Prehistoric Explosions Wiped Out Ocean Life-- And Created Petroleum

I would like to know the likelihood of this happening again any time in the near future

http://the.nerd.herd.group.googlepages.com/

We can't erupt our way out of this problem.

Can't erupt out way out of WHAT problem? There is no problem, except for the anti-oil policies of the mainstream left.

We have plenty of fossil fuels to last for hundreds of years, far more than necessary to get us through this stage where we need it. (We could be powering our entire electrical grid with nuclear generation in 20 years if we wanted to.)

Oil burning is also good for the environment. The real danger is (and always has been) global cooling, not global warming. And while greenhouse gases like CO2 have almost no marginal effect in the warming direction (since they mostly duplicate the heat trapping effects of the much more abundant water vapor), they do have significant potential to raise the floor on serious cooling (which rapidly reduces the water vapor holding capacity of the atmosphere).

Add that CO2 is plant food, and the external value of CO2 (value not captured in market prices, which only reflect production costs) are strongly positive. Current schemes that would tax CO2 emissions have it backwards. Rational economic taxes would be negative. If anything, we should be SUBDIZING CO2 emissions, in order to "internalize" the positive externality.

We should also be taking restrictions off of fossil extraction and refinement. Our current high energy prices are purely an artifact of energy obstructionism by the environmentalists. The proper market price of gasoline (without any subsidy) is probably a dollar a gallon. The ideal economic price is even lower.

Alec Rawls
www.errortheory.blogspot.com

Alec Rawls
www.errortheory.blogspot.com

Shoot I'd like to know the likelihood of this happening in the near future too!!! o_o

cuz that would kinda sux if it happened while I'm at the beach, i'll make sure when it does happen i catch a flight on an airplane that can reach the highest altitude just for safe measures. ^_^

I have to disagree. Fossil fuels are a danger to our earth, if you don't beileve it look at downtown LA, there is a looming smog that never seems to go away. Now you're trying to tell me that it's not fossil fuel emissions that are affecting our planet? Please, who are you trying to kid? Tell that to my lungs!

I think a better explanation than a huge volcanic eruption causing large deposits of fossil fuel, is that it was caused by a worldwide flood. This would also explain why there are fossils of desert and aquatic animals in Siberia and fish remains on mountain slopes.

Fossil fuels are good for the earth? Talk about living in your own world, man, that's just backasswards.

Our ecosystems have taken a HUGE hit due to petro-industrialization of the world. It wasn't nearly so bad 130years ago.

Why did it take 100 yrs to figure out Oil wouldn't be the end of the line in energy, but only a intermediary. We should be funding all kinds of alternative energy products on the back of Oil taxes.

a world-wide flood. You've no understanding of geology, do you?

Sure, we want to try to burn fossil fuels in a clean way, which is quite doable. What we can't eliminate, and don't want to eliminate, is the CO2, which has nothing but benefits. We should also be engineering our refining processes to produce other more critical greenhouse gases. We should be patching the holes in our greenhouse blanket, doing what we can to protect against the next ice age.

The global warming scare is pure hoax, and at this point, ALL the scientists know it (including those who are in on it).

Alec Rawls

http://errortheory.blogspot.com/2008/02/global-warming-alarmists-knew-cooling.html

No I don't think so......

My feeling, I had this for years, is that a Type C, Carbonaceous Asteroids impacts, which number about 75 percent of all the asteroids in our solar system gave us oil. coal and shale. Carbonaceous asteroids may have killed Dino - Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event delivering us the organic goop and hydrocarbons that we call oil into the Gulf of Mexico. All one has to do is look at all the oil in the Gulf of Mexico where the epicenter of the Chicxulub Crater impact happened to reason this one out.

Remember osmium isotopes can also be traced to asteroid and comet impacts.....

However me having this idea for so long will never get me into your science pages, I always get my ideas repackaged months or years later from a person who conveniently thinks of it, it ends up here or some other science magazine. Never-the-less I expect to read it here in the coming months that - Oil was traced to type C asteroids………..Can’t wait to read all about it, just wonder who’s name is going to be on it this time………….

rib2 has got it right! An impact my have cause massive eruptions around the globe, but the fact is massive devastation and oil formation is caused by impact.

rib2 has got it right! An impact my have cause massive eruptions around the globe, but the fact is massive devastation and oil formation is caused by impact.

