Comments by "Old Scientist" (@OldScientist) on "PBS Terra" channel.

  1. @J  Thank you for the lesson in hyperbole, but current warming is smaller than predicted by nearly all models (0.13°C per decade since 1979, UAH v6) so around ½°C for the past 40 years (but no overall warming over the past 8 - sorry couldn't resist that cherry 🍒). This will result in a further 1° of warming by 2100, which can be adapted to, as with the previous 1°. 😀
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  2. @J  The exchange between us does not have to be abusive and personal on your part. Let's stick to the facts and try to have a reasonable discussion. What was it about the UAH v6 satellite data that I referred to did you consider to be untrue?
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  3. @J  Even if I was to accept your data, which I don't because it has been fiddled with repeatedly, for example the years with the warmest average maxima remain the 1930s, and the recent apparent warming comes from an increase in the minima not the maxima (i.e. there's less of a range, it's just got a bit milder), but let's just say, for the sake of argument, I do accept it. If we are in a period of warming, you would expect the most recent years to be the hottest. Also your range only goes back to 1880, prior to that was the Little Ice Age, and prior to that was the Medieval Warm Period which was warmer than the present, and before that were even warmer periods: Roman, Minoan, Holocene Climatic Optimum, Eemian Interglacial, etc, etc....
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  4. @J  Now, now, there is no need to get personal. You could at least identify some of the lies? Medieval Warm Period was warmer - do you consider that to be a lie?
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  5. @William S  I am presuming from your response, although I may be wrong, that we would agree that 2,000 years ago and further back, their were periods of warming that were of a similar (or perhaps greater) rate and magnitude as the present. Presumably those periods of warming (e.g. Minoan Warm Period and Holocene Climatic Optimum) were natural, and so the climate of the Earth in the current interglacial is capable of producing periods of warming like the current one without any external anthropogenic forcing. You make an interesting point with reference to proxies. These have to made use of, of course, because there were no Chinese peasants or English serfs wandering around with thermometers in their pockets. However, even the proxies cherry-picked by the IPCC fail to show a consistent pattern of warming especially in the Southern Hemisphere for the Current Warm Period (AR4, 6.6.2, fig.6.12). Even in adjacent locations (Northern and Southern Patagonia) the temperatures are heading in opposite directions. If we are using proxies though and arguing over the Medieval Warm Period being warmer than the present and not limited to a region, I would refer you to a 2010 paper by Ljungqvist: "A new reconstruction of temperature variability in the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere during the last two millennia. Geografiska Annaler Series A 92: 339-351." It uses 30 proxies, and shows rapid warming around 1000 and 1700. It also shows that the Roman and Medieval Warm Period temperatures exceeded the Current Warm Period. It also suggests the effects were hemispheric or even global. This ties in nicely with Antarctic Law Dome d18O ice core dataset showing a strong Medieval Warm Period signal but nothing much for the present. Incidentally I can cite upwards of 100 science papers from across the globe that show the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the present. When you look at actual instrumental records the warming is uneven both spatially and temporally. There is very little warming around the tropics. The Canadian Arctic has warmed. Continental Antarctica (excluding the Peninsula) has cooled significantly. America has by far the best instrumental data, and it shows overall the South East cooled in the last 120 years. Though that sentence doesn't do justice to the climate's variability. Data from NOAA (2021) shows uneven warming in the twentieth century focused on the South East through until it peaks in the 1930s. Where it should be noted the highest average maxima temperature records remain to this day. Some areas of the West showed negligible warming. There then followed a general continent-wide cooling into the 1970s. Then the West began to warm, but the South East continued to cool, so that by the end of the century some SE areas were cooler than they had been a century before. This pattern of uneven warming continues up to the present day.
