Comment

Comment by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on August 22, 2018 at 10:46pm

Here's an explanation of ice age timing, Donald. While smoke from wildfires can cause local cooling, just like aerosols from coal plants and pollution, that effect isn't large enough in extent or time to initiate an ice age. There was one period that your observation does bring to mind. 360 Million years ago oxygen levels got quite high, and global wildfires ended it, leaving a distinct charcoal layer in sediments.

Comment by Donald L. Engel on August 22, 2018 at 9:38pm

Or, maybe something else is developing.  According to FOX news, there have been 69 massive earthquakes around the Pacific Rim in the last 48 hours.  There was one off the coast of Oregon this morning.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/big-one-talk-swirls-as...

Comment by Donald L. Engel on August 22, 2018 at 9:34pm

Joan Denoo, I just read your "retraction" statement of July 4.  I never said that the climate is not warming up.  I said that it is, in fact, warming up.  But !! it is not man's fault.  The graph below shows that we are in a warming period.  It shows that we still have not gotten as warm as the previous four warming periods. If man wasn't around for the previous four periods, why is it our fault on this one?  During the last week, or two I've started thinking what might be causing the ice ages.  As we've been discussing, the climate is warming up.  Along with that warming, we have seen an increase in forest fires.  The smoke from the fires this year is extremely bad in Oregon and Washington.  On the weather report last night they said that Portland would have been 10 degrees warmer if the smoke hadn't been so thick. Do you realize how bad the forest fires would have been if man hadn't been fighting them all summer?  And Sweden and Portugal are having unheard of forest fires.  If man wasn't around to fight the fires, do you think the smoke around the world would be bad enough to cool the atmosphere enough to start the next ice age?

Comment by Dr. Terence Meaden on August 22, 2018 at 4:09pm

Bravo, Ruth.

Well found.

Comment by Bertold Brautigan on August 22, 2018 at 3:59pm

Nice one Ruth.

Comment by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on August 22, 2018 at 1:41pm

from cheezburger

Comment by Joan Denoo on July 15, 2018 at 7:43pm

@Joseph P, I forgot to tell you how much I like your comment and video of your two-years-old' solving the dilemma of the "runaway-train moral quandary." Thinking outside the box gives evidence he will be a great problem solver. 

Comment by Joan Denoo on July 4, 2018 at 2:09pm

@Donald L. Engel, I retract my retraction of two years ago; Climate Change is a fact, and if we deny it, we will suffer along with those who do not understand the data. If the climate crashes, we all will suffer, anyway. However, if we accept the facts, take as many corrective actions as we can, work for the best, and prepare for the worst we might be able to pull off restoration of a living environment for all. 

There are the possibility, the probability, and the preferability of what we achieve. We live with what Mother Nature provides. 

Comment by Joan Denoo on July 4, 2018 at 1:59pm

Ruth, this past year has been a tough one for me, too. I used strategies that I know are valid. Again, I turn to the ideas of Martin Seligman. I needed more. Just a couple of hours of counseling helped, and so did an hour-long massage.

You have been dealing with some incredibly powerful and significant issues: climate change, fascism, racism, civil rights, morality, writing letters to Congress, energy, religion, unchecked plunder, AI, fake news, and even dogmatic toothbrushes. 

One person cannot solve all these; it takes a group of people. You provide the background information needed by people who join together on common ground. You probably do not know how powerful you are. 

I use your material when I go into a debate. Living with Conservative reactionaries, in a reactionary Conservative town, I have to use valid, reliable, and replicable data. Their responses often are to put me down, ridicule, ignore,  discount, trivialize, and demonize me. 

We need support people who can help us when the sticks and stones get too sharp.

There is power in fact-based information. Thank you, Ruth, for providing those resources. 

Comment by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on July 1, 2018 at 2:39pm

Kill them all is a novel moral solution, all right, Joseph.

Joan, I've had more negative coping behaviors the past 3 months. <sigh>

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