tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post5078378634776480444..comments2024-03-19T07:48:54.021-06:00Comments on Gus Van Horn: Numbskull Is Too Kind a WordGus Van Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-37006470073973704712019-09-12T03:00:34.333-06:002019-09-12T03:00:34.333-06:00This reminds me of when I first learned about the ...This reminds me of when I first learned about the water cycle -- at a time when there were commercials airing to the effect that we were "using up" all our fresh water. <br /><br />I didn't immediately see the contradiction: I was a kid. But I remembered this years later, when I understood that rainwater was fresh water no matter the source of the water vapor. This raised another question in my mind -- regarding why there would be such factually deficient commercials -- I would have for years after that.<br /><br />What these people are doing -- basically snow-jobbing kids before they've had much of a chance to learn that not everything an adult (or a book or a television show) says is true -- is reprehensible.<br /><br />Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-72277679162862509532019-09-11T14:14:52.943-06:002019-09-11T14:14:52.943-06:00I remember two lectures in college. One was in an ...I remember two lectures in college. One was in an Environmental Studies class, where we were told (among other things) that a sea level rise of 11 cm/year would be catastrophic, resulting in the end of human civilization if not the end of the current ecosystem. In the second we were told that during OIS 11 (an interglacial period used to calibrate climate models) sea levels rose by approximately 11 cm/year. There is no mass extinction associated with OIS 11; there's not really anything of not, biologically speaking, if I recall correctly. No one could explain why that rate of sea level rise had no effect on the biosphere in the past, but would cause a mass extinction in the present. Dinwarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06138006602385020048noreply@blogger.com