The cool website Information is Beautiful presents, um, well, information in a beautiful way. They recently posted a good guide to the sense and nonsense of the 2012 phenom, pretty much showing that the major claims of the doomcriers are baloney.
I haven’t checked every factoid of the graphic, but the part pictured above is cool: I independently came to this same conclusion a few months ago using some planetarium software to plot the position of the Sun and the Galactic center (and presented this at TAM 7, in fact). There are people out there trying to spin, fold, and mutilate astronomy to fit their pre-manufactured conclusions about 2012, but — as usual when it comes to doomsday scenarios — the actual facts show that these scaremongers’ claims are as vacuous as space itself.
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:08 am
You mean, Roland Emmerich is wrong? How can that be?
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:18 am
I wish the skeptic column didn’t refer to Wikipedia as a “source” … that’s about as authoritative as any number of woo journals (more correct, perhaps, but authoritative, no way).
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:40 am
@Ken
Yeah, ‘cos those sceptics… they just love authorities. They know that it doesn’t matter how true something you say is, just so long as you say it authoritatively. >_>
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:47 am
Since Friday I am totally convinced. The evidence is indisputable. The world will not end in 2012. :rolleyes:
In fact, I watched the movie on Friday. Help me, it was terrible. Have never seen such an illogical flick in years. And not only the movie had problems with its consistency, the German synchronization sucked as well. They really said that the pressure would be 80 Pa (in the scene, when the arc breaks away). I asked my friend next to me, if they really said 80 Pa, and he confirmed it. I guess, in the English version this were actually 80 psi, which would have made a little sense. But 80 Pascal? Damn it!
So: The advice for everyone. Even if you like disaster movies and such things; this movie is disastrous itself. DON’T WATCH IT!
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:57 am
What I don’t understand is the significance of lining up with the galactic center in the first place. Must of been sleeping/hungover when they went over that theory in physics 101. I mean really, what do people think is going to happen? What about the thousands of astronomical bodies that we could potentially line up with every day of the week where’s their doomsday movies?
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:02 am
That page is well done, although I think a few of their skeptical arguments could have been a bit stronger (especially the pole shift thing). Still, a good start for the fence-sitter (we should obviously have no illusions about this working on a “true believer”).
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:31 am
AAAANNND Bookmarked for use on internet forums where this stuff comes up. Plus going to facebook right now
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 am
2012 believers: they go to watch “2012″ and buy crackpot books devoted to the subject, making Roland Emmerich and the book authors rich.
2012 skeptics: they read Bad Astronomy, for which Phil Plait receives no monetary reward.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:39 am
This is, of course, beside the fact that the differential in gravitation between “a couple years off alignment” and “aligned” is orders of magnitude smaller than the difference between “aligned” and “chaotic”.
That is to say, even if we were to entertain the idea that the tiny nonterrestrial net gravitational force had some appreciable effect on our microcosm, the numbers wouldn’t reflect that – the lunar tides alone drown out “galactic alignment”. It’d be like trying to pick out a pin drop with a foghorn blowing in your ear.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:54 am
Source text, in research (especially in the humanities), a source of information referred to by citation [Source: Wikipedia.]
Seems to me Wikipedia is a (tertiary) source; the entry level isn’t all that high. If it’s authoritative depends on your requirements. For example, authority in science is merely a convenient shortcut but not a necessary quality.
Also, Wikipedia is traceable, and IIRC according to statistics no worse than any other encyclopedia. I.e. it is a valid starting point to dig into a subject, and that is the usual requirement.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:05 pm
In this day, age, and financial times, where are we as a society headed? There are many shows covering the topic of 2012 and the doom that is being predicted. What message is this sending our children? Is the goal of these predictions to incite panic, a means to make a profit from pending tragedy, or to prevent disaster from happening? No matter the reason or purpose. I believe it is causing fear. This is leading people to make some questionable decisions with the attitude, “the world is going to end in 2012 anyway”.
Whatever the reasons and no matter what happens that does not give us a reason to forget about the consequences of our everyday actions and decisions. What happened to helping our neighbor? What happened to doing a good deed because it is the right thing to do and not because of what we may get out of it?
