Forest For The Trees

Posted by khalling 10 years, 10 months ago to Science
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This is not a bunch of school kids coming up with their own punishment for a prank gone awry. This is a group of adults whose failed experiment into pop science perfectly illustrates their folly. Resourses lost and peoples ' valuable time, talent and risk. By all means plant 1000 trees. Plant 5000 trees and hide behind them in professional and personal shame. Why do we give these childish thinkers the time of our day?!


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  • Posted by 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark
    And cold to an orchard so young in the bark
    Reminds me of all that can happen to harm
    An orchard away at the end of the farm
    All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.
    I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,
    I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse
    By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse.
    (If certain it wouldn't be idle to call
    I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall
    And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)
    I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.
    (We made it secure against being, I hope,
    By setting it out on a northerly slope.)
    No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm;
    But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.
    "How often already you've had to be told,
    Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold.
    Dread fifty above more than fifty below."
    I have to be gone for a season or so.
    My business awhile is with different trees,
    Less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these,
    And such as is done to their wood with an axe—
    Maples and birches and tamaracks.
    I wish I could promise to lie in the night
    And think of an orchard's arboreal plight
    When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)
    Its heart sinks lower under the sod.
    But something has to be left to God."

    Robert Frost


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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Fire and Ice

    "Some say the world will end in fire,
    Some say in ice.
    From what I've tasted of desire
    I hold with those who favor fire.

    But if it had to perish twice,
    I think I know enough of hate
    To say that for destruction ice
    Is also great
    And would suffice."

    Robert Frost
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  • Posted by lrbeggs 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    She is Khalling, thanks so much. Got in safe and sound Sunday night. Dorm was rather empty but there were a few people around and the local deli actually was DELIVERING to campus so she was able to get food. The low overnight was -59. Classes start this afternoon so she will be out in it. Brrr
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    This is why I call it a religion; it's all based on anti-humanist faith. Faith that Man is inherently destructive and evil, faith that they can, in a few short decades, figure out how one of the most dynamic and random system of systems works... predictably.

    And I've railed before, myself, about how if they want to experiment with ecologies, it's *stupid* to do so on the only one we have to survive.

    Even a failed attempt to Terraform Mars, say, or to set up domed arcologies on the moon, or orbital habitats as envisioned by the L5 society, would be safer and more productive than messing with the climate of the Earth.
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  • Posted by $ Commander 10 years, 10 months ago
    Within the next three months I'll have earned the title/position of "Captain". Until now it has been an honorary bestowal from a peer group of internationally licensed "Masters" 100 ton and up qualified. Honorary because of my approach to all maritime endeavors.
    To knowingly, willingly put a vessel in a position of danger / rescue is inexcusable.! Pack ice does not appear from the ether.
    5000 trees?! Idiots! I'd be claiming salvage rights! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_salv...
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  • Posted by $ Commander 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I was thinking I'd just throw them all overboard....naaah....don't want to poison the food chain!
    I like your idea better.
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 10 years, 10 months ago
    I wonder if they will offer to flatten their own homes to make room for those 5000 trees? :-)
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  • Posted by MattFranke 10 years, 10 months ago
    If these people really want to lessen their carbon footprint, they would have refused rescue and opted to freeze to death. Then, led in mass by the great leader Al Gore, they would proceed to off themselves by whatever means they deem as the most environmentally friendly. I would suggest a natural fiber hemp rope, as it would be re-useable, sustainable, and cost effective; without the dangers of pollutants like lead or heavy metals that may be present in gun powder. hehe
    Then we take and capture the methane being released by the 'compost heap' and we can use the energy from it to 'sustain' the lives of people who cherish it. I say its their environmental responsibility. Sound good?
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  • Posted by $ WillH 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Agreed 100%. They need to be responsible to the US for the expense of rerouting the Polar Star and delaying it's mission.
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  • Posted by $ WillH 10 years, 10 months ago
    These people are hilarious. The really funny thing is that they knew the whole time that the US Coast Guard vessel Polar Star would be coming to resupply McMurdo Station. Instead of just waiting they had to call all these less capable ships and get them stuck too. Now that all the effort, time, and money has been wasted they finally call on the Polar Star to help them when it gets there.
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  • Posted by richrobinson 10 years, 10 months ago
    If this group was this wrong about how much ice they would encounter should we take anything they have said seriously? I understand they are sticking to their narrative that the ice is melting...I guess just somewhere else.
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 10 years, 10 months ago
    We tend to think of these people as silly and ridiculous. They are that, but they're much more.
    They're dangerous.
    They tinker with the planet and biology with absolutely no idea of what they're doing or what the consequences will be.
    We have to pay for there 'experiments' and then live with the direct and indirect results.
    There is no reasoning with these idiots, since their science and predictions are based on faulty science and when faced with 'Climategate' and failed predictions, they just ignore it and go blissfully ahead.
    They need to be stopped, not just laughed at and coddled.
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