cosmos091803
The problem with a limited frame of reference
gyroscopic pollution
Now let's see here. I remember bringing up global warming back in 1968 when I was a spec five at the Army Materiel Command Information Office. I used to keep the, what we had in those days before email and even before arpic.net, teletype. About every hour or so, I'd go on to this little room where the teletype machine, a chemical toner photocopier, and a fairly complete library of army regulations were kept by yours truly. When the copy coming out the back got about two yards long, I severed it from it's roll, spinning slowly but surely from the bowels of the clacking beast.
the sheets were in triplicate, the original and two impact carbons. The original went to the
colonel, the second to my officer, a civilian gs6 (government servant, grade 6). I think it was 6 mind you. I forgot by now and I guess I never really took that stuff too seriously. The Nazis made that mistake, thinking that competent organization would win the war. Man is far too
feeble a creature to fulfill organization. Think about it. Otherwise we'd all be Spartans by now. Now, the ants, well, that's a different story. Yes there are those far stronger than creatures with minds. Maybe it was 12 or something and not a 6.
Anyway, I remember seeing a brief paragraph -- no, a mere line -- about the subject but not in those terminologies as we think of it today. The sentence muttered something like the
global temperature of the Earth had risen one degree centigrade.
Well, I mean, one sentence. But after all, you have to perk up. A hint is all you get. Tell that to the scientists of the last five centuries and maybe they'd crawl out of the steam age: using nuclear
reactors as heaters. Get over it, fellas.
I began discussing that with others around me. And they listened. In those days they always listened, afraid someone in their midst might be a communist. I mentioned that the rise in temperature of one degree indicated a pattern that would cause eventual heating of the biosphere, causing the ice caps to melt and other things.
Of coarse, years later, I have had a chance to ponder this phenomenon and also to observe the
behavior of mankind in my travels. What I see is instinct at play. This species is a digger. It's instinct is to recarbonize the surface (or so it seems, I know better than to make a blunt statement) and restore the planet to a carboniferous era. After that, the engines will
exhaust water instead of carbon di and mon oxides. And that species, mankind (don't blame me for that
label, I didn't name them after the male gender. I'll make up a name if you like, how about Yuckaballakia? There. We'll see if it sticks.), is the cousin of another "recarbonator":
volcanoes. There you go. Hands or hot-spots, it's all the same.
(Click here to return to the Premonition of the Checkmate at Dawn.)
Click here to return to Planning Successful Cities
This, it seems is opposed by another order of mankind that want a perpetual ice age. More about that at a later date. Besides, probably no one will read this so who cares anyway. But it gets better. Reptiles don't have size limits. If there's enough food they keep growing. Same with trees. So your fuel cell car comes equipped with a rail gun. Oh boy. It reminds me of a joke I made up once about walking in a park and stepping in a puddle of giraffe vomit. Somebody explained, "Well of course, old boy. After all it is "Giraffesick Park". Yuck! Yuck!
But forget global warming if you can for the moment. We have bigger fish to fry. How about something
very credible yet to hear it it sounds absolutely nutty: It's something that's been around long before the advent of internal combustion, in fact, it's probably been around well since the dawn of time. The humble wheel. Innocuous enough
whilst it sits there on it's pedestal, admired and envied by every inventor since
Pythagoras. But put it on an axel and give it a spin and what have you got? Something that keeps rockets on course and space telescopes from the wobbles. You guessed it: a gyroscope.
So now are you so sure your global warming comes from the greenhouse effect? For all we know as of yet, the
existence of more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may be causing other phenominai rather than the global greenhouse. A greenhouse encased and glazed-in, it's not. But rather a dynamic weather machine combined with the
current flows of a surface that's two-thirds deep ocean. I observe that the possibility
exists that what that sort of pollution has gotten us is more rather a man-made butterfly effect. You know, if a butterfly flutters one way instead of another, the concept suggests that it causes a cascade ripple resulting in, at a significant remove of time and distance, a
hurricane in one instance or perhaps a complete doldrums in another. The machine age is our butterfly's flutter and now we must
observe what we have got.
Well, remember, steam-agers, what I tried to point out earlier in this blog, that all you get is a hint? How about the Catalina Eddie off the coast of Southern California? The locals call it the "June Gloom". Only now it's lasting one to two, practically, months longer. Why? Look at where it comes from and you'll find out. Try the Gulf of Alaska. Our butterfly's a real wiggler! Yes, sir. So you may end up with the Ice Caps melting, but no global warming. Thicker
atmospheres tend to get great red spots. Monster hurricanes to vent off the heat and all
other sorts of catastrophic stuff.
But, all that aside for the moment and just ponder this: What if man is actually capable of
decelerating the rotational velocity, even fractionally, almost virtually immeasurably,
of the planet Earth? That just might do it. Our little one degree
centegrade in '68. All by something we humans have been perfecting since perpetuity instead of trying to come up with something cleaver like an alternative. Something people can never do without. Their wheels. I can see it now. Ban the wheel. Never happen? Something, then, for the neo-t-rexes to chew on in Giraffesick Park.
Click on any of the following to go there:
The Cosmos Paul2u weblog table of contents
The Cosmos article table of contents