Sure times are hard and it seems crime and drug use is on the rise. But that does not mean we have to give up having hope for a better future. Life is hard enough. Why are we making it harder for ourselves to live it?
The answers to these questions are not easy and straight forward. But there is a way to turn things around. And it starts at home with family.
I have been living with a family for three years and we’ve been through a lot: failed attempts to move into a better community, unemployment, utilities being shut off, sickness, death, and the joy of birth (even if it was not planned). What has brought us through it? Love, hope, and not giving up have helped us through it all.
No matter what tragedy may be going on in one person’s or one family’s lives, the willingness to face it and not run away is the beginning of hope. What stops a lot of people is being afraid to ask for help. And that has been the case in my situation. Sometimes the family I live with is afraid to ask for help. Whether it be because of ego, guilt, or pride no one person can do anything by themselves. Asking for help is sign of strength. Helping others without having any ulterior motives is a sign of caring.
I guess what I am trying to convey here is while the world seems to be crumbling around us, the answer has been underneath our noses the whole time; our family, our neighbors, and our community. Technology is partly to blame. Why ask a real person for help when you can just search the web? The ambition to seek out help is the other.
When this country was very young if a neighbor needed help plowing the field, or was short a cup of sugar, or needed a shoulder to cry on for support, neighbors and community joined together to help the fellow man. Sure those days are long gone and most of us do not have fields to plow. But we still have neighbors and community.
I feel society and community unity has weakened because of fear and there is little monetary profit in giving help and support. The value of knowing you made a difference or helping your fellow man can never be measured in dollars and cents. And it should never be either.
Whatever your situation, where ever you live one person can make a difference. It starts at home and grows from there. So are you going to sit in your easy chair, believe the world is going to end in 2012? Are you going to sit and watch your family be torn apart by society’s ill temptations? Are you going to just watch your neighbor’s cries for help go unanswered? Or will you try to make a difference? I believe there is hope. And “without hope you cannot start the day”.*
Living life to its fullest does not mean you have a lot of worldly possessions. It means you have filled your life with the goodness of being the best husband, the best wife, the best father, the best mother, and the best neighbor that you can be. Please do not believe in what you hear. Believe in what you can do.
*the title of a song from the group YES off their Union album
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
As an historian of Latin America, I was glad to see they addressed how badly this 2012 nonsense skewers Mayan culture. Invisible magic men in the sky are invisible magic men in the sky in any culture, but if you are going to say that this or that mythology predicts the end of the world precisely, right down to the day, you could at least get some basic stuff right. My favorite bit is how they dealt with the claim a certain author is supposedly a reincarnation of Quetzalcoatl (and thus would know all about 2012). “Maybe. But Quetzalcoatl is Mexican Aztec, not pre-Columbian Maya.” Indeed.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Finally, someone at least mentions McKenna. Sure he was as wrong as anyone else on the subject, but he was – and had – a lot more fun in doing it.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Phil, are we gonna get a good movie review out of you from the movie? I haven’t seen one up at Intuitor’s Insultingly Bad Movie Physics yet.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
What is the galactic equator and how would one go about determining it, when we still only have rough ideas about the layout of the Milky Way?
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:28 pm
I just want to squee about the fact that the university I attend is listed as a source for the skeptic side.
Go University of Utrecht! Woo!
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:55 pm
… as usual when it comes to doomsday scenarios — the actual facts show that these scaremongers’ claims are as vacuous as space itself.
Same applies to the “Y2K” scare of today – the Greenhouse /global warming hoax.
It ain’t just the woo artists that try to hype and exaggerate “science” for the purpose of raising money and getting attention by unnecessarily alarming folks.
If something sounds too good to be true – it usually is.
If something sounds too bad to be true – it also usually is.
The end of the world is NOT nigh in 2012,
or when the LHC turns on,
or when Nibiru passes,
or when the globe supposedly warms up* alledgedly due to CO2 added by farting cows and smoky cars and factories.
Jesus ain’t coming back either!
Alarmist claptrap whether over re-setting computer clocks, “the Jupiter effect” an upcoming ice age or a Greenhouse effect is as much nonsense as 2012 and science needs to be as skeptical over that as it is over 2012.
Doomsday? The EEeeennnddd offf the Wooooorrrld!?