First, to capcap: another explanation of the seemingly "random" distribution of fossils is that the landmasses on which the animals died have moved over the course of, oh, let's see...billions of years, thus areas which once were under the ocean are now dry land, and vice versa. One of these two explanations actually has scientific evidence to back it up, including easily visible observations of plate tectonics. Which one is it? Oh wait, it's mine.

Now, to those calling global warming a hoax, scam, scare, or other related term: Carbon Dioxide, in its gaseous state, is capable of retaining ultraviolet radiation in the form of heat much more effectively than the majority of gases in the atmosphere of Earth. The simplest example is the comparison of two planets in the Solar system. One has an average surface temperature of 465 degrees Celsius (738 Kelvin, 869 Fahrenheit). The other has an average surface temperature of 125 degrees Celsius (398 Kelvin, 257 Fahrenheit). Which one is closer to the sun? The second one I mentioned, which happens to be Mercury. The other is Venus - nearly twice as far from the sun as Mercury, but on average more than 300 degrees Celsius hotter. Why? simple: Mercury has little or no atmosphere; Venus has an atmosphere composed of roughly 64% Carbon Dioxide. Earth's CO2 percentage is much smaller, roughly .0003%. But it's growing very rapidly (if current trends continue it will reach .0004% by roughly 2010).

Finally, to those wishing for another volcanic event like the one mentioned in this article, it's not quite so simple. For reactions to occur to convert biological material into petroleum and related substances, not only must large amounts of life die and settle on the ocean floor without decaying, but they must be covered by large amounts of certain kinds of silt and certain types of enzymes, then be subjected to immense pressure for several million years. If a reaction could be found to do the conversion at a rapid enough rate to be useful, oil companies would be paying for your table scraps. I don't know about you, but I, personally, would rather not wait the eons involved.

there is no proof to support this

http://the.nerd.herd.group.googlepages.com/

What i meant to say is that the guy rlb2 or whatever his name is has no proof

http://the.nerd.herd.group.googlepages.com/

To Illuminatiscott; Venus's atmosphere is composed of (by volume) 96.5% carbon dioxide; (CO2) 3.5% nitrogen (N2).
(http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/V/Venusatmos.htm)

This is the major cause of Venus's runaway greenhouse effect. Your indication of CO2 increases in Earth's atmosphere to ".0004% by roughly 2010" is hardly an equivilent comparison.

This article is definitely interesting. I've also read that natural oil production continues to happen today.
(http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59991)
(http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5863/604)

The folks who think evil scientists are conspiring to steal the world's money and power really worry me. We need to move on to renewable sources of energy, and those who are not with the consensus of study and analysis need to step aside. What the deniers don't realize is that they are simply afraid of change.

The best analysis, which is what scientists try very hard to supply, tells us that the time to optimize our chances was at least 20 years ago, but if not that, we need to start now to cut back strongly on adding to our warm "blanket". The question for each reader is, how long will it take you to open your mind to a shift in the world as we know it. I first saw this coming 1 1/2 years ago. A few saw it 50 years ago - when will you, the reader, gather real facts and realize the seriousness of our position here on earth, whether it is coming in the next five years, or the next 20 years. Planning ahead, and action, are needed now to anticipate problems arising in 10 to 20 years. Time to come back to a fully-engaged life to face this challenge.

To PlanetThoughts: You resort to personal attacks ("What the deniers don't realize is that they are simply afraid of change") and don't back up your statements with facts. I love Earth! I love technology! I don't believe these things are mutual exclusive. Change is the only constant is life. It's the only thing you can depend on. I take comfort in it, not fear it.

More technology and more energy use is the solution, not conservation. We can never run out of enegy. Everything that exists is energy.
(http://www.manhattan-institute.org/bottomlesswell/)

Alec Rawls: anti-oil policies of the mainstream left? So George W. Bush is now a mainstream liberal? He being the one to vastly increase the mandate of alternatively sourced fuels - while he still had power. You're bonkers. All the scientists know it? Even the one's who are "in on it"? You ever hear the term "follow the money"? You're double bonkers.

