that down and blame it all on george bush

[downunder]

Originally Posted by jackdale

We are trying to do so.

Thus, if the dinosaurs had scientists and a some good governmen tdecisions, taxes and regulations they could have been saved.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by downunder

Thus, if the dinosaurs had scientists and a some good governmen tdecisions, taxes and regulations they could have been saved.

Speaking for yourself?

[masalai]

Oh dear, This "climate change debate" is worse than politics on a 'sheeple site'. The climate is overall changing and historically some suggest a "mini ice age" I follow the average ocean surface temperature trend and in both the Indian and greater Pacific, the trend seems to be toward warming. This southern summer season, the Coral Sea (along the Australian Eastern Seaboard) appears cooler than usual and I do not expect any cyclones this season to impact on Queensland - unless one sneaks up from the Gulf of Carpentaria as did the last cyclone which turned into a "rain bomb" Dousing the Eastern Coast of Australia from Innisfail all the way down to around Sydney.

Warming in climate change means more "severe weather events both in summer and winter with a greater cold storm impact especially after a long overland run like storms from NW Canada down to the lower eastern seaboard of USA. Generally, storms are generated from dust coming west from the Sahara / North Africa or the very warm waters near equatorial seas. The oceans drive most climatic events and warm waters above 26 degrees Celsius support an existing storm that usually needs waters around 32 deg Celsius to get some power going...

Here endeth basic lesson 101.

[downunder]

Mas,

Sounds like your dinosaurus self made it from Cairns south before the rain. Is your vessel still in Cairns.

Cheers

[Davey1000]

Is this really the right place to be banging-off about global warming (if such a thing exists) There has already been a lot of bad science, for example people banging-off about a hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica whilst quietly failing to mention that Mount Erebus a volcano is underneath this hole.

IMHO the recent weather troubles are merely the effect of the jet-streams not moving into their normal places. For example in Great Britain the prevailing jet-stream ought to move northwards during the summer dumping all the bad weather to beyond the north of Scotland. In 2012 this did not happen and in the south west during spring 2012 there was heavy and constant rain every day for three months. Apart from the odd lull of perhaps half an hour there was constant precipitation.

As I write in mid February 2013 there is still flooding in the Somerset Levels and the Tewkesbury area. The road through Cheddar Gorge has been closed for months as it has been eroded by flood-water. The gorge was allegedly cut through the limestone by melt-water at the end of the last ice age so its hardly any surprise that it still gets wet.

As they say "Britain has no climate only weather" it is also said that one can experience all four seasons in a single day. Not ideal for yachtsmen!

I can however recommend a website called Magic Seaweed which is intended for surfers. For those who sail boats it can be extremely useful to see where the surf is NOT up.

I do in fact know a bloke who found this site extremely useful whilst sailing from Plymouth UK to the Caribbean in a 21 foot sloop.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by tropicalescape

Duke University did a study a few yrs back wherein they made an artifical ecology by building a plastic dome around a section of forest and ran a gas engine 24/7 for x amount of yrs ...

Interesting, but not quite accurate.

➥ http://face.env.duke.edu/PDF/es187-06.pdf

➥ http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/dukenvi...mes-to-a-close