Nup. It’s NOT on the schedule now or for a few billion years yet whatever anyone says.
Still like reading about ‘Death from the Skies’ and the odd post-apocalypse horror SF disaster porn movie though!
* Actually, Earth has been getting cooler since 1998. How long till ice age becomes the “catastrophe de jour” again just like it was back in the 1970s?
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:35 pm
@4. DrFlimmer Says:
In fact, I watched the movie on Friday. Help me, it was terrible. … So: The advice for everyone. Even if you like disaster movies and such things; this movie is disastrous itself. DON’T WATCH IT!
So do as you say not as you did then?
As for helping you, I’m afraid its sounds like it is too late for that!
Special effects of ‘2012′ not worth the dumbosity of it then? Its a Roland Emmerich disasterporn flick – surely we all know what to expect by now – ridiculous plot, woeful characters, corny dialogue, insultingly stupid physics and lack of facts but SFX that are spectacular as anything. Nonsense but nice looking nonsense.
How did ‘2012′ compare with Emmerich’s other works – best being ‘Independence Day’ & worst ‘The Day After Tomorrow’? IMHO.
Is it any fun in a B-grade ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes’ cringe-worthy way at all?
I second # 14. Shawn She’s request for the BA to review this and see if his head explodes at teh stoopid!
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
17. Jar Jya Binks Killer Says: “…the “Y2K” scare of today – the Greenhouse /global warming hoax.”
Now you’ve done it, brought global warming into the discussion.
Sit back and watch the post count spike.
- Jack
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:07 pm
One thing I noticed just from the puicture on the post. 2012 is when the alignment passes through Central America. This has nothing to do with doomsday. But it is incredible to think of the sofisticated calculation of an ancient culture.
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Why worry, really? If the credulous among us weren’t busy lapping up 2012, they’d be guzzling some other nonsense. Making carefully reasoned arguments to them is like trying to teach my dog algebra when there’s a loose piece of ham on the floor. He isn’t paying attention, and if he were, he still wouldn’t care. As nonsense goes, 2012 seems relatively harmless. No one’s getting burned at the stake or blown up, and in 2013 we’ll have excellent proof that it was all hooey. I’d be more interested in taking bets on what the next fake apocalypse will be.
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
I’m with Sili. I am VERY surprised by the notion that one pin down the location of a galactic equator, as I would have thought that a galaxy is far too fuzzy a thing to have such a well-defined equatorial plane.
(BTW, while I’m here, may I make the same request that I made yesterday on Richard Wiseman’s blog? I’m assembling a trivia quiz on the history of science from 1950 onwards, and am inviting nominations of events that other people think should be included. It’s for a geologist’s 60th birthday. Details in what’s currently the most recent post on my blog.)
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I can’t wait to see the faces of Terrence McKenna, Jaysen Rand, Patrick Geryl, and all the other doomsday-spouting pieces of crap when Christmas 2012 comes around and we’re all still here.
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Isn’t 2012, like, when the Mayan calendar runs out? Mine runs out about every 365 days. The world doesn’t come to an end. I get another calendar.
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:42 pm
You mean to tell me that we missed the end of the world in 1998. I was so looking forward to this.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:10 am
You mean to tell me that we missed the end of the world in 1998. I was so looking forward to this.
You numbskulls! The world DID end in 1998. And as soon as I wake up, this dream is going to stop and all you figments of my imagination are going to go poof!
November 24th, 2009 at 2:35 am
“Help me, it was terrible. Have never seen such an illogical flick in years.”
Umm, it’s a silly disaster movie, created by a guy who’s doing silly disaster movies for a living, and it’s marketed as a silly disaster movie. To quote Roger Ebert, “no sentient being will buy a ticket expecting anything else”.
November 24th, 2009 at 5:04 am
Of course, it was expected to be, uhm, dumb. But at least a little self-consistency and some (physically) logical things were what I hoped for, but nothing like that ever entered the movie for a short moment. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Heroism until the bitter end, as usual; good pictures, yes, but they are all but extraordinary for today’s standards.
Independence Day was much better!
November 24th, 2009 at 5:55 am
Jar-Jya Binks Killer (17) said:
OK, I’m listening. This had better be good.
