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2012, Climate Change Rants
Aug. 28th, 2008 11:00 amMy new office mate is TA-ing the 100-level class, Geosciences in Cinema. It's a class taken by a lot of non-science majors (to fill a general science requirement) in which the students watch films such as The Day after Tomorrow, Dante's Peak, and Twister, and analyze the so-called science therein. Yesterday she showed me the movie the class had to watch last night: The Core. Looks like a cheesy disaster movie, something about setting off nuclear explosions at the center of the earth to restart the core's rotation. Oy.
Talking about it and other films, we got on the subject of 2012, and all the apocalyptic theories tied up in that date. Off the top of my head:
- The Mayan Long Count Calendar ends.
- The earth's magnetic field reversal may peak.
- The solar system crosses the plane of the Milky Way.
- The next 11-year solar (sunspot) cycle begins.
Personally, I think the Maya needed to stop their calendar somewhere. Sure, there are interpretations of Mayan prophecy of bad times after the end of the calendar, but some of it IMHO is as if I flipped my 2008 calendar to December and freaked out because ZOMG The Calendar ENDS HERE! AAAAH!
Some are also freaking out about the earth's magnetic field reversal. ZOMG The Planet will CRACK or Stop Spinning or something. AAAAH! One of the two profs for the class we were discussing said what is likely to happen is that a lot of devices that use the magnetic field for orientation will be lost for a while and then will be backward, but it won't be the End of the WorldTM.
As for the sunspot cycle and crossing the galactic plane, well, if a big enough solar flare happens or gravity from the convergence is strong enough to wipe us out... What would we be able to do about it? Not a hell of a lot. So why fret?
Slightly off-topic: I'm attending a seminar today by one of the senior atmospheric science faculty on "Wildcards in Climate Change". He's going to look at cosmic rays, sunspots, magnetic fields, etc., which I suspect have a role in climate change we still can't quantify. Sure, I believe humans are contributing to global warming, but I'm still skeptical as to how much, since there is still so much we don't know about long term climate signals. It's too convenient to make money off the latest green crazes. It's also become more than a bit of religion.
It has its deity: earth.
It has sin: pollution, CO2 emission, etc.
It has redemption: conservation, getting off the grid, etc.
It even sells indulgences: carbon offsets.
I'm not against doing positive environmental things, but I am against group-think and bad popular science (is it ironic I'm entertained by movies like Twister? I don't take them at face value), e.g., let's take one of the most versatile foodstuffs we have and turn it into a fuel source. Did anyone think about how switching to ethanol would affect the price of food? Or how it's not all that much cleaner to make (yes, it's cleaner to use) than gasoline? Or that making a car that exhausts water vapor puts more of the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere?
Talking about it and other films, we got on the subject of 2012, and all the apocalyptic theories tied up in that date. Off the top of my head:
- The Mayan Long Count Calendar ends.
- The earth's magnetic field reversal may peak.
- The solar system crosses the plane of the Milky Way.
- The next 11-year solar (sunspot) cycle begins.
Personally, I think the Maya needed to stop their calendar somewhere. Sure, there are interpretations of Mayan prophecy of bad times after the end of the calendar, but some of it IMHO is as if I flipped my 2008 calendar to December and freaked out because ZOMG The Calendar ENDS HERE! AAAAH!
Some are also freaking out about the earth's magnetic field reversal. ZOMG The Planet will CRACK or Stop Spinning or something. AAAAH! One of the two profs for the class we were discussing said what is likely to happen is that a lot of devices that use the magnetic field for orientation will be lost for a while and then will be backward, but it won't be the End of the WorldTM.
As for the sunspot cycle and crossing the galactic plane, well, if a big enough solar flare happens or gravity from the convergence is strong enough to wipe us out... What would we be able to do about it? Not a hell of a lot. So why fret?
Slightly off-topic: I'm attending a seminar today by one of the senior atmospheric science faculty on "Wildcards in Climate Change". He's going to look at cosmic rays, sunspots, magnetic fields, etc., which I suspect have a role in climate change we still can't quantify. Sure, I believe humans are contributing to global warming, but I'm still skeptical as to how much, since there is still so much we don't know about long term climate signals. It's too convenient to make money off the latest green crazes. It's also become more than a bit of religion.
It has its deity: earth.
It has sin: pollution, CO2 emission, etc.
It has redemption: conservation, getting off the grid, etc.
It even sells indulgences: carbon offsets.
I'm not against doing positive environmental things, but I am against group-think and bad popular science (is it ironic I'm entertained by movies like Twister? I don't take them at face value), e.g., let's take one of the most versatile foodstuffs we have and turn it into a fuel source. Did anyone think about how switching to ethanol would affect the price of food? Or how it's not all that much cleaner to make (yes, it's cleaner to use) than gasoline? Or that making a car that exhausts water vapor puts more of the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere?
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