Evolution

As I am reading Guns, Germs, and Steel  (Jaret Diamond) it is obvious that humans have a great ability to evolve everything we touch to something better, again and again and again. Generally something better is proven better in the long run, but improvements are occasional dumped in the long run because they are not actually better or cause new problems. It is so massive that it seems a universal characteristic of society, except for those resistant to change groups, Luddites, and similar. Islam and our native Indians, but they will accept the obvious big improvements like guns, drugs, automobiles. Many of the Indians will not accept having to go to work each day, and the Islams think there religion is right and does not need to be updated.

Now I know and accent to the concept that religions evolved, and are man made. I cannot accent to the theorem that there is a god. I have difficulty with the word atheist, as I am not against the religious; it is just not worth the effort; just let them die off. The young are worth saving. Non-theist is a better descriptor, but it is not a well understood term. Darwinian is understood to be just biological, but it is close to reality. Perhaps I should just consider myself a extended Darwinian.

Religions evolve to the point they are today. This makes religions man made but they do have functions. When life expediency was short, they provided an educational depository of information and explanations. Science has taken over the explanation, and as far as the morals, we can do better most of the existing religions by simply combining the moral of several including the Stoics, Buddhist, perhaps some additional christian concepts, like it is not right to kill anyone, including other religions and enemy's.

Perhaps we also need to add a few "solutions" to current problems like overpopulation like birth control, a one child policy, but then do a good job of raising that child. We would then go through a period of "old population" as we now live so long. Perhaps we need to give up the concept of retirement, but go for a part time worker instead, when we get old. Or take on a less stressful occupation like subsistence farming...  

But what do I know?  

Call them what they are:

Newsweek

Pope calls in Christmas message for unity against militant atrocities

 

These are not militant but religious atrocities. ISIL are a religious faction who use religion martyrdom, we are right, you are wrong type thinking.  

They want a home state where they can live the way they want. They do not consider killing to be wrong, but rather their right of there beliefs. 

The only way to remove this thinking from the Muslims extremism is to remove there source of people to recruiter from.  This can be best accomplished by teaching reasoning, not blind following, aka removal or all religions by reasons. We need to teach the logical nonreligious solutions to all problems that religion solves. Rational evolution of we humans is the solution to all our problems today.

and just for your ISIL  edification today http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/isis-terrorists-sanction-harvest-organs-rape-article-1.2476992

But what do I know?

Climate Ice melt danger

The climate is warming, the water is rising but by how much? 7 metres... Bullshit.

First it is mostly natural gain, the total energy consumption as heat will not raise the earth that much. So we get a bit of heat entrapped by naturally occurring methane and a raise of 100PPM in Co2some days but not other days? There is something wrong there.    

In the arctic most of the ice cap is floating. When it melts, it will contribute nothing to any change in the sea level. Similarly on the sea ice around the Antarctic. Antarctic has 14 x10^6 km^2 of land mass with about 2 meters of ice on average. The oceans have occupies 360 x10^6 km^2 so when the Antarctic melts, the ocean will rise a whopping 8 cms. So that is perhaps only half of the ice. What am I missing here?

The other big factor in water rise is the deltas are consolidating, as these were and are being deposited under consolidated.  There is no doubt here, but that has nothing to do with water level rise but subsidence of land. Oh well, shit happens.

Alberta would benefit by trapping spring melt water on the land. It could be used for irrigation and or wetlands, both of which would fix Co2.

Oils sand oil is dirtier than Coal per giga-joule of energy, so what is Notely really shutting down coal for? and where are we going to get fly-ash from?

Notely reminds me of a quote from Genghis   ...

Happiness lies in conquering one’s enemies,
in driving them in front of oneself,
in taking their property,
in savoring their despair,
in outraging their wives and daughters.
     
Genghis Khan

Notley error

"The global climate summit in Paris forged a landmark agreement on Saturday, setting the course for a historic transformation of the world's fossil fuel-driven economy within decades in a bid to arrest global warming."

But when I wander around this neighborhood there are the wood burners. As our NDP government runs up the price of natural gas and electricity, what are we old hill billies going to switch to? We have three obvious choices, wood, coal and used oil. There is a old dirt mover guy that heats his home and shop with used oil from his scrapers and cats. Hot water boiler and bunker C burner, but what do I know. That is not clean energy.

In the last few years, I have watched a bunch of coal stoker hot water systems go in. I can smell them as I wonder around, so these are not clean. When I drive past the big coal electricity plan there is no smell. So which do you think is cleaner? That coal plant burns powdered coal light with a natural gas flame. High temperature, quick burn, flyash cooling and collection. Very little vapor goes up those stacks. Co2 is clear at least, keeping the particulate down at least.

So if Notley wants clean, natural gas and electric must be cheap, and high temperature coal is as clean as any carbon fossil fuel can be. Renewable fuel like corn oil or canola just not there yet, and the energy balance is not good.  Natural gas,  CH4 produces Co2 and H2O, while coal produces just Co2 and trace minerals that mostly are collected in the flyash. The energy balance is good on coal, but the Co2 to energy balance is not as good a natural gas, but the cost is much less.

But how are is Notley going to control us wood burners? By government decree? Good Luck. Can the government refuse to let us heat our homes but the available means?

Here adds say the pollution control is good for the economy, but it is not good for the home owner. We are the ones who will be forced to drive the economy with money to buy natural gas. That is bullshit economy, not real economy.

But what do I know? 

climate change

Much of the energy we consume is converted into low grade heat and dumped to the environment; even much of the motion resistance is low grade heat, all contributing to climate change. But larger than that is the reduction of the heat sink in these parts.

Around here, Northern Alberta somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of the land was swam before the farmers cleared and ditched. That was a lot of land, a lot of water providing a major heat sink. Water has a thermal capacity of 1 kilo-calorie per kilogram per degree C, or 4200 joules per kilogram per degree Centigrade. Soil, is much less, some 10 to 20 percent, depending on the moisture content. In addition, mass transfer, circulation, keeps the surface of the water much closer to the water mass temperature, unlike soil where a few inches below the surface will be much cooler in summer.

All this proposed taxation to deter consumption is fine, but what is done with the moneys is important. It can be targeted at keeping mans contribution low, or it could be utilized to deal with the inevitable climate warming. Some of that warming is natural, some is man made. At some point we will enter a cooling cycle, and we humans will freeze out... Oh well, there are too many of us anyway. We need to survive until then. Here, restoring the heat sinks would be a good place to start. And then there is the latent heat of vaporization to also consider. This could add considerable to both the cooling and short cycle rainfall, making farming more durable on the prairies.

Spray that water on the land, and we will capture carbon, cool the climate and generate potential short cycle rainfall. Dump sewage on the land in the fall, and that will act as fertilizer. We will need to watch the salt content though. Too much salt and the land will be destroyed. There are few crops that will grow in salted land, and even less that can be harvested to remove the salt.

But then, I was only a geotechnical engineer, so this is slightly out of my area of specialization, not out of my area of training. I specialized where the work was at the time.

 Anyway, what do I know?