How do you arrive at that last conclusion? Do you think the Holocaust was too bad to be true? Do you think World War I was too bad to be true? Etc.
With you so far…
This is where you diverge from reality.
There are certain facts that are firmly established that in fact do confirm that global warming is a serious issue.
Gasses such as water vapour, CO2 and methane are effectors of the greenhouse effect, i.e. the way in which they absorb and re-emit solar energy causes the surface of the Earth to be warmer than it would be without those gasses in the atmosphere.
The atmospheric concentration of some of these gasses (most notably CO2 and methane) is increasing as a result of human activity (such as, but not limited to, burning fossil fuels).
Glaciers and ice sheets are melting and have been for decades. I’ve seen photos of about a dozen glaciers, from Alaska to Switzerland, pictured in the early part of the 20th century and again very recently. It is blindingly obvious that they are far smaller than they once were. This is not a local phenomenon, it is global. This summer, the Arctic ice sheet was the smallest it has been since records began. Mean sea level is rising (this has been measured).
The above facts are firmly established in the literature, and the original papers are there for you to find and to criticise if you wish to.
Me, I’d rather move on to the solution than faff about arguing over whether the problem is real or conjured up for some imaginary political agenda.
Irrelevant.
Y2K was a non-event solely because of all the hard work that was put in by a hell of a lot of people in the few years leading up to 01 Jan 00. By denying this, you are dissing a lot of hard graft.
Science has been sceptical over the greenhouse effect.
Back in the 70s and early 80s, very few people took the greenhouse effect seriously. Some people doubted that any warming was happening at all (in fact, no warming occurred at that time due to the presence high in our atmosphere of sulphate aerosols that reflected sunlight back into space. The downside was that those same aerosols devastated the stratospheric ozone layer.), while others felt that there must be some kind of self-correcting mechanism.
However, over the course of the 80s, 90s and 00s, the evidence has continued to accumulate to indicate that global warming is indeed occurring. Contrary “evidence” has been found to be false, misinterpreted or fabricated. The science community in general is convinced that this is a real issue.
And if you had paid attention you would know that global warming will not cause the end of the world. It will, however, cause the end of our present civilisation unless we do something to limit its effects.
Whatever.
What’s your evidence / source for this?
Erm … probably about 50 million years.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:38 am
This 2012 nonsense will only increase over the next couple of years.
The one thing I would like to see is the predicted ‘Global Consciousness Shift’…that would be a good thing.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:10 am
Certainly the Maya were great astronomers, but was their knowledge of how we “fit” into the universe at all accurate? Had the Maya discovered that the Earth is a planet that orbits the sun? Did they hypothesize that the stars were other suns very far away? Did the Maya know that the Milky Way was a vast collection of stars and gas? If not then what would it matter what they said about 2012? Even if their knowledge of these things were correct, it wouldn’t follow that any alleged “mystical” implications were also correct; just because there is a North Pole doesn’t mean that there are volant deer and beneficent elves living there.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:03 am
2012 aside I’m still curious whether the Mayas were able to discern the precession of the equinoxes. I just recently read (sky & telescope, maybe) that a Greek astronomer had figured the precession out. At 1 deg per 72 years I guess it is theoretically possible that a civilization with expanded record keeping would be able to notice the motion.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:07 am
I’m confused on one aspect of the galactic alignment stuff. What’s the difference between the Galactic equator that lined up very well with Earth in 1998 and the Galactic Plane the the Earth won’t cross for 27 million years?
November 24th, 2009 at 9:15 am
I’ve now spent bit of time trying to even understand the alleged galactic alignment – and haven’t even been able to properly picture what is supposed to happen (regardless of the fact that we all know it won’t happen).
The main figure in the 2012 article Phil pointed us to suffers from bad perspective. Does the intersection of the galactic plane with the ecliptic form a line between the equinoxes or the solstices? The way it is drawn the perspective works both ways – though I think it is meant to be between the solstices.
I presume the line formed by the intersection is rotating. Thus isn’t there always and “alignment” when the earth goes by this line ? The day of the year of said alignment of course varies so what is “special” about 2012 is that the alignment happens right at the solstice (allegedly)?
