Science & Technology News

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Obviously I disagree. We have choice and agency, which makes us responsible. Choosing to apply our knowledge and ability to perform destructive and wasteful behaviour is as "unnatural" as choosing to behave more conservatively.

Deer populations will destroy their ecosystem, driving themselves to starvation. Rabbits and bacteria will multiply to the point of similar destruction. If this is natural, how are our activities any different? It's a common theme for all life; it utilizes its full ecosystem and only stops expanding or exploiting when it hits hard limits.

Humans are simply doing what all other critters do. The only difference is, we can foresee the consequences of our actions. And we can also care.

In theory, that means we can make other choices. And in fact, we do it all the time with various conservation activities. No other species would stop exploiting a resource, say an old-growth forest, just to keep a Spotted Owl from going extinct.

But with issues like climate change, or indeed others like global poverty or food insecurity, we seem unable to make progress. Maybe it's simply beyond our capacity. Our brains have evolved to be excellent short-term, small-scale, problem solvers. Maybe problems of a global scale are just too much for us.

My view is that to solve these kinds of problems humanity has to truly become unnatural. We have to step outside of Nature and behave like no other critter on this planet ever has. We've shown we have the capacity to do this -- at least some of us have. But reality also shows there's not enough (yet) who will act in this way.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Deer populations will destroy their ecosystem, driving themselves to starvation. Rabbits and bacteria will multiply to the point of similar destruction. If this is natural, how are our activities any different? It's a common theme for all life; it utilizes its full ecosystem and only stops expanding or exploiting when it hits hard limits.

Those above situations are out of balance (give or take cyclic population expansion and contraction) and therefore not truly natural. And most often occur where humans have altered 'nature' - eg removing apex predators, or dumping some agar into a petri dish .

Humans are simply doing what all other critters do. The only difference is, we can foresee the consequences of our actions. And we can also care.

There's demonstrable "nature" in a child craving a cookie over broccoli. There is nothing "natural" about choosing fracking over renewables, designing our infrastructure around cars, etc etc. Our big choices are all equally unnatural, and are usually driven by one special interest group beating out another.

An outside observer would be able and justified in drawing some conclusions about our "nature"... but from within, as the ones making the decisions, and responsible for the outcomes, claiming "nature" is a copout. As long as we have agency, we have no right to excuse bad behaviour or poor choices as being just "our nature". If you observe infants and toddlers interacting, you'll see that cooperation and sociability are as strong as impulses towards aggressiveness and selfishness. Who's to say that making good decisions is less natural for us than making bad ones?

But with issues like climate change, or indeed others like global poverty or food insecurity, we seem unable to make progress. Maybe it's simply beyond our capacity. Our brains have evolved to be excellent short-term, small-scale, problem solvers. Maybe problems of a global scale are just too much for us.

Well, in general, things HAVE been improving, if you take a longer view. Less people are poor, more people are getting fed. Climate action is happening. We can and have recovered from bad decisions or setbacks. Even from big wars. The problem is that more of our current choices could now wreak unrecoverable damage, which means we need to do better, sooner, in how we make our choices. Many of the mistakes we could make are now potentially "undilutable" (eg climate). It's hardly natural to choose harm, if we can reasonably foresee it.

tl;dr: calling bad decision-making "just our nature" is a copout. All our major choices are unnatural; so we should be aiming to do better. Who's to say whether this is more unnatural than making bad decisions?

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Those above situations are out of balance (give or take cyclic population expansion and contraction) and therefore not truly natural.

That's a convenient cop out, to use your term. Any example of unbalanced ecosystems is, according to this narrow definition, unnatural.

You seem to have some idealized form of "nature" in mind. The deer, rabbit or bacteria has agency just as we do. They exploit their habitats to maximum benefit to them. They stop, or come into balance, when they must.

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

And most often occur where humans have altered 'nature' - eg removing apex predators, or dumping some agar into a petri dish .

There is almost no ecosystem untouched by humanity now. But no... extinction of species and decimation of ecosystems happened long before Homo sapiens showed up, and will continue long after we're gone. All species are capable of this. It's part of Nature.