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  6. @J  If I can cite scores of science papers that show the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the Current Warm Period, there is no unanimity. Remember these span the globe and show the climate on every continent and in the oceans. No, the warming is not global: the Arctic warms, the Antarctic cools. The warming is marginal and not accelerating. Maybe another degree by the end of the century. Please be aware that the IPCC's (Scenario A) modelled predictions are junk. Back in 1990 they predicted a warming of 0.30-0.34°C per decade. Of course we've only had 0.13°C per decade, which is well below the IPCC's lower bound of 0.20°. IPCC’s business-as-usual scenario was founded on the assumption that CO2 emissions would increase by 10-20% by 2025. The truth, however, is that global CO2 emissions are not 20% above their 1990 level but 60% above it! But there is still no crisis just an unexciting set of observations. You say we know the cause is human greenhouse gases, well if the "we" includes the IPCC that's junk science as well. Take AR5: that says all observed warming (0.66°C) since 1950 is due solely to combined anthropogenic forcing (Fig. 10.5, IPCC core writing team, page 6). This relies upon modelling, or rather multi-modelling. In fact when you lift the curtain it relies on 15 models (Fig. 10.4, page 882). These models are all over the place. The models' results are not consistent with the assumption that there is a clear connection between GHGs and warming. GISS-EH-2 is particularly 'not well constrained' as the terminology goes. "Scaling factors" then have to be applied so things fit with the HadCRUT dataset. Some of the scaling factors are even negative!!! So many scientists/politicians may have reached a consensus, but the science on which that has been built shows no such agreement.
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  7. @J  I give you data. You give me platitudes. Consider that. But you're right. Let's stop.
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  8.  @J4Zonian  More platitudes. How about some data without the ad hominem remarks?
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  9. @J  There you go again. More unpleasant personal remarks. You have to do that because you cannot successfully combat any of the data I provided for your perusal. It must be unsettling for you. Along with your insults, you have had to resort to an argument from authority. Arguments from authority are based on the idea that a person should conform to the opinion of a perceived authority or authoritative group. Humans have been shown to feel strong emotional pressure to conform to authorities and majority positions. Is that your case? Interestingly, when over 100 scientists published a booklet (Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein, 1931) against Einstein and his work on relativity, he responded "If I were wrong, it would only take one." Scientists have got things very wrong on many things: smoking, pesticides, and more worryingly eugenics, which was widely accepted in the first half of the twentieth century. It is much better to remain sceptical.
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  10. @J  In God we trust, but everyone else brings data. Except you haven't got any. You're such a silly goose. All my "lies" and "cherries". They are facts that destroy the edifice of your cherished catastrophe. All that research from around the world proving that the Medieval Period was warmer than today. All those real climate scientists who worked on all that lovely research. Mmm. Delicious. Suck it up, goose.
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  11. @miguel5785  There is zero observational evidence that the AMOC is collapsing, or even slowing down.
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  12. ​@allangibson8494 To quote the Chief Scientist at the National Oceanography Centre, Professor Penny Holliday, "There hasn't been a slow down. There hasn't been a slowing of the AMOC." Actual observations using the RAPID-MOCHA array from 2004 to 2023 show, that although there can be a great deal of variability of flow in the ocean from month to month or even day to day, there has been no decline in the Gulf Stream, with flow oscillating around 32Sv (32 million cubic metres per second) throughout the period of observation. Continuous section measurements of the AMOC, available since 2004 at 26°N from the RAPID-MOCHA array, have shown that the AMOC strength decreased from 2004 to 2012, and thereafter, it has strengthened again. No relationship to CO2. MOC spanning the North Atlantic at 27°N derived from RAPID/MOCHA/WBTS, satellite altimeter, and Argo floats for 1994 to 2020 shows no statistically significant decline (-0.06 Sv per decade). Furthermore blended meridional overturning basin-wide circulation (MOC) trend estimates (Sv) based on combinations of satellite altimetry and in situ hydrography data exist for the South Atlantic for 1994 onwards: at 34.5°S (often referred to as SAMBA) is +0.48Sv per decade. This is a significant positive trend, so no decline, no tipping point, no correlation to CO2. (GLOBAL OCEANS G. C. Johnson and R. Lumpkin, Eds., 2021) The OSNAP MOC Timeseries of observations from Canada to Greenland and across to Scotland, although a shorter timescale (from 2014), show no decline in MOC with the flow fluctuating around 17Sv. "Florida Current transport observations reveal four decades of steady state" Volkov et al, 2024 (published in Nature). This paper shows that a key component of AMOC, the Florida Current, has remained remarkably steady for over 40 years. There is no climate crisis. The North Atlantic current has doubled its velocity over the course of a quarter of century (Oziel et al, 2020). This is based on actual satellite observations. The idea the AMOC is going to shut down is based on modelling. There is minimal real world evidence to support these outlandish claims. It relies upon climate models. You know, those Magical Truth Machines that keep making false predictions with claims of 95% certainty that the AMOC will collapse by the end of the century. Come on! Really? Sea surface temperatures (SST) were trending downwards 2000-2018 (HadSST 4), and from 1950-1980, and from 1880-1910. The oceans warmed at a faster rate 1910-1940 than 1980-2010. Remember CO2 has been accumulating in the atmosphere at an accelerating rate all the time, so there is little correlation between the two. The North Atlantic ocean has cooled and warmed rapidly and repeatedly during the current interglacial with no correlation to CO2 e.g. 10,300-10,200 years before the present (y BP), 9,500y BP, 6,000-5,900y BP, 5,400-5,300y BP, 2,500-2,300y BP, 1,700-1,600y BP (Berner et al., 2008. See Figure 8 in the paper). There is a high frequency (18 events) of SST variability on the order of 1-3°C during a 10-50 year time resolution throughout the Holocene in the North Atlantic with no correlation to CO2.