Time flies like the wind,
Fruit flies like bananas.

In reply to nerd.herd - What i meant to say is that the guy rlb2 or whatever his name is has no proof

Hi nerd.herd my name is Ron Bennett, I use that old aol screen name for traceability only.

The new hypothesis posted on Popular Science article Prehistoric Explosions Wiped Out Ocean Life-- And Created Petroleum is based on a false assumption from the start that oil may have been deposited by one huge eruption event 93 million years ago. Dinosaurs were around from 160 million years ago to about 65 million years ago, something of that magnitude would have killed off the dinosaurs; some of the techniques used to verify the dinosaurs extinction event is carbon dating. If this event happened as the article stated then the timeline would be more like 65 million years ago not 93 million years ago.

It is still being debated that the massive Dinosaurs extinction event that happened 65 million years ago could have been either one of a huge volcanic origin or due to impact. The most favored impact hypothesis is the one that happened at the end of the Cretaceous period created the Chicxulub Crater off of the Yucatan Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time of the Dinosaurs extinction event. Mexico, Texas and the gulf are rich in oil. Carbonaceous asteroids are rich in hydrocarbons similar to our oil some more than others. Carbonaceous asteroids make up 75 percent of all the asteroids in our solar system.

A new leading hypothesis on where the earth’s water supply came from is from comet and asteroid impact, so it is only natural to assume that most of our hydrocarbons, oil, coal, etc came from billions of years of impacts too. Now the basis for the Popular Science article proof of one volcanic event causing most of our oil is from osmium isotopes found in oil, coal and shale. Osmium isotopes are also a tracer elements found to impact events…..

A combination of many carbonaceous asteroids impacts events over billions of years is a more reasonable hypothesis than the one given in the Popular Science article. Note all the oil, coal and shale could more easily be explained with many events that deposit osmium isotopes over the entire globe than one enormous eruption event before the end of the Cretaceous period.

Ron Bennett

First things first: climate always changes. Simply because we have very limited life spans (on a geologic scale) doesn't mean that we shouldn't expect things to change. That it's warming now (albeit slightly) is cause for celebration, because the alternative is much harder on humans and nature in general.

Second: there is no scientific proof that says human activities are causing any of the warming we have seen over the last 30 years (since the Global Cooling scare of the mid-70s).

Argue all you want, but true scientists understand that the scientific method, if applied to this hypothesis, cannot yield scientifically sound answers. There is no way to test the hypothesis that can be replicated and tested independently elsewhere. That is the basis of the scientific method and science. Without independent testing, there can be no proving yay or nay on this hypothesis.

What we have instead is many groups pursuing grant money who create "scientific models" to predict the future climate. This exercise in futility would be laughable if it weren't for the millions of people who are taking the predictions seriously. The first question to ask about the models being used for predictions is this:"Does your model accurately "predict" past climate? In other words, given the data that we already have over the last thousand years, can the model predict what the climate was doing 500 years ago or today?" The answer to that question for all models about which I have read may surprise you: they cannot.

There are simply too many variables to the climate to account for everything and create a valid model at this time. I am all for climate scientists pursuing this admirable goal. What I am fiercely against is advertising every doomsday prediction based on models that are incomplete at best.

I wish more of these climate scientists today would admit to the folly that is the basis for these predictions. Unfortunately, grant money is what everyone needs and this is the hot topic that is producing prodigious amounts of grant money. So we can expect some scientists to continue to look the other way when it comes to the scientific method while securing their own future. And whilst scaring the heck out of everyone who doesn't understand what's really happening.

Ok I don't care I will make it personal.

Anyone that thinks that their is some massive boogeyman style conspiracy about global warming. UR AN IDIOT.

Anyone that thinks, LMFAO, it easy to survive in a hotter climate then a colder one. UR AN IDIOT.

Anyone that thinks CO2 is our friend. UR AN IDIOT.

Anyone that says there is no way to conclusively prove CO2 causes global warming. UR AN IDIOT.

Now assuming u idiots that disagree haven't tuned out and moved on already, cause lets face it idiots rarely look at anything that doesn't reinforce there BS view, read on.

