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Monday, April 29, 2013

I Know You're Thinking. I Can Smell the Smoke

"Earth's Core 1,800 Degrees Hotter Than Thought"--headline, NBCNews.com, April 25

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9 comments:

  1. TCApril 30, 2013 at 10:58 AM

    How hot is thought?
    I suppose the question is whether pondering a difficult problem burns more calories than dreaming or watching a mindless TV program.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Joseph MApril 30, 2013 at 12:36 PM

    Still waiting for the headline: New Study Shows Reality Exactly How Scientists Thought it Was In Every Way. Seems every time scientists get a closer look at something, it turns out to be not what they expected. I remember all the breathless amazement at how the moons of Jupiter and Saturn were way different than astronomers thought, once we got data back from probes getting a good close look. Not once did I hear or read a scientist say: wow, maybe we were speculating way out past what we could really know - lesson learned, we'll never do that again!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. FoxfierMay 5, 2013 at 2:16 AM

      Well... saying "This one guy was right!" isn't much of a headline, unless he was previously martyred or something by Acceptable Targets, but "Science was wrong this ONE time, it's amazing how much we're learning!" is a pretty good story. (As in, easy to write, established storyline and such.)

      Delete
  3. Joseph MApril 30, 2013 at 2:53 PM

    Obvious link to CO2: since we *know* CO2 is a greenhouse gas, therefore can conclude on that fact alone that global warming is 1) occurring, and 2) is caused by CO2, we can similarly conclude that the earth as a whole is warming as well, right? The only way the heat from the original compression, tidal forces and radioactive decay can dissipate is through the crust AND through the atmosphere. But it's harder to dissipate heat through greenhouse gasses than not - that's the definition of a greenhouse gas. Therefore, CO2 is causing the earth, not just the atmosphere, to heat up.

    The only possible solution: a gigantic globe-spanning enforcement agency with totalitarian police powers to punish carbon producers by redistributing their wealth to countries where people shouldn't have babies. Something like that - the exact bureaucratic mechanism is, ironically, unclear - in exactly the same way as the exact thermodynamic mechanisms of global core warming are unclear. But we shouldn't get bogged down in the details - that's for little people!

    Something must be done. This is something, etc.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousMay 1, 2013 at 10:12 AM

      This is how global warming causes tsunamis! You didn't think the warmists were lying did you?

      Delete
    2. Joseph MMay 1, 2013 at 12:57 PM

      That is a very good point: as the core gets hotter, the laws of thermodynamics say that the mantle must needs also get warmer, the crust must get warmer as well - which means thinner, right, as the bottom layers melt. Thinner crusts, as any pizza fan outside Chicago will tell you... wait, scratch that, thinner crusts are more easily distorted, which, it stands to reason, would result in more and larger earthquakes, which cause tsunamis and, well, there you go.

      Forget cutting CO2 - we need to remove the atmosphere entirely and maybe create some artificial volcanoes to help improve the heat exchange and cool the core, before it's too late! Are we going to just sit here while the crust melts and tsunamis start hitting Kansas?

      Delete
  4. Michel AccadApril 30, 2013 at 10:33 PM

    That makes perfect sense: the modern mind is rational and cool. That also explains the medieval warming period...

    ReplyDelete
  5. thefederalistMay 1, 2013 at 4:52 PM

    There is nothing that global warming can't do!

    ReplyDelete
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