Based on a comment I put in response to a piece on the remarkable accuracy of 1980's climate projections:
Dear People, Let's agree that we will disagree. And let's resolve that we will not let that disagreement forestall the proper functioning of our political system.
Let's agree that it is a function of government to control / limit / manage rates of taking of natural resources and rates of putting of various chemicals into the air or water. (Now we inject deadly poisons into the ground, in tens of thousands of 'injection wells', as a means of 'disposal'. I hope we can agree that this practice should be limited, too. Or eliminated.) Certain practices (those that impact the public or community) should not be carried to an extent that most people would say is too much. We should limit pollution and resource extraction to levels that most people feel is acceptable. Otherwise, the right of the people to define limits to levels of pollution, etc., becomes a mere assertion, an idea, not manifest in reality.
Only if we limit impacts to what people consider acceptable can we say that the right of the people to decide is being respected in practice.
We ought not allow a disagreement about the effects of human action to distract us from collectively defining overall limits to those actions.
Promote sustainability and justice through equal sharing of natural wealth:
http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com
Wed Jul 18 2012 10:20:06 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)
Natural law requires respect of PUBLIC property rights, too
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
How far to go in the quest for knowledge?
Response to a comment after NPR reported that the Higgs boson search team is planning a big announcement.
Gareth Andrews: “...maybe we're not supposed/allowed to get there.“
If anyone can say why creation of very dense particles, if taken to the extreme, will not mean creation of miniature black holes, I would appreciate it.
If a miniature black hole were created, we may not know it (except, perhaps, as an otherwise unexplained loss of energy in the debris of a large hadron collision). It would not have the immediate effect of pulling everything on Earth into it, since the gravitational force would only be significant at an extremely small distance from the particle.
There have been gamma ray bursts observed with modern instruments that are of unknown origin. If some advanced civilization has already developed these particle accelerators and used them to produce black holes, then these mini black holes will likely have settled toward the center of whatever planet that unfortunate civilization inhabits. Over time, there will be interactions with other matter, and this will cause the black hole to become bigger. The effect of its gravitational field will increase, so that it will start pulling other material into it at an increasing rate. Then the whole planet is swallowed up by this manufactured black hole. The planet would be almost completely converted to gamma ray energy as it implodes.
http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com
JoeyN wrote: If you put enough energy in a small enough region, you can create a black hole. However, if the LHC creates a black hole by colliding two protons together, that black hole will be so tiny that it will have a vanishingly small chance of swallowing even a single electron during the entire lifetime of the universe. Who's to say what other hypothetical civilizations are doing, but it's not a concern on Earth, and I don't think it's probably a viable explanation for GRBs...
@Joey N.: I read that there are some GRBs that are EITHER a pair of colliding stars VERY far away, OR an asteroid hitting a neutron star more nearby.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/336531/title/Christmas_gamma-ray_burst_still_puzzles
In other words, there are GRBs of unknown energy and we cannot know their total energy unless we know their distance. In the case of these ambiguous signatures, the distance is not known. We cannot distinguish the signature of one event from the signature of another if we do not have a good estimate of the distance.
I suppose that the star-star collision at great distance and the asteroid-star collision at a relatively short distance and the imploding planet at a middle range could all have similar signatures.
Do you disagree?
A cure for what ails the planet:
http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com
Biological Model for Politics and Economics:
http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com/2007/09/gaia-brain-integration-of-human-society.html
Mon Jul 02 2012 12:40:28 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)
Gareth Andrews: “...maybe we're not supposed/allowed to get there.“
If anyone can say why creation of very dense particles, if taken to the extreme, will not mean creation of miniature black holes, I would appreciate it.
If a miniature black hole were created, we may not know it (except, perhaps, as an otherwise unexplained loss of energy in the debris of a large hadron collision). It would not have the immediate effect of pulling everything on Earth into it, since the gravitational force would only be significant at an extremely small distance from the particle.
There have been gamma ray bursts observed with modern instruments that are of unknown origin. If some advanced civilization has already developed these particle accelerators and used them to produce black holes, then these mini black holes will likely have settled toward the center of whatever planet that unfortunate civilization inhabits. Over time, there will be interactions with other matter, and this will cause the black hole to become bigger. The effect of its gravitational field will increase, so that it will start pulling other material into it at an increasing rate. Then the whole planet is swallowed up by this manufactured black hole. The planet would be almost completely converted to gamma ray energy as it implodes.
http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com
JoeyN wrote: If you put enough energy in a small enough region, you can create a black hole. However, if the LHC creates a black hole by colliding two protons together, that black hole will be so tiny that it will have a vanishingly small chance of swallowing even a single electron during the entire lifetime of the universe. Who's to say what other hypothetical civilizations are doing, but it's not a concern on Earth, and I don't think it's probably a viable explanation for GRBs...
@Joey N.: I read that there are some GRBs that are EITHER a pair of colliding stars VERY far away, OR an asteroid hitting a neutron star more nearby.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/336531/title/Christmas_gamma-ray_burst_still_puzzles
In other words, there are GRBs of unknown energy and we cannot know their total energy unless we know their distance. In the case of these ambiguous signatures, the distance is not known. We cannot distinguish the signature of one event from the signature of another if we do not have a good estimate of the distance.
I suppose that the star-star collision at great distance and the asteroid-star collision at a relatively short distance and the imploding planet at a middle range could all have similar signatures.
Do you disagree?
A cure for what ails the planet:
http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com
Biological Model for Politics and Economics:
http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com/2007/09/gaia-brain-integration-of-human-society.html
Mon Jul 02 2012 12:40:28 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Oil drilling puts climate and wildlife at risk
In response to an NPR report: Ahead of Alaska Drilling, Shell Practices Cleaning Up:
Oil spills pose a risk to whales, walruses, birds and other wildlife. This wildlife at risk is identified as food source for native villagers, with the implication being that this is why putting it at risk is relevant.
To suggest that the risk to wildlife is only important to the extent that that wildlife is food for humans shows a very narrow view, I think. This reflects an unfortunate (and strong) bias against non-human life. Something understandable, perhaps, from an evolutionary standpoint, but something that we might have hoped to overcome through compassion and intellect.
All the crustaceans, fish and other life that these whales and walruses, etc., eat are at risk of an oil spill, too. It matters whether our actions put millions or billions of other creatures at risk of serious harm or death. It matters, whether or not any villagers had plans to eat those animals.
What if natural resources were shared equally?
A Biological Model for Politics and Economics
Oil spills pose a risk to whales, walruses, birds and other wildlife. This wildlife at risk is identified as food source for native villagers, with the implication being that this is why putting it at risk is relevant.
To suggest that the risk to wildlife is only important to the extent that that wildlife is food for humans shows a very narrow view, I think. This reflects an unfortunate (and strong) bias against non-human life. Something understandable, perhaps, from an evolutionary standpoint, but something that we might have hoped to overcome through compassion and intellect.
All the crustaceans, fish and other life that these whales and walruses, etc., eat are at risk of an oil spill, too. It matters whether our actions put millions or billions of other creatures at risk of serious harm or death. It matters, whether or not any villagers had plans to eat those animals.
What if natural resources were shared equally?
A Biological Model for Politics and Economics
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