Take the temperature difference between a nice pleasant day and the some Arctic destination, now add it to the temperature of you nice pleasant day... WHOZ DEAD NOW?
Not me. I am in some nice warm clothes in an igloo, ohh and u got no aircon cause there is no oil or coal left to power it. And all the solar panels sold to the rich years ago.

Move to Mars and then tell me CO2 is good. If it is that much of your friend then be gone with the poor Earthly amount of CO2 in our atmosphere, Mars has 95% just waiting for u.

This one involves some complex ideas, so let me simplify them for u.
CO2 make energy from sun bounce back good. Make surface temperature hotter and increase chances of sunburn. Also make big ice bergs melt very faster.

Where is the payoff for scientist to make a global warming boogeyman that they say pretty much cant be stopped with out pumping more BS into the atmosphere, stuff they cannot make money outta. Seriously, scientist get paid top dollar for BS studies like, do women masturbate, and, are men lying about their penis size when trying to have sex with women online... who masturbate. Now that is easy, u dont need to even work, just sit down surf porn for a while then put in some BS and flog it off as a research paper. But noooo u wanna believe that not only are they trying to STEAL money, but that they have a work ethic? They will only STEAL it by making up a BS scenario and then working hard to prove it.

It makes me sick. Some of u are just plants for neo-cons that wanna get their own way. Some are just idiots that watch that King of Idiots O'Reilly and foxaganda and think that those ppl are respectable.
Neo-con plants are tools and make me sick cause they are in it for the money. Cross my palm with silver and thou shall own my soul.
Idiots make me sick cause they listen to other idiots that have neo-con writers and then sprout what idiot one said, to more idiots like its their own idea. If you are regurgitating someone else's words and ideas, then u got no business having an opinion on what u are talking about, cause u don't have an opinion on what u are talking about. U just heard something that u thought u could regurgitate and sound like u have a brain.

After things looked promising for the movement forward. it sickens me that a few richos have paid off a few scientist that, if u cross my palm with silver u buy my soul, and got this BS out there about global warming being a lefty conspiracy.

Oh and to finalize, if you don't agree with me... UR AN IDIOT.

Don't tell that to the oil industry they are going to trigger volcano everywhere

this explosion idea is bull crap.

common sense says that, in order for something to be preserved like that, it has to be covererd by other stuff, like it is now.

the only explenation is a Biblical flood enveloping the entire earth.

"Fossil fuels are a danger to our earth, if you don't beileve it look at downtown LA, there is a looming smog that never seems to go away."

This theory would be more interesting were it not for the fact that smog in L.A. preceded the arrival of the Spanish.

Being a bowl surrounded on three sides by mountains, with a thermal inversion trapping smoke and dust much of the time, local indigenes helped things along by burning grassland to improve farming and hunting.

About the only time it really clears up is when the Santa Ana winds come up to blow the muck out to sea. They also fan brushfires of the area's chaparral vegetation, which is very much like oil-soaked old wood.

The worst years for smog in the L.A. Basin were during the late '60s, and air quality has improved pretty much continuously since that time.

Smog/smoke/haze isn't going away from there unless someone takes out a big chunk of the surrounding mountains. Sorry.

So many of these comments seem to show that the readers completely missed the point of the article.

Global warming is real, whether you people like it or not. And I do have facts to back me up. People want to deny it so they can keep driving their SUVs and heating there houses to 75 degrees in the winter and cranking the AC to 60 in the summer without feeling guilty. Unfortunately, it's real.
And now for the proof. Does anyone know what the carboniferous era was? It was a very hot, flooded time on Planet Earth some 354 to 290 million years ago. And do you know why it's called the CARBONiferous era? Because the atmosphere was full of CARBON dioxide. This era is also where most of our coal comes from. So now we put two and two together. Hot climate + lots of CO2. So did the CO2 cause the hot? Well, I would infer so, and here's why. Once that carbon was pulled out of the air and stored as coal, the climate began to cool off. So the removal of CO2 caused the cooling? I can't be possitive, but it sounds pretty convincing, especially since CO2 levels are now rising in accordance with temperature. Coincidence? I think not.
Now, I do understand that a lot of CO2 comes naturally from volcanoes. But if we keep burning the stored carbon, we'll be in "Carboniferous Era, the sequel" and we won't like that. But we can't just geoengineer our way out of this, either. We're doing enough to the planet, we really should refrain from doing anything ON PURPOSE! And carbon sequestration is just as stupid, since it wastes energy and if that CO2 leaks out, people will die in massive numbers in the surrounding area. Plus, mining coal destroys natural land, especially strip mining.
But global warming needs to be halted. How? STOP MAKING CO2! We need carbon neutrality, using plants and protists like algae that reabsorb carbon as neww growth as we burn what was harvested.
And one last thing--a little extra CO2 probably didn't hurt us as much as we think, at least not so far. We were sort of going into a mini ice age a while ago. But now that's fixed, so lets be done with the CO2. And this is not just a normal warming cycle--we are not due for one yet according to ice core data!

