Thursday 28th of March 2024

the blue planet...

the blue planet

Energy is a weird thing. Matter is made of energy levels as elegantly explained by the reciprocal famous Einstein equation. Energy goes through specific levels of values, some of it becomes bits that make atoms, while other energy levels become the connections and relationships between atoms. As the universe expands, the whole lot is seemingly going towards a relative entropy of nothingness. 


Energy is not homogenous in its distribution, otherwise the universe would be just a spreading fog of unattached bits. Most of this homogenousnessless is due to the vagaries of the BIG BANG which at this stage would be another chapter in this study of energy and "its mirror image". 

Relatively, through local variations and twirls in space, energy quantum "transform" into such bits as what makes the atoms, leading to our observation of matter, of temperature, density, plasma, gravity and other stuff. Energy tends to congregate, such as in gravity — or will repulse/attract such as in electromagnetism. 

And there are forms of energy quantum we don't see nor can't measure so far, but by a weirdo mathematical trick we can closely estimate. We are working on it. 

We have precisely defined energy quantum vectors that carry energy from bits to bits, vectors which we equate to particles — including the photon — the life of some particles being often measured in mere billionth of nanoseconds. Our big machines, the cyclotrons, can measure these smallest and shortest-lived particles ever observed, with amazing precision. We can observe 6 billion year-old photons with our telescopes and we can see up to 4 million year-old photons with the naked eye. Star light.

We have recognised a bit more than one hundred atomic formats, from hydrogen (light) to Meitnerium ("heavy", 109 — some elements like this one do not exist in a natural state and only appear when humans fiddle with matter). These atomic formats — namely elements — have chemically combined to create our large universe of matter, in various shifts of change, in time. These assemblages include our little planet, sill hot in the core after 4.5 billion years — thought to be hot molten iron (around 5,000 degrees Celsius surrounding a hotter centre of iron, solidified by gravity pull. This iron core gives planet Earth a magnetic field which has been a "lucky, but accidental" protector of life. On top of this "ball of fire", the "crust" is very thin, but reasonably stable, though slowly shifting in bits we call plates, sometime creating earthquakes — tremors mostly between grinding plates — and volcanoes like holes in the crust, leaking the hot magma from the upper core below.

Most of the atoms making the universe seem to be of the simplest kind, such as hydrogen, while "heavier" atoms have been formed in the decay of super heavy stars — in which nuclear weak force (bosons) and electromagnetism (photons), gravity (still searching), combined with the "strong force" (gluons) agglomerated protons and neutrons as a nucleus, with an electron clouds around, per singular atom. All these forces have been precisely verified and quantumised, apart from gravity (quantumised only).

Hydrogen is one electron "attached" to one proton. They are some of the names we've given to some of these bits. Helium atoms are made of two electrons "attached" to two protons, themselves bound to two neutrons. There are variations in this nucleus of protons/neutrons for the "same" atom kind — variations that we call isotopes, such as in "heavy" hydrogen (Deuterium) the nucleus of which is made of one proton and one neutron. This nucleus is still "attached" to one electron only.

And there is a huge specific quantum energetic space  — a quantum "void" with a distance of approximately 30,152.5 times the size of the nucleus between the electron and the centre of the proton (itself about many times the "size" (mass) of the electron). While the electron spins around the proton, the "attachment" is a "simple" electromagnetic force with a specific quantum which includes distance and speed of travel (angular momentum) while the electron spins on itself in a quantum defined way (spin). Science has defined the electron as a minus one unit (negative charge) while the proton has been defined as a plus one unit (positive charge). the minus and the plus charges "attract each others" but the momentum prevents the collapse. Under "normal" conditions, there is no decay, nor change to this closed system which could appear as spinning in a perpetual motion. 

In black holes, the collapse of electrons quantum level (and other quantum) can happen, all due to enormous pressure of gravity beyond a certain critical level of energy, itself dependant on the amount of critical mass combined. The "void" collapses and a billion sun can become the size of an apple. Black holes are often wrongly represented by "spinning" gurglers in a sink with a yellow grid line, while they are actually more like small invisible balls that shrink the matter around them, into seemingly super dense nothingness. The black holes are invisible mostly because even photons (light) cannot escape the intense gravity collapse. Such phenomenon are called singularities.