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  13.  @allangibson8494  To quote the Chief Scientist at the National Oceanography Centre, Professor Penny Holliday, "There hasn't been a slow down. There hasn't been a slowing of the AMOC." Actual observations using the RAPID-MOCHA array from 2004 to 2023 show, that although there can be a great deal of variability of flow in the ocean from month to month or even day to day, there has been no decline in the Gulf Stream, with flow oscillating around 32Sv (32 million cubic metres per second) throughout the period of observation. Continuous section measurements of the AMOC, available since 2004 at 26°N from the RAPID-MOCHA array, have shown that the AMOC strength decreased from 2004 to 2012, and thereafter, it has strengthened again. No relationship to CO2. MOC spanning the North Atlantic at 27°N derived from RAPID/MOCHA/WBTS, satellite altimeter, and Argo floats for 1994 to 2020 shows no statistically significant decline (-0.06 Sv per decade). Furthermore blended meridional overturning basin-wide circulation (MOC) trend estimates (Sv) based on combinations of satellite altimetry and in situ hydrography data exist for the South Atlantic for 1994 onwards: at 34.5°S (often referred to as SAMBA) is +0.48Sv per decade. This is a significant positive trend, so no decline, no tipping point, no correlation to CO2. (GLOBAL OCEANS G. C. Johnson and R. Lumpkin, Eds., 2021) The OSNAP MOC Timeseries of observations from Canada to Greenland and across to Scotland, although a shorter timescale (from 2014), show no decline in MOC with the flow fluctuating around 17Sv. "Florida Current transport observations reveal four decades of steady state" Volkov et al, 2024 (published in Nature). This paper shows that a key component of AMOC, the Florida Current, has remained remarkably steady for over 40 years. There is no climate crisis. The North Atlantic current has doubled its velocity over the course of a quarter of century (Oziel et al, 2020). This is based on actual satellite observations. The idea the AMOC is going to shut down is based on modelling. There is minimal real world evidence to support these outlandish claims. It relies upon climate models. You know, those Magical Truth Machines that keep making false predictions. Come on! Really? Sea surface temperatures (SST) were trending downwards 2000-2018 (HadSST 4), and from 1950-1980, and from 1880-1910. The oceans warmed at a faster rate 1910-1940 than 1980-2010. Remember CO2 has been accumulating in the atmosphere at an accelerating rate all the time, so there is little correlation between the two. The North Atlantic ocean has cooled and warmed rapidly and repeatedly during the current interglacial with no correlation to CO2 e.g. 10,300-10,200 years before the present (y BP), 9,500y BP, 6,000-5,900y BP, 5,400-5,300y BP, 2,500-2,300y BP, 1,700-1,600y BP (Berner et al., 2008. See Figure 8 in the paper). There is a high frequency (18 events) of SST variability on the order of 1-3°C during a 10-50 year time resolution throughout the Holocene in the North Atlantic with no correlation to CO2.
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  14.  @allangibson8494  My response to you was deleted, so I've appended it to my original comment.
