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Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Sixth Great Extinction: A Natural Event?

To the degree that humans are merely naked apes, then the ongoing Holocene Extinction is a ‘Natural’ event. To the degree, however, that we have Free Will, it’s a travesty. 
Note: Some humans seem to have more Free Will and self awareness than others.
Quote: “With Free Will comes great responsibility.”
Search: increase self awareness
Example - https://liberationist.org/how-to-increase-self-awareness-and-be-at-peace-with-yourself/

Read: “Relationship of the Six Great Extinctions”:
http://samslair.blogspot.com/2019/10/relationship-of-six-great-extinctions.html?m=1

Watch: The Anthropocene (18 min.):
https://youtu.be/ABZjlfhN0EQ

Note: We began the Anthropocene Epoch In 1950. It is characterized as the time in which the collective activities of human beings (Homo sapiens) began to alter Earth’s surface, atmosphere, oceans and systems of nutrient cycling. It follows the Holocene Epoch (11,700 years ago to the present). The name Anthropocene is derived from Greek and means the “recent age of man”.
https://www.britannica.com/science/Anthropocene-Epoch

Saturday, October 19, 2019

What If Global Warming Isn’t A Hoax?

If there’s a vehement ‘global warming denier’ in your life, understand that they are primarily motivated by fear and that denial is a defense mechanism. 

If they try to back you into a corner on the subject in order to assuage their own fears, simply reply:
“What if global warming isn’t a hoax?”

There’s no need to go beyond that, because you’d only be fueling the negativity that fuels their anger.

Humor:
Only in America... 
https://www.liveabout.com/thmb/VCVmMnCGl8FyIbX-K2EMoLQ1oq4=/768x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/groundhog-day-climate-change-56a755483df78cf77294b63c.jpg

What if global warming is a hoax and we create a better world for nothing?
https://static.skepticalscience.com/pics/climate-summit.jpg

Gaia replies: It’s you humans who’ll have to find another planet —
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CnxmtvSUIAA438g.jpg

...you’ve got advanced stage humans
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/56/72/fc/5672fc2cfbd3a00a004bbdfb94190392--bizarro-comic-bad-news.jpg

How Human Nature Works:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/death-human_nature-humanity-doomsayers-doom_sayers-prophets-wmi111130_low.jpg

Iconoclastic Doomsayer:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/religion-iconoclasm-iconoclasts-doomsayers-doom_sayers-apocalypses-wmi101217_low.jpg

I’ve got no one to blame but myself...
http://www.thecomicstrips.com/properties/fande/art_images/fa050820.jpg

He’s got that thinning the herd look...
https://i0.wp.com/agoodgoodbye.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/nonsequitur-thinning-herd-look.jpg?ssl=1

Friday, October 18, 2019

Relationship of Great Extinctions to CO2 Levels

Each major extinction event has been caused by either too little carbon dioxide in the biosphere 
[search: Cyanobacteria + Great Oxygenation Crisis + Snowball Earth] 
OR
too much carbon dioxide 
[search: large igneous provinces LIPs]
Example: even the extinction of the dinosaurs had occurred prior the infamous asteroid strike (search: 3 meter gap + Deccan Traps).

Too Little CO2 —
Cyanobacteria Snowball Earth:
https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/the-great-oxygenation-event-the-earths-first-mass-extinction.html
Related reading essential for understanding posting:
https://samslair.blogspot.com/2017/09/violet-and-green-earths-early-primary.html?m=1
[Note: During the first half of Earth’s geologic history, the biosphere was very hot. What kept the temperature up was high levels of methane (a strong greenhouse gas) and carbon dioxide. Cyanobacteria then evolved and began releasing oxygen (which had not existed as a free gas in the biosphere previously). This oxygen combined with the methane to yield  carbon dioxide which was a much less powerful greenhouse gas — and this process repeated itself on and on until the greenhouse gas levels were so low that not enough thermal radiation could be trapped to keep the planet from freezing solid.]

Too Much CO2 —
LIPs — Large Igneous Provinces:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_igneous_province

Extinctions Tied to Carbon Dioxide:
https://samslair.blogspot.com/2018/10/major-extinction-level-events-tied-to.html?m=1

https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=Cyanobacteria+snowball+earth+&m=1


In short, the single biggest driver of mass extinctions appears to be major changes in Earth’s carbon cycle such as large igneous province eruptions, huge widespread volcanic events that flooded hundreds of thousands of square miles for prolonged periods of time with lava. These eruptions ejected massive amounts of heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, enabling runaway global warming and related effects such as ocean acidification and anoxia, a loss of dissolved oxygen in water.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/mass-extinction/

Large Igneous Provinces / Flood Basalts (16 minutes):
https://youtu.be/st_2C_Wrw4A