When it is stated that the alignment happened in 1998 – does that mean the alignment of the ecliptic/galactic planes such that their intersection falls at the solstice itself? It would appear to me that a more “powerful” alignment would be when the intersection lines of the equator, ecliptic, and galactic plane all coincide (i.e. at an equinox) – but I guess that’s in 6000 years so it is too long for the doomsayers to wait!
November 24th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Nigel Depledge:
If you have been keeping up with the latest Gorebull warming news, you’d see that the basis of Gorebull warming has been shown to be one of the biggest hoaxes in science. All the data that is the basis of the Gorebull warming “bible” was biased to show an increase in global T. It’s a huge wrench in the Gorebull warming “arguement”. It has lost all credibility. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/bishop-hills-compendium-of-cru-email-issues/#more-12994 . This is just one of many sources about the emails from the CRU. Check it out. Science has an amazing way of correcting itself. I don’t think these guys can bail out with the golden parachute.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I can’t wait to see the faces of Terrence McKenna, Jaysen Rand, Patrick Geryl, and all the other doomsday-spouting pieces of crap when Christmas 2012 comes around and we’re all still here.
McKenna has been kind of dead for the past decade or so. He also wasn’t a doomsdayer, his Novelty Theory more closely resembled the technological singularity theory… but with the i-ching and other numerological claptrap thrown in. Less of an ‘end of the world’ thing than an ‘end of our ability to predict’ sort of thing.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
I’m confused. I’ve played with “The Sky” (astronomy s/w) and I find that the December solstice Sun that lies most nearly on the galactic equator is in 2047, not 1998. Phil, any ideas about why there’s a discrepancy?
November 24th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Roland Emmerich’s 2012 movie pretty depicts what is to happen only the cause of the cataclysm is wrong. He, unknowingly, has done a great public service by the making of his movie to create public awareness of 2012.
The Maya were not the only ones who knew about 2012 as most of the ancient world did from 3,000 BC up till the 1800s when the knowledge was lost. Washington DC was laid out to reflect 2012 as a reminder to visitors. Monuments carved in stone were left world wide to warn our generation of 2012. Christ taught it in the Bible but few today have understood it. The ancient world understood 2012 very well; the modern world, lest of all the modern Maya, lack the correct knowledge and understanding thereof, and are stumbling in the dark for answers to 2012. Even this website doesn’t have the facts right about the Galactic alignment in 2012. True the sun’s ecliptic (path) does cross the Galactic Equator near mid-point at least yearly without incident. What astronomers fail to notice is that for the last 5,125 years the sun has been advancing steadily toward the “dark rift” of the Milky Way as it crosses the Galactic Equator( an imaginary line) at mid-point yearly until on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun crosses the Galactic Equator at mid-point, it will be positioned in the vaginal opening of the “dark rift” of the Milky Way. When this occurs, it marks the end of the age, Precession of 26,000 years, also called A Great Year. Many cycles of time end on that day for good reason. On that day, the Earth will be positioned to start a 3 day transit through the “dark rift” of the Milky Way. It is what lurks there that causes the cataclysm. Earth will survive but one-third of the world’s population will perish. Read the non-fiction 2012 trilogy, The Ark of Millions of Years, by E. J. Clark, the most comprehensive 2012 books in the world, for the answers. The ancient Maya believed 2012 was the end of the true Earth or original creation in this universe, therefore they said that they would not restart their calendar because there would not be a need for it as time will be measured differently there. The physical Earth is not the true Earth. Have to read the books in order to understand that statement. Read and prepare for the time is short….Thanks
November 25th, 2009 at 12:42 am
@ 29. Nigel Depledge Says:
Me: “…. If something sounds too bad to be true – it also usually is.”
ND: How do you arrive at that last conclusion? Do you think the Holocaust was too bad to be true? Do you think World War I was too bad to be true? Etc.
Hence my use of the qualifying word ‘usually.’
The Holocaust & WW I were real exceptional historical events.
Global Warming or as Paul (# 35) aptly called it ‘Gorebull warming’ is a political scare campaign based on “watermelon green”* quasi-religious ideology dressed up as science – which it ain’t anymore than ID is.
(In both cases it is now on the record that scientific “evidence” was twisted & altered to suit the pre-chosen conclusion rather than the conclusion being changed in light of the evidence.)
