From: Colin Hales (colin@versalog.com.au)
Date: Fri Apr 12 2002 - 20:12:26 MDT
spike66...........
> Eugen Leitl wrote:
> >Um, please don't compare apples with wombats here...
> Hey, yea, wombats! Is a wombat big enough to carry a camera
> into a battle zone? Great idea Gene! Isn't that one of
> those Australia
> things? Has anyone ever actually *seen* a wombat? Are there any
> wombat preservation societies? spike
>
My personal problem with CO2, methane is less about absolute levels than the
_rate of change_ of levels. The trees can't grow/evolve fast enough to
outrun the changing tree line. Coastal areas, sea life and land animals
would have to have the same problem in a different form. Australian humans,
85% of whom live in a thin coastal strip of a very low lying continent, have
a grim outlook in the face of rising sea level impacting within 1 lifetime.
The effect is, I think, unprecedented, except in previous extinction
events - meteor collisions and volcanic activity.
No matter how I look at it, it doesn't look like a non-problem and I'm
personally not willing to let the notional 'singularity' (which I think
we're probably in already) take care of it. It's a boyscout thing. "Leave
the campsite as good or in better shape than you found it". Currently I
can't say I'm doing that. When I think of what I bequeath my 3 kids
(potential immortality notwithstanding), it bites.
Back on the CO2 highschool fantasy thing...
Millions of years ago there were Wombats here as big as a small Buffalo.
Nowadays they're cute little guys that really love apples, will happily bite
your fingers off to get at said apple and make huge dints in your car when
doing 100k's. :) The mega-Wombats wandered our section of what was a chunk
of Gondwana and was, I think, largely under the sea. In Aus. huge areas of
desert land sit on top of nothing else but limestone that was once sea
floor. I thought this may suit the Los Alamos Scrubber-Forrest manufacture
and operation when suitably connected to a nearby gigantic natural gas
supply and massive mining expertise already in situ. It just needs someone
to put all the pieces together, assuming it is not a non-problem, of course.
Having spent the last 20 years doing real time control systems in mining,
material handling, machines, robots, car manufacture, water treatment,
sewage treatment, conveyor systems, pharmaceuticals, food manufacturing,
confectionary, packing, warehousing, blah blah blah, some involving huge
telemetry networks over vast areas, WAN and satellite links and whatever,
the rest of my proposal seems eminently doable- far from any schoolboy
dream/armchair musing - .ie. been there, done it already for real.
My little bit of 'highschool' conjecture went to a good place
discussion-wise - hopefully to negate Harvey's feelings about the list
recently (a little). I can't speak for anyone else, but this list is very
unusual in that the personality type and interests of the group, brought
together by a 'philosophical' net, means that the list goes into a huge
range of areas to a useful level of competency and has a sharing, acceptance
& tolerance level of thinking that is admirable, in spite of the various
emotional blurts that naturally occur from time to time (guilty, your
honour). Where are you Mr Hack! Come back, all is forgiven. Anders?
I subscribe to what would be delicately described as a 'shitload' of special
interest and very technically specific lists, but this one is the only one
that has that wide range that suits generally. It's kind of like
grand-central station for all tech-head journeys with vitual signposts
popping up and disappearing, journeys branching unexpectedly. I can donate
expertise to the group in matters of my training and professional backgound,
and learn heaps from others with different backgrounds. I now know more
about the CO2 sequestration process than I did - for example. It seems a
worthwhile thing, on balance.
Colin Hales
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