The frightening thing about many of the comments that downplay the effect of global warming is the general lack of understanding of the fundamental problem. The reason that global warming is bad is that it will cause climate instability. What this means for you, Joe "I like sunbathing on the Arctic Circle", is that when you go to the store to pick up your 12 pack of Schlitz, you'll find that it is no longer available or it costs 3 times as much. Why? Because lands which were once fertile will no longer be (beer is made with hops and barley). Entire ecosystems will change, and change quickly. The change isn't necessarily the bad part as some have pointed out. So what if the bread basket of America is reduced to a dust bowl and Canada has huge swaths of land which can be grown upon (oh wait, that is bad...oops)? At least there will be farmable (is that a word?) land somewhere, right? Not so fast (or should I say too fast). The problem will be that we'll be trying to hit a moving target. So, all of this introduces a lot of stress into the ecosystem. And what do you get when you introduce stress into ecosystems? Extinctions. Good for funeral directors, bad for everyone else. Now, there are no guarantees. The climate may change with or without our intervention, but if we stop adding unnecessary variables to the equation (like CO2) then that change should be gradual on the scale of our lifetimes. That keeps things managable and lowers the stress. Keep ramping up the CO2 and you accelerate the change and in turn the stress. Life will adapt and survive no matter what we do. The question is will we be around to enjoy it.

This presents interesting food for thought. But I must take issue with the title of the article, stating an area under investigation by scientists as though their hypothesis were fact. It does not add to the credibility of Popular Science to do so. For a science mag to speak of a new concept in science as though it had proven itself, is beneath professionalism. The title should have been more like "New Hypothesis..." Or they could just have put a question mark at the end of this title. People in general just are NOT smart enough to grasp the difference; they'll take the title as proven. So far, it is only suspected and being investigated - and that alone is extremely interesting. But it is beneath the dignity of a science mag to engage in something that is clearly going to mislead some people.

It will take a great amount of evidence to override the voluminous evidence that already exists for global warming. If this event did occur, it would certainly be necessary to investigate it thoroughly. It is far too early, though, to think it may have any relationship to the demise of the dinosaurs or global warming. Mental leapfrog should be discouraged at this site, not promoted. This IS a science mag to tell of real science in terms the lay public can understand, isn't it? Then do it responsibly.

Still, it is possible that this hypothesis AND the global warming evidence could be true, each in a different way. While there is little cause whatever for doubt about the reality of global warming, and CO2's contribution, along with other greenhouse gases, and we should not even consider slowing down our search for alternate energy sources (if only to get off our dependence on oil from nations that hate us), I'd like to learn more about this hypothesis, what they've learned, how they're continuing their study of it.

The article speaks of "the volcano," but doesn't share with us WHERE it was. Was it just A volcano, or was it possibly an eruption that occurred all along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge? The information is too sketchy, even for a layman's science article. There should have been more precise info. It doesn't tell us how the sea chemistry could have been changed. One volcano has a vanishingly small chance of doing that. It would have to be a HUGE collection of volcanoes, all going off at once, all with access to putting chemicals into the sea. None of this is explained. That does not degrade the hypothesis; it merely shows a lack of information in the article.

Furthermore, if such a blowup did occur, and DID kill ALL ocean life, as the article says, we'd need to find evidence in the sea to tell us HOW sealife managed to re-establish itself, and when. It would have to explain how that re-established sea life could still have species that existed BEFORE the blowup. It seems to me more likely that not ALL sealife was killed. It would also have to explain how these oil deposits got under the soil of areas that have never been under the ocean.

