Jupiter's Great Red Spot Is Shrinking 270
cjstaples noted a CNN story proclaiming that
Jupiter's signature red spot is shrinking. Over a 10 year study, the giant storm lost just over half a kilometer per day for a total loss of about 15%. Scientists know about shrinkage, right?
Weather's clearing up (Score:4, Insightful)
Somewhere on Jupiter...
"Welp, reckon that storm front's finally breakin' up, Edgar."
"Ayup. Haven't seen a storm like that since the hundred-fifty-year* one back up near the poles."
"Yup, yup, that one had the cattle all rustled up somethin' fierce."
"Reckon y'don't see storms like that any more."
For some reason, this entire story strikes me as just realizing that Jupiter has weather systems. They just might be longer than Earth ones.
*: Jupiter years.
Re:Global warming at fault?! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a fricking storm. It's subject to entropy like everything else. Eventually, it will go away.
It's the scale that's messing with your head. That storm is about the same diameter as the entire Earth. It only seems permanent because it's so big that change happens slowly.
Re:Global warming at fault?! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's fair to point out to everyone that even on an untouched planet, major changes can happen. It's the nature of planets.
I'm not saying humans aren't causing changes on earth, because, well, they ARE. But this just goes to show that even if we don't do anything to influence change, it still happens.
Change isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just something that happens. Sometimes it happens and it's bad for our type of life and that sucks.
Every now and again, I get this feeling that the masses don't understand that planets evolve, even on their own. If humans never came to be, the earth would still be changing on it's own.
Re:Let's celebrate! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it is reasonable to look to other planets for comparison when events happen on a planetary scale.
However, looking at a gas giant is a bit of a stretch. There are basically no points of congruence between a supermassive ball of gaseous, liquid, and metallic hydrogen, and a tiny ball of rock with a thin scrim of water on the top.
Re:Global warming at fault?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. And, so?
If humans are accelerating the change in equilibrium conditions on Earth, that is against our own interests, as we are adapted to current conditions. We should, in that case, be interested in how to stop doing that.
On the other hand, if the equilibrum conditions on Earth are changing naturally, then allowing that to happen unchecked is against our interests, as we are adapted to current conditions. We should, in that case, be interested in how to slow those naturally-occuring changes.
Re:Global climate change!!! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:4, Insightful)
You're forgetting that politicians like Al Gore have a financial interest in making you feel guilty enough to pay his company carbon credits. You know, the company he started right before he released his film. The company he used to pay himself through carbon credits when he got called out for having an enormous house.
Making people feel guilty tricks them into sacrificing things to the government such as money, rights, and common sense. With the media playing along with Al Gore and shunning any detractors, the system is able to keep the public stupid and gullible while they pay more money and give the government more power.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:5, Insightful)
'Natural' doesn't equate to "OK". If mean sea levels are rising, and continue to rise to the point that a significant fraction of the human population is put at risk and a significant fraction of international economy is put at risk, it's still a problem. Whether the FSM causes it or human-derived CO2 is the main driver, it's still a problem.
Your assertion that "overall level of societal wealth, comfort and knowledge tends to move upwards over time" is true, so far, for very short values of 'time'. It's good to look ahead and see if there are issues that might cause you to rethink your assumptions and subsequently your behavior. In the end, the ecosystem of Earth will deal with anything either mankind or the universe throws at it. Your progeny just might feel more generous towards us if we took a longer view of things.
QOTD: "If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error." -- John Kenneth Galbraith
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe one day the global warming alarmists and hoaxsters will realize that change is a *natural* thing in this universe whether caused by inanimate or animate forces
How about this, lets all declare global warming a myth and then go and convert to clean energy anyway, because maybe, just maybe, we could stop polluting our streams, rivers and lakes.
Even if global warming is a complete and total fabrication, polluting our land and water IS NOT.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe one day the global warming alarmists and hoaxsters will realize that change is a *natural* thing in this universe whether caused by inanimate or animate forces.
Disease is natural.
Starvation is natural.
Death is natural.
Nature sucks.
We've got the big brains, so we can make it suck less.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:1, Insightful)
I think we need to call in Al Gore. Maybe one day the global warming alarmists and hoaxsters will realize that change is a *natural* thing in this universe whether caused by inanimate or animate forces. Storms come and go. Icecaps expand and shrink. Glaciers advance and recede. Species thrive and decline. Get over it. Indeed, the one difference between animate and inanimate forces is that inanimate generated change is usually random in its effect while the net effect caused by animate generated change tends to be for the overall net better effect of humanity (not every aspect is positive, not every individual benefits equally and not every day is progress but the overall level of societal wealth, comfort, and knowledge tends to move upwards over time).