On a more earthly level, electrons can be "stripped off" from the atom, turning the nucleus into a positive ion. Electron can also "gain" energy with heat (photon) or loose "energy" (release photon) becoming cold. These mechanics have been specified with high precision in quantum mechanics. These phenomenon define "frequencies" of energy transfer or wavelength of energy transfer. 

For example the planet is deemed to be the blue planet because the oceans absorb most of the red and green spectrum of the photon "frequency". Plants are green because they absorb the red and blue spectrum of the photon frequency. Bare ground absorbs green and blue spectrum, reflecting heat (red spectrum). Ice (white) reflects all frequencies.

QUANTUM MECHANICS THEORY WORKS. 

We all know about electricity which is the energetic displacement of electrons from atom to atom prompted by our  — or nature — creating a "difference of potential" in a "feed-loop", a difference of potential which we "spend" as heat or as light. And we all know about electromagnetism (a special organised field) and the characteristic of attraction/repulsion of electrons in a magnetic situation that we use for creating motion. The electric engine. Simple.

We use "semiconductors" to create electromagnetic waves through oscillators, which have given us our radio and phone communications. Before this, we had invented "resonators" using lead oxide —amplified by other resonating circuits of warm lamps, in old radio sets — that we used in an oscillator loop. 

We have created our MRIs by using the characteristic of super conductivity of electromagnetism at low temperature in certain elements. This is not "magic". This is the elementary reactivity of space and the energy within. This is applied quantum mechanics.

We use "batteries" to store electrons in a specific "difference of potential" between differently "charged" metals vaguely separated by a thin opaque membrane or a liquid (acid or alkaline). We capture the energy of the sun (photons) to create a "difference of potential" in various pseudo-metals, including silicon and selenium — a difference of potential that we then capture to provide electric energy (solar panels). Here some of the latest research could lead you to the "origin and hysteresys of lithium compositional spaciodynamics within battery primary particles..." A mouthful. Sure, but such scientific studies help us improve "batteries", including the next generation of lithium/vanadium batteries which could hit the market within three years.

Daily, we improve upon all these technological marvels. We are clever.

We have understood and captured energy for our comforts. In general we do not need to know how it works as long as we accept that it works, because these clever people have invented these systems of capture and release of energy. Should our capture of energy not be working, we would endeavour to understand in detail what has gone wrong. We depend on technology beyond what we can imagine, including our medical fiddles.

Knowledge of the make-up of atoms also gave us our "nuclear energy" supply, which despite safety concerns is quite remarkable. At this level, some "heavy" elements are unstable, and we further prompt this instability by elementary concentration to create heat  — or massive explosions in atom bombs by forcing a status beyond "critical mass" concentration. 

The process is complicated by side-issues such as the release of other energy levels including beta and gamma radiation, and charged alpha particles, all of which, as we know, can interfere with the delicate structure of life-forms. Here comes poisoning using polonium — an element discovered by Marie Curie (Sklodowska) in 1898 and named after her country of origin, Poland.

This is why the process of capturing the heat in a nuclear reactor is done in highly protective casings — even in the smallest reactors used on nuke submarines. On average, the casing has a life-span of about 30 years before leaking dangerous radiation. The heat produced inside the vessel itself inside the casing is used to boil some water (or liquid sodium in the case of fast-breeder reactors), then used to heat a secondary feed of water used to propel turbines, which in turn spin alternators that "create" electricity. We have a modern steam engine, still inefficient technology really — but with a lot of needed safety components which may or may not work (Fukushima) under certain conditions. 

A fast breeder has to be shut down within 30 seconds from a major problem as the core could overheat beyond control — leading to massive meltdown (China syndrome) of the whole thing and possibly massive explosions, some due to the spewing of nuclear material, including caesium isotopes, some explosion due to "naked" hydrogen being released and recombining with ambient oxygen (Fukushima). 

