General > RANT
Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
EricL:
--- Quote from: Peter ---Can you explain why fusion bombs, deforestation, and massive CO2 emmion, could be disaterious to other humans and other species.
Couse I don't we have that high impact on the enviroment. I think humans don't have as big of an effect on enviroment as you think.
--- End quote ---
Are you kidding? You must not get out much. What metric should we use? Atmospheric CO2 levels? Average global tempertues? Percent forest land converted to mono-specie human crops? PCB or lead levels in Lake Michigan? Oceanic fish sizes and fishery depletions? Number of endangered or extinct species world wide? Coral reef destruction? I went scuba diving a few months ago in a place in Hawaii where I went 30 years ago. Huge change for the worse.
And BTW, dinosaurs are not reptiles despite the Latin name. They are recognized as separate families today, as different as reptiles and mammals.. In fact there were two different families of dinosaurs, as unrelated to each other as to mammals and there is strong evidence that at least one was homothermic. Today we call their descendants "birds".
There may very well have been "smart" dinosaurers though there are none in the fossil record I know of with brain to body mass ratios approaching that of humans (or dolphins which are barely below us on that scale). What is fairly conclusive is that there is no trace of dinosaur tool users in the fossil record.
Jez:
I have to go with Eric on this one; the vast majority of scientists who study things like global warming think we are causing a problem so why shouldn't I? Do you have any idea how few degrees the oceans would have to warm before they're turned into giant methane jacuzzi's?
Peter:
--- Quote from: EricL ---Are you kidding? You must not get out much. What metric should we use? Atmospheric CO2 levels? Average global tempertues? Percent forest land converted to mono-specie human crops? PCB or lead levels in Lake Michigan? Oceanic fish sizes and fishery depletions? Number of endangered or extinct species world wide? Coral reef destruction? I went scuba diving a few months ago in a place in Hawaii where I went 30 years ago. Huge change for the worse.
--- End quote ---
Co2 levels : What is the enviromental damage of a higher CO2 level
Average temperatures : There have been many temperature shifts in time. What does a rise in temperature actual mean. In the 50er years there where also scientists who said there was going to be an icetime. Another thing is that the temperature of mars has also been measured form out the 70s. Mars seems to have globally desame temperature rising as on earth.
percent forest land converted to mono-specie human crops: your point is. There is a bigger chance of crop-deseases if that is what you mean. But I gues the farmers are taking that into account. What is the enviromental loss on big scale on the world when destroying the rain forest. I know the animals that use to live there aren't very happy.
PCB and lead : PCB is forbidden and lead forbidden or allowed in low concentrations. New products of today are thoughrough checked before letting them use.
oceanic fish sizes and fishery depletions : As far I know there are in the Netherlands strict regulations about fishery. In the rest of Europe there are also regulations about fishery(altrough less regulated). My gues that desame is in america and the rest of the world, atleast the ones with big fisherships.
Number of endangered or extinct species world wide : Well, true there are many endangered species. That probably mostly becouse their habitat is taken over by humans and the increasing of the habitat of other species created by human, I don't see a way to stop humans from growing further and decreasing their habitat and the increasing of the habitat of other species. There are much species that are endangered. So is that really bad, is it. We could put them in zoo's.
Coral reef destruction : True, there is much coral reef destruction. On the other side, there are (mostly for tourism) projects set up to recreate the coral reef at some places.
--- Quote ---I have to go with Eric on this one; the vast majority of scientists who study things like global warming think we are causing a problem so why shouldn't I? Do you have any idea how few degrees the oceans would have to warm before they're turned into giant methane jacuzzi's?
--- End quote ---
Everybody is against me, giant methane jacuzzi's. Hmmm, nice methane we can use that for energie.
Good
But yes, I am pretty sceptic about global warming.
Oh, and I am not saying the effect of humans on the whole enviroment is nihil. But that the effect of human is heavily overdriven(is that the right word)exspecially on the climate.
Numsgil:
--- Quote from: Peter ---
--- Quote from: Testlund ---You got a point there, though there are some that believe the dinosaurs might have been both intelligent and warm blooded, a theory mensioned in a program I saw last year. It was a program about how the world would have looked like if that meteor had missed. It was said that the raptor might have been the dominant species instead, and maybe intelligent like us.
--- End quote ---
Warmbloaded dinosaurs, well sounds strange. They are placed in reptile-species. But could be true.
--- End quote ---
Wikipedia hints at this. It's very recent, but DNA analysis (yep, they managed to find Dino DNA, like in the last year) strongly supports the idea that Dinos and birds are directly related. This, with other evidence, suggests that Dinos might have had some sort of endothermic ability, though most likely more primitive than modern mammals or birds. Thus giving rise to the term "luke-warm blooded." It's not quite 100%, but the evidence is strongly leaning in that direction. It's not a far fetched assertion at all.
--- Quote ---About intelligence anything can be said, any scientist could say there could be an uber-intelligent dinosaur specie. Mainly it is said dinos are stupid becouse there brain is small in comparison, and I mainly tend to share that opinion. They are probably stupid.
--- End quote ---
Not all dino brains are small. Veloceraptor (sp?) brains are on par with most mammalian species. It's not a stretch to suggest that there were Dinos as smart as something like a wolf or dog. Sapience is something of a stretch, but considering how fragmented the fossil record is it's hardly impossible. If humans all died right now we'd barely be a blip in the geological record. Plus most human burial practices are not conducive to fossilization.
--- Quote ---even with today living species we can't determine whitch one is smarter then the other,(well most agree that we are one of the smartest species , well maybe a dolphine is smarter, you never know), smart dinos is just a pure gues. I can't say different.
--- End quote ---
Not true, see this link. There's a certain level of fudging involved when you cross class boundaries (ie: from mammal to dinosaur), but it can give rough estimates of intelligence with respect to brain size and body weight.
Endy:
Let's see...
Rising CO2: Think Venus... Just me, but an out of control Green House Effect would be really bad.
Methane in Oceans: There's enough methane down there to litterally burn the atmosphere. If we could tap into it it'd be great; but we're just as likely to cause a run-away reaction releasing it.
The main problem with the destruction of Rain Forests and Coral Reefs is that the loss of biodiversity has a net effect on many species. We're also not doing nearly enough to compensate for the loss. (On a personal note I'm stationed over in Guam and can see the effects of "bleaching" washing up on the shore. It's mainly just nasty to look at.)
My own belief is that we'll eventually be forced to accept a more enviromental friendly lifestyle. If it became logically better(government, climate change) to wisely use resources, then it would become smart on a local level.
Intelligence: The problem with the Evolution alone approach is that Evolution can't adjust to sudden changes. Out of all the larger lifeforms, we have the best odds of surviving any climatic change.
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