66
POPSHow to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic (FAQ) More common questions and myths answered at the source, thoroughly cross-referenced and conveniently categorized and sub-categorized by type of argument: Stages of Denial Scientific Topics Types of Argument Levels of Sophistication A nice reference that's updated with fresh comments. Many "skeptics" often are unaware (by choice or by circumstance) that their common questions have already been addressed by scientists long ago.
44
POPSDalai Lama’s 18 rules for living # Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before. # Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other. # Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
26
POPSNew clues on "The Great Dying" The lessons of the Permian-Triassic massacre are "directly applicable to the present," said John Isbell, a geoscientist at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. He said the world today is in danger of exceeding a CO2 "threshold" that could set off an environmental upheaval as great as the one 251 million years ago.
23
POPSNASA Plans to Visit the Sun The two mysteries prompting this mission are the high temperature of the sun's corona and the puzzling acceleration of the solar wind: Mystery #1—the corona: If you stuck a thermometer in the surface of the sun, it would read about 6000o C. Intuition says the temperature should drop as you back away; instead, it rises. The sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, registers more than a million degrees Celsius, hundreds of times hotter than the star below. This high temperature remains a mystery more than 60 years after it was first measured. Mystery #2—the solar wind: The sun spews a hot, million mph wind of charged particles throughout the solar system. Planets, comets, asteroids—they all feel it. Curiously, there is no organized wind close to the sun's surface, yet out among the planets there blows a veritable gale. Somewhere in between, some unknown agent gives the solar wind its great velocity. The question is, what?
21
POPSPeople With Joint Pain Can Really Forecast Thunderstorms Weather-related joint pain is typically seen in patients with osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and other arthritic conditions. It can affect any load-bearing joint, but is most common in hips, knees, elbows, shoulders and hands. The joints contain sensory nerves called baro-receptors which respond to changes in atmospheric pressure. These receptors especially react when there is low barometric pressure, meaning the atmosphere has gone from dry to moist, like when it is going to rain.
20
POPSThe Unexplained mystery of The Taos Hum... "Some possible explanations Man-made noises As sound moves through the atmosphere or ground, the high frequencies decrease in amplitude more rapidly than the low frequency ones, which subsequently travel greater distances. The low-frequency sounds can be focused by walls and structural geometry, and sound like ambiguous rumblings or hums. Industrial machinery such as compressors, pumps and fans can also produce similar types of sounds. Although this is one of the explanations that first come to mind, ordinary microphones have failed to detect the Hum and investigations have failed to convincingly trace the Hum to such sources. Studies in the UK have addressed this issue". infrasound made by geological events Infrasound from different possible sources, possibly geologic or plate tectonic in nature.
20
POPSPolice Atrocities Define The Bush Police State
"If you've ever publicly opposed Bush's war of naked aggression in Iraq, you can bet you're in NSA's database, called TALON. War protesters, naturally, were the first to wind up in Big Bro's TALON, or database. This practice most certainly goes far beyond Nixon's 'enemies list'. Bush's database, methods, scope and ruthlessness plops us in Orwellian territory." Well, it's too late now. I'm probably already screwed and plopped and TALON'ed and monitored... END THE OCCUPATIONS! ------------------------- talon: \ˈta-lən\ Middle English taloun heel, hind claw of a bird of prey , from Anglo-French talun, from Vulgar Latin *talon-, *talo, from Latin talus ankle, anklebone 1 a: the claw of an animal and especially of a bird of prey b: a finger or hand of a human being 2: a part or object shaped like or suggestive of a heel or claw: b: the shoulder of the bolt of a lock on which the key acts to shoot the bolt 3 a: cards laid aside in a pile in solitaire
20
POPSIs a zero-carbon city on the horizon? As part of their Masdar Initiative (masdar meaning "the source" in Arabic), an effort to further the research and implementation of sustainable construction, the Abu Dhabi government will build this city on a nearby 2.3 square-mile site (six square kilometers), adjacent to its international airport at an estimated cost of $22 billion. It projected the city will eventually be able to sustain 50,000 residents and more than 1,000 businesses. It broke ground in construction of the city and hopes to complete the project by 2016.
20
POPSDo we want a truly liberal society? A liberal society embraces pluralism, in the sense that it does not seek to impose any one vision of what it means to be virtuous or to lead a good life. Within such a society, approval is commonly expressed for John Stuart Mill’s view that “experiments in living” should not be merely tolerated, but actually welcomed and celebrated (Mill 1974: 120). As Max Charlesworth writes, “In a liberal society personal autonomy, the right to choose one’s own way of life for oneself, is the supreme value.” He adds that this includes what he calls ethical pluralism: members of the society are free to hold a wide range of moral, religious, and non-religious positions, with no core values or public morality that it is the law’s business to enforce (Charlesworth 1993: 1). Accordingly, a liberal society makes a sharp distinction between the sphere of personal moral views and that of the law; no one can use the law to impose their beliefs on others (16-20).
19
POPSPrivate Space Project Rolls On White Knight Two will launch SpaceShipTwo, which will be the size of a corporate Gulfstream capable of carrying six passengers and two pilots. Both will be built wholly from ultra-light composite materials.
18
POPSGlobal Warming Scientist Comes Clean
1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it. Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most... We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever. If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. 2. There is no evidence that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. ... 3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year 4. ice cores show that in the past... half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon.