“I’m not an expert, but 20 kilometers is 65000 feet which is quite above where clouds and rain form.”

What is the “upper limit” (pun intended” of extant weather simulation technology?

best wishes

Today we should be glad they didn’t go ahead with their plans, or maybe not?? The number of sunspots is decreasing and we may be be heading towards a small ice age similar to the one we had around 1700, when we also had very few sunspots.

And although this seems random, this quote by Nietzche that I saw yesturday, really sums up alot of my feelings recently:

“Mystical explanations are considered deep; the truth is, they are not even shallow.”

Indeed, really just posting articles like that are critical to remind people that things are getting done, and to not get bogged down by pessimism….it’s so easy to look at all the articles, all the research and just not care because the economy is in shambles, this and that is happening overseas…really just to pick at anything you can think of to convince yourself that things are getting worse, which is completely not the case.

You are not deluded for thinking things are getting better, and reading articles that seem to reinforce that…for having that idea of the world; you can be called annoyingly optimistic, but it’s even worse to become annoying pessimistic, and to have this vision of the future and seemingly seeing all these different things coming from different sources that seem to perpetuate that….It’s not that you are cherry-picking or being selective; indeed, the world is not perfect, nor is it ever likely to be (it’s debatable what the word even means)…but if you could, say, show somebody the book “The Better Angels of our Nature”, introduce them more to science and technology little by little and try to make them see past the doom and gloom that pervades, well, everything nowadays….I think it’s a worthwhile thing to do.

The last thing in the world that you want to happen is to let your cynicism about the downtrodden state of the world, despite evidence to the contrary, become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and those sorts of situations are the ones to really be fearful for – that lack of appreciation for what you have, is what makes you lose it; next thing you know, the USA starts fighting China, climate change just gets worse, fundamentalism in any aspect just gets bigger….we live in an extraordinary time where things seemingly only become more utopian overtime, with individuals becoming more ‘god-like’ in capability…. the only reason stopping a whole ton of people from having happier lives is to simply change their way at looking at things and realize what they have….I’m not trying to marginalize people’s problems, but for crying out loud…..you’re a fool if you think any sort of apocalypse is going to make things better.

The newest of the new Gulfstream, the G650,
which just got its papers from the FAA six weeks ago.
It is only certificated for operations up to 51,000 feet
or 15.5 KM, not the 20 KM you would have them crashing from.

Maybe some basic Earth science should precede the magic show.

Sure, but Bob’s claim is that there is some far-reaching conspiracy going on here among the entire world’s top scientific academies and institutions. This is just ridiculous on its face. It would be far too difficult to pull off for one thing, and the motive just isn’t there.

Btw, in the interests of balance – surely Big Oil has vastly more cash available (not to mention a far greater incentive) to influence the debate via PR, lobbying, astro-turfing, bogus thinktanks, etc ? It’d almost be neglectful of them not to make these “investments”, so as to protect their future profits.

Just check it out at:

https://www.edx.org/courses/HarvardX/CB22x/2013_Spring/about

Do you remember the one about graphene being used as a filter for reverse osmosis to desalinate seawater?

Or all the articles she has found about molecular self-assembly?

Or about carbon photovoltaics with 83% efficiency?

These will give humanity what it needs to grow desalination plants far out on the continental shelves with pipelines wider and longer than the Great Wall of China to pump in freshwater to green all the barren deserts of the world.

Interesting _fact_: we have caused more harm than good to our environment by playing God. Please think about that.

Why doesnt anyone consider the positive side of “global warming?” For sure if the green house gasses cause the polar ice caps to melt and raise the sea level, then the coastal cities will be swamped, a bad thing, but consider how much of our current global land mass is too cold for human habitation, Greenland, northern Canada, Alaska, and a whopping fraction of north Russia. Global warming might make this huge total land mass fit for human habitation, and hence more than offset the negative effects of rising sea levels. Why does noone even mention this idea of “global blossoming?”

“The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause…..” [+ much more here]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html

Just last week it was shown that the precipitates out the CO2 as calcium carbonate that will settle to the ocean floor.
This gives shellfish and plankton more building materials, and doesn’t flood the ocean with fertilizer like seeding with iron does.

If you want to collect it, it is also used in making cement, and bypasses alot of the energy used to cook it…

Please note the quote, “eight of the warmest years on record have occurred in the past decade.”

The Singularity is a black hole for the imagination. You can keep sending your imagination up to the Sing, but you can’t get past it.

Unimaginable things will be commonplace in the second half of this century.

When you can link your brain to a quantum computer, even if you are using a DNA computer as a go-between, you will make stupendous scientific breakthroughs every few nano-seconds.