*Jed wrote:* * *
*“Super volcanoes are unlikely.”* *Lake Toba* is the largest lake in Southeast Asia as well as one of the deepest in the world. Its shoreline is thick with pine-covered beaches with copious slopes and steep cliffs. In the middle of the lake is the tourist mecca of *Samosir Island*. The area is famous for its traditional villages, the fascinating *Batak*culture and *Adat* houses as well as the stunning beauty of the surrounds. With all this natural beauty notwithstanding, this place was the site of a highly destructive eruption that took place 74,000 years ago. And now, Toba is labeled a super-volcano that almost ended humankind as a species. What stood between this ultimate disaster and our current situation was a troupe of at most some few hundred willing souls starting an eastward march out of Africa to find some place that was wetter and more fertile with more game than the dry desert that the Toba eruption created through climate change. These first examples of modern people made a decision to brave the unknown and endure the hardship of the long eastward odyssey through the mid-east into India and down through Southeast Asia then over water through the Pacific islands to finally voyage onto the unknown seas into Australia. We owe our present existence to these long forgotten ancestors who have recently been rediscovered by a detailed analysis of our gene pool. They paid a dear price for our lives in this long trip into the unknown full of hardship and fear. Do we have the same courage to forge this long path to continue the survival for our far distant children and the totality of earth’s biosphere that we now love in the face of these unknown super disasters that could wipe us out in an instant by some random and unfeeling fluke of the uninterested universe? Is the survival of our species and all the life that fills our world the real purpose of our worlds religions or if not should it be for without the life of the world his best handwork in this space and time does God really exist? Our path of continued existence is to the other planets and their moons where we shall form the seeds of new enclaves of human survival. And then when we are strong enough and brave enough and smart enough to spread our seed to the stars to guaranty to the our best of our mortal abilities the survival of all the life this earth now holds into the indefinite future. When we look into a baby’s eyes we know this is our solemn duty to this world as its noblest and most capable work of creation. Cheers: Axil On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 8:39 PM, MarkI-ZeroPoint <zeropo...@charter.net>wrote: > Jed wrote:**** > > “Super volcanoes are unlikely.”**** > > ** ** > > For someone who is so keen on reading history, this statement is a > bewilderment to me. Surely you realize that the SCIENTIFIC evidence for > volcanic eruptions far more powerful than M.S.Helens is well established. > If what you are referring to is how likely it is to happen **in our > lifetime**, then I might agree. For all natural disasters, their > size/destructiveness is inversely proportional to their frequency of > occurrence; i.e., the more destructive they are, the less often they > occur. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if one of the larger historical > volcanic eruptions triggered a mini ice age…**** > > ** ** > > The point being made here, so it can’t be missed is, people were NOT > present in any significant numbers, or at all, when ALL PREVIOUS MAJOR > CLIMATIC CHANGES OCCURRED, WHICH MEANS, THE EARTH DOESN’T NEED OUR HELP! > SHE IS PLENTY POWERFUL ENOUGH TO CAUSE MAJOR CHANGES ALL BY HERSELF, AND > SHE WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO LONG AFTER WE’RE GONE.**** > > ** ** > > It is perfectly clear and irrefutable, that there are NATURAL forces which > have been operating over hundreds of thousands of years, and probably ever > since the planet formed, which cause this planet to have regular, periodic > changes to its climate… all with no human help whatsoever… You can be sure > that those forces are still present and working today!! Are we helping to > initiate those climate changes with our CO2/thermal pollution and other > man-made effects? Probably, but contributing how much compared to the > natural processes??**** > > ** ** > > “The largest asteroid imaginable can probably be detected ahead of time > and deflected. It might take a space elevator, trillions of dollars, and > the efforts of 100 million people, but I am certain we could do it, if only > we have enough time, and the will to act.”**** > > ** ** > > I agree that we most certainly should be able to detect them, and NASA has > had programs to catalog all NEO objects larger than 1km. However, > deflection is much more difficult… but at what cost for something that > might not happen in 10000 years? You want to spend $1T on that? Sorry, > that’s absurd… in 200 years we’ll have “deep space asteroid detection > satellites” and space-borne vehicles that could fly out to meet the > asteroid when it is still far away, and nudge it gently, but continuously > so that its trajectory is altered enough so that by the time it gets to > earth, it is far enough deflected to not affect the earth in a signif way… > and all for a fraction of the $1T … no, that is what I mean by wasteful > spending. It will make sense sometime in the future though…**** > > ** ** > > Getting back to my point about the magnitude of natural disasters, the > Tunguska event leveled a 2000-kilometer area (a much greater area than St. > Helens did, mind you) and the object is believed to have been only 30-50 * > *meters** in diameter (speed X mass). That’s if you don’t buy the > speculation that it was an unintended mishap from Tesla’s testing one of > his devices! Also, an impact by a 10 km asteroid on the Earth is widely > viewed as an extinction-level event, likely to cause catastrophic damage to > the biosphere. Depending on speed, objects as small as 100m in diameter > are **historically** extremely destructive.**** > > ** ** > > -Mark Iverson**** > > ** ** > > *From:* Jed Rothwell [mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com] > *Sent:* Monday, July 30, 2012 3:41 PM > *To:* vortex-l@eskimo.com > > *Subject:* Re: [Vo]:Koch founded climate skeptic changes sides**** > > ** ** > > David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:**** > > ** ** > > Jed, I think Mark is just pointing out that nature has the power to veto > anything that we do in a moment. If one of the super volcanoes erupt, many > of us will be toast. One large asteroid and ...**** > > ** ** > > Super volcanoes are unlikely. The largest asteroid imaginable can probably > be detected ahead of time and deflected. It might take a space elevator, > trillions of dollars, and the efforts of 100 million people, but I am > certain we could do it, if only we have enough time, and the will to act.* > *** > > ** ** > > A space elevator on that scale would soon pay back far more spectacularly > than the Transcontinental Railroad did.**** > > ** ** > > We have the power to stop nearly every catastrophe than can occur, from > asteroids to another outbreak of bird influenza (like the 1918 pandemic). > We have reduced pollution by a large margin already -- by a factor of 10 or > more in many industries. Factories that used to produce tons of pollution > per day now produce a few kilograms. There is no technical reason to think > we cannot eventually reduce it by a factor of a thousand. Or that we cannot > root out and destroy every invasive species, and fix every eroded stream > and river. The physical power that we will soon command in robots will > exceed the combined muscle power of humans, animals and insects on earth.* > *** > > ** ** > > As Francis Bacon said, knowledge is power:**** > > > "Man as the minister and interpreter of nature, does and understands as > much as his observations on the order of nature, either with regard to > things or the mind, permit him, and neither knows nor is capable of more. . > . .**** > > ** ** > > Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause > frustrates the effect. For nature is only subdued by submission . . ."**** > > ** ** > > What J.F.K. said with regard to the cold war and the nuclear arms race > applies equally well to global warming, pollution, and other problems > caused by our technology: > > "First examine our attitude towards peace itself. Too many of us think it > is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, > defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that > mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need > not accept that view. Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be > solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human > destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved > the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again."**** > > ** ** > > If you doubt that, you have learned nothing from history, and you have no > imagination.**** > > ** ** > > Newton, Darwin, Faraday, Fleischmann and a handful of other scientists > handed us the keys to unimaginable wealth and control over nature. Try to > be worthy of this gift. At least *try* to use it to solve our problems, > instead of passively watching while cities flood and people die for no > reason. Because of simple technical problems that we should have fixed > decades ago.**** > > ** ** > > - Jed**** > > ** ** >
