Re: Why Space Empires?

In article <MPG.2217ee43c052fc3a9896e1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Gerry Quinn <gerryq@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The right denies evolution and global warming. The left denies or has
problems with biological differences in humans and the idea that minimum
wage laws are counter-productive. The left at least has its conflicts
with science in rather murkier areas.

I don't think scepticism about evolution and/or global warming is
universal or confined to the right.

Do you mean a specific level or degree of anthropogenic global warming,
by the way? I don't think anyone disputes that the Earth has warmed and
cooled at various times, and that most current measurements indicate a
warming trend.

If we take the latest IPCC report as a best guess at what's really
happening, I suspect most of the non-scientist types who are worrying
about global warming are farther off than the people who don't think it
is happening--just in the other direction.

Two examples, both discussed on my blog at different times:

From an LA Times article about a year ago:

"No one seems to care about the upcoming attack on the World Trade
Center site. Why? Because it won't involve villains with box cutters.
Instead, it will involve melting ice sheets that swell the oceans and
turn that particular block of lower Manhattan into an aquarium.

"The odds of this happening in the next few decades are better than the
odds that a disgruntled Saudi will sneak onto an airplane and detonate a
shoe bomb."

The blog post and discussion are at:

http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2007/02/reality-based-environmentalism
..html

including a link to a nifty map showing the effect of various increases
in sea level on flooding in Manhattan. Turning the World Trade Center
site into an aquarium requires a rise in sea level in the next few
decades quite a lot more than the six inches or so implied by the one of
the six IPCC models that yields the largest sea level rise.

Second example, also from my blog:

"A few weeks ago I was talking with a college student, a daughter of
some old friends, who had taken a course from an environmentalist
professor who apparently claimed that the world temperature had gone up
by seven degrees in the last decade or two--she wasn't sure of the
precise numbers. She expressed the view that snowy winters were now a
thing of the past, offering the (then current, midwest) warmth as
evidence."

Let's do an imaginary experiment. Take a random selection of people who
say they believe in global warming and are concerned about it. Ask them
what the current prediction is for temperature increase and sea level
increase over the next fifty years.

Do you think the average result would be more or less than twice the
current IPCC figures?

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
.