I, for one, welcome our Venusian Overlords TaskMistresses


Posted On: Monday - July 3rd 2017 9:00PM MST
In Topics: 
  Global Climate Stupidity

The stupidity does not always emanate from the stupid, we must remind ourselves, this post notwithstanding. In this case, we have the renowned physicist, Mr. Steven Hawking, who most people would consider far from stupid*, who has, however, said that he is worried that the Earth may become like Venus fairly soon, in some type of runaway climate totally-unmodelled process.



I will bend over in genuflection to you, our new Venusian Queen. You first though, my mistress, and wear that teal-green mini-skirt that I like.


Listen, physicists have got to have some tremendous spatial visualization skills, a great handle on the higher math, and a persistent liking of ramen noodles and mac&cheese to get them through graduate school in a field that may not have instant decent jobs awaiting. The field of physics involves theoretical and experimental investigations into the laws of nature. Nobody would say it is easy. However, this does not necessarily provide physicists with commonsense smarts or the ability to make practical improvements to the world. It is not engineering, in which off-the-cuff statements of theory applied to the real world with no serious attempt at modelling would be dismissed. Engineers are involved in real world stuff that must really work and make money.

As discussed in many of the 25 posts (already) with the Global Climate Stupidity topic key, mathematical modelling of something as complex as the earth's climate is not something that has been accomplished as of yet. Modelling of any system requires knowledge of ALL physical processes involved, not just one topic du jour, in this case the "greenhouse" effect. As Peak Stupidity has noted here before:
That is one thing [understanding ALL of the physical processes involved]. Now, try putting a few different processes together in these type of models. Firstly, if there are slight uncertainties in the outputs of the math representing each of the processes, then things will get much more uncertain when it is put together. Secondly, even if the individual parts are very solid and confirmed via experimentation,a when put together the answers to the big problem can still be garbage due to the fact that there are unknown processes existing, that would have had to have been modeled for the overall thing to be close to working. It's not easy.


Per Mr. Hawking in this article:
Venus, the second closest planet to the sun, was once Earth-like.

But a build-up of greenhouse gasses in its atmosphere turned the planet into a boiling celestial body with temperatures of 250 degrees celsius and wind speeds of up to 100 metres per second.
But, geologists say the Earth has had loads more Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere than it does now, and widely varying amounts of water vapor, but we are not now Venusians.

President Trump recently took the controversial steps of withdrawing the US from the Paris Climate Agreement – a move which Professor Hawking says could destroy Earth.
Oh, I see, it's political again. Does the renowned physicist Mr. Hawking really think that the bailing out of, on the part of the US, a silly bureaucratic non-enforceable "accord", made admittedly to enable government control of more of the economy will be the last straw that will tip this climate over on it's ass?
In an interview to mark his 75th birthday, the world famous physicist told the BBC: "We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible.
Can physicists get senile? It starts with the simple things, like forgetting to spend years perfecting a working mathematical model. Next thing you know, you've forgotten that you already ate your creamed corn for lunch only an hour later.
"By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.”
Well, George Carlin said it best: here (at the bottom) "Hey, the planet is fine. It's the people that are fucked!"
Professor Hawking then reiterated his claims if the human race is to survive we will need to leave Earth and colonise another planet – most likely Mars.
That's the first part we agree with here at Peak Stupidity. Mars is the sweet spot - far enough away from Earth to be away from the most lethal emanations of stupidity, yet close enough to Venus for frequent inter-species conjugal visits.


* If stupid is over in, say, Central Park East, Manhattan, NYC, NY, Mr. Hawking would be well past the orbit of your anus, were we to make one diameter of his wheelchair wheels equal to 1.0 megaduhs of garden-variety stupid. Of course, that doesn't take into account the gravitational follicle waviness, the curlyness of particles, and other esoteric concepts that we in the cosmetology world have a hard time explaining to non-cosmetologists.

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