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by Mountaineerbr

#23 - Banned from BSD Forums by Said Environmentalists


That is so difficult to be an intelectual!

I was checking out BSD forms because I like BSD and plan(ned) to migrate to BSD someday, so I like to check that out sometimes and see what are the troubles that affect that people..

Today I found a very intriguing thread called Environmentalist, in which there is a pitiful discussion about saving the environment by setting and fine-tuning their BSD system power plan correctly..

I thought the BSD people were sort of alternative people who would care to open their minds to other possibilities. and decided to post a reply to that thread and see if I could shed some light on these complex environmental questions. As it turned out, they are just as inflexible as anyone else, I am afraid. I was banned less than 30 minutes later by allegations of spamming!

I sent an appeal e-mail to accounts@FreeBSD.org and forum-admins@FreeBSD.org. Unfortunately, I do not expect to hear back from them.

The following is a copy of my original reply to that thread. Enjoy!


Hallo guys,

The Sun still warms. There are other forces in Nature which have got a planetary effect. Keep in mind the insignificance of humans in the bigger space scenery. Global forcings include, the Sun by various means, its energy flux and magnetic field strength. Actually, magnetic changes of the Sun fields seem to have a greater effect on Earth than merely Sun's energy flux. Something that is really worrisome is the influx of cosmic rays which are really powerful when coming from out of solar system and are mutagenic, for the worse and for the better, but mostly bad for humans.. Also, The Sun will affect the oceans which are able to have a global effect, too. Still, we can go to smaller scale and point out that volcanoes can change global temperature (albeit for maybe only a short period of time, say months or years).

Why do the forces above can change Earth climate? The Sun has got many cycles, for example one magnetic cycle that lasts 11 years, others that last hundreds of years and others thousand of years.. These cycles all overlap each other, so they are not so easy to identify but possible. Only recently scientists have been questioning what are the effects of the `Galactic Current Sheet', which crosses Earth at about 12K or so years. That is roughly about the same period of time Earth uses to flip poles..

Check Suspicious Observer, however take with a grain of salt his seemingly alarmism sometimes:
Galactic Sheet Impact | Timing the Arrival

The following article is also useful in this specific context:
Solar system approaching the closest position to the galactic core, energetic region altering magnetic fields of the Sun and all planets

There are some recent papers describing what I find most fascinating and is potentially a unifying background for all this discussion is the understanding of `Sun Inertial Motion' (SIM), check Zharkova (she has got some lectures videos on the tubes):
Oscillations of the baseline of solar magnetic field and solar irradiance on a millennial timescale
Or my copy of the article

And also:
One of Zharkova's team website (reply to Suspicious Observer)

These are Milankovich cycles.

Other cycles affect Earth, for example the effects of

The Oceans have got their own cycles, too, some being multidecadal cycles. For example, one Pacific Ocean cycle is 60 years long, so a human that is lucky enough to live a long life may live through Pacific Ocean cycle once, surely less than 2 full cycles at the luckiest possibility for human life experience..

There are also Geologic forces which will change Earth face very quickly even in terms of human life time span. Se this article from Dr. Peet, a great geologist from last century in NYT article:

England is known to being eaten by the ocean (erosion) while primitive regions have a habit of throwing up new islands and some to vanish.

Some parts of Scandiavia have lifted from .45 to .95 meters per century.

The Bavarian Alps have advanced closer to Munich at the rate of a .30 to .91 meters in the course of 100 years.

In other parts of Germany church steeples which were formerly not visible from certain points are beginning to rise above the horizon..

--Europe Shrinks as Earth Cools, (or my copy of the article)

On the other hand, humans have got a very limited experience and power over their surroundings. Whereas rain storms may have a regional impact on the environment (albeit for only a short period of time), humans can only impact local environment such as for example: the city will affect its own environment and its immediate surroundings but as soon as you go farther to country side, city effects soon disappear. I have seem many people trying to extrapolate the very limited power of humans to affect the whole Earth but that is only wishful thinking, as we shall see.

I fear science has become banal. Every one now thinks they are `environmentalists' without the burden to dig deep into Ecology (mostly important perhaps: Island Ecology). They are still very naive about biology and ignore how brutal it has been and still is against human beings.

As Schrodinger warns us:

In the tribunal there sits by the side of the judges a non-jurisprudent assessor- namely our own little self- which finds it distasteful to pass for an automaton.

--Schrodinger, Do Electrons Think?

And also there is no boundary between the living and non-living, meaning we are bound by the same physical laws that govern the entire universe.

Where do you guys live? I saw a comment in this thread of somebody saying:

We are at a point where most people have everything they need

I will not give you a reference but surely you guys should open your eyes to the fact most people in the World have got terrible life conditions and fight against illness, poverty and hunger..

The biggest sustainability problem we have got is Poverty. Get this one right.