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  15. There is no climate crisis. Globally the ACE index (accumulated cyclone energy) 1980-2021 shows no increasing trend. Global Hurricane Landfalls 1970-2021 (updated from Weinkle et al, 2012) shows no trend. Satellite data since 1980 shows a slight downward global trend for total hurricaine numbers with 2021 being a record low year. The IPCC reports in AR6, chapter 11, "The total global frequency of TC [tropical cyclone] formation will decrease or remain unchanged with increasing global warming (medium confidence)." Multidecadal variability in Atlantic hurricaines is most probably related to the AMO (Vecchi et al, 2021). NOAA data 1851-2021 shows no trend in number of hurricaine landfalls with the record high being 1886. What the data from NOAA SPC shows about tornados: EF1-EF5 (1954-2022) no trend; EF3-EF5 (most destructive) (1954-2022) 50% decline. No EF5s in US since 2013 (a record absence). The Global Land Precipitation Anomaly from AR5 will disappoint with deviations from the average increasing by 0.2% per decade, but if you look at the actual data, it's just very variable over the decades. Drought appears to be decreasing (Watts et al, 2018) measured by SPI 1901-2017. Deaths from natural disasters are about 0.6% of what they were a century ago. What else? Oh, deserts like the Sahara have shrunk considerably and the Earth has greened by 15% or more in a human lifetime (NASA). On extinction the rate is very low: 900 known lost species for 2.1 million known species in 500 years. At that frequency it will take nearly 190,000 years to reach 15% extinction i.e. a mass extinction. There is no climate crisis.
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  16. These people don't know what they are talking about or they are lying. Heat waves have not been increasing in intensity or frequency in the United States. Data from NOAA's Climate Reference Network shows no sustained increase in daily high temperatures in the United States since 2005 when that network began. In recent decades in the United States, heat waves have been far less severe than they were in the 1930s. At that time Heatwaves were more than 6 times worse with greater frequency and covering a larger area than the last decade (EPA). The most severe heatwave year was 1936, and was about 13 times worse than current. This year only 4 US states have achieved higher temperatures than 1936. Many states in 1936 achieved temperatures 15° hotter than the present. The all-time high temperature records set in most states occurred in the first half of the twentieth century. To the start of August the percentage of US Historical Climatology Network Stations reaching or exceeding 95°F (35°C) was at a record low (1895-2023) of 51%. The record high was 1931 at 93%. The trend has been consistently downwards since the thirties. The climate crisis was 90 years ago. You missed it.
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  17. @J4Zonian  The Rahmsdort paper is all proxies and simulations of the AMOC. They wouldn't dare highlight the actual observations. To quote the Chief Scientist at the National Oceanography Centre, Professor Penny Holliday, "There hasn't been a slow down. There hasn't been a slowing of the AMOC." Actual observations using the RAPID-MOCHA array from 2004 to 2023 show, that although there can be a great deal of variability of flow in the ocean from month to month or even day to day, there has been no decline in the Gulf Stream, with flow oscillating around 32Sv (32 million cubic metres per second) throughout the period of observation. Continuous section measurements of the AMOC, available since 2004 at 26°N from the RAPID-MOCHA array, have shown that the AMOC strength decreased from 2004 to 2012, and thereafter, it has strengthened again. No relationship to CO2. MOC spanning the North Atlantic at 27°N derived from RAPID/MOCHA/WBTS, satellite altimeter, and Argo floats for 1994 to 2020 shows no statistically significant decline (-0.06 Sv per decade). Furthermore blended meridional overturning basin-wide circulation (MOC) trend estimates (Sv) based on combinations of satellite altimetry and in situ hydrography data exist for the South Atlantic for 1994 onwards: at 34.5°S (often referred to as SAMBA) is +0.48Sv per decade. This is a significant positive trend, so no decline, no tipping point, no correlation to CO2. (GLOBAL OCEANS G. C. Johnson and R. Lumpkin, Eds., 2021) The OSNAP MOC Timeseries of observations from Canada to Greenland and across to Scotland, although a shorter timescale (from 2014), show no decline in MOC with the flow fluctuating around 17Sv. Why didn't Box, and Mann, and Rahmsdort highlight that data? That actual data. The data from what is actually going on in the ocean. The real life flow in the ocean, rather than the flow inside a computer. I wonder why.