There are certain facts that are firmly established that in fact do confirm that global warming is a serious issue.
Not really – such “facts” t turns out are really exxagerated or even invented and far from “firmly established” despite what the Alarmist Hysterics would have us believe.
Besides :
***
From : http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/GlobWarmTest/start.html
“From a geological perspective, global warming is the normal state of our accustomed natural world. Technically, we are in an “interglacial phase,” or between ice ages. The question is not really if an ice age will return, but when.
Don’t panic when you hear global alarmists warning the earth may have warmed almost 1 degree in the last 200 years. Although this still hasn’t yet been proven, it is in fact exactly what should be happening if everything is normal.
If Global Warming stops, then you can start worrying! It means our warm interglacial phase is over and we may be heading into another Ice Age!”
Gasses such as water vapour, CO2 and methane are effectors of the greenhouse effect, i.e. the way in which they absorb and re-emit solar energy causes the surface of the Earth to be warmer than it would be without those gasses in the atmosphere.
Congratulations you got something right!
The main greenhouse gas is actually water vapour – responsible for 95% of the GH FXT – & not Co2 which is a very minor and actually helpful consitiution ofour atmosphere. C02 levels have been much higher for most of the Earth’s history & they follow from rather than create global warming.
The atmospheric concentration of some of these gasses (most notably CO2 and methane) is increasing as a result of human activity (such as, but not limited to, burning fossil fuels).
Human activity is a very minor & inconsequential factor.
In fact : “The world’s natural wetlands produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined.”
Volcanoes also belch out manytimes more Co2 than humans and have probably been a significant cause of past warming episdioes which have occurred naturallly throughout our planets 4 & a half billion yera history.
The main driving factors for global warming are :
***
(1) Astronomical Causes
• 11 year and 206 year cycles: Cycles of solar variability ( sunspot activity )
•21,000 year cycle: Earth’s combined tilt and elliptical orbit around the Sun ( precession of the equinoxes )
• 41,000 year cycle: Cycle of the +/- 1.5° wobble in Earth’s orbit ( tilt )
• 100,000 year cycle: Variations in the shape of Earth’s elliptical orbit ( cycle of eccentricity )
(2) Atmospheric Causes
• Heat retention: Due to atmospheric gases, mostly gaseous water vapor (not droplets), also carbon dioxide, methane, and a few other miscellaneous gases– the “greenhouse effect”
• Solar reflectivity: Due to white clouds, volcanic dust, polar ice caps
(3) Tectonic Causes
• Landmass distribution: Shifting continents (continental drift) causing changes in circulatory patterns of ocean currents. It seems that whenever there is a large land mass at one of the Earth’s poles, either the north pole or south pole, there are ice ages.
• Undersea ridge activity: “Sea floor spreading” (associated with continental drift) causing variations in ocean displacement.
For more details see: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/enviro/EnviroRepublish_233658.htm
***
Glaciers and ice sheets are melting and have been for decades.
Er .. remember what was said above about us being in an intergalcial period – good thing too! Much better than an ice age & the geological records are clear evidence of that. Global warming is nice, its just a pity it won’t last. We are closer totheend than the beginning of what is apleasnat interglacial interlude in the middle of a natural Ice Age cycle. That’s indisputable astronomical and geological fact not hysterical Alarmist claptrap.
I hope you’ve learnt something Nigel Depledge but if you mind is too rusted by all the gorebull its taken in then I just hope others here have learnt something from this.
—————–
* “Watermelon green” = Environmentalist Green on the outside, Socialist /Communist red on the inside. A particular political movement that is pushing the whole Gorebull Warmer nonsense as has been recentlyexposed in the leaked CRU emails.
November 25th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Note: I post under the name ‘ND’ but I am not Nigel Depledge. Just in case ‘Nigel Depledge’ abbreviated to ‘ND’.
November 25th, 2009 at 9:51 am
@Theron: The second to last point. What do they mean by “Quetzalcoatl is Mexican Aztec, not pre-Columbian Mayan”? Quetzalcoatl was also pre-Columbian, that’s a chronological and not geographical designation. And to call it Mexican is also misleading. Mexico as a county exists only since 1821, long after the Aztecs or Mayans were conquered. Even today some Maya ruins –including Tortuguero!— are inside modern Mexican borders, so what’s the point in calling Aztecs Mexican but not Mayas too?