I'm in no way questioning the ethics of the researchers or the validity of their findings. They may merely have gone unreported here. Professional scientists would, of course, be asking the questions I just did, and I have no reason to think these researchers are NOT doing so.

As for the passing of the dinosaurs, this event could have been one of many possibilities. It could have been the sole cause (extremely unlikely), or an independent, and almost-simultaneous event with the meteor impact on Yucatan in Mexico, or it may have been TRIGGERED by the impact. All of those possibilities make this a very interesting line of research.

There is no doubt that the impact in the Yucatan occurred, and that it occurred concurrently with the end of the dinosaurs. That it could possibly have had no impact on that extinction is irrational; of COURSE it did. There remains a small, but statistically possible chance that this explosion event was about to occur on its own, and it just happened to be at a time concurrent with the meteor impact. Still, an impact of such monumental magnitude would make the planet ring like a bell for a very long time (just as our most violent earthquakes have proven to do), and that could easily trigger some extremely profound geologic events. Just as an earthquake, originating under the land surface, sends waves through rock, so would this impact have done likewise, but in a somewhat different manner. It would be good to try to determine how waves in the planet's surface caused from BENEATH the surface by earthquakes might differ from waves caused by an external impact. If this event proves to be what they suspect it was, it would be a matter worthy of great interest by scientists, especially if the timing of its occurrence can be reliably pinned down near the time of the meteor impact and the extinction. It would then be necessary to try to determine if the meteor caused it, or if it would have happened anyway. Or, if it would have happened anyway, did the meteor make it worse? If so how much worse? And WHERE? Nothing but questions! Which is what science is FOR - to answer them. Then, from what they've learned, a dozen new questions arise from every fact they've established, every question they've answered. The scientist's perpetual dilemma! But one which never ceases to increase their fascination.

I'm fascinated, too. But this article was pitifully lacking in important informational content.

On another note:

AS USUAL, religion has to rear its VERY ugly head. Religion was behind the hundreds of years of frozen human progress in every area - education, technology and science particularly, and profoundly in terms of thwarting human liberties. Yet people who are "believers" in this same religion (Catholicism) and its offshoots (all Protestant sects) still want to stand in the way of human knowledge and development. These people, coming to this site, do so only to spread their inane views based on the writings of ignorant people from 3000 years ago. They come here ONLY to attempt to discredit science. Their interest is NOT in learning any truth or gaining knowledge, but is centered entirely on destruction, doing harm, which makes them particularly loathsome.

And some are doing so with a vengeance. Again. Nothing would please these people more than to revitalize the Inquisition - but with THEIR religion running things this time. They are as unAmerican as anyone they accused of it, because they do NOT believe in democracy at ALL. They believe in a religious government, which is the antithesis of democracy. Let them BE that way, if they want to, but keep them out of OUR faces.

Religion has lost ALL credibility in terms of having its way about education, science and technology, and should have NOTHING to say regarding human rights and liberties.

Religion has proved itself, beyond all reasonable doubt, to be a malevolent force. Yet people still need to "believe" in something, and we can't change that one bit. So let them have their beliefs, but we need LAWS to enforce them to keep it in the three places where religion has a legitimate place: In the heart, in the home, and in the house of worship. There IS no other legitimate place for religion - not in a free country. Its track record is so utterly despoiled - by their own actions - that it must be held firmly where it belongs, and with significant, and MEANINGFUL consequences for straying outside of its proper boundaries.

I'm sick and tired of religion trying to tell US that science is wrong and the Flood caused every situation that requires study to understand. Like the Grand Canyon. Like seashells on mountain tops. Like human evolution. They are welcome to have and keep their views - as long as they keep them to THEMSELVES. At first, their notions about Genesis over science only made them laughingstocks. But the growth of the whacked-out cults, which have revised Christianity, yet claim to BE Christian, has changed that equation. They are militant political groups, using this brainwashing to get an unswerving constituency, who cannot be reached by reason, no matter what. These leaders seek to take over our country. We can't afford to let them.

