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Daniel Miller
Laredo, TX
Recent Activity
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Daniel signed the petition | -
Daniel commented on the article |The most likely reason that third world diets are more likely to be healthful vegetarian is that meat is expensive and takes a lot of time and effort to produce. The diets that have evolved have, by selection of the fittest if you will, a balance of carbohydrates and protein with the protein sources being amino acid balanced themselves. It isn't accidental that a typical third world diet will have two complementary protein sources together.
This is not the same as saying that third world diets are necessarily good. Often they will be high in lipids (for energy and taste) and deficient in vitamins (also expensive and unavailable.) -
Daniel commented on the article |
"The books we had weren't full of politically-correct garbage. In high school, we were taught to think for ourselves, and not simply regurgitate the thoughts of the teacher. Essay questions made sure that we had to think about our answers."
I went to school at the same time, but we sure weren't taught to think for ourselves. Few of our teachers could do that on their own so they sure didn't know how to teach us to do it. Essay questions were common, but they were basically regurgitating what we had already been told. The texts weren't "politically correct," but they weren't all that great either, not something you wanted to read the way you wanted to read a novel.
I don't know what it takes to motivate a student. Of course, making the lesson "relevant" has a great benefit, but there are things that they have to learn that aren't "relevant" to anything in particular. I've had some luck modifying the "case based learning" that some of the better med schools are using. That at least makes something that may not be relevant at least an interesting puzzle. -
Daniel commented on the article |
The amount of CO2 put out by St. Helens was not anywhere near the amount that mankind has put out. This is a denier talking point that has been shot down repeatedly.
The IPCC'S predictions have been scaled up, not down. They now say that things are even worse than they originally thought.
Furthermore, trying to throw cold water on the reality of global warming by saying it's just modeling while ignoring the facts that have jumped in your face is similar to Bush saying that SS is just a bunch of IOU's after he borrowed the money. It isn't just the models, but the measurements on the ground and the changes in the measurements that scare people. The models are not nearly as scary as seeing what is happening. -
Daniel commented on the article |
One of those famous romantics who think that things just happen without being caused. There are reasons that where you live has been going through changes on a multimillion year scale. But we're not talking about even 1000's of years. We're talking on the scale of less than a century, within the lifetime of people alive today. And the reasons that your area has undergone so much ecological change is related to such things as massive volcanic eruptions that occurred around the end of the Cretaceous. We are now trying to duplicate those results on our own, hence the global warming.
Glad to hear that you like lush climates complete with mosquitoes and ticks and lord knows how many vector borne diseases that we don't have treatments for. But how about the Sahara desert? What happens when there just isn't any rain, but it gets hot? How much fun is that?
"And where is your global warming when it's -20F?" How about why isn't it - 21F? -
Daniel commented on the article |
There is a lot to be said for pursuing a disagreement as long as there is still something to disagree about. In the present case, however, the data has shifted so far to the global warming side that to argue about it would be the same as disagreeing about the germ theory of disease. It is all very nice to go on about demon possession, but when you are confronted by an AIDS epidemic, you don't put a lot of resources into exorcisms. The same thing applies now. We can argue around the edges about the particular details, but we can no longer deny that global warming is happening, and at an ever increasing rate. The data is just too good. And wasting time arguing the basics means that we are not doing anything to correct the problem while it still can be corrected if in fact it still can be.
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Daniel commented on the article |
There isn't a whole lot of putative fact in your post to be discussed. On the whole it looks like you have some sort of mystical belief in the bounty of Gaia and the earth somehow is looking out for our welfare. This sort of romanticism is nice for fantasy stories, but it really doesn't work in real life. You need to forget the wishful thinking and deal with reality.
The computer models use water vapor in them. The CO2 that we produce by breathing pales into insignificance compared to what is used to drive to work or to heat/cool your house.
Dirk has already addressed the foolishness of thinking that sunlight energy absorbed by a solar panel somehow disappears. That statement alone destroys any credibility you ever had.
As for you being on Nature's side, I see absolutely no evidence for that statement. On the contrary, at every turn you deny that Nature is being significantly affected by what people do and that we shouldn't do anything to rectify the damage that we've done. Humans are most definitely NOT "just a modest part of Nature." They have been able to completely change the ecosystem of large parts of the world, something that no other organism has been able to do since cyanobacteria evolved. You are being AGAINST Nature, not for her. -
Daniel commented on the article |
Dana,
first we don't need to be 100% sure. 95% is good enough. And we don't need data from every year that the earth has been in existence. The last 600,000 from ice cores is good enough plus what we can infer from sea floor cores for years previous to that.
That much of Europe was deforested is not relevant because it is so little compared to the rest of the world, and the deforestation was not all that great anyhow. -
Daniel commented on the article |
Rebekah, what in the world are you talking about?
First of all, CO2 does NOT fluctuate with the heat level. Second, the temperature at the center of the earth has little to do with the surface temperature fluctuations. That is primarily affected by heat absorbed from the sun and NOT reradiated into space (the greenhouse effect). The earth's core temperature remains constant to a large extent probably having cooled slightly in the last 4 billion years. -
Daniel commented on the article |
Arthur,
Here's some more condescension. Obviously you don't have a clue as to what "heat" actually is. It really doesn't matter if the infrared spectrum is absorbed by a solar panel or something else. Heat will be produced from the energy in the sunlight. And within limits, plants aren't interested in the heat. It is the energy in the light itself absorbed by chlorophyll and converted to ATP that the plant is really concerned about.
As for your ignorance concerning the relationship of plants and CO2, actual trials run where CO2 has been increased for several years show that about the only plant that benefited was poison ivy. Other plants are adapted to a "normal" level of CO2 and when it is increased, it throws off the acid/base balance which does bad things to the plant.
Foresight and caution are a very bad choice when you are confronted by a speeding driver going in the wrong lane. That is essentially the position we find ourselves in now.
