This description of the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs is a bit sobering.

[barrybueno]

I’m interested in this question as well, h, so thank God you’re here to clarify it for me. Can you just tell me how many million tons of CO2 there should be in the atmosphere? How many million tons has human activity added? Could you express this additional amount as a percentage of the ideal? What does such an additional quantity of CO2 do to the atmosphere? Ha e there been occasions in the past when ’extra’ CO2 occurred naturally in the atmosphere? If so, how does that event compare with this event in terms of percentage of the ideal? I’m keen to hear all of your expertise, please go ahead.

The short answer is if the dinosaurs had paid tax they'd still be here today. CO2 isn't a problem if it's taxed correctly.

[Burney]

Well that’s virtually the entirety of science and medicine wiped out then.

But this isn't a scientific document. It's a scare piece designed to engender as much fear as possible without presenting any supporting evidence.

[Herbert Augustus Chapman]

As you rightly point out, h, I am a words man. I'm awfully good at analysing and decoding language to extract its deeper - often unintended - meanings. For this reason, when I espy words and phrases such as 'non-linearity', 'highly unpredictable', 'could', 'can', 'may' and 'are likely to', I'm forced to conclude that the writer is bullshítting wildly and has no more clue of the likely outcomes than do I.

Allow me to elucidate. In mathematics, a linear equation is one that describes a straight line. It is simple to see the precise relationship between the given values of the x and y plane (staying in the two dimensional domain) with each other. Non-linearity is just a way of asserting that the relationship is far more complex and difficult to quantify accurately.

The problem is that literary types have purloined the term non-linear for descriptive rather than definitive purposes. They will even describe a piece of music or art as non-linear, bóllocks as you rightly say. I use the term purely in its mathematical sense.

If someone can look even briefly and myopically at this world and not conclude that we are in the process of doing grave and perilous damage to our ecology then they would have to be an imbecile.

[Herbert Augustus Chapman]

Are you saying white people can't be African, h?

How can you be sure Rich is white b? It's an assumption that I find a little racist. He may be as black as a coal miner's arse crack.

[Tony C]

Hang on...so there’s a chance...albeit an incredibly low one that the dinosaurs ended up somewhere else?

Lol

Can you imagine being on another planet millions of miles away...you’re playing football with your kid in the back garden when bang.....a dinosaur comes hurtling out of sky and squashes you

The odds on that?? All of the money ever in existence / 1?

[barrybueno]

How can you be sure Rich is white b? It's an assumption that I find a little racist. He may be as black as a coal miner's arse crack.

We've seen a picture of him and Franky Lamps in a VIP area of a s****y club H

He is Daz Ultra white...

[WES]

Allow me to elucidate. In mathematics, a linear equation is one that describes a straight line. It is simple to see the precise relationship between the given values of the x and y plane (staying in the two dimensional domain) with each other. Non-linearity is just a way of asserting that the relationship is far more complex and difficult to quantify accurately.

The problem is that literary types have purloined the term non-linear for descriptive rather than definitive purposes. They will even describe a piece of music or art as non-linear, bóllocks as you rightly say. I use the term purely in its mathematical sense.

If someone can look even briefly and myopically at this world and not conclude that we are in the process of doing grave and perilous damage to our ecology then they would have to be an imbecile.

I'm loving the idea of non-linearity implying that the scientists are making it all up. I can imagine what Burney's mind would do if someone attempted to explain quantum mechanics to him, that would be the quantum mechanics that deals entirely with probability.

It would, of course, also be the quantum mechanics that led to the development of the nuclear bomb. Imagine that, when all those scientists gathered in New Mexico all those years ago they were guessing at the outcome. Oppenheimer and the rest were all stood there with their fingers crossed hoping it would work because the absence of a linear equation meant they didn't really know.

[Herbert Augustus Chapman]

Little japanese plumber in a Hiroshima greasy spoon in '45 at 8:15 saying to his mate "E = MC2 - load a bollócks more like!"

[IUFG]

Ah. So how long do you have to be there to be considered indigenous, would you say? After all, we're all indigenous Africans if you go back far enough, aren't we? And since people have this tiresome tendency to move about, any definition of indigeneity is going to be pretty arbitrary, isn't it?

I think we can only go back to the advent of the slave trade, sc.

whats that 1750ish?

[Burney]

Allow me to elucidate. In mathematics, a linear equation is one that describes a straight line. It is simple to see the precise relationship between the given values of the x and y plane (staying in the two dimensional domain) with each other. Non-linearity is just a way of asserting that the relationship is far more complex and difficult to quantify accurately.

The problem is that literary types have purloined the term non-linear for descriptive rather than definitive purposes. They will even describe a piece of music or art as non-linear, bóllocks as you rightly say. I use the term purely in its mathematical sense.

If someone can look even briefly and myopically at this world and not conclude that we are in the process of doing grave and perilous damage to our ecology then they would have to be an imbecile.

What you've done there is employed the cheap rhetorical trick of saying that anyone who disagrees with you is an imbecile. You're better than that, h.

Regardless, I remain unaligned on the topic. I have drawn no conclusion either way, since I freely admit that I quite simply do not know enough to draw one.

This means I have to fall back on that which I can see and understand. And what I do see is a highly aggressive lobby that has effectively sought to outlaw dissent from peers; that claimed consensus early (which has of course become a self-fulfilling prophecy, since it becomes impossible to get a job if you question the orthodoxy and meant that those who did and had tenure could be marginalised); and been careful to infiltrate all layers of government and media so as to ensure that its conclusions become unquestionable.

This in turn has created and nurtured a host of rent-seeking industries that harvest huge public subsidies whilst its lobbyists ensure that their opposition is taxed to a position of disadvantage.

I also see a lobby that, whilst asserting the incontrovertible nature of its data, makes a point of persecuting those who disagree to a quite remarkable extent. As someone who has always understood that the great thing about empiricism is that it allows nonsense to be dismissed easily through the sheer weight of evidence, I find myself asking why people who are that certain of their ground should feel this need? I also see a lobby that has been proven to have fiddled its figures. Again, I find myself asking why, if your evidence is so overwhelming, you would feel the need to fiddle your figures?

So as I say, no conclusion either way. Just some suspicion, some questions and a healthy scepticism of authoritarian tactics and vested interest.