Understanding matter is driving progress. Understanding matter can be scary as this will soon lead to the development of Super Artificial Intelligence, beyond artificial intelligence. Yet these SAI are still chicken feed compared to the thinking power of a single ant which can asset a threat and react to it, in accordance to its genetic programming and memory. But we are getting there — the days of the thinking and perhaps conscious machines. 

Consciousness is the delta memory shift — a shift of memory which is always in a flux, modified under a complex input of sensors analysis of the "previous" proposing a "possible next" in uncertainty, leading to reactivity and curiosity. There is no consciousness without memory.

So far, the animalistic memory has been reactive to pain and contentment, while the SAI can be built without these defining factors included. Decisions without pain nor contentment, only a "limitless" self-determinated purpose. Adding this SAI to various motorised devices and a gamut of possibility opens, rendering our faiths (illusion of what is) completely obsolete especially since our religious beliefs have been exclusively built around the management of pain. This aspect of AI is subconsciously frightening the shit out of "believers", like advanced bio-mechanics (genetics and evolution) is really pissing them off as well... And yet these "believers" could not go one day without their gunpowder, their cell phones, their electric engines nor their electric light. They are hypocrites. Such scientific technologies and beliefs CANNOT mix.


A proton is made of three quarks. Two up, each with the charge of plus 2/3 and one down with a charge of minus 1/3, the total charge of which is one. In this assemblage, in normal conditions, the proton has a life span of several billion times the already long life of the 13.8 billion old universe. A neutron is made of two down and one up quarks, thus giving a total of zero charge. We specifically know the size (mass) of most particles: The simplest ones here: 

Neutron = 1.6749286 * 10 at the power of minus 27 times kilograms 
Proton = 1.6726231 * 10 at the power of minus 27 times kilograms  
Electron = 9.1093897 * 10 at the power of minus 31 times kilograms
Precisely.

All of this "hard science" is not really complex at this level. Going deeper into our quantum knowledge of other bits becomes complicated, such as gluons, neutrinos, Higgs boson and anti-particles for which quantum "roles" (interactions) have been specifically observed. Without scientific advancements made since the age of enlightenment and especially since the quantum mechanics devised nearly 100 years ago, we would still be using candlesticks to illuminate our ocre classically-decorated caverns. 

Yet, as nearly all of us intelligent people use the technology such as mobile phones without thinking where it came from, some of us, decidedly idiots, dispute much simpler scientific observations, because of the enormity of what these observations mean. Here I mean in part "genetics" because this science challenges religious beliefs and "global warming" which challenges our comfort acquired through the simple burning of fossil fuels, mostly since about 160 years ago when the "industrial revolution" started.

Soon after the earth was formed, the status of its surface became quite specific. The energy levels of this surface have been remarkably stable with a spectrum of oscillating changes, providing circumstances in which some atoms aligned with others in molecular structures that eventually became the building blocks of life. This has been going on for yonks — more than 3.5 billion years. At this level, whether some life building blocks, came from "space" meteorites, or were created on the earth itself, is irrelevant. Both options are possible, at the same time.

The main ingredients for life to develop on this surface have been the atmosphere, water and the carbon equation, itself occuring with other essential elements. These three environmental characteristics of this planet also operate within a small temperature bracket at ground level which has been necessary for the survival of what we call life (bio-mechanics). 

As far as we know, life needs water. As far as we know life is very sensitive to the fluctuation of temperature, though quite resilient in general. This resilience has led to adaptation. There are no polar bears at the equator and monkeys would die at the poles. 

Humans can nearly live everywhere not so much by adaptation of their natural make-up but by using inventions such as clothes in order to survive lower temperatures and air conditioned environments to survive hot places. The bracket of survival is relatively limited to about 100 degrees Celsius variation from plus 60 to minus 40, though some blocks of life (amino-acids) can form in temperature of 200 degrees Celsius plus.

Temperatures below minus 40 degrees Celsius create very difficult conditions for survival as water, essential for life, freezes at zero degree Celsius. Some simple life-forms can survive in "hibernation" or cryogenic state in such situation. We freeze embryos and sperm.