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  18. @merickful  You seem to be having difficulty distinguishing between fact and fiction.
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  19. Anomalous/record-breaking cold continues to affect the Antarctic. On Sunday, March 10, 2024, values below -60 °C were measured again in Vostok: -63.1 °C, to be exact. As for Antarctic sea ice, a remarkable – and strangely overlooked – reversal of fortune is taking place. The once cripplingly low extent is now higher (3,165,625 km²) than it was 27 years ago (3,075,000 km²). Just as in 1997, the ice extent today is greater than in 2023, 2022, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2011, 2006, 1993, 1992, 1991 and 1981. As with Antarctic sea ice extent, the Arctic is doing exceptionally well, considering that this is the “hottest year in the last 125,000 years”.The official data shows that Arctic sea ice extent (as of 20th March, 2024) is well above the multidecadal average. It is also well above the 21st century average.
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  20.  @hosnimubarak8869  NSIDC. Go take a peek.
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  21.  @TheDoomWizard  🤣
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  22. @SpectreNDN  Making mud into a small town, although impressive for a Stone Age society, is not Science. They threw up these mounds to glorify their non-existent gods and spirits, or to identify as powerful the priests and witch-doctors who imagined these false deities into being. They didn't have Scientific methodology which must include the following: *Objective observation: Measurement and data collection and manipulation *Evidence *Experiment and/or observation as benchmarks for testing falsifiable hypotheses *Induction: reasoning to establish general rules or conclusions drawn from facts or examples *Repetition to establish repeatability *Critical analysis *Verification and testing: critical exposure to scrutiny, peer review and assessment. Their lives of the people of Cahokia would have been circumscribed with superstition and pointless ritual, not an objective knowledge of reality.
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  23. @SpectreNDN  Making mud into a small town, although impressive for a Stone Age society, is not Science. They threw up these mounds to glorify their non-existent gods and spirits, or to identify as powerful the priests and witch-doctors who imagined these false deities into being. They didn't have Scientific methodology which must include the following: *Objective observation: Measurement and data collection and manipulation *Evidence *Experiment and/or observation as benchmarks for testing falsifiable hypotheses *Induction: reasoning to establish general rules or conclusions drawn from facts or examples *Repetition to establish repeatability *Critical analysis *Verification and testing: critical exposure to scrutiny, peer review and assessment. Their lives of the people of Cahokia would have been circumscribed with superstition and pointless ritual, not an objective knowledge of reality.
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  24. @TheDanEdwards  No, any knowledge is not Science. Science is a process. It is how we test and falsify, using mathematics, the ideas that we have about what reality is. Science is not knowledge. Knowledge is not Science.
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  25. @SpectreNDN  No. Your broadening of definition to dilute the meaning of the word "science" to suit your needs will not do. What the people of Cahokia achieved, although to be enjoyed and marvelled at, did not require science, but was a product of simple trial and error - which is not the same as evidence and experimentation - often with pointless goals, for example the glorification of supernuminous beings. Prior to the Enlightenment numerous civilisations produced many great and beautiful creations, often in excess of that produced by those who inhabited Cahokia and its environs, but without the possibility of any recourse to scientific methodology. This is not to decry what was constructed there. Cahokia is a wonder not because the people there 'had science' but because they did not.
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  26.  @SpectreNDN  “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” Socrates.
