[extropy-chat] Alleged Climate Collapse

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 02:14:03PM -0800, Spike wrote:

> Olga, I read over these predictions and considered them
> too silly to respond.  The weather on this big old planet
> simply does not change quickly, nothing does.  I find the

Weather changes in minutes. Climate takes longer, but the machine is very
nonlinear. If you look at the fossil record (isotopic abundancies signatures)
you'll the changes can be very rapid indeed. 

> evidence lacking.  Even if it did somehow change quickly,
> we can transport food quickly to anywhere on the planet.

We could. We don't, because it's too expensive -- the distribution
infrastructure is not there.

> We have *plenty* of arable land around the globe that is
> not being used.  Humanity *can* deal with a shutdown of
> the North Atlantic conveyor.

No doubt.
 
> And even so, I fail to see why that would be the Pentagon's 
> nightmare.  The navy's ships can handle a bit of bad weather, 
> and the planes can be moved out of the path of hurricanes.  

Almost all wars have economic reasons driving them. If usually stable regions
erupt in warfare, Pentagon should have cold feet indeed.
 
> The only realistic scenario offered is an invasion from
> Mexico and South America, but this has been going on since

How does loss of all fossil fuel import sound like? Certainly worth a war or
two, last time I looked.

> forever.  It isn't such a destabilizing thing, in fact it
> has its tangeable benefits.

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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