Maybe global warming deniers should get over it. Sometimes species have a huge impact on the environment. And sometimes that impact isn't very good for the species that makes the impact. One simple example: cyanobacteria. Way back before Earth had much free oxygen in the atmosphere, the anaerobes thrived. They thrived so well that they filled the atmosphere with tons of oxygen (their waste product). Which allowed aerobic bacteria to thrive and outcompete the cyanobacteria.
Humans are doing a great job of altering the environment. Those alterations will likely be beneficial to some species, but there is no gurantee that humans will be one of the species benefiting from the alterations.
Re:In Jupiter's Defense (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a problem for the dolphins. In fact, a great majority of the species on this planet would not notice, not care, or would benefit from us humans greatly shrinking our numbers.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also worth remembering that some of the most populated parts of the Earth are also very close to sealevel. It wouldn't take much of a rise to displace very, very large numbers of people --- like, billions, and they're not just going to sit there and drown.
If this ever happens, you're going to have an extremely large number of intelligent, highly motivated people looking, in order, for (a) somewhere to live and (b) someone to blame.
The simple technical problems involved with climate change will be nothing compared to the political problems.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a difference between climate change alarmism and acceptance of anthropomorphic climate change. Due to the shoddy nature of science reporting, and the credulous attidude of many, the two have been confused.
Anthropomorphic climate change is the idea that humans, and more specifically, human industrial output, is having a measurable and significant effect on the climate of the earth. This argument is not so far away from the argument that industry has an effect on the environment, which is obviously true. The difference here is that anthropomorphic climate change states that the effects of human industry are now on a global scale. It's important to note at this point that climate scientists have the evidence to prove these claims.
Proponents of the idea of anthropomorphic climate change usually advocate measures to halt or reduce the effect of humans on the environment. There are adverse effects to climate change, as well as some beneficial ones, but ultimately they argue that we as a society should practice good husbandry and not risk causing adverse effects for ourselves or for others. A swift change in global or regional climates is ultimately in no ones best interests, and of least interest of all to our environment.
Climate change alarmism is different. Global warming alarmists typically take the most spectacular, alarming, devastating and ultimately least likely potential outcomes of climate change and loudly proclaim their inevitability. Usually, they advocate personal efforts by individuals. (but not by industry, ho hum) [orionmagazine.org]. It's easy to dismiss many of their claims.
But dismissing alarmism is often extrapolated out to dismissing anthropomorphic climate change as a whole. You really shouldn't do this. The effects of climate change may not be worthy of a hollywood spectacle, but they will be real and probably permanent. If a few million of hectares of scrubland are turned to desert, or forests turn to grassland, or if your summers are too wet or too hot, of if a few species become extinct, or if your children will never be able to build a snowman, then it is true that you will not have lost a lot objectively. But you will have lost something. And needlessly.
You mentioned in your post that "Species thrive and decline." This is true, but species can and have been declined or destroyed not by natural causes but by the effect of human industry. Consider whales. Fished to the point of, and in effect probably to, extinction not by any natural cause, but by the will of human societies and industry. I think it's safe to say that no one wanted this to happen, but it did anyway and we cannot ever undo this. The greater tragedy is that is need never have happened.
It's the same with climate change. A few degrees may not sound like a lot to most people, but it is a big change. The earth will pull through, but it will be a slightly different place. But Things and places will be lost to us forever. And they will be lost not because we as a society did nothing, but because we refused to stop doing things which we could easily have done without. That doesn't sound like a lot of progress to me.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:1, Insightful)
'Natural' doesn't equate to "OK". If mean sea levels are rising, and continue to rise to the point that a significant fraction of the human population is put at risk and a significant fraction of international economy is put at risk, it's still a problem.
From a purely evolutionary perspective, it really does equate to "OK." The universe changes. Organisms die. Others survive. Get over it. It's only bad if you really think humans are a special part of the universe, rather than what they really are: just one little tiny product of an infinitely random spectacle.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:4, Insightful)
It's also worth remembering that some of the most populated parts of the Earth are also very close to sealevel.
