Posts by Colin 26 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Mar 2008
Not unfit, just unable. In particular, ovulation requires a complex sequence of hormones to be produced in the right amounts at the right times. Lots of things can interfere with this, including (presumably) an extraordinary amount of excess body fat and all the futher problems this causes.
I was referring to the government - who have switched to using the "US" system in official documentation. Clearly it won't work to use the two interchangeably (although this would make the basis of a good "yes minister" episode.....)
I don't think this is written in law anywhere but the old "UK" method is clearly falling out of favour.
Looking at any UK science publications - science magazine articles, Royal Society articles online, etc - "billion" is explained as 10^9. Most countries have now adopted this convention (including the UK government) - clearly an international standard is necessary or some major problems could occur in international collaborative projects eh ....
Courtesy of the late great Douglas Adams - " due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog" .... heh heh
The Moties in "The Mote in God's Eye" are unable to stop themselves from breeding for some reason, can't remember why. This was kept as a big secret as they knew this would scare humans off. Their history is a series of cycles in which the population grows exponentially, splits into factions which constantly fight over resources, and eventually degenerates into a global conflict that destroys their entire society. They created great big "museums" to try and help the survivors get a head start on technology when they pick themselves up after the war.
<sigh> Yet another predictable "Personally, I welcome our new [insert adjectives here] overlords" comment. This was funny for a while, but stopped being funny long ago. Can't we just presume the existence of these tedious comments rather than having to read them again and again ? Is anyone else bored with this ?
I fail to see how renewable energy R&D will cause poverty in China or India .... or are you saying that I have suggested we make people stop producing energy right now and sit in the dark while we work on alternative energy sources ? I had no idea there was so much room between my lines. I have not suggested, or even implied, anything of the sort. I have merely indicated that we need to find better solutions than using fossil fuels - at no point did I say that we have to just stop burning them right now. Currently we have no choice.
And yes, of course I include the countries you mentioned in "we" - i quite clearly referred to "the human race". Also, maybe you are confused about the meaning of the workd "global" ?
I still don't see your point. You seem to be implying that if we decide that we need less CO2 in the atmosphere, but that we didnt put it there, then we won't try to reduce it ? It's already looking more and more like simply reducing the output won't be enough and we will probably need to reduce the existing CO2 as well.
The 2 points I was making - and I apologise if it wasn't as clear as I'd hoped, is :
1. CO2 has the same effect whether it's from natural or artifiical sources. So if it's from cows or plankton or whatever (although cows is our fault too, obviously) then it's still the same problem. And anyway, burning fossil fuels definitely adds CO2 so it still makes the problem worse.
2. We need to stop burning fossil fuels anyway. Regardless of the CO2 issue - if we run out before we have enough alternative energy capacity, we are stuffed.
Together, these points mean we have to get off the fosssil fuels.
Seriously - what difference does it make ? It IS happening and we need to deal with it. If you saw an out-of-control bus speeding towards you would you just say "its not my fault, I'm not the driver" and stand there ? Of course you bloody wouldn't, you'd get out of the way. Fine, maybe it's just a natural cycle. After all, we are just coming out of an ice age so maybe the sea levels would have risen anyway. But all those coastal cities are going to go under all the same, and do you think those people are really going to be comforted in their watery graves if someone can prove it wasnt our fault ?
Secondly, we NEED to get onto renewable energy. We absolutely WILL run out of coal, oil, gas, and even uranium eventually. Even if someone managed to invent totally free technology that captures 100% of CO2 and methane emissions from all sources using only common household products, and thus removed the whole greenhouse argument, we will STILL run out of fuel, our entire civilisation will grind to a halt, and we will all be completely stuffed.
Don't worry about the planet - won't take long for it to forget we ever existed. But if you care about the future of the human race then you HAVE to care about renewable energy.
Thumbs up because although it will be hard and it may be slow I believe we can and will do it.
I'm so sick of hearing people complain that electricity isn't clean. The point is that it CAN be - we can generate electricity in many different ways, some of which ARE environmentally friendly. So the way forward is to choose to change our electricity generation from those "big feckin smoke stacks" to non-polluting, renewable sources, and then use the electricity to charge up everything else.
Even if we manage to generate all fuel for all internal combustion engines from renewable carbon-neutral sources which don't use up valuable crop land or forest (like all of today's biofuel), we will still be left with the problems from urban smog. Why burn anything at all ?
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