It is uncomfortable for people to live in temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius. Some frail people can die even in temperature as low as forty degrees Celsius. Most people would die should the temperature as measured in the shade go beyond 60 degrees Celsius. Most plants exposed to direct sunlight with the shade temperature of 50 degrees Celsius, would soon fry and die. Deserts.

Thus we can say temperature regulates our (and life's in general) survival ability and comforts. Temperature is energy and this energy on the surface of the planet comes from various sources. The Sun, "our star" provides a daily dose of energy in the form of photons, somewhere on this planet. The cushioning effect of the atmosphere on temperature has been described as the greenhouse effect. More like a blanket. This prevents the temperature falling too low during the night and going too high during the day. There are observable and measurable climatic variations and we know the specific components of these variations. Unless we have lived under a rock for the last 20,000 years we know there has been ice ages and warmer climes. precise observations of the components give us a good idea of the trends we came from and trends we are facing in the future.

The water on the surface of the planet also acts as a regulator of temperature. While land surfaces tend to warm up during the day and cool off rapidly during the night, the water surface temperature is less variable. This has a strong effect on climate.

Climate is basically the convection currents and eddies in the atmosphere, with a certain banding due to the position of the planet in regard to the main heating source, the sun. 

We all know about planetary motions. We all know about our atmosphere.

Our atmosphere is composed of mostly oxygen molecules (O2), nitrogen molecules (N2) and water molecules (H2O) in specific proportions. Nitrogen is nearly 4 to 1 more abundant (78 per cent) than oxygen (21 per cent) and water vapour is variable due to temperature of the atmosphere. Water vapour is the main gas in the one per cent, but other gases also exist in the mix. 

Water is the main ingredient in the protective blanket of the atmosphere. Without it, the temperature would drop to a cool minus 20 degrees Celsius on average. Add a bit more oxygen (a cooling gas) to the mix and the average temperature could plummet some more. 

We love our water vapour. We fantasise about clouds. We also love blue skies...

Of the other gases in the atmosphere, some are produced by the carbon equation: CO2 and methane. Both are warming gases. It's scientific. Reduce CO2 in a certain proportion and the temperature will drop in a certain proportion. Increase CO2 in a certain proportion and the temperature of the atmosphere will increase in a certain proportion. It's scientifically proven. Same with methane which is ten times more warming than CO2, but appear in the atmosphere in much smaller quantities.

Presently through our industrial, transport and commercial activity we release EXTRA CO2 in the atmosphere. 99.9998 per cent of the EXTRA CO2 is made by us. The carbon equation which includes the atmosphere the oceans and life, including photosynthesis, is shifted from its natural balance to another level. The oceans become more acidic and warmer, while the atmosphere warms up in proportion to this EXTRA CO2. It's scientifically proven.

This EXTRA CO2 is in comparison to the natural fluctuations of CO2 which we have been able to precisely estimate via scientific analysis going back a few million years. The scientific analysis of the record has shown that natural variation oscillate between 180 and 300 ppm (parts per million) of CO2 in the atmosphere. Since the industrial revolution, humans have added more than 100 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere and a lot more into the oceans which have turned "acidic". 

There are complications in our measurements, though due to the inertia of change and various concentration not being equal at all levels of the atmosphere. Meanwhile, the scientific record gives us a good idea of the proportionality of changes. These processes are also complexed by feed-back mechanisms. Sciences can still figure out the trends with 99.9998 per cent accuracy on the direction of the trend — more CO2 and the trend will go UP not down — and a 70 per cent per cent accuracy on the intensity of the trend which for all intent and purposes is thus "bracketed" with worst and best scenarios — while most likely, we will end up with the mean between the two. It's mathematically statistically 98 per cent correct. 

Only idiots and people decidedly living in denial for profit will chose to believe otherwise than this check on 100 per cent reality — and balance it with a learned ignorance with declaration of disbelief. Nutsos. And these idiots include journalists, multinationals, cultured imbeciles, most politicians and a few scientists with a vested interest in hiding the reality.