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

There's demonstrable "nature" in a child craving a cookie over broccoli. There is nothing "natural" about choosing fracking over renewables,

Why? What makes fracking less "natural" than solar? Both are resources we are exploiting for our own benefit. ALL animals and all species extract resources from their ecosystem to live and thrive. They expand, pushing out other competing species if they can. Fracking and solar come with different consequences, as we are learning, but neither is inherently natural nor unnatural.

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

designing our infrastructure around cars, etc etc. Our big choices are all equally unnatural, and are usually driven by one special interest group beating out another.

If human cooperation and sociability is natural, then so is human greed and avarice. To use your example, special interest groups and indeed all politics, is a perfect example of our tendency towards cooperation and sociability.

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

As long as we have agency, we have no right to excuse bad behaviour or poor choices as being just "our nature". If you observe infants and toddlers interacting, you'll see that cooperation and sociability are as strong as impulses towards aggressiveness and selfishness. Who's to say that making good decisions is less natural for us than making bad ones?

Understanding something is not the same as excusing it. I'm not making any excuses. And what's a "good decision"? Biologically and evolutionarily a good decision is one that maximizes the individual and the species. So once again, humanity's actions have been perfectly natural. We now dominate nearly all ecosystems, just as any other species would if they could.

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Well, in general, things HAVE been improving, if you take a longer view. Less people are poor, more people are getting fed. Climate action is happening. We can and have recovered from bad decisions or setbacks.

I agree. That's what I said, or meant, when I wrote it is within our capacity to deal with these problems. At least some humans demonstrate this capacity, but clearly not all.

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

tl;dr: calling bad decision-making "just our nature" is a copout. All our major choices are unnatural; so we should be aiming to do better. Who's to say whether this is more unnatural than making bad decisions?

Again, what is bad? What is good? You seem to be operating from some rather arbitrary definitions of good, bad or natural and unnatural.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by newhaul

You cling to that I will go with the math and science .
As to the article you posted about volcanic activity is long out of date or have you not been watching the events of the last 3 months

Thanks for providing such a detailed exposition of the related mathematics and science. Your contributions are always so well explained, full of technical detail, and referenced.

The Global Volcanism Program does not see any evidence that volcanic activity is actually increasing.
You, obviously, didn’t look at the new data, updated through 12 March 2021
Statistics for volcanoes and eruptions since 1991; data for 2021 is through the last data update (12 March 2021), which does seem to have been more active [Eruptions] than normal, but with new activity declining.
➥ https://volcano.si.edu/faq/index.cfm...ruptionsbyyear

Year: New Activity - Eruptions - Active
2021: 4 - 49 - 49
2020: 26 - 72 - 67
2019: 26 - 74 - 72
2018: 37 - 80 - 75
2017: 32 - 74 - 71
2016: 34 - 85 - 74
2015: 40 - 88 - 83

The current level of volcanic activity is completely normal, (if not on the low end of averages over decades).
The main difference is that there is faster and more information availabe, as well as increased media coverage and public interest on the subject of global volcanic activity. This might give the impression that volcanic activity is on the increase (which it is not).
➥ https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/vol...ncreasing.html

The scientific concensus is that there has NOT been a recent increase in volcanic activity. There are many factors at work here and it is all too easy to present data that appears to say something that it really doesn't. First, as populations increase, people end up living in many regions that were once considered remote, and if these happen to be volcanic regions then once unseen eruptions will now be reported. Plus the impact of volcanic events now ripples across the globe as seen in the 2010 eruption in Iceland. The same eruption, in 1500, would likely not have been as much trouble for the folks in England.
➥ Has there been an increase in volcanic activity in the past few decades? | Volcano World | Oregon State University


However, a warming planet, due to human-induced climate change, has likely contributed to an increase in volcanic activity, since the retreat of the glaciers, according to a study [1] in the journal Geology.
While a relationship between climate and volcanism might seem counterintuitive, it turns out that pressure exerted by thick glaciers on the Earth's crust [what geologists call "surface loading"] has an impact on the flow of magma below the surface.
After glaciers are removed the surface pressure decreases, and the magmas more easily propagate to the surface and thus erupt.
There was also a lag between retreating glaciers and increased volcanic activity [± 600 years], but it was shorter, the team found; although the study cautions there could be other climate-related factors that contributed to the compressed lag time.