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Climate Interface of Younger Dryas Event, Deforestational Agriculture and the Milankovitch Cycle

If you study the charts of Earth’s temperature records and the Milankovitch Cycles, you’ll see as the planet comes out of an ice age, the increase in global temperature is rapid, steady and peaks at the start of the interglacial period. The global temperatures then slightly start to ‘gently decline’ before finally taking a haphazard ‘rapid decline’ to the coldest part of the next ice age before again repeating the temperature increase of the next Milankovitch Cycle. That’s the norm. However, the level of our current interglacial’s peak was hampered by the Younger Dryas Event that occurred about 13,000 years ago. Four thousand years later following this, mankind began deforesting the planet, overgrazing livestock, practicing slash-and-burn farming, etcetera — all of which disrupted the carbon cycle by increasing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which prevented global temperatures from decreasing. As such, temperatures would’ve remained stable, too, if vast amounts of sequestered carbon had not been recently released thru the burning of fossil fuels. 

Search: carbon cycle climate change

Watch: “Where are we in the Milankovitch Cycles?”
[How Ice Ages Happen.] (4 minutes):
https://youtu.be/eB3DJtQZVsw
NOTE: This is the single best short video on understanding climate change I’ve ever seen. Indeed, once I’ve posted this, anything else that I post subsequently on the subject of climate change will seem incidental.

If you supplement it with the YouTube channel “Just Have A Think”, then you’ll be set:
https://youtu.be/62VXwjT-csQ

Saturday, October 12, 2019

What Is Infrared Radiation?

Visible, ultraviolet and infrared light (IR) are different frequencies (wave lengths) of electromagnetic radiation. We are able to see visible light with the ‘naked eye’, while birds can see both visible and ultraviolet light. Rattlesnakes can sense both visible and infrared light (heat). Humans, however, can only see infrared light with the aid of night vision goggles or infrared cameras. 

All 3 kinds of light exist as a wave function unless they encounter molecular structures of a sufficient size to cause the quantum wave function to phase into a photonic particle. It is this quality that allows their unimpeded transmission through outer space. With infrared radiation, large atmospheric molecules like carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, etcetera absorb this photonic energy — while nitrogen and oxygen are too small to be able to do so and let it pass by unimpeded.

Search: infrared radiation images
Search: global warming quantum

Watch 5 minute video- 
“How quantum mechanics explains global warming”:
https://youtu.be/-EJOO3xAjTk

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Pertinent Postings Relating to Global Warming

The following postings relating to global warming receive the most hits. 
Let me first preface these by saying, “It’s notable that average global temperatures are continuing to steadily increase in conjunction with rising greenhouse gas levels during a solar minimum while the Milankovitch Cycles indicate that long range temperatures should’ve been decreasing.”

Fear and Climate Change Denial:
http://samslair.blogspot.com/2017/07/fear-and-climate-change-denial.html?m=1

What Is Infrared Radiation?:
http://samslair.blogspot.com/2019/10/what-is-infrared-radiation.html?m=1

Classroom Demonstrations of CO2 as a Greenhouse Gas:
http://samslair.blogspot.com/2018/12/classroom-demonstrations-of-co2-as.html?m=1

Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick Was Too Short:
https://samslair.blogspot.com/2018/11/michael-manns-hockey-stick-was-too-short.html?m=1

Climate Change - Sea Levels As An Indicator:
http://samslair.blogspot.com/2017/06/climate-change-sea-levels-as-indicator.html?m=1

Relationship of Great Extinctions to CO2 Levels:
http://samslair.blogspot.com/2019/10/relationship-of-six-great-extinctions.html?m=1

Sunday, October 6, 2019

What Kids Can Explain to Their Parents About Global Warming

What if global warming is a hoax and we create a better world for nothing?
What if global warming is not a hoax and we do nothing?


Carbon dioxide, water vapor and other large atmospheric molecules have a blanketing effect on heat being radiated away from the surface of the Earth as infrared radiation. Called the Greenhouse Effect, it is a Physical Law and has helped regulate global temperature for billions of years. Indeed, at one point early in Earth’s geologic history, carbon dioxide became so depleted that our planet became a giant ball of ice (Snowball Earth).

The next time that carbon dioxide was out-of-balance was when very prolonged volcanic basalt flows (Siberian Traps) caused so much to be pumped into the atmosphere that the oceans acidified and global temperatures soared (The Great Dying). Though lesser extinctions caused by an over abundance of CO2 have occurred, CO2 is normally benign.

When the carbon cycle is balanced, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere decreases and increases with the seasons and with the Milankovitch Cycle (planetary orientation to the sun). At these times, CO2 levels lag behind temperature levels. However, when volcanic “flood basalts” (LIPs) occur, increased CO2 levels amp up the Greenhouse Effect — global temperatures then begin lagging behind carbon dioxide levels. 