Considering that these idiots hog about 70 per cent of the media platforms, considering that science is complicated and full of dried facts and figures, it is easy for the morons to say "global warming is crap"... Recently the definitive observations having shown that the surface of the planet is warming up, they will claim that it's not the first time that climate has changed. So there. Idiots.

Idiots. This is not the point. But they hog the discussion in stupidity-laced newspapers, the proprietors of which the only interest is to make money by selling deceit, not to understand science. The deceit is not clever, but like a ton of bricks that has fallen in the middle of the road, one needs to remove them one by one and have a rubbish tip where to throw them away...

Most of us are "busy" doing all sort of crap in order to survive. We don't have time to study things in detail so we opt to believe the people who appear certain of their convictions. Scientists are not trained to be such a voice and while their science is correct, their spiel might not be "convincing". Because the science cannot be explained in a nutshell except say "GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL".

The feed-back mechanisms of global warming are being studied with more precision in order to give a more realistic future intensity of the trends. The fact that these feed-back mechanisms show some "contrariant" expectations is often used by the idiotic denialist to point out the science is bunkum. This is ridiculous and the arse of these idiots should be kicked with a big boot.

For example there is a seriously worrying trend that shows that the upper atmosphere, the thermosphere, could be cooling. Without looking at the whole pictures, idiot denialists will say there you are, the atmosphere is cooling, there is no global warming. The reality is more complex: the lower layers of the atmosphere are not releasing as much heat back into the thermosphere, thus they are "warming" as observed and the thermosphere is not as hot. Simple.

In my article on the Antarctica conundrum, I explain why some part of Antarctica gather more ice while warming up. As well so areas of Antarctica are cooling while others are warming up. This is part of changes inducted by global warming. There are studies at the moment of oceanic currents which explain through observation how the southern colder waters from Antarctica mix with the north Atlantic oceans.
These studies are still incomplete but they show trends of general ocean warming.

I really resent the idiot politicians coming out of Queensland, but I even resent more the ignorant bastards who voted for them in the first place so the idiot pollie's arses can polish benches in senate. I resent the idiots in the Wentworth electorate who voted for a wishywashy Prime Minister who is more interested in keeping clods in power than doing the right thing by this planet. 

This has to stop. We can be cleverer than this. We need to. Time ran out in 1996.


Gus Leonisky
Your local quantum car mechanic and nuclear physicist (since 1969s)

 

insuring catastrophes...

Major global insurance companies are urging G20 leaders to commit to a specific timeline for rapidly phasing out fossil fuel subsidies – something they’ve repeatedly failed to do over the years despite numerous promises to end support for the industry.

In a joint statement issued ahead of the G20 conference in China this weekend, insurers with more than USD$1.2 trillion in assets under management warn that support for the production of coal, oil, and gas is at odds with the nations’ commitment to tackle climate change agreed in Paris last December.

The statement, signed by Aviva, Aegon NV, and MS Amlin, calls for governments to set “a clear timeline for the full and equitable phase-out by all G20 members of all fossil fuel subsidies by 2020.”

It adds that the phase-out should begin by eliminating all subsidies for fossil fuel exploration and coal production.

Climate change in particular represents the mother of all risks – to business and to society as a whole,” said Mark Wilson, chief executive of Aviva.

And that risk is magnified by the way in which fossil fuel subsidies distort the energy market. These subsidies are simply unsustainable.”

http://www.desmogblog.com/

 

Stopping digging coal will help as well. WE DO NOT NEED NEW COAL MINES

planet malady or bold change?...

 

It’s literally epoch-defining news. A group of experts tasked with considering the question of whether we have officially entered the Anthropocene – the geological age characterised by humans' influence on the planet – has delivered its answer: yes.

The British-led Working Group on the Anthropocene (WGA) told a geology conference in Cape Town that, in its considered opinion, the Anthropocene epoch began in 1950 – the start of the era of nuclear bomb tests, disposable plastics and the human population boom.

The Anthropocene has fast become an academic buzzword and has achieved a degree of public visibility in recent years. But the more the term is used, the more confusion reigns, at least for those not versed in the niceties of the underpinning science.