But the reason for this is, populations tend to settle where there is water, usually for transportation.
So if the water level changes, they don't just sit there and starve or whatever.
they move to where the water is
This really isn't a big deal. It's worked this way for a long long time. They are there now because the water is there, not the other way around. People follow the water, water does not follow the people.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem in your logic is that people won't be looking for somewhere else to live. The people will be whining to the government to create a way for them to live beneath sea level at the expense of all the people who don't live near the ocean.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:5, Insightful)
> From a purely evolutionary perspective, it really does equate to "OK."
Evolution is a mindless process, it has no perspective. Nor does it have a purpose, needs, wants, hopes and dreams. Most importantly, it doesn't have a goal. Saying 'from a evolutionary perspective' is about as insightful as saying 'from gravity's perspective' or 'from a cake's perspective'.
> Organisms die. Others survive. Get over it.
I wont stop you from laying down and starving to death, but personally, I'd rather live. Sure, organisms die, but I don't want to be one of those particular organisms for at least another few decades. Why should we accept death by drowning when we can do something to change it?
> It's only bad if you really think humans are a special part of the universe, rather than what they really are: just one little tiny product of an infinitely random spectacle.
Humans may not be special, but neither is the rest of the universe, so why SHOULDN'T we try to change the universe? We may be 'tiny products of an infinitely random spectacle' (is the universe infinitely random? I hope not!) but few things on our planet can resist us, so hell yes, lets use our power to change this rock to a better place for us. Fuck the natural changes in the climate, they are, after all, 'just one little tiny product of an infinitely random spectacle'.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:2, Insightful)
Otherwise you could justify any action by saying that human generated change on average is positive (and probably destroy the premise in the process).
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:3, Insightful)
> So if the water level changes, they don't just sit there and starve or whatever.
Nope. They turn their city into a tourist attraction like Venice or a charity case like New Orleans. Seriously, when you see ships going by ABOVE the horizon level shouldn't that be a hint that you might not be in the safest place? Change happens, when your city decides to sink into the swamp perhaps you should move instead of asking the rest of your fellow citizens to spend Sagan's trying to build ever higher levees.
Yes, I'm going to hell for that. But I live in Louisiana so if I can't make jokes about our den of corruption and sin who can?
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:3, Insightful)
And to the GP, THANK YOU!!! It always seems to me that such an important point is always missed whenever climate change gets discussed. It doesn't matter whether we're causing the change, or we're simply significantly speeding up a natural periodic cycle, or are having little to no impact, because we're still just as fucked if we don't learn how to adapt before it's too late. Good to see that there are others out there who realize this.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:4, Insightful)
1. While you are correct that cutting down on polluting the environment we live in is a good thing, accepting the AGW theory has immediate consequences in what we do. There is no free lunch. If we go all out to reduce CO2 emmissions that means we have fewer resources to expend reducing other things. And if we go cap and trade we put huge parts of teh economy under government control and the history of government is that short of a revolution it rarely releases power once acquired. So stopping cap and trade is, right now, the most important issue.
One flaw in your logic. The government already owns and runs the economy, it always has. It is usually lax about control, but make no mistake, corporations have always been grants from the people via the government. Corporations have no rights.
2. A through debunking of AGW would discredit the radical (mostly Marxist 'watermelons') enviromentalist 'green' movement, this could open up a once in a lifetime opportunity for sensible heads to prevail on steps that would actually help the environment instead of helping promote government control. Personally I'd favor an emergency program of building nuke plants to get the entire electrical grid off of fossil fuels. The only politically viable path to something like that is to reduce the current enviro lobby to impotence.
They never will, becuase the corporations only want profit at any cost to their surroundings. Most companies have to be forced to do things properly.
3. AGW has had a very corrosive effect on science. Rooting that out is a worthwhile goal.
Science can sort it's own problems out. That's why scientists have set methods to work through.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:3, Insightful)
WTF? It's bad if you are a human. Good/bad are words that have context: human context.
We need to distinguish here between "bad for me" (which seas rising and humans being wiped out in droves probably is for a human) and "bad for life on this planet". Nature doesn't really care about you, me, the precious endangered tree frogs in the Amazon. Nature just is. All that shit about saving endangered species is just a pathological overextension of the empathy/altruism that we've evolved to allow us to live successfully in large groups.
Re:meme tag stole my post (Score:2, Insightful)