At this time in Earth’s history, the carbon cycle is being unduly influenced by the burning of carbon that has been stored underground for eons of time. The effect is the same as the basalt flows had when they released vast amounts of carbon dioxide.

“Just Have A Think” (11 minutes)
Pay close attention to the entire 2 minute introduction (October 2019):
https://youtu.be/AZPOsv71Htw

Fear and Hope: Climate Change and Policy Solutions-2013 (59 minutes)
Excellent 16 minute introduction:
https://youtu.be/y113TmfVU7w

Search: ‘samslair blogspot doable drawdown solutions’

Saturday, October 5, 2019

Parts of the ‘Lower 48’ States Now Beyond 2°C Limit

There are many parts of the USA that are above and beyond the 2 degrees Celsius that is the critical threshold for global warming. A host of global catastrophic changes will occur ‘when’ (no longer ‘if’) the global average exceeds that level. For those areas already above this level, local adaptations have already begun:
Map:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climate-environment/climate-change-america/

Our global population’s ‘general failure’ to recognize that visible light and invisible infrared light are both electromagnetic carriers of energy (heat) & our ‘overall failure’ to comprehend that the greenhouse effect and increasing greenhouse gases are the cause of increasing global warming has resulted in our logically failing to mitigate the situation. Now surviving, not thriving, will dominate our future activities.
Search:
lower 48 exceed 2 degrees celsius 

For mitigation, search:
‘doable drawdown solutions’

For adaptations, search:
‘climate change adaptations’

Global Warming Cartoons —

Only In America:
https://www.liveabout.com/thmb/VCVmMnCGl8FyIbX-K2EMoLQ1oq4=/768x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/groundhog-day-climate-change-56a755483df78cf77294b63c.jpg

What If Global Warming Is A Hoax?:
https://www.liveabout.com/thmb/lQz4WnHzK5QudT7K362ZaQsolVU=/768x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/What-If-Its-A-Hoax-56a74f4c5f9b58b7d0e8f300.jpg

How Human Nature Works:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/death-human_nature-humanity-doomsayers-doom_sayers-prophets-wmi111130_low.jpg

Iconoclastic Doomsayer:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/religion-iconoclasm-iconoclasts-doomsayers-doom_sayers-apocalypses-wmi101217_low.jpg

Earth Goddess Gaia
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CnxmtvSUIAA438g.jpg

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Climate Change: Then and Now

The use of the term ‘climate change’ instead of ‘global warming’ is misleading. It implies that there’s something natural about the rapid uptick in average global temperatures. Read:
“Mann’s Hockey Stick Was Too Short” 
https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=Hockey+stick+&m=1

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/mt/science/marcott-B-CD.jpg

Indeed, even the term ‘global warming’ (instead of AGW) is ‘soft talk’; but, it’s acceptable, since it’s commonly understood that when you say ‘global warming’, ‘anthropogenic global warming’ is the reference. Read:
https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=anthropogenic+global+warming&max-results=20&by-date=true&m=1

The term ‘climate change’ came about as an attempt to encourage meaningful discussion on the subject of global warming without immediately inducing a universal conditioned fearful response that’d stymy meaningful discussion. So, we went from AGW, to global warming, and then to climate change in order to assuage the fears of those too easily upset by what is the ‘natural consequence’ of our actions. 
Read:
https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=fear+climate+change+denial+&m=1

A deterministic argument could be mounted, however, that because mankind was created by God, anything that man does is of the ‘natural order’. Therefore, the global warming phenomenon induced by fossil fuel emissions is ultimately God’s Will. After all, He created the vast deposits of coal and oil. 

This, however, violates the Spiritual Law of Free Will bestowed upon man by God. Indeed, the availability of fossil fuels is somewhat akin to the apple on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

In any case, however, we still must contend with God’s ‘physical law’ whereby carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, etcetera have a blanketing effect upon infrared radiation. Read:
https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=Heat+transfer+&m=1

Note: Metaphysics and quantum physics do have some overlap. So, if you can get on board with that, here’s a video worth watching:
“How quantum mechanics explains global warming” (5minutes):
https://youtu.be/-EJOO3xAjTk

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Global Warming Denial Is Illogical

Global warming cannot be denied without first denying the fact that carbon dioxide has a blanketing effect on infrared radiation. Even if someone states that they believe in the greenhouse effect, but that they don’t believe that the trace amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could possibly have a significant effect upon the atmospheric temperature, one can only chuckle — because, it has also been the past ‘trace’ amounts of atmospheric CO2 that has kept the planet from being perpetually frozen over.

Greenhouse Effect Defined:
http://samslair.blogspot.com/2019/09/visible-light-infrared-radiation-and.html?m=0