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  27. @SpectreNDN  Nonsense. You tried to essentially redefine what science is so that, to you, it appears to be anything where people did stuff and might have known stuff, which in the case of Cahokia is making mounds, digging ditches, engaging in mass murder especially of girls and young women, while growing and subsisting on corn to the point of pellagra and anaemia. All because "daily life was not believed to be separate from religion" (your words). And you believe - and that's all it is a belief, a faith - that these people were scientists that used the complete scientific methodology. Laughable. Then you insult my intelligence for disagreeing with you, and when I point out your ad hominem somehow that's game over. Ridiculous. The "modern Western frameworks of what scientific methodology is" is Science. What came before it is not Science. The fact that that they didn't have a writing system would have prevented them from developing such a framework as we have today. I'm not "taking advantage" of that. Putting sticks in the ground to tell the time, although clever, is not a "sophisticated knowledge of astronomy". What they had was more like astrology. They would not have understood Earth's axis is tilted 23.5 degrees from the plane of its orbit around the sun, and that this caused the seasons experienced in Cahokia. They would have known when the longest and shortest days were because of the length of shadows cast by their sticks. They wouldn't (and couldn't) have understood why these changes took place because they didn't have a scientific way of thinking about them. However their finest "scientists" probably believed they could influence or maintain the consistency of such events by strangling a girl, or beating someone to death. Planting using the largest corn kernels each growing season to produce "high yielding maize varieties" does not mean they had developed an understanding of photosynthesis, plant fertility, or genetics, it was just they wanted to grow more corn so that they didn't get as hungry next year. In fact their understanding of plant growth and fertility probably, once again, to placate the goddess of some overweening witch-doctor, involved murdering some poor peasant girl, or if the harvest was looking really bad, a noble's daughter. Very scientific. That was their system. Very systematic. The mass slaughter of young women. I can hear the old psychopathic priest now "It's been a bad harvest this year, lads. Remember when we executed that virgin and the crops were good the following year, well what we need to do is everyone donate a slave-girl for strangulation, and we'll have a bumper crop next year." And hey-presto, as if by magic (or chance), next year's crop was bountiful. Repetition and Critical Analysis. You probably think cavemen were geneticists because they changed wolves into dogs. Knowledge derived from Scientific methodology is not a fusion of "practical understanding" with "spiritual perspectives". If you think that, which you do, you do not understand what Science is. Spirituality has no place in Science. You misuse the word Science.
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  28. @SpectreNDN  I don't "want" the Mississippian Culture to be inferior to modern Western Culture, it just patently is on so many levels. Codification of Law. People are considered equal before the Law in Western societies. Representative Democracy. One man, one vote with the ability to remove representatives and limit their terms of office. Equality of the Sexes. All previous societies were overtly misogynistic. The freedom of conscience. I don't have to believe in anything if I don't want to. The abolition of slavery. Until the advent of modern Western thought slavery was considered to be normal in all societies. The continuing application of advances made by Science in all areas of technology. For example, the use of Physics and Chemistry in the supply of essentially limitless supplies of energy that frees humans from drudgery and back-breaking labour. The use of Science in the development of modern medicine. Understanding disease, the development of antibiotics and innumerable other treatments and advances in sanitation. The application of Biology to plant and animal husbandry so that for the first time in history you are more likely to be over-fed than under-fed. The list goes on. You obviously don't know how lucky you are. This is the best time to be alive. If you were born in Cahokia around the 12th Century in all likelihood you would be dead of some nasty little disease by the age of 5. If you survived and weren't from a powerful family (so at least 95% of the population) you could look forward to a life of unremitting toil growing and preparing corn. As a woman, you would have had no self-control over the direction of your life. Decisions about you would have been taken by your father, husband or some self-glorified noble or priest. If not an actual slave, you could expect to be treated little better than one. You would have had no recourse to the Law. There was no Law, only the arbitrary exercise of power by a ruthless all male elite. If you made it to puberty the risk existed that you would be made a human sacrifice, probably by strangulation, and put in a mass grave, so that you could serve and gratify some dead chief in his non-existent afterlife. If you did make it to adulthood you would be constantly pregnant and most likely die in childbirth. By 30 you would old and exhausted. A likely cause of death would be a minor infection often from tooth decay. I'm not crazy, but it is self-evident that you lack any real historical insight. It also very sad that you don't understand how very fortunate you are, and any education you have had has only served to obscure this obviously prosperous state.