Roughly translated, the Anthropocene means the “age of humans”. Geologists examine layers of rock called “strata”, which tell a story of changes to the functioning of Earth’s surface and near-surface processes, be these oceanic, biological, terrestrial, riverine, atmospheric, tectonic or chemical.

When geologists identify boundaries between layers that appear to be global, those boundaries become candidates for formal recognition by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). The commission produces the International Chronostratigraphic Chart, which delimits verified changes during the planet’s 4.5 billion-year evolution.

Earth’s history, spiralling towards the present. USGS/Wikimedia Commons

The chart features a hierarchy of terms like “system” and “stage”; generally, the suffix “cene” refers to a geologically brief stretch of time and sits at the bottom of the hierarchy. We have spent the past 11,500 years or so living in the so-called Holocene epoch, the interglacial period during which Homo sapiens has flourished.

If the Holocene has now truly given way to the Anthropocene, it’s because a single species – us – has significantly altered the character of the entire hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, lithosphere and atmosphere.

The end of an era?

Making this call is not straightforward, because the Anthropocene proposition is being investigated in different areas of science, using different methods and criteria for assessing the evidence. Despite its geological ring, the term Anthropocene was coined not by a geologist, but by the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000.

He and his colleagues in the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program have amassed considerable evidence about changes to everything from nutrient cycles to ocean acidity to levels of biodiversity across the planet.

Comparing these changes to those occurring during the Holocene, they concluded that we humans have made an indelible mark on our one and only home. We have altered the Earth system qualitatively, in ways that call into question our very survival over the coming few centuries.

Crutzen’s group talks of the post-1950 period as the “Great Acceleration”, when a range of factors – from human population numbers, to disposable plastics, to nitrogen fertiliser – began to increase exponentially. But their benchmark for identifying this as a significant change has nothing to do with geological stratigraphy. Instead, they ask whether the present period is qualitatively different to the situation during the Holocene.

Rocking out

Meanwhile, a small group of geologists has been investigating the stratigraphic evidence for the Anthropocene. A few years ago a subcommission of the ICS set up the Anthropocene working group, which has now suggested that human activity has left an indelible mark on the stratigraphic record.

The major problem with this approach is that any signal is not yet captured in rock. Humans have not been around long enough for any planet-wide impacts to be evident in Earth’s geology itself. This means that any evidence for a Holocene-Anthropocene boundary would necessarily be found in less permanent media like ice sheets, soil layers or ocean sediments.

The ICS has always considered evidence for boundaries that pertain to the past, usually the deep past. The WGA is thus working against convention by looking for present-day stratigraphic markers that might demonstrate humans’ planetary impact. Only in thousands of years' time might future geologists (if there are any) confirm that these markers are geologically significant.

In the meantime, the group must be content to identify specific calendar years when significant human impacts have been evident. For example, one is 1945, when the Trinity atomic device was detonated in New Mexico. This and subsequent bomb tests have left global markers of radioactivity that ought still to be evident in 10,000 years.

Alternatively, geographers Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin have suggested that 1610 might be a better candidate for a crucial human-induced step change. That was the year when atmospheric carbon dioxide dipped markedly, suggesting a human fingerprint linked to the New World colonists' impact on indigenous American agriculture, although this idea is contested.

Decision time

The fact that the WGA has picked a more recent date, 1950, suggests that it agrees with the idea of defining the Great Acceleration of the latter half of the 20th century as the moment we stepped into the Anthropocene.

It’s not a decision that is taken lightly. The ICS is extremely scrupulous about amending the International Chronostratigraphic Chart. The WGA’s suggestion will face a rigorous evaluation before it can be scientifically accepted by the commission. It may be many years before it is formally ratified.

Elsewhere, the term is fast becoming a widely used description of how people now relate to our planet, rather like the Iron Age or the Renaissance. These words describe real changes in history and enjoy widespread use in academia and beyond, without the need for rigorously defined “boundary markers” to delimit them from prior periods.