[1] “Climatic control on Icelandic volcanic activity during the mid-Holocene” ~ by Graeme T. Swindles et al
➥ https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa...canic-activity

[geoleo]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Those above situations are out of balance (give or take cyclic population expansion and contraction) and therefore not truly natural. And most often occur where humans have altered 'nature' - eg removing apex predators, or dumping some agar into a petri dish .
There's demonstrable "nature" in a child craving a cookie over broccoli. There is nothing "natural" about choosing fracking over renewables, designing our infrastructure around cars, etc etc. Our big choices are all equally unnatural, and are usually driven by one special interest group beating out another.

An outside observer would be able and justified in drawing some conclusions about our "nature"... but from within, as the ones making the decisions, and responsible for the outcomes, claiming "nature" is a copout. As long as we have agency, we have no right to excuse bad behaviour or poor choices as being just "our nature". If you observe infants and toddlers interacting, you'll see that cooperation and sociability are as strong as impulses towards aggressiveness and selfishness. Who's to say that making good decisions is less natural for us than making bad ones?

Well, in general, things HAVE been improving, if you take a longer view. Less people are poor, more people are getting fed. Climate action is happening. We can and have recovered from bad decisions or setbacks. Even from big wars. The problem is that more of our current choices could now wreak unrecoverable damage, which means we need to do better, sooner, in how we make our choices. Many of the mistakes we could make are now potentially "undilutable" (eg climate). It's hardly natural to choose harm, if we can reasonably foresee it.

tl;dr: calling bad decision-making "just our nature" is a copout. All our major choices are unnatural; so we should be aiming to do better. Who's to say whether this is more unnatural than making bad decisions?

Human Beings are a part of "Nature" so they inevitably live "according to nature".

[geoleo]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Thanks for providing such a detailed exposition of the related mathematics and science. Your contributions are always so well explained, full of technical detail, and referenced.

The Global Volcanism Program does not see any evidence that volcanic activity is actually increasing.
You, obviously, didn’t look at the new data, updated through 12 March 2021
Statistics for volcanoes and eruptions since 1991; data for 2021 is through the last data update (12 March 2021), which does seem to have been more active [Eruptions] than normal, but with new activity declining.
➥ https://volcano.si.edu/faq/index.cfm...ruptionsbyyear

Year: New Activity - Eruptions - Active
2021: 4 - 49 - 49
2020: 26 - 72 - 67
2019: 26 - 74 - 72
2018: 37 - 80 - 75
2017: 32 - 74 - 71
2016: 34 - 85 - 74
2015: 40 - 88 - 83

The current level of volcanic activity is completely normal, (if not on the low end of averages over decades).
The main difference is that there is faster and more information availabe, as well as increased media coverage and public interest on the subject of global volcanic activity. This might give the impression that volcanic activity is on the increase (which it is not).
➥ https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/vol...ncreasing.html

The scientific concensus is that there has NOT been a recent increase in volcanic activity. There are many factors at work here and it is all too easy to present data that appears to say something that it really doesn't. First, as populations increase, people end up living in many regions that were once considered remote, and if these happen to be volcanic regions then once unseen eruptions will now be reported. Plus the impact of volcanic events now ripples across the globe as seen in the 2010 eruption in Iceland. The same eruption, in 1500, would likely not have been as much trouble for the folks in England.
➥ Has there been an increase in volcanic activity in the past few decades? | Volcano World | Oregon State University


However, a warming planet, due to human-induced climate change, has likely contributed to an increase in volcanic activity, since the retreat of the glaciers, according to a study [1] in the journal Geology.
While a relationship between climate and volcanism might seem counterintuitive, it turns out that pressure exerted by thick glaciers on the Earth's crust [what geologists call "surface loading"] has an impact on the flow of magma below the surface.
After glaciers are removed the surface pressure decreases, and the magmas more easily propagate to the surface and thus erupt.
There was also a lag between retreating glaciers and increased volcanic activity [± 600 years], but it was shorter, the team found; although the study cautions there could be other climate-related factors that contributed to the compressed lag time.

