Sometimes, life is about perspective.
Idiot politicians who don’t understand evolution, life, or X risk will probably be the ones that, if they enact policies like the Green New Deal, will cause catastrophic pain on human life. If life on Earth survived the Chicxulub impactor that exterminated 75% of all species, including all non-avian dinosaurs, 66 million years ago, it will probably survive a gradual 2 degree increase in temperature.
The Chicxulub impact event was an ~100 million megaton blast that devastated the Gulf of Mexico region.
The blast generated a core of superheated plasma in excess of 10,000 degrees. Although that thermal pulse would have been relatively short-lived, a handful of minutes, it would have been lethal for nearby life.
The Chicxulub Impact event produced a shock wave and air blast that radiated across the seas, over coastlines, and deep into the continental interior. Winds far in excess of 1000 kilometers per hour were possible near the impact site, although they decreased with distance from the impact site. The pressure pulse and winds would have scoured soils and shredded vegetation and any animals living in nearby ecosystems. An initial estimate of the area damaged by an air blast was a radius 1500 kilometers. There are several factors that can affect this estimate, so the uncertainty might be better reflected in a range of radii from ~900 to ~1800 km. The travel times are quite short, so this effect would have occurred in advance of any falling debris ejected from the Chicxulub crater.
Data from the Lunar and Planetary Institute, www.lpi.usra.edu was used for this article.
Jack Trump says
March 17, 2019 at 3:26 pmWell, sadly, for myself, I don’t believe many federal politicians are idiots. I believe they are short sighted carpetbaggers who don’t represent their constituents. They represent “special interests”. In doing so they are selling us something they can’t really believe, but push to help their friends make money. Perfect example ? Al Gore. Our local man, and (to me) folk hero, Mayor Ooker, put that blowhard in his place. On national t.v. Gore was schooled that after decades of personal water level measurements by crabber Ooker, there’s been virtually no measurable water level rise in The Chesapeake Bay. Gore’s response was emotional mumbo jumbo. Not scientific accuracy. Funny how accuracy baffles the hell outta b.s.
Before anyone out there thinks I deny climate change, hold your horses. I just believe our buddies at Wallops are the ones that “get it”. That outfit named NASA. No one on this planet conducts more global weather studies, or takes more data than they do. All our weather centers turn to them for accurate info. A few months ago they made a very important announcement. They have determined from their last 2 years of data collection, that overall, the earth has significantly cooled.
I am no scientist. In my personal learned experience and observations, I have always thought the weather to be cyclical. I have heard/read many global scientists say that same thing. I believe the case can be made that NASA is saying the same thing. They don’t give an opinion. They deliver stats. If I/we are to accept NASA to be “the correct indicator”, then I certainly hope all reject the Green deal as silly.
I certainly do believe we should always do the very best we can with renewable resources and energy conservation. I have for decades. I just don’t think it should be at an astronomical expense and driven by fire insurance salesmen to attempt to reverse a process that we may very well not be able to affect anyway, esp. if the attempt only sincerely comes from America.