The biggest force FOR evil in this world is the very thing which claims to be the only pathway to anything that is GOOD: religion. History has proven it, time and again. Even the recent campaign showed us how Palin's whacked-out cult would like to take over America, just as Bush's own whacked-out cult tried to do.

Be pious, if you want to, but stay out of OUR faces with it. You have an inalienable right to make asses of yourselves, but keep it within your hearts, homes and churches. Step outside of it and you'll face public wrath. We've had enough, forever, of this garbage.

Errata: in my earlier comments I assumed a claim was being made that this blowup occurred close to the time of the great dinosaur extinction. It seems they appear to be separated by about 28 million years, so the blowup had no effect on the dinos. Nor could the meteor strike have triggered it. Mea culpa. I hadn't checked the date of the extinction first. But this hypothesis remains an interesting one.

In roughly the 1980's I began to suspect that another Ice Age was beginning, slowly but surely, because the climate in the Chicago area was giving us winters of tremendous severity. I could remember as a child, that 0 degrees Farenheit was awesome. By my 30's, -26 F was a common part of a Chicago winter. To me, that meant climate change - for the colder.

I recognized the possibility of a climate change, even back then, but I read it wrong. A warming planet will alter climates in most parts of the world, but the changes won't all be the same. Some areas will actually get COLDER, while others experience great elevations in heat. Some areas which were dry as a bone would begin having deluges and floods, while other areas, enjoying just enough rainfall, would become dry. Global warming does NOT mean that all climates of the world will get uniformly warmer. It means huge changes, leaning in the direction of slightly greater warmth, but the changes themselves cover the whole spectrum - including the bringing of -26 F winters to Chicago. A changed average temperature will affect both air and water circulation cycles. These will bring unpredictable weather patterns, including those in the oceans. If the stable ocean currents (which dictate climate in many parts of the world) become altered, all those areas whose climate depends on them - or on their ABSENCE - will see vast changes. Most of them unwelcome.

I've been living in Mexico now for 15 years. Our climate is close to idyllic. The climate is one which has a very distinct dry season and a very distinct rainy season. June, to somewhere in autumn, it's very rainy - almost every day there are tempestuous thunderstorms (fortunately mostly at night). From the time the rains peter out in autumn, the dry season begins. From then till next June, not a drop of precipitation falls. The first few years, it was true to this pattern. But since then, we've had weather effects that are unknown in local memory. Thunderstorms - complete with hail - in JANUARY! The height of the dry season. One year, near Christmas, Guadalajara experienced freezing (32F) and actually had a dusting of SNOW! Some years, too little rain, other years too much. It is as though our climate is changing and hasn't yet made up its mind what it plans to change INTO. Normally, our winter begins with a big cold front moving in, with lots of strong winds. It usually happens, give or take a week or two, around Christmas. This year, it descended on us on Election Day - Nov. 5. That's almost two MONTHS early. And it was not just a false start of the cold season - the cold air STAYED. People who have lived all their lives here cannot remember anything like these things happening, even in tales from earlier generations.

Climate change will bring unique changes to each climatological region, but they will certainly NOT all be the same kind. It is hard to imagine that many of those changes will be for the better. If deserts get adequate rainfall and begin to bloom, that sounds very nice. Except it will mean that other areas won't get nearly enough, and could become deserts themselves.

Worst of all is the effects of these changed climates on the plant life. It can't move to a better climate. If the changes are compromising their ability to continue surviving, they'll die off. To have large forested areas of the planet die off would be catastrophic. Plant life, in both the sea and on the land, is the only reason we have ANY oxygen to breathe. Oxygen is an extremely reactive gas. Oxygen in the air is constantly being incorporated (the most commmonly known being in iron-bearing soils) as oxides, and thus are removed from the atmosphere. Plant life insures a constantly renewed supply, and that supply has always been ample enough to compensate for the formation of oxides and still give us enough air to breathe. Without them, a large percentage of our source of oxygen would also be gone, and it could take hundreds of years for it to re-establish itself again in a better climate and begin pumping out oxygen for us to breathe again. If we're still here to breathe it. I'd call that VERY serious.

