User:Maveric49/commentary
Various comments by maveric149 that have been placed on talk pages
From w:talk:global warming
Sorry, Im going to go off on a tangent here (I havent yet read what was reverted so I cant speak to that yet). Who says that the Earth has any sort of temperature optimum? Does this mean that there is an equilibrium point for temperature? All the evidence that I have seen about average surface temperatures is that they have been anything but consistent through recent geologic time that is until about 10,000 years ago. Before the thawing of the last glacial maximum (we are now in a glacial minimum) the earth periodically experienced very severe climate shifts of +/- 5 degrees Celsius on a more or less 1,500 year cycle (this translates to about a +/- 10 degree C climate change for the poles since they experience the lions-share of warming).
This all appears to have a lot to do with waxing and waning cycles in ocean circulation currents that may be influenced by orbital and/or solar cycles. There is also an increasing amount of evidence that strongly suggests that a prolonged period of warming (most probably caused by increases in [CO2]) may in fact trigger rapid cooling (gulf stream warms Europe, melting fresh water ice shuts down gulf stream and in turn the global circulation of the oceans = tropics get hotter, put more water vapor in the atmosphere and continental glaciation from the poles advance fed by freezing water vapor). Ice core data have, in fact, found a very strong correlation between CO2 concentration and climate conditions. What is highly unusual, and I mean blatantly weird, however, is the fact that the last 10,000 or so years have been so stable. It is this stability that allowed our Stone Age ancestors to foster civilization and technology (having your population plummet during a climate shift doesnt do much for establishing civilization). The w:Medieval Warm Period and the w:Little Ice Age are nothing compared to geologically recent climate shifts.
My fear is that we are experimenting on the Earth on a global scale by placing known greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere at very high levels. Of course since we dont have a non-human populated carbon copy control Earth sharing our same orbit we cant be sure that what we are doing has resulted in the measured and undisputed increase in surface temperature. But when we know (and strongly suspect) certain things about past climate shifts and when we know the thermal properties of certain gases, know that the concentration of these gases have increased very significantly since the start of the industrial revolution and know that the vast majority of the extra concentration of these gases is due to human activity, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that we should be concerned. In the blink of a geologic eye we have escaped the clutches of a highly volatile climate system that kept our ancestors in caves. The United States (among a others) are going past the point of looking the gift horse in the mouth we (and I am American here) are beginning to kick the horse in the groin. How long will it be before the horse kicks back? --maveric149, Friday, June 14, 2002
From the mailing list
On Tuesday 06 August 2002 05:08 pm, you wrote:
>But Wikipedia is not about copyright activism,
>it's about making an encyclopedia.
>
> --Jimbo
Then why do we use the GNU FDL? GNU is /all/ about using copyright law to free code, content and the people who use and create code and content.
The fact that Wikipedia even exists, not to mention is so successful is a major form of GNU-directed copyright activism. I have little doubt that Wikipedia will one day be /the/ source for encyclopedic knowledge for the world. And what copyright license will all that content be under?
GNU FDL
What copyright license will anybody have to use to incorporate their work into that huge body of knowledge?;
GNU FDL
The fact that we use this license and are headed to be /the/ repository of knowledge will lead to many derivative works. All of these will have to be copyrighted with the;
GNU FDL
Forget mere activism, we are doing far more than that here -- we are beggining the process of changing the way copyrights are used for content through our continued increases in both depth and breadth.
Britannica doesn't fear us now but Microsoft likewise did not fear the Linux operating system during its first few years.
Stepping down from my soapbox.
Sorry, that's why they call me mav