[1] “Climatic control on Icelandic volcanic activity during the mid-Holocene” ~ by Graeme T. Swindles et al
➥ https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa...canic-activity

What about the weight of the oceans ??Surely they are loading the earths crust far more than the Ice Sheets. So why arent oceans weight causing more volcanic activity like the Ice sheets do? Some wild guessing going on by the religions followers of "Climate Change". lolol

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

That's a convenient cop out, to use your term. Any example of unbalanced ecosystems is, according to this narrow definition, unnatural.

My point was that you raised "unnatural" or at least not normal examples to compare with humans. Even more on-point, deer and bacteria can't foresee how their current behaviour might lead to later hardship.

You seem to have some idealized form of "nature" in mind. The deer, rabbit or bacteria has agency just as we do. They exploit their habitats to maximum benefit to them. They stop, or come into balance, when they must.

No. Deer, rabbit, bacteria... just about every creature but us, run on programming determined by evolution.

What makes fracking less "natural" than solar? Both are resources we are exploiting for our own benefit.

... well, that's the point! Neither are "natural". Nobody has evolved to "naturally" pick one massively technical, non-obvious solution over the other. These are conceived of and sketched out by specialists, and their adoption is usually driven by special interests (eg the fossil-fuel industry, or the green lobby). Do you recall getting to vote on fracking or solar? Me neither. So how is the choice of one or the other (or both or neither) in any way "natural"?

ALL animals and all species extract resources from their ecosystem to live and thrive. They expand, pushing out other competing species if they can. Fracking and solar come with different consequences, as we are learning, but neither is inherently natural nor unnatural.

... and neither is the choice of one over the other more "natural". It's entirely within our control. That's why claiming, as others have, that human-caused climate change is somehow "natural" is insane. It's not; it's the result of choices made, by an increasingly smaller group of decision-makers, and as we gain more knowledge, there's nothing that makes a bad decision more "natural" than a good one.

Understanding something is not the same as excusing it. I'm not making any excuses. And what's a "good decision"? Biologically and evolutionarily a good decision is one that maximizes the individual and the species.

It's now bigger than that. We're miles past the point of making decisions based on our own selfish survival as a species; we've nailed that. We now understand that we're on a finite planet, so that it is possible to overconsume to extinction. With that understanding, how is it "natural" to do so?

Again, what is bad? What is good? You seem to be operating from some rather arbitrary definitions of good, bad or natural and unnatural.

My only point is that excusing and condoning climate change as "natural" is absurd. There's nothing natural about not changing behaviour when we now know its potential harm. Stated another way - there's nothing natural about either ignoring climate change, or responding to it, so the remaining criteria are pragmatism and ethics (the only remaining frontier of our evolution). So now it is down to good or bad, and right or wrong.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Thanks for providing such a detailed exposition of the related mathematics and science. Your contributions are always so well explained, full of technical detail, and referenced.

The Global Volcanism Program does not see any evidence that volcanic activity is actually increasing.
You, obviously, didn’t look at the new data, updated through 12 March 2021
Statistics for volcanoes and eruptions since 1991; data for 2021 is through the last data update (12 March 2021), which does seem to have been more active [Eruptions] than normal, but with new activity declining.
➥ https://volcano.si.edu/faq/index.cfm...ruptionsbyyear

Year: New Activity - Eruptions - Active
2021: 4 - 49 - 49
2020: 26 - 72 - 67
2019: 26 - 74 - 72
2018: 37 - 80 - 75
2017: 32 - 74 - 71
2016: 34 - 85 - 74
2015: 40 - 88 - 83

The current level of volcanic activity is completely normal, (if not on the low end of averages over decades).
The main difference is that there is faster and more information availabe, as well as increased media coverage and public interest on the subject of global volcanic activity. This might give the impression that volcanic activity is on the increase (which it is not).
➥ https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/vol...ncreasing.html

The scientific concensus is that there has NOT been a recent increase in volcanic activity. There are many factors at work here and it is all too easy to present data that appears to say something that it really doesn't. First, as populations increase, people end up living in many regions that were once considered remote, and if these happen to be volcanic regions then once unseen eruptions will now be reported. Plus the impact of volcanic events now ripples across the globe as seen in the 2010 eruption in Iceland. The same eruption, in 1500, would likely not have been as much trouble for the folks in England.
➥ Has there been an increase in volcanic activity in the past few decades? | Volcano World | Oregon State University