But I like the rest!
Greetings from a Mexican skeptic!
November 25th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Jar Jya Binks Killer,
In fact : “The world’s natural wetlands produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined.”
This sounds like a red herring to me. The wetlands are part of a natural cycle. Human activity is in addition to all the natural CO2 emission and absorptions.
Also
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11638
“Human emissions of CO2 are now estimated to be 26.4 Gt per year, up from 23.5 Gt in the 1990s”
“Measurements of CO2 levels over the past 50 years do not show any significant rises after eruptions. Total emissions from volcanoes on land are estimated to average just 0.3 Gt of CO2 each year – about a hundredth of human emissions (pdf document).”
What is your source that volcanos emit more than human activity?
The other problem I have is, the natural occurrence of GW does not automatically exclude a human induced one. It means you have to factor in the all the natural and human processes involved.
November 26th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
@Eta: I’m afraid you have the words Mexican and pre-Colombian – as referred to by @Theron – a bit confused (albeit understandably so). The Aztecs were directly related to the Mexicas – from which the word “Mexican” comes form. So in this context “Aztec-Mexican” is to say Quetzalcoatl come from the Aztec/Mexica (and Toltec!) mythology. Pre-Colombian in this context is used to differentiate the classical Maya from modern-day Maya. Of course the Aztecs were also Pre-Colombian, but there are pretty much no modern remnants.
November 27th, 2009 at 5:09 am
@ Paul (35) -
Reference the primary literature, please, not some random website. There is nothing in the website to which you linked that addresses the actual data. So what if a handful of scientists have expressed their frustration that AGW deniers are still being given credibility by various fora and organisations? All that proves is that you have two groups of people with differing viewpoints. Well, that’s no surprise.
Even if global T measurements have been inaccurate (and you have done nothing to show that they are), this does nothing to address all the ice that’s melting, or the sound theoretical basis of the influences on global temperature.
If I have understood correctly, most scientists that actually study this phenomenon feel that the IPCC has underplayed the real danger.
November 27th, 2009 at 5:17 am
Jar Jya Binks Killer (39) said:
In that case, how is your point relevant in any way at all? Perhaps you should have gone into a bit of detail to make that clear, hmm?
Apart from the huge amount of data backing it up.
Who, what, where, when?
Don’t be vague. Be specific. Remember that, even if some of the data has been fabricated, you have to address all of the rest that wasn’t.
I have seen the photographs. Glaciers all over the world are melting. That can’t be fabricated or tampered with.
Your accusation of “alarmist hister[ia]” is no more than name-calling. Perhaps you should stop letting Exxon guide your thinking.
November 27th, 2009 at 5:31 am
Jar Jya Binks Killer (39) said:
If warming is permitted to continue, not for millions of years.
I already know that the Earth has spent millions of years in the past at much higher temps than we have now. That is not at issue.
That entirely depends on what you mean by “normal”.
Global warming is not a threat to the planet. It is not a threat to life in any general sense. However, GW threatens human civilisation. A warmer world means higher sea levels (which, IIUC, is the biggest threat from a warmer climate). This will result in millions of people being forced to migrate; reduced arable land area; and so on.
But that ain’t gonna happen unless the laws of physics change.
Don’t patronise me.
I already know about water vapour. Without the warming contribution from that, the Earth would be at least 30 °C colder than it is and life as we know it would have a really hard time.
But atmospheric [H2O] is not changing in the way CO2 and methane are. You dismiss the contribution of CO2 as trivial, but you have made no attempt to demonstrate that it is so. Your words are an empty claim, with nothing to back them up.
November 28th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
DrFlimmer,
I saw 2012 in English, and I heard it, too. “Impact pressure: 80 Pascals,” when the tsunami hit. I was just checking the internet to see if I had misheard.
December 7th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
All of this is out of proportion. this movie was absord and silly. I could prove this movie with religion and science. This is very stupid.
December 14th, 2009 at 3:59 am
Hi,
surely you should watch it..
Because it engrossed a whopping 63 mn USD at the US box office on the weekend only..