Ponderings of science, philosophy, history, society, and many other topics
People often worry that our civilization may be in decline, or even about to fall. And there's something to be said for not being complacent about this. Historically, every civilization eventually fails. Entropy always wins in the end. So it isn't a matter of if but when. Whether it happens tomorrow or in 500 years, … Continue reading Factors in the fall of civilizations
As something of a balance against the environmental issues we've been discussing, here is an encouraging sign of progress: New NASA images highlight U.S. air quality improvement -- ScienceDaily. Anyone living in a major U.S. city for the past decade may have noticed a change in the air. The change is apparent in new NASA satellite images … Continue reading New NASA images highlight U.S. air quality improvement
After my post the other day on what fields I thought someone needed to be familiar with for coming up with credible theories about why civilizations collapse, a number of people recommended I read Jared Diamond's book, 'Collapse'. I finished it this week, and like the other books I've read by Diamond, I enjoyed it. … Continue reading Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed, a brief review
So, this note might be met with skepticism, but I had no idea when I composed my Bronze Age collapse entry this weekend that Cosmos would discuss how climate change had affected various civilizations throughout history, notably the Akkadian empire in Mesopotamia. Some of the interactions I had with people after that post makes a bit … Continue reading Cosmos and civilization collapse through climate change
In the sobering news department: Delivering the latest stark news about climate change on Sunday, a United Nations panel warned that governments are not doing enough to avert profound risks in coming decades. But the experts found a silver lining: Not only is there still time to head off the worst, but the political will … Continue reading Climate Efforts Falling Short, U.N. Panel Says
Ethan Siegel on global warming. If you are still a skeptic about global warming, please consider taking a few minutes to learn about it. If you had never heard of global warming before, how would you figure out whether it’s happening? “There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what … Continue reading Global Warming for Beginners — Starts With A Bang! — Medium
Apparently, there is a NASA funded study which says so. If history is any guide, our civilization will eventually collapse. Every other society in human history has ultimately done so: Sumer, Egypt, Rome, etc. There's no good reason to think we've beaten the civilization life cycle, any more than there is to believe the assertions … Continue reading Will civilization collapse in the coming decades?
It's indeed true that sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. (Click through for full sized version.)via xkcd: Land Mammals.
A hundred million years from now, when we're all dead and gone, a team of geologists will be digging in a field somewhere ...and they will discover, buried in the rocks below, a thin layer of sediment — very thin, about the width of a cigarette paper, says British stratigrapher Jan Zalasiewicz. That skinny strip, when … Continue reading Is Planet Earth Under New Management? : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR
As the frigid polar vortex makes itself at home over a giant swath of the country, it's also serving as fodder for all those equally unwelcome climate change deniers. Despite the fact that 97 percent of scientists agree that man-made climate change is happening, the likes of Donald Trump say many of these record lows … Continue reading Here’s What These Record Low Temperatures Say About Global Warming
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