However, a warming planet, due to human-induced climate change, has likely contributed to an increase in volcanic activity, since the retreat of the glaciers, according to a study [1] in the journal Geology.
While a relationship between climate and volcanism might seem counterintuitive, it turns out that pressure exerted by thick glaciers on the Earth's crust [what geologists call "surface loading"] has an impact on the flow of magma below the surface.
After glaciers are removed the surface pressure decreases, and the magmas more easily propagate to the surface and thus erupt.
There was also a lag between retreating glaciers and increased volcanic activity [± 600 years], but it was shorter, the team found; although the study cautions there could be other climate-related factors that contributed to the compressed lag time.

[1] “Climatic control on Icelandic volcanic activity during the mid-Holocene” ~ by Graeme T. Swindles et al
➥ https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa...canic-activity

Mount Etna alone has had 13 separate high SO2 blasts into the mid stratosphere in the last 6 weeks alone . There have been several from a couple of volcanoes in Central America as well as Russia and the ones in New guinea and Indonesia

Then there is the one in Iceland that hasn't erupted in 6,000 years .

And that is in the last 6 weeks alone .

https://electroverse.net/polar-sprin...ntly-erupting/
And thats backed up by the met office

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...5C-chills.html

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

But with issues like climate change, or indeed others like global poverty or food insecurity, we seem unable to make progress.

Global Extreme Poverty

[geoleo]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

I'm not a member of, or sympathetic to, any leftist collectivist urge, but I'll give it a shot.

Hmmm. Per-capita, the US CO2 emissions are still over twice that of China.
So maybe... you're wrong.

PER Capita??? China has 5 times the people and those people were wearing masks everywhere due to pollutions 20 years before covid. Are you a China sympathizer? Lots of leftists are.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by geoleo

What about the weight of the oceans ??Surely they are loading the earths crust far more than the Ice Sheets. So why arent oceans weight causing more volcanic activity like the Ice sheets do? Some wild guessing going on by the religions followers of "Climate Change". lolol

There's a difference between weight and pressure.
After glaciers are removed [from land] the surface pressure decreases, and the magmas more easily propagate to the surface and thus erupt.
When the glacial water enters the ocean, it's dispersed, thereby exerting less pressure, than it did when landbound ice.

[geoleo]

Originally Posted by geoleo

PER Capita??? China has 5 times the people and those people were wearing masks everywhere due to pollutions 20 years before covid. Are you a China sympathizer? Lots of leftists are.

Tell us the CO2 output total of both the USA and China . My rough math says China is double the USA .

[geoleo]

Originally Posted by GordMay

There's a difference between weight and pressure.
After glaciers are removed [from land] the surface pressure decreases, and the magmas more easily propagate to the surface and thus erupt.
When the glacial water enters the ocean, it's dispersed, thereby exerting less pressure, than it did when landbound ice.

OK - where are volcanos erupting where Ice has left -tell us where. Plus the oceans have now risen from the dispersed water from the melted ice sheets so the oceans are heavier everywhere and are now keeping the volcanos from erupting from the heavier weight of the pressure. LOLOL

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by geoleo

PER Capita??? China has 5 times the people and those people were wearing masks everywhere due to pollutions 20 years before covid. Are you a China sympathizer? Lots of leftists are.

If you can't acknowledge that you produce twice as much pollution as someone in China, AND that much of that Chinese pollution was created as they manufacture absurdly inexpensive stuff so that you can post nonsense on the Internets... you're a hypocrite.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

I'm not a member of, or sympathetic to, any leftist collectivist urge, but I'll give it a shot.

Hmmm. Per-capita, the US CO2 emissions are still over twice that of China.
So maybe... you're wrong.

The per capita is a poor metric to go by perhaps the actual numbers are a lot better

https://earth.nullschool.net/#curren...7.55,28.06,467
Picture worth more

https://earth.nullschool.net/#curren...3.03,42.61,505
Looks like China is a lot worse