Climate modeling is only a small part of the evidence of global warming. There are tangible, visible, effects that can't be denied or laid to some other cause. Our melting icecaps are beyond denial. There are many other observed effects which can have no other cause than warmer climate to explain them. Calling it all hogwash and greedy scientists seeking to enrich themselves with grants at the public's expense, by scaring the public - it's outrageous. Too much evidence, in too many areas, exists to deny global warming any more. It falls on those who denounce it to PROVE their positions. Hard evidence, in other words. All I read here is suppositions and second-guessing. And since the bulk of it is politically motivated, it is all the more suspect.

People don't fully realize how profound the climate they live in affects every aspect of their lives. If they did, they'd take global warming much more seriously.

Re: AlecRawls: "There is no problem, except for the anti-oil policies of the mainstream left... Oil burning is also good for the environment. The real danger is (and always has been) global cooling, not global warming."

WOW... and your views are the consistent with policies of the mainstream right? Well, that would explain the state of our economy under right-wing control over the past decade. If oil burning is so good for the environment, I challenge you to stick your head over an active refinery stack or tailpipe of a running gasoline or diesel engine for a few minutes to see how "good" the burning of fossil fuels is for the environment. If oil burning is so good for the environment, it should follow that housing near refineries would be the most desireable. Do you live next to one? As a petroleum geologist for over 25 years whose income is dependent on oil and gas development, I can say that you sir are an idiot.

Dan D.

About the whole Global Warming thing, here's a video that might explain why Global Warming is nothing but a farce. If you truly have an open mind and want to know the truth, not just what's popular, watch it. This was put together by the scientists who's name's were put on the UN's list of scientist who support the Global Warming Theory falsely and asked to have their names removed, only to be threatened and denied. If you truly have a thirst for knowledge and the truth, you should be informed of all the angles of and issue, not just the one you choose to support.

http://www.rightalk.com/asx/ggws.asx

Really, the fundamental assumption of the whole movement is that if CO2 goes up, temperature goes up. The ice core record show the exact opposite. Just watch the video.

Re: capcap: "I think a better explanation than a huge volcanic eruption causing large deposits of fossil fuel, is that it was caused by a worldwide flood. This would also explain why there are fossils of desert and aquatic animals in Siberia and fish remains on mountain slopes."

But wait... I thought the earth was created in 6 days 6000 years ago? And that Moses built a big boat and put 2 of every animal on the planet on it (did that include insects too?) Boy I'm confused. Damn... I have to go now and close my windows. The gods are crying in heaven and their tears are coming inside the house.

I'm sorry, but it continues to amaze me that people who routinely use technology that grew from science - to post blogs, pay their bills, search for good airfares... still revert to magic as the source of what they can't comprehend.

Fossil fuels are bad. This we know. For the Al Gore tells us so. Little emmissions to him belong. We are weak, his movie's long.
Yes, Al Gore loves me. Yes, Al Gore loves me. Yes, Al Gore loves me. His movie tells me so.

Seriously, fossil fuels are bad. Bad economics and bad environmentally. Forget the ozone/GW stuff - FF's lead to smog. Smog is bad for you.

Also, the FF market is set on a broken paradigm.
(1) It is limited.
(2) Is has diminishing returns.

Thus, the more we use, the more we grow to depend on it, thus the more we need, which means the more we use, thus demand always increases, while supplies onl decrease, thus scarcity always increases, thus prices always increase, and as supplies decrease cost of extraction increases, leading to further costs and scarcity, until it consumes an ever increasing amount of our income, making it eventually to exspensive for consumption, leading us to become less dependent on it, reducing demand while production is high, leading to other market spikes in secondary FF industries (plastic, lubricating oil, etc).

Compare that to solar, where the more we use, the more we invest, which leads to easier and more efficient harvesting, which leads to more supply, which leads to more use, which leads to more investing, which leads to easier and more efficient harvesting. A better buisness model for the long run.

As always, the best things in life come frome those who have learned about the benefits of delayed gratification.

Oh yes, the ocean volcano idea is pure crud. I mean baby bottom fluffy yellow and green diaper crud.

a

Who said scientists stated there is no such thing as global warming and climate change?
Surveyed scientists agree global warming is real!
Most earth scientists believe humans cause global warming. Climatologists canvassed believe humans play a role.

About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.
The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.