The Evansville Courier Press has an editorial entitled Rover finds evidence Mars likely had life. I’m not sure why it was in the editorial section. It looks like a straight up news story. My conspiratorial side suspects the placement has something to do with environmentalism and young earth beliefs making such things “controversial.” But, more likely, that’s just where the story fit, and it was the editorial board which was interested. Or maybe it’s because the underlying reporting was not original with the newspaper or related wire services. I don’t know.
In any event, the editorial reports:
[I]n a rocky formation called Yellowknife Bay, which the rover crossed over what was possibly an old streambed to get to, Curiosity drilled through the surface into a layer called mudstone and, using its little lab, identified sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and carbon, all essential to sustaining life as we know it.
Curiosity is exploring a promising 96-mile-long crater called Gale, which at one time was apparently a relatively salubrious neighborhood.
“We have found a habitable environment that is so benign that probably if this water was around and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it[.]”
. . .
The Martian surface of 3 billion years ago evidently was a far livelier place than it is today. There were apparently volcanoes that spewed dust that chemically resembles the basaltic lava. So what happened?Explains The New York Times: “With just one-tenth the mass of Earth, Mars was unable to hold on to most of its atmosphere. The inside of the planet cooled, and the volcanoes stopped erupting. … Mars became cold and dry.”
For the sake of the species, I just hope we can keep this planet habitable and in one piece at least long enough to figure out how to get to and survive on other planets.
Yeah, I’m not worried about mankind making the planet “unhabitable.” The notion that we’re all going to die because of some made up crisis like man-made global warming is far-fetched fantasy. The end of mankind is much more likely to come about because of a supervolcano going off or a meteor hitting the planet. Life as we know it could be wiped away with very little notice. That actually has a basis in reality. It’s happened before and it will happen again.
And mankind has only been around for like 6000 thousand years and only has a few more years until the rapture anyway, so why worry about all this science junk. Amyrt, Paul?
You know, Kilroy, the alarmists always assume that today’s temperatures are somehow the ideal and that if they vary any we are going to have a climate catastrophe. Why? The Earth has been warmer than it is today before we began burning carbon fuels. The evidence is that man does better in a warmer climate than a cooler one. The alarmists also overlook the fact that even the most aggressive suggestions for battling warming wouldn’t make more than a couple degrees difference. The alarmists don’t care that their proposals wouldn’t actually fix the alleged problem because the proposals to slow our economy and technological change is exactly what they want.
What is indisputable, Kilroy, is that a supervolcano eruption or a meteor collision having a devastating impact on this planet isn’t speculation based on computer modeling using select data input, but are actual events that have happened in the past and are almost certain to happen again in the future.
And modern, sedentary humans weren’t around then, so it’s not relevant to the question of human survival.
Which is all the difference in the world, as you would know if you actually understood what was going on.
I could see how you might think that, yeah. Assuming, of course, that you’re the sort of person who views just making stuff up to suit your prejudices to be superior to actually knowing what you’re talking about.
The fact is, the deniers are doing their damndest to put a stop to all human development and progress, by hastening humanity’s self-destruction.
Ah, yes. Sit around long enough doing what you have always done, deny that anything you might do may change things, and the future will come to you. When it does, you scream, “Why did God do this to me?” Isn’t that pretty much the Hoosier mentality?
I am “for” the burning of more fossil fuels—as many and as much as possible. If we belch out more carbon, both polar caps will melt. Those rocky formations in Antarctica then would become attractive sites for Cliffside condos—Penguin Point, Leopard Seal Haven (just a couple of names possible). We would not have to worry about the controversy over whales anymore because—guess what?—a significant portion of the world’s krill would be gone. The interior could be developed. Golf courses could be built (after sod is flown into the place) and golf nuts could play 24 hours a day in the Antarctic summer.As for the North Pole— who needs it? Polar bears—yada yada. We have zoos for them. Otherwise, there is a vast expanse for oil wells. If there is no more polar ecosystem over which to fret, then development can proceed without all those troublesome regulations. That would mean more oil to burn. With the rise in the World’s oceans that allegedly would ensue, at worst the United States would lose communities that more often vote “blue.” I’m ready to buy futures in Antarctic land development.
I would like to water ski around Santa’s workshop.
Mark puts a different light on this. What an opportunity! When the water overwhelms the coastal cities, all those folks and all that business moves inland. While, as Mark points out, they will be from the blue states, they will completely understand and agree with Paul by then and the Age of Aquarius will arrive. New construction, new infrastructure, new business. What can go wrong? More CO2 in the air means a hotter climate. No coats. We just go informal in shorts. Those twenty or so days of 120 degrees in Indianapolis should be no big deal when you dig that cave. A few billion lives gone here and there, but there will more nifty discoveries to treat those weird pesky diseases that crop up. In the end (literally, not figuratively speaking) there will be fewer takers and more makers to take over. Oh yes. Mankind will survive, after a fashion. Then we can all look into the night sky and know with certainty, assuming we can still see the planets, that earth will become like Venus. By then we will know that this accomplishment was all our doing. What a piece of work is Man! (Hamlet, Act II, Scene II)
Paul,
Global warming is established science. You say that the world maybe only a couple of degrees warmer than a hundred years ago. The earth was only five degrees colder in the last ice age. What is a couple of degrees, right?
Your second point is correct, but such an incident is unavoidable. The first conditions may be ameliorated,.
It isn’t worth debating anymore. Anyone that believes like Paul is just stuck in ignorance. A simple google search debunks any argument they have. I’m done entering debates with people that refuse to believe they evidence. The venn diagram between that type and creationists is pretty much a single circle.
Between the years 3500 and 4500 (approximately 2000 years) the earth’s magnetic field will reach zero and will not be sufficiently strong enough to ward off charged radiation from outer space. Unless we go underground or get off the planet we (well we will all be deceased) or shall I say mankind will be galactic toast. So lets start mining the asteroids and get a moon base established were on the clock! ;) Per Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts.
I think you need to read some more about that before you officially pronounce doom and get the juices of the disaster-believers flowing. The weakening probably precedes the pole reversal, which has happened many times.