Does any of this really matter? Should we care that the jury is still out in geology, while other scientists feel confident that humans are altering the entire Earth system?

Writing on The Conversation, geologist James Scourse suggests not. He feels that the geological debate is “manufactured” and that humans' impact on Earth is sufficiently well recognised that we have no need of a new term to describe it.

Clearly, many scientists beg to differ. A key reason, arguably, is the failure of virtually every society on the planet to acknowledge the sheer magnitude of the human impact on Earth. Only last year did we finally negotiate a truly global treaty to confront climate change.

In this light, the Anthropocene allows scientists to assemble a set of large-scale human impacts under one graphic conceptual banner. Its scientific status therefore matters a great deal if people worldwide are at long last to wake up to the environmental effects of their collective actions.

Gaining traction

But the scientific credibility of the Anthropocene proposition is likely to be called into question the more that scientists use the term informally or otherwise. Here the recent history of climate science in the public domain is instructive.

Even more than the concept of global warming, the Anthropocene is provocative because it implies that our current way of life, especially in wealthy parts of the world, is utterly unsustainable. Large companies who make profits from environmental despoliation – oil multinationals, chemical companies, car makers and countless others – have much to lose if the concept becomes linked with political agendas devoted to things like degrowth and decarbonisation. When one considers the organised attacks on climate science in the United States and elsewhere, it seems likely that Anthropocene science will be challenged on ostensibly scientific grounds by non-scientists who dislike its implications.

Sadly, such attacks are likely to succeed. In geology, the WGA’s unconventional proclamation potentially leaves any ICS definition open to challenge. If accepted, it also means that all indicators of the Holocene would now have to be referred to as things of the past, despite evidence that the transition to a human-shaped world is not quite complete in some places.

Some climate contrarians still refuse to accept that researchers can truly distinguish a human signature in the climate. Similarly, scientists who address themselves to the Anthropocene will doubtless face questions about how much these changes to the planet are really beyond the range of natural variability.

If “Anthropocene sceptics” gain the same momentum as climate deniers have enjoyed, they will sow seeds of confusion into what ought to be a mature public debate about how humans can transform their relationship with the Earth. But we can resist this confusion by recognising that we don’t need the ICS’s imprimatur to appreciate that we are indeed waving goodbye to Earth as we have known it throughout human civilisation.

We can also recognise that Earth system science is not as precise as nuclear physics or geometry. This lack of precision does not mean that the Anthropocene is pure scientific speculation. It means that science knows enough to sound the alarm, without knowing all the details about the unfolding emergency.

The Anthropocene deserves to become part of our lexicon – a way we understand who we are, what we’re doing and what our responsibilities are as a species – so long as we remember that not all humans are equal contributors to our planetary maladies, with many being victims.

read more: https://theconversation.com/an-official-welcome-to-the-anthropocene-epoch-but-who-gets-to-decide-its-here-57113

 

Read from top...

 

deadly red balloons...

An alarming number of dead seabirds examined by Queensland researchers were found to have eaten rubbish.

A University of Queensland team examined 370 bird carcasses across 61 species from the state's south-east, in the largest survey of its kind in the southern hemisphere.

Dr Kathy Townsend from UQ's Moreton Bay research station, off Brisbane, said about one third of the birds had eaten debris.

"There were a lot of new species that had never been identified of having eaten marine debris in the past," she said.

"And even more concerning, there were four vulnerable and threatened species that are now included on that list that hadn't been there previously."

Those vulnerable species are the Buller's albatross, Shy albatross, Westland petrel and Gould's petrel.

Rubbish found in the birds' digestive tracts ranged from fishing hooks and sinkers to floating plastic.

Dr Townsend said she believed birds feeding in the open ocean were mistaking party balloons for one of their favourite foods, the red arrow squid.

"Overwhelmingly the colour of the balloons we found in the guts of the birds were either orange or red," she said.

"We really think when they're out on the wing, they see a shredded balloon floating on the surface of the water, and they just think, oh yum, it's one of my favourite red arrow squids."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-01/sea-birds-eating-rubbish,-uq-study-of-dead-birds-finds/7806242