Posted on 04/02/2009 5:46:07 PM PDT by KevinDavis
well on the plus side their rockets won’t make it high enough to impact the ozone layer. Might possibly hurt a few low flying birds.
Remember the Sniglets books of the 1980s? Someone I knew had a Sniglets calendar, and one of the days had an illustration (which I couldn’t find) of “The Hozone” which was defined as the layer of the atmosphere where socks wind up after they disappear in the dryer.
http://www.phsclassof1985.com/Sniglets.jpg
Freon (R-12) took the first hit, then we started with the global warming panic. The former was lucrative, but the latter is a moneymaker that just hasn't quit, even though the warming did.
It has survived enormous impacts, the vagaries of plate tectonics, massive volcanic eruptions, so a few shuttle launches--or car air conditioners won't make much difference in the long run.
Frankly, I see the entire panic series as an excuse to keep people here on the planet, in the dark, and living in mud huts, with the exception of the 'enlightened few' who would be our overlords.
Imagine the horror those same would-be overlords feel at the thought of people living somewhere without so much as a homeowner's association to browbeat them.
As for the Earth, yes, we can render some or even all of the planet surface unsuitable for human habitation for a while if we really, really try, but it will recover--with or without us, despite any concerted effort we made to destroy it, and we simply aren't working hard enough toward the ends of crapping in our nest. Even at its unfettered polluting heyday, industry and world war combined couldn't destroy the planet.
Megatons of atmospheric nuclear tests didn't send us spinning off into some cosmic rift.
Heck, we couldn't even find the 'Andromeda Strain' out there on the Moon.
In the meantime, we would do well to not keep all our eggs in one basket. Perhaps we could learn something to settle our species-centric narcissism once and for all.
“Maybe you can explain to me how all those heavier-than-air chlorofluorocarbon molecules are getting way up there into the stratosphere?”
I dunno, how does heavier-than-air plain ole water get up there? I would imagine these get up there the same way. Read the link I posted, it explains it pretty well.
Good!
Oh! I agree, you just wondered where the Chlorine came from and the Ammonium Perchlorate is a huge source, although miniscule in the grand scheme of things
Strip mine the earth if it means we can do what no other lifeform has done so far and leave the earth as our cradle.
What good will the Earth be to anyone when the sun blows up in 4billion years?
We might as well try to at least colonize space, I don’t see the super intelligent dolphins or elephants building any rockets anytime soon.
If we convert 50% of the asteroid belt into O’neill type space colonies we would have more landmass (in the colonies) with animals and plants than the entire planet earth several times over.
Plus we gain insurance for our species and all other species of earth animals against being wiped out by an asteroid strike, super volcano, real climate change, nuclear warfare, etc....
It just makes sense to colonize space regardless of the short term cost to Earth because we have a responsibility to survive, a responsibility to thrive and to understand the universe itself, for all we know we could be the only species in the universe capable of understanding the nature of the universe itself. We could very well be the universe trying to understand itself, the last thing we need to do is give the Universe a lobotomy by trying to live in harmony with the earth and going extinct when the big one hits.
Yes thank you, I wasn’t aware Chlorine was a product of that reaction.
I just detest the attacks on the space program by the environmentalists. So much technology has come from the space program that has improved environmental efforts.
That does it! Let’s stay mired on Planet Earth forever!
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