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  29. @SpectreNDN  I don't "want" the Mississippian Culture to be inferior to modern Western Culture, it just patently is on so many levels. Codification of Law. People are considered equal before the Law in Western societies. Representative Democracy. One man, one vote with the ability to remove representatives and limit their terms of office. Equality of the Sexes. All previous societies were overtly misogynistic. The freedom of conscience. I don't have to believe in anything if I don't want to. The abolition of slavery. Until the advent of modern Western thought slavery was considered to be normal in all societies. The continuing application of advances made by Science in all areas of technology. For example, the use of Physics and Chemistry in the supply of essentially limitless supplies of energy that frees humans from drudgery and back-breaking labour. The use of Science in the development of modern medicine. Understanding disease, the development of antibiotics and innumerable other treatments and advances in sanitation. The application of Biology to plant and animal husbandry so that for the first time in history you are more likely to be over-fed than under-fed. The list goes on. You obviously don't know how lucky you are. This is the best time to be alive. If you were born in Cahokia around the 12th Century in all likelihood you would be dead of some nasty little disease by the age of 5. If you survived and weren't from a powerful family (so at least 95% of the population) you could look forward to a life of unremitting toil growing and preparing corn. As a woman, you would have had no self-control over the direction of your life. Decisions about you would have been taken by your father, husband or some self-glorified noble or priest. If not an actual slave, you could expect to be treated little better than one. You would have had no recourse to the Law. There was no Law, only the arbitrary exercise of power by a ruthless all male elite. If you made it to puberty the risk existed that you would be made a human sacrifice, probably by strangulation, and put in a mass grave, so that you could serve and gratify some dead chief in his non-existent afterlife. If you did make it to adulthood you would be constantly pregnant and most likely die in childbirth. By 30 you would old and exhausted. A likely cause of death would be a minor infection often from tooth decay. I'm not crazy, but it is self-evident that you lack any real historical insight. It also very sad that you don't understand how very fortunate you are, and any education you have had has only served to obscure this obviously prosperous state.
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  30. @SpectreNDN  My response to your last comment has been deleted so I have added it to my original comment.
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  31. @SpectreNDN  I don't "want" the Mississippian Culture to be inferior to modern Western Culture, it just patently is on so many levels. Codification of Law. People are considered equal before the Law in Western societies. Representative Democracy. One man, one vote with the ability to remove representatives and limit their terms of office. Equality of the Sexes. All previous societies were overtly misogynistic. The freedom of conscience. I don't have to believe in anything if I don't want to. The abolition of slavery. Until the advent of modern Western thought slavery was considered to be normal in all societies. The continuing application of advances made by Science in all areas of technology. For example, the use of Physics and Chemistry in the supply of essentially limitless supplies of energy that frees humans from drudgery and back-breaking labour. The use of Science in the development of modern medicine. Understanding disease, the development of antibiotics and innumerable other treatments and advances in sanitation. The application of Biology to plant and animal husbandry so that for the first time in history you are more likely to be over-fed than under-fed. The list goes on. You obviously don't know how lucky you are. This is the best time to be alive. If you were born in Cahokia around the 12th Century in all likelihood you would be dead of some nasty little disease by the age of 5. If you survived and weren't from a powerful family (so at least 95% of the population) you could look forward to a life of unremitting toil growing and preparing corn. As a woman, you would have had no self-control over the direction of your life. Decisions about you would have been taken by your father, husband or some self-glorified noble or priest. If not an actual slave, you could expect to be treated little better than one. You would have had no recourse to the Law. There was no Law, only the arbitrary exercise of power by a ruthless all male elite. If you made it to puberty the risk existed that you would be made a human sacrifice, probably by strangulation, and put in a mass grave, so that you could serve and gratify some dead chief in his non-existent afterlife. If you did make it to adulthood you would be constantly pregnant and most likely die in childbirth. By 30 you would old and exhausted. A likely cause of death would be a minor infection often from tooth decay. Your life would have been "poor, nasty, brutish and short".
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  32. @Hosni Mubarak  Nice to hear from you, Hosni. Hope you're keeping well.
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  33. The UN's IPCC AR6, chapter 12 "Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and for Risk Assessment", section 12.5.2, table 12.12 confirms there is a lack of evidence or no signal that the following have changed: Air Pollution Weather (temperature inversions), Aridity, Avalanche (snow), Average precipitation, Average Wind Speed, Coastal Flood, Agricultural drought, Hydrological drought, Erosion of Coastlines, Fire Weather (hot and windy), Flooding From Heavy Rain (pluvial floods), Frost, Hail, Heavy Rain, Heavy Snowfall and Ice Storms, Landslides, Marine Heatwaves, Ocean Acidity, Radiation at the Earth’s Surface, River/Lake Floods, Sand and Dust Storms, Sea Level, Severe Wind Storms, Snow, Glacier, and Ice Sheets, Tropical Cyclones.
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