sci.research.careers

On Sat, 6 Oct 2007, Russell wrote:

> On Oct 6, 8:01 am, Straydog wrote:
>> On Fri, 5 Oct 2007, Russell wrote:
>>> On Oct 5, 2:34 pm, Straydog wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 3 Oct 2007, Russell wrote:
>>>>> On Oct 3, 8:56 am, Straydog wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, 3 Oct 2007, Marco wrote:

>>
>> I also paged through Bjorn Lomborg's "The Skeptical Environmentalist" in
>> which the overiding theme was "Nothing is as bad as it seems" but it had a
>> very large amount of data and a very large amount of refernces so you
>> could check it all out for yourself. Me: I think it is almost beyond the
>> resources of the average person to learn, grasp, understand, and document
>> enough to be enlightened (But, two caveats: i) if man made CO2 production
>> rates keep expanding the partial pressure in the atmosphere, then we're in
>> trouble in a couple of decades, and ii) there are all manner of
>> corporations that are lining up to make tons of money off this like they
>> never have before).
>
> We don't know how exactly bad it well be (Prediction is
> difficult, especially the future. - Bohr), but recently the
> Arctic ice cap has given signs of going into a nonlinear
> melting regime, and Arctic sea ice had already decreased
> beyond the range of model predictions, and that was before
> this year's record low sea ice extent. Hope your local zoo
> is well stocked with polar bears, because that may be the
> only place you'll be able to see them soon. You probably
> weren't planning a trip to the Arctic to watch polar bears
> anyway, right? :-)

If I were to rank order the importance to me of the following two items:

1. The groundwater level at which my well goes dry (and what I'm going to
do about it, and the domino effect of neighborhood water deficits).

2. The extantness/extinctness of polar bears.

Guess which one is going to get my vote? 8-|

>>
>> On the local neigborhood, one of the newspapers came out yesterday saying
>> the data shows our drought this year is the second worst in over 100
>> years, and the worst drought was just two years before. I've never seen
>> dried up crops like this year and two year ago. So, I'm thankful for
>> trucks and economies and sprinkler systems for those who put them in over
>> here and can get crops (otherwise losses here would be closer to 100%
>> than 90%). I just think crop loss here is going to lead to lots of farms
>> for sale, and who is going to get them? Agribusiness (the big farm
>> corporations that already own some 60-70% of all arable land), and they
>> are going to get them on the cheap, too. Love that robber-barron
>> capitalism, eh?
>
> Yep. I'm the National Drought Monitor contact point for the
> reional climate center, so I've been watching it develop. The
> Northeast has had some drought farther north, but not as bad as
> down your way.

WSJ had a nationwide map of this. The drought spread from DE goes west and
south, and from southern Cal to east and north, and at least anotehr area
or two in the USA, so its not trivial at all.

Austrailia has been hit hard the last ten years with rain shortfall even
if it is only a few percent of the total. Its a large percentage of farm
area.

> Predictions are that more short term drought may
> be in the future because global warming is expected to give the
> same or slightly more rain in some places, but it will come in
> heavier bursts with corresponding dry periods in between. And
> some places will actually get less rain, which will make it
> seem like drought in those locations, while others will get more.

I really don't want to move again. And, seeing these farmer lands with all
dead, dry, brown crops is kinda rough. And, I'm thinking about all kinds
of "what to do next" scenarios (rain barrels under the downspouts, garden
hose and pump into local ponds, solar stills, air conditioner condensed
water collection, etc.).

> Cheers,
^^^^^
Yeah, thanks.

> Russell
>
>>
>>> The talk went fairly well, I think. My boss gave the talk before
>>> mine and we tag-teamed the Q&A session after my talk. I got nice
>>> compliments, including from my wife, but people are always polite
>>> in that respect.
>>
>> Everyone I ever asked to read my grant proposals before I submitted them
>> said nice polite things, too. But most of the actual grant review
>> committees gave them thumbs down.
>>
>>> Lunch was good. A fine day.
>>
>> I had some nice lunches recently, too.
>>
>>
>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Russell- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -
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