Article

2007-06-21 Science & Technology

Forget "Global Warming"... Prepare for GLOBAL COOLING !

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Posted by anonymous5089 2007-06-21 02:08|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ] Top

#1 Fallen Angels by Larry Niven.

Posted by twobyfour 2007-06-21 03:10|| 2007-06-21 03:10|| Front Page Top

#2 I love the smelllll of grants in the morning!

Posted by gromgoru 2007-06-21 03:43|| 2007-06-21 03:43|| Front Page Top

#3 Excellent reference, twobyfour. I'm a huge fan of Niven and Pournelle's joint efforts (with Michael Flynn joining up for Fallen Angels)

One of my favorite scenes in all of SF is the "Massacre of the Comet Wardens" in Lucifer's Hammer.
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Lucifer's Hammer, 1977
time: late 70s
place: mostly Southern California

An amateur astronomer named Tim Hamner discovers a new comet on a course that will take it very close to the Earth. The comet nucleus will rain mountain size chunks all over the Earth if it happens to hit, causing tsunamis, drastic weather change, and effects akin to nuclear winter.
In the weeks and months after Hamner's discovery, the chances of a collision grow from one in a million to one in a hundred to one in ten. A new religious cult, the Comet Wardens, forms in Southern California. Playing on the discoverer's name, their leader declares that the comet is the "hammer of God" sent to punish humanity for its wickedness. The Wardens dress in white robes and oppose all efforts to prepare for a possible collision, insisting that only prayer and repentance will save humanity.
By the morning the comet is due, millions have already fled the LA basin for the hills and deserts. With a collision deemed ever more likely, the last hold-outs run for the hills, jamming the freeways.

In a final spectacular demonstration, the white robed Comet Wardens chain themselves across a major traffic artery, snarling traffic for miles and trapping the panic stricken hordes in the city.
The comet actually hits, dropping a huge asteroid into the ocean just off LA. It is clearly visible from the city, God's own tsunami is headed their way and thousands cannot escape.
The Comet Wardens have thrown away the keys to their chains, there is no time or equipment to cut the chains and open the highway, and the police have fled.
Thousands of would-be refugees realize that they are doomed and that they could have gotten away if not for the Comet Wardens, now helpless in their long chains as the vengeful mob pounces. They have about half an hour before the tsunami hits.
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One of the intriguing things about Lucifer's Hammer is that it was written before the "Dinosaur Killer" asteroid hypothesis had been published, but correctly postulated many of the effects.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2007-06-21 03:59|| 2007-06-21 03:59|| Front Page Top

#4 While the 11 year sunspot cycle is talked about as if it were a fixed cycle, it's not. People are waiting for the minimum, with estimates varying between, we are there already to as much as 18 months away.

It seems the longer we wait for the minimum, the fewer the sunspots we get in the next cycle, and the fewer the sunspots, the colder the climate.

Combined with other factors pointing to a cooler climate, I expect a marked cooling over the next few years.

Posted by phil_b 2007-06-21 05:23|| 2007-06-21 05:23|| Front Page Top

#5 Hey! No worries, Mate! It's easy to fix!

Just go buy a new SUV, turn up your electric heat, and build a new coal-fired power plant or two, and we can drive away global cooling just as fast as we can head off global warming.

Waitaminute...Am I on to something here?

Posted by Bobby 2007-06-21 06:27|| 2007-06-21 06:27|| Front Page Top

#6 Combined with other factors pointing to a cooler climate, I expect a marked cooling over the next few years.

All of which proves that Al Gore saved us just in time!

/sarc

Posted by Natural Law 2007-06-21 07:00|| 2007-06-21 07:00|| Front Page Top

#7 I think his most relevant claim is that climate study is fantastically complex and still in it's infancy. That's not near as fun as doomsaying though.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2007-06-21 09:37|| 2007-06-21 09:37|| Front Page Top

#8 I hope so. I could do some more skiing.

Posted by DarthVader">DarthVader 2007-06-21 09:53|| 2007-06-21 09:53|| Front Page Top

#9 Jesus! Make up your minds already.

Posted by danking_70 2007-06-21 10:37|| 2007-06-21 10:37|| Front Page Top

#10 "Fallen Angels" by Niven, Pournelle, & Flynn can be read online in its entirety here.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-06-21 13:56|| 2007-06-21 13:56|| Front Page Top

#11 That's not near as fun as doomsaying though.

Nor as lucrative.

God's own tsunami is headed their way and thousands cannot escape.

I loved the scene where the surfer dude rides that killer wave right into downtown LA.

Posted by xbalanke 2007-06-21 16:40|| 2007-06-21 16:40|| Front Page Top

#12 One of the intriguing things about Lucifer's Hammer is that it was written before the "Dinosaur Killer" asteroid hypothesis had been published, but correctly postulated many of the effects. At the meeting IIRC where they introduced their paper on the dinosaur extinction Alverez the elder Said "the dinosaurs where killed by Lucifer's Hammer"

Posted by Cheddarhead 2007-06-21 19:15|| 2007-06-21 19:15|| Front Page Top

#13 Global cooling? NNNOOOOOOOOOOO!

Posted by JohnQC 2007-06-21 19:48|| 2007-06-21 19:48|| Front Page Top

#14 My belief is that the earth goes from Ice Age to Ice Age, with human activity having little or nothing to do with it. Hence at some point we will reach some threshold at which global cooling will start. However, immanent-peril propaganda could win elections in the current climate of cynicism with government and academia. People don't want scientific explanations; they want blame-pointing dogma.

Posted by McZoid 2007-06-21 20:31|| 2007-06-21 20:31|| Front Page Top

#15 Well, someone should figure out what you want. I AM sure God is confused.

Posted by newc">newc 2007-06-21 20:34|| 2007-06-21 20:34|| Front Page Top

#16 This is why the big push NOW for global warming controls on people (especially the US). That way when the inevitable cooling comes these Marxist thugs will say "See, we NEED people like us running things" and cement their power.

Posted by Laurence of the Rats">Laurence of the Rats 2007-06-21 21:13|| 2007-06-21 21:13|| Front Page Top

#17 I remember thinking as a youngster that if the dinosaurs lived in a tropical type of climate for millions of yrs and then were wiped out by an asteroid and the subsequent ice age that followed; would it not suffice that warmer temps were actually the norm until recent times?

Posted by Broadhead6 2007-06-21 21:43|| 2007-06-21 21:43|| Front Page Top

#18 The dinosaurs were already declining when that asteroid hit, Broadhead6. (How are you? It's been a while since you last dropped by -- we've noticed!) The climate had cooled down somewhat, and the plant life had evolved in interesting new ways -- I think flowers for reproduction and grasses rapidly colonizing the sunny spaces -- so there was considerably less of what the dinosaurs liked to eat, and a lot harder to get going in the morning. ;-) Grasses are really difficult to digest and are rather nutrient-poor, as I understand it, which is why ruminents chew their cud.

Posted by trailing wife 2007-06-21 23:31|| 2007-06-21 23:31|| Front Page Top

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